A bill introduced by South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan would eliminate all functions of the Census bureau except the part about counting the population every 10 years.

That means no more employment stats, GDP data, housing information — it would all be gone.

Not surprisingly, HR 1638 was instantly slammed as inane at best.

"Cool! Then we might not need congressmen, because just about all of them rely on Census Bureau data to justify their existence," The Census Project Blog's Terri Ann Lowenthal wrote.

"Do they understand that these data that the Census Bureau collects are fundamental to everything else that's done?" HuffPo quoted Maurine Haver, founder Haver Analytics, as saying. "They think the country doesn't need to know how many people are unemployed, either?"

Here's the list of cosponsors:

Rep Chaffetz, Jason — Utah

Rep Harris, Andy — Maryland

Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr. — North Carolina

Rep Labrador, Raul R. — Idaho

Rep Massie, Thomas — Kentucky

Rep Pearce, Stevan — New Mexico

Rep Posey, Bill — Florida

Rep Ribble, Reid J. — Wisconsin

Rep Southerland, Steve II — Florida

Rep Stockman, Steve — Texas

According to HuffPo, Duncan's rep declined to comment.

(Via Dan Primack)

