The firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer was just the latest battle in a war on federal statistics that is more than 15 years in the making.

After more than a decade of neglect, it should be no surprise that the quality of U.S. economic data is being called into question. It’s not the fault of the professional staff at federal statistical agencies. The fault lies with Congress, and more recently, the White House, both of which have failed to provide these agencies with the necessary tools to continue accurately measuring the world’s largest economy.

The BLS, as an example, has seen a 20-percent decline in inflation-adjusted funding since 2010 – calculated using data from the BLS, as it happens. Even with cost-saving methods that included delays in modernizing collection methods, the agency announced plans to reduce the sample size of the Current Population Survey, part of the monthly jobs report. The BLS also announced it suspended the collection of data for the Consumer Price Index in Lincoln, Nebraska, Provo, Utah, and Buffalo, New York. The Producer Price Index data set will no longer include approximately 350 indexes. The Bureau of Economic Analysis, the statistical agency responsible for measuring gross domestic product, slashed several tables from its foreign direct investment dataset.

In recent months, the war on statistics accelerated. In February, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick eliminated the BEA’s Advisory Committee and the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee that served the BEA, the U.S. Census Bureau and the BLS, claiming their missions had been “fulfilled.” Yet the mission of data collection and analysis is never fulfilled. As the economy evolves, new datasets and collection methodologies are required. It was these volunteer committees, in part, that helped create them.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell – another popular target of White House ire – has spoken about the importance of government data. When asked about the cutbacks in data collection at his press conference on June 18, Powell noted that these data don’t just help the Fed. “It helps the government,” he offered, adding, “it helps Congress, it helps the Executive Branch. More importantly, really, it helps businesses. They need to know what’s going on in the economy.”

But perhaps more important than that, government statistics are what enable the public to hold policymakers to account. An accurate report card is necessary to measure the success – or failure – of policy. Maybe this is why the president shot the messenger.