Why do the Republicans want to get rid of government statistics?

Median income (in annual dollars)

This map (created by Calvin Metcalf, Kyle Box and Laura Evans) using the latest five-year American Community Survey estimates provided by the Census Bureau was published in an article in The Atlantic.

Not surprisingly, there is a strong correlation between median income, percentage of the population without high school diplomas, large inequality of income within the county and dependence on food stamps. All are visible in maps from government data, shown in the article.

A news article states:

 Last year, the House passed an amendment abolishing the American Community Survey—the nation’s source of statistics on dozens of social and economic conditions. The senate ignored the amendment, but it was revived and enlarged in April of this year, in a bill abolishing agricultural statistics and all Census Bureau surveys—the economic census, census of governments, etc. 

Notice that the counties with all these bad things are red in the map below -- they are the strongholds of the Republican party. The blue voting counties are the blue median income counties. Maybe the Republicans oppose statistics because they don't want their constituents to know that they are the ones who most need the government programs like food stamps that the Republicans are seeking to cut back.

2012 Election Results by County

Source