Posted on 03/08/2010 3:29:29 AM PST by Help!
Excerpt Were he alive today, Franklin might have a less flattering saying for the bureaucrats running the 2010 census, which is costing taxpayers $15 billion — and rising. That’s $48 per person counted, compared with $16 in 2000 (about $20 adjusted for inflation) and about a penny in 1790 (or 24 cents after 220 years of inflation)... Chaffetz and others in Congress have suggested that instead of using $1 billion in stimulus money to help hire 700,000 new census takers this year, the Census Bureau could have relied at least, in part, on the 785,000 workers at the Postal Service, who already are familiar with the nation’s neighborhoods...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Cause they’ve got to have anything that possibly ‘could’ be a residence, even if for the homeless, on file—so Acorn can ship residents there for a count.
Joseph Stalin said “He who votes decides nothing; he who counts the votes decides everything.”
How many people there are determines nothing; the people who do the count decide everything.
“If you think redistricting is always partisan and political which it is... it’s going to be on steroids this time.” – Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who will control the 2010 Census
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2464383/posts
Then there are the obtrusive telephone follow-up calls to allegedly make certain that even more useless information is collected!
That's a really GOOD point! I never considered that ACORN might use the census to foul up district maps and cause general disarray in the count. This is something that warrants more attention.
Was watching NASCAR yesterday and saw a Census 2010 ad on a car. Don’t know what that cost but does the census really need to be sponsoring a NASCAR car?
As a former Highway Contract US Mail carrier, I can tell you for a fact that the USPS does have computer files listing every address in the USA. These files also contain how many live at each address and who they are. The Census agency could consist of only 2 or 3 people. The Census agency need only colate the USPS info.
Census Follies Part I
This happened to me last Fri.
Found a census bag hanging from my door this afternoon. I opened it (short form...10 Q’s) and read the instructions. Before I started to answer the questions, I noticed it was for the wrong address. I called the 866 number and after many go-arounds with the automated system I finally got a representative.....at least I think it was a person, but the voice sounded artificial and there were long gaps in the conversation. He told me to mail it back with “Wrong Address” on the envelope and that a census taker would be by to question me. How that census taker would know what address to come to, I never asked. I told him (it?) that I was willing to answer the questions, but that I was not interested in having visitors. He (it?) then gave me a number to call for my regional office, 1-800-492-1495. I called this number and reached a re-direct for a different number, 1-702-589-9300, and that a call to this number would cost me about $4.00. I called back to the 866 number. After another go around got a ‘representative’. After more back and forth with this one, I finally said, “Even though I’m not happy with some of the questions on this, I was willing to comply. But now, after all this idiocy, you people can do whatever the hell you damned well please” and hung up.
[A little background is in order here. I live in a rural county that still uses RR (xx) Box (zzz) for addresses. We have been in the process (for at least the last four years) of getting street numbers for 911 purposes. Last summer a guy came by with a GPS and asked what my address was. I told him. I thought it was for the county mapping as they’ve been by several times for this, but later found out it was for the census. This tells me that even though they have the GPS coordinates for my place, they STILL got it wrong]
Anyway, I took a walk about half a mile up my road and gave the census bag to the neighbor that should have received it in the first place. Though there was a bag on the house next to his, he had recieved nothing. When I explained that it had been left at my place in error he replied, “Census?!?! Pi$$ on ‘em!” and tore it up. LOL!!!
So here I sit. Waiting for the dreaded knock on the door from some flunky from the government. Of course, if the person that got my form in error fills it out and sends it back without checking the address, things could get interesting.
Census Follies Part II
Later that same day...
Just went to my buddy’s house across the road. As I’m walking up the driveway, in comes a car. It’s the census taker. Told her my tale of woe and offered to do what had to be done then and there. She couldn’t accommodate me because....(ready for this?)....she only handles one side of the road!!!!
Our tax dollars at work!
“she only handles one side of the road!!!!”
The Census is a jobs program. It would be foolish to expect any efficiency in its operation. This also explains why they’re not relying on USPS computer files or carriers.
Roccus,
Your tale is identical to mine.
I also live in a rural area with HC (hired contractor) routes and addresses. I too was visited earlier this year by some emo kid with a GPS, at least he identified himself as a census worker. He insisted that my business had to be included since it was on my property and could also be used as a residence, despite my telling him NO ONE had lived in that building for over 20 years. It had a separate mailbox.
Anyway, fast forward to this past Thursday- a census worker showed up, hung a bag on my gate for my home and then went over to my biz, where I was at. She tried to give me a form for the store. Again I told her it was a business and no one lived here. She said she could have the address “deleted” from the rolls and proceeded to write some sort of office code on the envelope that was for the store. After some chit chat she left. I went to retrieve the form that was at my house and...yep, you guessed it- it was addressed to the store building address and not my home. I reckon she “deleted” my home address.
I knew any contact with them would result in exactly what you have detailed in your case,(a freakin’ nitemare) so I haven’t called yet. Now I don’t know what to do. I was only going to tell them how many lived at my address anyway since my racial origins are NOTB as far as I’m concerned, but since I have the wrong form I dunno what to do.
The gal also mentioned that she can only work one side of the road.
Well, we all knew this would be a boondoggle of massive proportions.
I’m amused at how the majority of “simple” questions seem to ALL about race.
1 point 2 million for 3 weeks
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/03/census_goes_nascar_this_weeken.html
also regular commercials.
We live in a semi-rural area, too and haven’t seen hide nor hair of the census takers.
Probably we’re not the sort of people they hope to count.
I agree that this whole thing is about double/triple counting and gerrymandering districts, as well as to ward off the very real unemployment stats.
I got a letter about two weeks before my Census form arrived, telling me that I would soon be getting my census form. Silly, really.
Cause they’ve got to have anything that possibly ‘could’ be a residence, even if for the homeless, on file—so Acorn can ship residents there for a count.”
Where I live, there are more undeveloped lots than developed and occupied ones.
More complete stupidity on the part of NObama & his minions.
They have ‘Stuck on Stupid’ all to themselves.
The Post Office can handle the census just fine. At least in the rural areas.
fake houses mean fake voters.
Census Follies Part II
Later that same day...
Just went to my buddy’s house across the road. As I’m walking up the driveway, in comes a car. It’s the census taker. Told her my tale of woe and offered to do what had to be done then and there. She couldn’t accommodate me because....(ready for this?)....she only handles one side of the road!!!!
Our tax dollars at work!”””
I always knew the government at all levels had featherbedding down to a fine art, but assigning census takers on different sides of the road-—ESPECIALLY in rural areas is a new topper!!
This year we need to come up with the Census version of the Darwin awards.
BTW- There is an early candidate for the Darwin Award for this year. I think it was in Washington state-—a drunk loses control of his car and hits a power pole—in the dark. He knocked down the pole and there are live wires-—which he cannot see, and he gets out of the car and decides he has to pee.
He pees on the live wire and it electrocutes him. When repair crew from the power company searches for the reason for the power outage, they find him—drunk-—and now dead also.
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