My experience this week with the 2010 Census made me livid. Let me go back a few weeks, first.
So far, I have received one letter and two postcards informing me that the census form was coming and to please fill it out promptly. One of the postcards came AFTER I received and returned the completed census form. I have seen and continue to see numerous television and newspaper ads urging cooperation with the census. I have read about the cross-country tour of 2010 Census promoters; Jacksonville was visited this week.
So, when my census form arrived approximately three weeks ago, I filled it out the evening I received it and mailed it back the next day. Although it asks for more information than required by the Constitution, I was relieved to see it was far simpler and less intrusive that the last several I have filled out.
This Wednesday, April 7th, there was an announcement here where I live that a Census worker was in the building to help residents fill out their forms and to please let her in if she knocks. Okay, no problem. She did not stop by my apartment since I had mailed my form back, or so I thought.
We have lunch weekdays in our dining room downstairs at noon, and I went down a few minutes before. As soon as I wheeled into the dining room, this census woman, who it turned out is from Columbia and speaks barely passable English, accosted me. She told me she needed to fill out a census form for me. When I told her I had already done so and mailed it back, she informed me, “Oh, that doesn’t matter.” I gave her my birth date when she asked, and then wheeled around, announcing, “I need a drink.”
Returning to my seat with my lemonade, she told me she had filled out the form and had all the information she needed on me. I asked her pointedly, “Does this mean I will be counted twice?” She told me, “Oh, don’t worry about it.”
Excuse me, but I am going to worry about it. The Census is constitutionally mandated for one reason and one reason only: to determine how many U.S. representatives each State should have. Numbers matter. Duplications in the Census would result in a state having more representatives than it should.
All through lunch, I scolded about the utter waste of taxpayers’ money this Census is costing us. This woman was here most of the day. The job ads for Census workers here state the wages are $11.25 - $16.50/hour. At an average hourly rate of $13.87, her visit cost around $100.
Late that night, I was reading the news online. One of the articles from
The Associated Press on
yahoo! news was about the Census: “Census Bureau concerned about head count problems” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100408/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_census_debacle_scenarios . The Census Bureau, according to it, has a number of concerns regarding their efforts, including “mass identity theft.” It reported that census field workers would not be going out until May. They would wait until the mailed-in forms could be tabulated and lists created of those who had not returned them. Makes sense to me to do it that way.
That article really raised my suspicions. Who was this woman? Was she really from the Census Bureau? She had an I.D. badge hanging around her neck, but I did not look at it closely enough to verify it was a Census Bureau tag. I will ask Representative Ander Crenshaw, and Senators Bill Nelson and George LeMieux to investigate.
This whole Census boondoggle has given me yet another reason to participate in the Tea Party on Thursday, April 15th at the Jacksonville Landing. I want to tell the federal government to just stop it: stop wasting our money.
We American citizens are not stupid. Just send the census form and the vast majority will fill it out as requested. Then, go out and find those who do not or cannot do it by themselves. And, while you are at it, if you find illegals, do not count them. Call I.C.E. to round them up and have them deported. But that is a rant for another day.
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