True Catholic Social Teaching

From American Thinker

September 06, 2009
ObamaCare and Catholic social teachingBy Mark Wauk

The 9/2/09 issue of the Wall Street Journal, in its Notable and Quotable feature, calls attention to an important article that Roman Catholic Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, published in his diocesan newspaper on the subject of health care and health care reform. The article is important for two reasons: first, because there has been and continues to be a certain amount of confusion regarding Catholic social teaching as it affects health care; second, because Bishop Nickless goes to great lengths to base his discussion on principles, and not merely on tactical considerations.

Bishop Nickless begins by noting the importance of the ongoing debate over proposed reforms of our health care system:
"There is much at stake in this political struggle, and also much confusion and inaccurate information being thrown around. My brother bishops have described some clear "goal-posts" to mark out what is acceptable reform, and what must be rejected. First and most important, the Church will not accept any legislation that mandates coverage, public or private, for abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic stem-cell research."

After further noting particular concerncs for Catholic hospitals and health care professionals -- the possibility that the Government would attempt to force them to act in violation of Catholic teaching as well as in violation of their consciences--Bishop Nickless concludes:
"A so-called reform that imposes these evils on us would be far worse than keeping the health care system we now have."

However, Bishop Nickless doesn't stop here. He goes on to enunciate several additional considerations of great importance. The bishop's second point gets to the heart of the role that government should play in health care:
"Second, the Catholic Church does not teach that "health care" as such, without distinction, is a natural right. The "natural right" of health care is the divine bounty of food, water, and air without which all of us quickly die. This bounty comes from God directly. None of us own it, and none of us can morally withhold it from others. The remainder of health care is a political, not a natural, right, because it comes from our human efforts, creativity, and compassion. As a political right, health care should be apportioned according to need, not ability to pay or to benefit from the care. We reject the rationing of care. Those who are sickest should get the most care, regardless of age, status, or wealth. But how to do this is not self-evident. The decisions that we must collectively make about how to administer health care therefore fall under "prudential judgment."

In other words, provision of health care must ultimately rest on prudential considerations that affect an entire society. Broad assertions of generalized "rights" without reference to underlying prudential considerations are not helpful. The relevant considerations include need, but also cost. Another important prudential consideration, however, is this: who should be the main provider of health care, government or the private sector? Bishop Nickless insists that health care provision is not only not a central concern of government as such, it is also likely to introduce harmful economic and policy distortions:

"Third, in that category of prudential judgment, the Catholic Church does not teach that government should directly provide health care. Unlike a prudential concern like national defense, for which government monopolization is objectively good - it both limits violence overall and prevents the obvious abuses to which private armies are susceptible - health care should not be subject to federal monopolization.

Preserving patient choice (through a flourishing private sector) is the only way to prevent a health care monopoly from denying care arbitrarily, as we learned from HMOs in the recent past. While a government monopoly would not be motivated by profit, it would be motivated by such bureaucratic standards as quotas and defined "best procedures," which are equally beyond the influence of most citizens. The proper role of the government is to regulate the private sector, in order to foster healthy competition and to curtail abuses. Therefore any legislation that undermines the viability of the private sector is suspect."

Clearly, there is much that could be said on this score. Nevertheless, Bishop Nickless' reflections are an excellent starting point for any constructive discussion of these important issues. Bishop Nickless places his own considerations in the context of demographic considerations:

"The best way in practice to approach this balance of public and private roles is to spread the risks and costs of health care over the largest number of people. This is the principle underlying Medicaid and Medicare taxes, for example. But this principle assumes that the pool of taxable workers is sufficiently large, compared to those who draw the benefits, to be reasonably inexpensive and just. ... Without a growing population of youth, our growing population of retirees is outstripping our distribution systems. In a culture of death such as we have now, taxation to redistribute costs of medical care becomes both unjust and unsustainable."

I, personally, would suggest that further consideration needs to be given to the entire notion of taxation to redistribute costs. Obviously, this occurs in many areas of our politics: national defense, public works, etc. Just as obviously, when joined to false notions of "natural rights," and a failure to consider the human dignity that and emphasis on individual responsibility fosters, the redistributive use of taxation has led to many controversial and even "unjust" abuses of the government power to tax (my quotes refer to Bishop Nickless' words, above). The power to tax is, after all, the power to destroy, and that destruction can have not only economic consequences but moral consequences as well.

