Posted on 02/15/2009 12:12:52 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The once-a-decade census is more than a national nose count. It's used to divvy tax dollars for roads and hospitals, spot population trends for schools, business and social programs, and - did we forget? - play high-stakes politics.
The task comes loaded with importance, and that's why the Obama team is making a mistake by requiring that the next census director report to the White House instead of the Commerce Department bureaucracy. The decennial count is about information gathering, not partisan score settling.
The political gamesmanship has just produced its first casualty or trophy kill, depending on your vantage point. Late last week New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg bowed out as the nominee for secretary of commerce, citing his opposition to the Democratic stimulus package and also a decision to whisk away the census from his job description. In divorce-court lingo, he cited "irresolvable conflicts" with the president on the two issues in dropping out and returning to the Senate.
(A side note: This is the third would-be Cabinet member who's withdrawn under fire, suggesting serious flaws in the Obama vetting process. The other two were New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, mired in a pay-to-play investigation, and former Sen. Tom Daschle, who failed to pay $128,000 in back taxes. Maybe the vetters should be vetted.)
This latest Beltway car crash doesn't help anyone. Gregg was undercut by the notion that he couldn't be trusted to run the census. He was an odd choice for the task because in the distant past he'd voted to cut the census budget. Gregg, a budget hawk who even backed a long-shot bid to abolish the commerce agency, was the wrong fit from the start. He declined to explain his views while awaiting confirmation hearings, which won't happen with his departure.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
You can bet that Bari the Stupid will put his ACORNs in charge of the upcoming census fiasco.
I think they’ll back down after they think about it awhile. I think a census would be unobtainable if it became a partisan thing. Otherwise I’m going to have to report the 8 Albanian acrobatic dwarves living at my house.
LOL
The selection of Gregg was about his Senate seat going to a dem in 2010. Reid-Pelosi-Zero-and all people who hate the Constitution in Zero's administration were working against the citizens of New Hampshire.
A pure and evil attempt to gain total power.
Soros pulling the suit's string.
They want to use so-called statistical sampling in the census and use estimates to produce “official” census numbers in 2010.
You can imagine the political pressures to estimate that there are more people in East L.A., the South Side of Chicago, Harlem, Bedford-Stuvesant, etc. Add a few “estimated” residents here and there, and, suddenly, California gets one or two more congressional seats than they should have, Illinois gets more, New York gets more too. Blue Democrat states will get estimated residents which will increase their congressional representation and federal funding.
If there was ever a government function that should be totally non-partisan and bureaucratic, the Census Bureau is it.
Anyone know where I can get information on what information I am required to provide and what I am not?
Hmm. As I recall, the Constitution only requires the number of folks living in your house for the purposes of apportionment. I received a hideously long form, pages and pages. It was hideous in the number of unconstitutional questions that were asked (bathrooms etc.).
During the last census, my German manservant was the only one home when the census worker showed up on a followup (we were on holiday in the south of Australia at the time). He was playing on the floor with my young son, and was sitting there in this underwear. Rather embarrassing as there is a window next to the door, and the census worker was peeking through it to see if anyone was home (jerk).
He dressed, and answered the door. He was immediately bombarded with a number of questions that had nothing to do with apportionment, and why only the questions regarding the number of people living in the house were the ones that were answered. To his credit, he stated that he was sure that we had answered everything that we felt was constitutionally appropriate (clever Kraut, that one).
Beyond what was returned on the mailed questionnaire, he stated that he was not at liberty to provide further information. This really torqued the census person off, and she went to six different houses in the neighborhood, asking questions about the people that lived at our address, before she gave up and went away.
Annoying lot, those census workers.
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