Okay. It’s really $57. Regardless, you all can thank my mother for this one, since she’s been harping on me about this ever since she heard on the radio that it costs $57 for the government to send an enumerator out to households that don’t respond by mail to the census.
Now, I understand that some people might want to look at this as an invasion of their privacy. Whatever floats your boat. That might actually be the case if you’re living under the radar completely, getting paid under the table for all the work you do, paying cash for everything, not driving, existing without any governmental identification like a Social Security number, and obviously, not voting. If that’s the case, then sure, the questions on the Census form might be considered overly invasive. Personally, I’d consider someone showing up on my doorstep, and coming into my home to get me to fill in the form invasive. Uncle Sam already knows everything that is being asked on the questionnaire. All of that information is spread out all over the government in various agencies, so before you say there’s no need for the census because the government already has the information, asking you to fill it out in one place is cheaper – assuming that you mail it back! Honestly, some of the information might not be known by the Federal government, but by your local and county governments. The Federal government needs to know this information now to help it determine how much money your local and county governments need to do their jobs. Sure, it’s a “bad” thing if your Federal tax dollars make it back to your own community, right?
Or maybe you’re like Katherine Mangu-Ward and think that the Census Bureau hiring enumerators would be a good thing for curing at least part of what ails us in the economy. Sure, it’s nice to think that we could have a big influx in government jobs to alleviate the jobless rate, but there’s one problem with those jobs coming from the Census Bureau. The jobs are necessarily temporary. If you want to have Uncle Sam directly reduce the jobless rate, at least pick governmental jobs that will be around for more than a few months. Seriously, the cost of hiring all those people temporarily cannot be considered a plus on any level. While they would be counted toward lowering the jobless rate, the experts would jump on it immediately, calling the jobless rate decrease for what it really is – temporary.
Then there are those that object to social programs, and don’t want to be counted in the statistics that drive budget allotments for “entitlement programs”. Well, while the census numbers are used in that, they are also used for silly things like Federal dollars disbursed to States for… well… everything. If you’re not counted, all that does is increase the probability that the tax dollars you’re going to pay to Uncle Sam regardless don’t make it back to your backyard. There are better ways to make your voice heard when it comes to what you consider wasteful spending in government. The biggest one that leaps to mind is the ballot box.
Finally, for the political junkies out there, you might be concerned about Congressional District mapping changes. That situation is relevant in my backyard, since the late Congressman Murtha’s District borders mine – there have been whispers about the district being lost. Failing to respond to the census will only increase the probability that people will lose representation in D.C. – it won’t save a seat that might be lost due to a drop in population. This should be a no-brainer, but sadly, I’ve actually heard a few folks say that if Uncle Sam doesn’t know exactly how many people are in a given district, the government can’t re-draw the map and remove that district’s representation. Newsflash: if the government thinks that there aren’t enough people in a given district, regardless of the percentage of people responding on the census, the government will step in and re-draw that district, period. Refusing to mail in your census forms, or worse, hiding from the enumerators, will not change the situation! It will make it worse.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that I’ve come up with every conceivable reason why people might fail to take the 5-10 minutes to fill out the Census 2010 forms. (The Census Bureau claims it takes about 10 minutes, but it took me about 6 minutes to finish ours. I guess I write fast.) All that I’m asking is that everyone that is reading this, and still has not mailed in their response to the Census Bureau answer this one question: Is your excuse for not doing it really worth the $57 you’re going to cost the taxpayers (including yourself) to make an enumerator come to your door to get those answers?
If your answer to that question is “yes”, I’d love it if you’d respond here to explain!
Tags: Census 2010
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