Bishop Nickless appears to assume that Medicaid and Medicare were, initially in any event, established on a sound principle. Without getting into the the particulars, which are far beyond my expertise, I think that is an area that would needs to be closely reexamined before moving on to adoption of any new reforms.That Bishop Nickless is open to such discussions, and that the considerations involved are central to Catholic social teaching, becomes apparent from the bishop's final point. That point addresses the whole issue of preventive care which, as several recent studies have shown, can actually greatly increase health care costs.

Bishop Nickless places the primary responsibility squarely on the individual:
"Fourth, preventative care is a moral obligation of the individual to God and to his or her family and loved ones, not a right to be demanded from society. The gift of life comes only from God; to spurn that gift by seriously mistreating our own health is morally wrong. The most effective preventative care for most people is essentially free - good diet, moderate exercise, and sufficient sleep. But pre-natal and neo-natal care are examples of preventative care requiring medical expertise, and therefore cost; and this sort of care should be made available to all as far as possible."

The caveat "as far as possible" is a strong indication that Bishop Nickless, in the context of Catholic social teaching, does indeed recognize that cost is an important part of the entire health care equation. No society can morally devote an endlessly increasingly portion of its resources to a poorly structured health care system, while ignoring the long term financial health of its future generations.Having enunciated these four principles and their related goals, Bishop Nickless asks the all-important question: "Will the current health care reform proposals achieve these goals?" His answer is a firm: No. Not only would all current House and Senate proposals introduce government subsidized abortion (and likely several other morally objectionable features), but these proposals would strike at the heart of private sector health care provision.

The House proposal "provides a "public insurance option" without adequate limits, so that smaller employers especially will have a financial incentive to push all their employees into this public insurance. This will effectively prevent those employees from choosing any private insurance plans. This will saddle the working classes with additional taxes for inefficient and immoral entitlements."

And the Senate proposal would also "impinge on the vitality of the private sector" through various provisions.Bishop Nickless' resounding conclusion:
"I encourage all of you to make you voice heard to our representatives in Congress. Tell them what they need to hear from us: no health care reform is better than the wrong sort of health care reform. Insist that they not permit themselves to be railroaded into the current too-costly and pro-abortion health care proposals. Insist on their support for proposals that respect the life and dignity of every human person, especially the unborn. And above all, pray for them, and for our country.

Bishop Nickless' article begins at http://www.scdiocese.org/ and continues at http://www.scdiocese.org/Stewardship/healthcare/tabid/416/Default.aspx

August is Over

The long, contentious month of August is over. Congress will be heading back to their "jobs" next week with an ear full of their constituents' heartfelt opinions.

In the next days, leading up to the House vote on HR3200, we will see an onslaught of propaganda from the left, who will tell us we are not seeing what we are seeing(in the bill), we are not smart enought to know what we are seeing, and even if we are smart enough, Uncle Barack knows best and we need to sit down, shut up, and be grateful that we have a government that is willing to take care of us from the moment we are born until the moment they choose to allow us to die.

The magic of Dear Leader seems to have melted away as poll after poll show just how well informed the American people have become and are no longer listening to the Demagogue in Chief. I think Dear Leader is in real trouble now and I can't help but wonder how he will react if HR3200 goes down in defeat. Will we see him take a step back and decide that maybe he really does need bi-partisan support? Perhaps.

But, I have a feeling he will react in the true Chicago way once again, just what that will mean for the average civic minded American, I cannot know, but in recent weeks we've seen the "fishy" line at the WhiteHouse, tracking cookies placed on all governement websites, a move to place the entire internet under government control, and now this from Doug Ross

"NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites... The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”(EDIT**HotAir has taken a fresh look at this story and thinks it's not quite as creepy as it appeared--that it is little more than an "archiving" project--my question--why? Why do they need to "archive" and of course they claim to be very concerned about privacy(how does this work with the Privacy Act of 1974?)--and of course we have all seen just how good the government is at keeping private items private and of course everyone in the current administration only has our best interests at heart so there's no reason to think the information could be misused, so there's nothing to worry about, ...really...right? )

Of course, the Obots will be out in force telling us we aren't seeing what we are seeing, we aren't smart enough to know what we are seeing, and even if we are smart enough, Uncle Barack knows what is best and we should just sit down, shut up, and be grateful!
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From American Thinker: September 02, 2009
Sarah Palin vs. Dr. Death
By Stuart Schwartz
Ezekiel Emanuel is upset. The president's health care czar sees the growing resistance to his vision, to his brave new world of government-run "communitarian" health care in which politicians and bureaucrats control one-sixth of the economy and 100% of our bodies. He doesn't quite understand how it all came apart on him, but he does know who started the unraveling: Sarah Palin.

