Bill Posey: “Generally, we believe that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. That's why I was a little bit shocked when…”

“Generally, we believe that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. That's why I was a little bit shocked when it was brought to my attention by a number of my colleagues that they received an economic census in the mail--a very complex, 14-page document asking them in very great detail about their business, about their suppliers, about their cost, about who they sell to, and who their customers are. These were received by mom-and-pop businesses, sometimes just mom businesses, no pop--one-person businesses. One said: It will take me two days to fill out this questionnaire. I have to work. If I don't work 2 days, my business will go down the drain. I wondered how important this information was, so I wrote a letter to the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau to ask just a few questions about it. I asked about their constitutional authority to do that, and they gave me their statutory authority. I'll talk about their letter in a minute. Then, while they didn't have time to answer my letter on a timely basis, they did have time to send another relatively harassing letter to the businesses threatening them with more penalties--a fine--and just scared the daylights out of them if they did not take time to return that form. I finally got my response from them, and what I found was that they didn't answer all my questions.…”