Excerpt from The Status of Planning for the 2000 Census and the 1995 Census Test: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Census, Statistics, and Postal Personnel of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, House of Representatives, One Hundred Third Congress, Second Session, September 27, 1994 The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:20 p.m., in room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Thomas C.Sawyer (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Members present: Representatives Sawyer and Petri. Mr. Sawyer. Thank you all for your patience. It is really one of those times of the year. I am grateful to everybody and glad that it is a group of people who are more or less regular partners of this committee and the work that we do. The 1995 Census Test is just a few months away. It really offers the very best opportunity that we have to achieve what we have all been working for for a long time now, and that is a census that is more accurate and, if possible, less proportionally costly and able to meet the Nations information needs. I feel very good about the directions that the Census Bureau has been going in and they are about to test many of the right kinds of innovations. I have been pleased to watch what can only be described as near consensus develop among experts such as some testifying today on this point. The lingering question is whether these test results will produce pure, clear, unequivocal answers to suggest whether and how we might implement those new methods. And the test ought to tell us not only what works, but how much we think it will cost. Those kinds of results have to be timely. Even though the census still seems a long way off, the schedule is extremely tight. The dollars have been tight. We have all struggled and tried to make as much of the opportunities that have been before us as we can, but no sooner than the ink is dry from 1995, we will be faced in 1996 with the need to determine content and then go on to procure massive amounts of material. So the choice of methods is important. So are the choices that will follow. Hundreds of thousands of people are involved. We are pleased to have an opportunity today to discuss the appropriate role of postal employees in that operational scheme. I am looking forward to a candid discussion today about the realistic answers we might expect and where we go from here. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.