Just make it go away...

U.S. Plan to Eliminate Survey of Needy Families Draws Fire WASHINGTON - Researchers and legislators are rallying to block a Bush administration plan to scupper a U.S. survey widely used to improve federal and state programs for millions of low-income and retired Americans. President George W. Bush's proposed budget for fiscal 2007, which begins this October, includes a Commerce Department plan to eliminate the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The proposal marks at least the third White House attempt in as many years to do away with federal data collection on politically prickly economic issues ranging from mass layoffs to employment discrimination. Social scientists, public policy makers, and legislators helped thwart the previous administration plans, which had targeted the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Opponents of the plan to axe SIPP said they hoped for a similar success. By mid-day Wednesday, some 415 liberal and conservative economists and social scientists had signed a letter to be sent to Congress Thursday urging that the survey be fully funded because it ''is the only large-scale survey explicitly designed to analyze the impact of a wide variety of government programs on the well being of American families.'' A group of Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives reportedly are leading a drive to get lawmakers to sign a similar letter defending the survey to be sent to the White House.

Maybe if you don't report on it, or maybe if it's something no one reads about - it'll all just eventually go away.