I have no patience for members of Congress who want to shut down most government functions rather than accept the fact that the Affordable Care Act was legally passed by Congress and already upheld by the Supreme Court. Like most people, I'm not really sure how this legislation is going to work in practice, but I was stunned by members of Congress commenting on camera over the past few days that "Obamacare isn't working." Well, no, it hadn't yet gone into effect.
In all events, the government is currently shut down and many people are not yet sure how this is going to impact them. We demographers know immediately what the damage is--the Census Bureau shut down its website!! One of the world's most important sources of information is unavailable and it hurts...and I was just about to figure out how to use the "new" American Factfinder...
If you didn't already have a good reason to hammer your member of Congress to get their collective act together, this is it. The government really does work for us, as long as the funding is there.
Couldn't agree more (re: shutdown). In the meantime... there are a few resources demographers can turn to (IPUMS, PRB's Data Finder, Annie E Casey's Kids Data website, and the "Wayback Machine" - which archives older versions of webpages, including the Census Bureau's page). Hope that helps your readers!
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