Where does she get off attacking him? Sarah Palin, it seems forever Sarah Palin. And he wonders, as have so many others, what it takes to put a stake through her heart? People should listen to him, not Sarah Palin. He is the philosopher king of Democrat health care. And he went to Harvard, you know.

One day he was vacationing in the Italian Alps, a top-level government bureaucrat and Democrat insider enjoying the fruits of his labors on behalf of the common good. Government health care was cruising and Zeke was the guy Time magazine predicted will build the most "equitable and ethical" health care system north of Cuba. Marty Peretz, his friend and publisher of The New Republic, described him as quintessential Harvard, "very impressive" and stuffed with "gravitas."

And then he got the call: Sarah Palin had done the unthinkable. She had read the health care bill. Mainstream journalists hadn't read the bill. Congress hadn't read its own bill. But Sarah Palin did. Sarah Palin! He has a medical degree and doctorate in political philosophy from Harvard. The only Harvard she's knows is the chunk of ice off Prince William Sound, Harvard Glacier.
Then she writes something on Facebook -- Facebook, for Obama's sake! -- and suddenly the president, congress, the media, and everyone who is anyone inside the beltway is scurrying for cover. Palin wrote that she wanted nothing to do with Obama's "death panel," the collection of bureaucrats who Zeke was so proudly putting together to assess the "level of productivity" that would determine individual access to medical care

They went after her, but...it was over. Everyone was talking death panels. Sarah Palin had let people know: if you're old, if you're sick, if you're disabled, they're targeting you. It became Mrs. Mom vs. Dr. Death, the governor vs. the terminator.

She cut through the rhetoric, the academic jargon, and adoring press to the truth: Ezekiel Emanuel and Barack Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are putting in place a health care system that will control the lives -- and deaths -- of citizens to an extent never seen in this republic. Her reaction:"we're saying not just no, but hell no!

And Zeke is upset. A slam-dunk had been transformed into an epic battle and, as an American Thinker commentator put it, ObamaCare turned into a "sick joke." That's not how it's supposed to be -- he went to Harvard, you know.

Ezekiel Emanuel "abhors" what she's done. She read his articles, which "even well-educated people" would have a difficult time understanding. And she's certainly not well educated. She's a graduate of the University of Idaho, where they probably write doctoral dissertations in crayon. And she only has a bachelor's degree -- in communications, for Obama's sake!?

It's as if the waitress at the Harvard Faculty Club had, instead of a check, taken out a baseball bat and cold-cocked him. Or the ball girl at the tennis event sponsored by the Harvard Club of Washington DC had reared back and smacked a Dunlop A-Player right into his groin. This is not supposed to happen -- he went to Harvard, you know.

This is crazy! People are packing town halls in protest. They are listening to Sarah Palin and not Zeke, who has been a fellow at Oxford -- the one in England, not the suburb of Fairbanks. And he has written nine books, almost a dozen chapters in other books, and more than 225 other pieces on bioethics and morality. And certified as a genius by The New York Times, which hired him as a book reviewer for its Sunday newspaper

And yet, this, this... this Facebook writer described his thinking as "downright evil." And demanded that he explain why he's trying to put in place centralized health care that "would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential."

Evil!? Sarah Palin called him evil!? She said "death panels," he didn't. Hey, some lives are worth more to society than others. Therefore, health services cannot be guaranteed for individuals like Trig, Palin's baby with Down Syndrome, who are "irreversibly prevented" from contributing to the public good. There is a subtle difference.

Sarah Palin simply does not understand. No nuance. She did not go to Harvard, nor is she a board member of Princeton University's Center for Human Values, where Zeke provides support for philosopher Peter Singer. Singer is best known for the view that fetuses and many disabled have less of a right to live than, say, fully functioning humans and "adult gorillas and chimpanzees." No, Zeke believes that those who know better, who understand morality, should make decisions for those less able to do so.

Like Sarah Palin. Like Trig. Like your grandma. And this is because he cares. Just ask him: "I hope at the end of the day I can make things better for people, especially vulnerable people." As an original member of the academic "communitarian" movement, he has pledged to establish "just" health care by means that are "nondemocratic or practice discrimination." A just society doesn't simply happen, he explains. You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs... so to speak.

So when Sarah Palin says she doesn't want her "baby with Down Syndrome" to stand in front of his medical panels... that shows just how unsophisticated her thinking really is. She has already made the anti-social choice of giving birth to a child with a severe disability, who will never be able to live the "complete life" outlined by Zeke on behalf of the government.

