Schumer presses admin on Economic Indicators site.

Last week, ThinkProgress reported that the Bush administration has taken another step in hiding data from the public by announcing plans to shut down EconomicIndicators.gov because of “budgetary constraints.” The award-winning site compiles economic data for the public to easily access. Today, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) urged Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez to keep the site open:

I was further troubled to learn that after this website has been shut down, members of the public may still receive e-mails with compilations of this type of data for a fee. [...] I find it appalling that taxpayers will now have to pay for data that the federal government already collects and compiles.

I find it hard to believe that shutting down this important information portal will result in any significant savings to the Department. Since the fixed costs of website creation have been paid, the operational costs of maintaining such a site must be relatively small.