Therefore, it is the responsibility of a health care system that operates in the public good to deny Trig -- or grandma, for that matter -- health services that are better used elsewhere. Sarah Palin, not the government, is to blame. She chose to have Trig. She forced a situation that provides her with, as Zeke puts it, "bleak choices."

And so government, for the sake of the common good, may deny Trig medical care. And may do the same with the elderly, the severely disabled, and others who fall low on the "complete life" value scale. It is the best way, the moral way, the smart way.
And Zeke knows smart -- he went to Harvard, you know.

Stuart H. Schwartz, Ph.D., is a former newspaper and retail executive. He is on the faculty at Liberty University in Virginia.

Is the Obama Administration Shielding The Black Panthers?

I am inclined to think it is and here is why. During the elections, men were filmed standing in front of the doors of a polling location; wearing jackboots and uniforms and both men held batons...and from time to time were seen slapping them menancingly into the palms of their hands. The police were called and arrests were made. The case made its way through the courts and here is what has happened since.




From the WSJ:

1. The episode—which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen"—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia. (Some of this behavior is on YouTube.)

One of them, they say, brandished a nightstick at the entrance and pointed it at voters and both made racial threats. Mr. Bull says he heard one yell "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!"

2. In the first week of January, the Justice Department(still under Bush's watch)filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring voters with the weapon, uniforms and racial slurs. In March, Mr. Bull submitted an affidavit at Justice's request to support its lawsuit.

3. When none of the defendants filed any response to the complaint or appeared in federal district court in Philadelphia to answer the suit, it appeared almost certain Justice would have prevailed by default.

4...the department in May suddenly allowed the party and two of the three defendants to walk away. Against the third defendant, Minister King Samir Shabazz, it sought only an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years—action that's already illegal under existing law.

5. one of the defendants who walked was Jerry Jackson, a member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee and a credentialed poll watcher for the Democratic Party last Election Day.

6. on July 30 six career lawyers at Justice who had recommended continuing to pursue the case were overruled by Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli—a top administration political appointee

7. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted on Aug.7 to send a letter to Justice expanding its own investigation and demanding more complete answers. "We believe the Department's defense of its actions thus far undermines respect for rule of law," its letter stated. It noted "the peculiar logic" of one Justice argument, that defendants' failure to show up in court was a reason for dismissing the case: "Such an argument sends a perverse message to wrongdoers—that attempts at voter suppression will be tolerated so long as the persons who engage in them are careful not to appear in court to answer the government's complaint."

8. Black Panther Party Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz, said on Fox News just after the election that his activities at the polling station were part of a nationwide effort. Mr. Shabazz added that the Black Panther activities in Philadelphia were justified due to "an emergency situation."

You can read the rest of the article at WSJ, but those are the main points.

Why is Eric(Americans are cowards) Holder protecting the Black Panthers? Why were these thugs allowed to intimidate American citizens at polling places? Finally, a question that has been gnawing at me for some time---are we, the average American citizen on our own now when not even the Department of Justice will prosecute blatant thuggery?

Death Panels Already Exist

I put some of my thoughts in [] and a few exerpts from the McCaughey article "Ruin Your Health" it is linked in this article too. Please read McCaughey's article, it will provide a much better back drop for the AT one. As if I don't already have enough trouble sleeping these days.


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From American Thinker :
Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin has come under fire for her Facebook post accusing President Obama and the Democrats of including a "death panel" provision the health care bill. The Associated Press recently ran a ‘Fact Check' article rebutting Palin's claim.

AP argues that the bill's end-of-life counseling provision has been mistaken as a promotion of euthanasia and thus the death panel assertion by Palin and many other conservatives is false and misleading.
The New York Times has joined in the death panel bashing. Jim Rutenburg and Jackie Calmes assert the following:

"There is nothing in any of the legislative proposals that would call for the creation of death panels or any other governmental body that would cut off care for the critically ill as a cost-cutting measure."

The AP is technically correct in stating that end-of-life counseling is not the same as a death panel. The New York Times is also correct to point out that the health care bill contains no provision setting up such a panel.

What both outlets fail to point out is that the panel already exists.

H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed the Porkulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. The Council is the brain child of former Health and Human Services Secretary Nominee Tom Daschle.

Before the Porkulus Bill passed, Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in detail about the Council's purpose. [art...Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt...The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.]

Daschle's stated purpose (and therefore President Obama's purpose) for creating the Council is to empower an unelected bureaucracy to make the hard decisions about health care rationing that elected politicians are politically unable to make. The end result is to slow costly medical advancement and consumption. Daschle argues that Americans ought to be more like Europeans who passively accept "hopeless diagnoses." [What a miserable excuse for a human being this guy is. Under this program the government would have let my father DIE last year because of his advanced age and his medical conditions. I think it will be a cold day in hell before Americans passively accept being told to take a blue pill, lay down and just die]

McCaughey goes on to explain:
Daschle says health-care reform "will not be pain free." Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.

Who is on the Council? One of its most prominent members is none other than Dr. Death himself Ezekiel Emanuel. Dr. Emanuel's views on care of the elderly should frighten anyone who is or ever plans on being old. He explains the logic behind his discriminatory views on elderly care as follows:
Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.

On average 25-year-olds require very few medical services. If they are to get the lion's share of the treatment, then those 65 and over can expect very little care. Dr. Emanuel's views on saving money on medical care are simple: don't provide any medical care. The loosely worded provisions in H.R 1 give him and his Council increasing power to push such recommendations.

Similarly hazy language will no doubt be used in the health care bill. What may pass as a 1,000 page health care law will explode into perhaps many thousands of pages of regulatory codes. The deliberate vagueness will give regulators tremendous leverage to interpret its provisions. Thus Obama's Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein will play a major role in defining the government's role in controlling medical care.

How does Sunstein approach end of life care? In 2003 he wrote a paper for the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies arguing that human life varies in value. Specifically he champions statistical methods that give preference to what the government rates as "quality-adjusted life years." Meaning, the government decides whether a person's life is worth living. If the government decides the life is not worth living, it is the individual's duty to die to free up welfare payments for the young and productive.

Ultimately it was Obama himself, in answer to a question on his ABC News infomercial, who said that payment determination cannot be influenced by a person's spirit and "that at least we (the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research) can let doctors know and your mom know that...this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

Maybe we should ask the Associated Press and New York Times if they still think we shouldn't be concerned about a federal "death panel."

ACORN Under Congressional Microscope

ACORN engaged in a scheme to use taxpayer money to support a partisan political agenda, according to a new report from Republicans on a House oversight committee.

The report, released Thursday, accuses ACORN of fraudulent activities and widespread corruption and calls for a criminal investigation into the advocacy group. It offers the first detailed account of the allegations that have dogged the organization in recent months.
ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform, has been under constant fire from conservatives since last year for its support of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy and its planned participation in next year's 2010 census.

The report was released by Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Issa's GOP colleagues.

"This report is about getting to the truth and when there are significant accusations and questions outstanding regarding an organization that has benefited from millions of taxpayer dollars, those questions should be answered and the truth should be brought to light," Issa said in a statement.

The executive summary of the report says ACORN provided contributions of financial and personnel resources to indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and candidate Obama, among others, in what the report calls a scheme to use taxpayer money to support a partisan political agenda, which would be a clear violation of numerous tax and election laws.

"Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan agenda and to manipulate the American electorate," an executive summary of the report reads.

ACORN, which was sent a copy of the executive summary by FOXNews.com, dismissed the report as a "partisan attack job."

"We are busy fighting to stop the foreclosure crisis, to win quality affordable health care for all Americans and to build a stronger economy for working families, so we haven't had the opportunity to read Rep. Issa's screed at length," Bertha Lewis, CEO of ACORN, said in a written statement to FOXNews.com.

"But an initial review indicates that the document is a recycled and repackaged partisan attack job on ACORN's good work," she added.

The report accuses ACORN, after receiving more than $53 million in federal funds since 1994, of blurring the legal distinctions among 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities to divert that money into partisan political activities.

Evidence found in the report relies in part on documents provided by former ACORN employees.
"Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract investigators," the report read.
"Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act."

Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Issa, said ACORN's response suggests the report "hit a nerve."
"We stand by the findings of the report," he told FOXNews.com. "There are a lot of legitimate questions raised about the political activities and organizational structure of ACORN. We'd certainly like to have a venue and platform for ACORN to respond to our report."

In his statement, Issa said, "It is outrageous that ACORN will be rewarded for its criminal acts by taxpayer money in the stimulus and is being asked to help with the U.S. census. This report shines a light on clear criminal conduct and it is abundantly clear that they cannot and should not be trusted with taxpayer dollars."

It would be up to the chairman of the oversight panel to hold hearings on the ACORN report and up to the Justice Department to pursue a criminal investigation. Likewise, the census director will determine whether ACORN remains a partner with the U.S. Census Bureau to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States.

A spokeswoman for Rep. Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, did not respond to e-mails seeking comment.