Posted on 04/06/2010 10:00:53 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
President Obama's politicized, profligate U.S. census drive is so desperate for positive press that it has now recruited former Bush senior adviser Karl Rove to do public service announcements. Rove pleads on video: "Please answer the 10 easy questions. They're almost the same ones Madison helped write for the first census back in 1790." Message: If you don't join the census bandwagon, James Madison will have lost!
Sorry, Mr. Rove. Playing the Founding Fathers card isn't going to quell conservative criticism of how the Obama administration has exploited the census boondoggle for both economic and ideological gain.
For the record, I have no beef with the constitutional mandate. I complied by filling out my census form and sending it back -- with "American" in the blank for race/ethnicity to register my opposition to government racial classifications. Despite apocalyptic suggestions by census officials and some Republican politicians that conservatives are recklessly boycotting the decennial head count, analysis by both the right-leaning Daily Caller and left-leaning Plum Line websites shows that return rates from conservative counties are in line with national averages.
So, what makes the Obama census campaign different from other census programs? First, its naked, left-wing special interest pandering. The White House is championing a "Queer the Census" movement by pro-gay marriage groups, for example, and the Commerce Department is working with open-borders leaders who want to use the census as leverage to stop all immigration raids.
The electoral stakes are high. Some $400 billion in federal funding and, most importantly, the apportionment of congressional seats are up for grabs. Instead of straightforward enumeration of the American population, Obama and the left's identity politics-mongers are turning the $1 billion, taxpayer-subsidized census public relations drive into a government preferences lobbying bonanza.
More galling: the White House manipulation of census worker employment to goose the jobless rate. Last week, the government touted employment figures bolstered by the hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010. The Census Bureau anticipates it may add nearly 750,000 workers to its payroll by May. Liberal economist Heidi Shierholz exulted in The Hill: "This is the best-timed census you could ever dream of." And Team Obama plans to milk it for all it's worth.
Over the past several weeks, I've received e-mails from census workers across the country describing the directive from their managers to slow down, stall, waste time and stretch out their work unnecessarily. As a counter-public service announcement, I'm reprinting some of their letters:
-- "…I have been working with the census for two weeks, and every day I shake my head at the blatant inefficiency and deliberate misuse of taxpayer money. Specifically, we have been doing enumeration for those who do not have a home, the homeless in shelters, soup kitchens and in targeted non-sheltered outdoor locations, such as parks, subway stations, etc. I personally have been sent to check on shelters that were already determined to be day programs during the preceding round of quality control, yet they pay me the mileage and hourly wage to go back and make sure that they are still only day programs. I walked through parks and parking lots looking for homeless people to enumerate, not even by talking to them, but just by observing their race, sex and approximate age. …
"…The way the process has been set up by government bureaucracy is so backward and prevents a person who is industrious and efficient from being able to work freely… This is the first job where I am encouraged to be slow and inefficient."
-- "Last summer I participated in the 'address canvassing' (AC) project. What this entailed was walking around a neighborhood, literally door to door, with a little handheld computer. My job was not to enter addresses so that these people could receive their form, but to make sure that the addresses that the first wave of people put into the system and appeared on the computer were actually there… Mostly, it was me getting paid $15.25/hour plus mileage to take my dog for a walk and push a few buttons.
"In an average suburban neighborhood where the houses are somewhat close to each other, it was no problem to do about 35 to 40 addresses per hour once you learned how to quickly enter data into the computer. The census said that I should be doing about 12 to 15 per hour. My direct bosses told me that I should NOT be doing 35 to 40, because it was making them and other people look bad. So instead of walking at a snail's pace, I just did my 35 to 40/hour and doubled my time when I submitted my hours. Again, sorry for the tax dollar grab, but I was told not to be so darned efficient or else I'd be cut!"
-- "I had the great pleasure of working for the address canvassing last spring. I was hired in early April for a job that was to be completed by the first week of July. I have a military background and a background in human resources, and the whole process left me with blood squirting from my eyes… I worked in the field for four days so that I would know what to do. The remainder of my time was spent sitting in a McDonald's to have a daily progress meeting with each of the enumerators. I was paid from the time I left my house to the time I got home … plus mileage. I was told to pad the time or mileage to cover my McDonald's food, since I was camping in a booth all day. For all that, I was paid $11.75 an hour. …We had a really good crew and were done by the second week of May... Philadelphia was going nuts because our region was getting done so fast, but there was nothing we could do to slow it down another two months.
"… I never saw such a mismanaged outfit in all my life. I just shook my head in total disbelief. Our work could have been done with half the people. We did have those that quit right after training, to the tune of $800 spent on nothing. I earned approximately $3,000. I will say, to be quite honest, it was the easiest money I ever made. On the exit interview, I was asked if I wanted to be called back for further work. I wrote 'NO' in big letters. I didn't want to take any further part in what I saw to be a racket."
What would Madison think now?
I mailed back my form. I didn’t fill out any blanks but I wrote in large letters with a black sharpie:
“There is one American male living in this apartment and that’s all the information you’ll get from me as long as that communist bastard is in the White House.”
I made sure none of it obstructed the window in the return envelope. Some ACORN worker is going to get the shock of her life.
Last census one of the people showed up at my house and asked what race I considered myself. I told him the human race.
There seems to be an abnormal interest in the “Hispanic” non-race.
The sub group info will be used for redistricting voters after Amnesty is granted
If they want a demographic survey, let em write a constitutional amendment stating such!
BTTT
I hope you aren’t the one they send to my house. I have enjoyed arguing with the socialist tools they sent in the last two censuses (censi?) as they tried to convince me they really needed to know how many bathrooms I have.
Since you’re here, I assume we see eye to eye on most things.
And don't think that isn't going into a database somewhere. Barack will need that extra house someday for his peeps.
Ever since I did some genealogical research I have always been very aware of how my descendants may be reading what I filled out in 72 years.
I figure there is no harm in filling out the basics about your name, age, etc. Anyone who would misuse the data can already find this out, and it may be a useful record or posterity.
The race questions bother me, which is why I haven't sent in my form yet. but I like Malkin's example of writing "American".
or —> for
Let me assure you--you cannot.He is part of the problem, and one of the architects of how Obama got to the Oval Office. He and Bush read so many books in their eight years together,in theor friendly competition with each other they completely lost control of Congress to a bunch of blatant Communists.
Thanks, Karl!!
I’ve got a bunch of Mormons in my family. They won’t need to dig through any census forms to find out about me. Thanks for the concern though.
It’s possible they may be proud in generations to come to know I was one of the people to stand up to this regime.
By the way, I believe the phrase “communist bastard” is entirely accurate. He’s one of them and he’s one of those. Almost no speculation is necessary.
They might have needed “race” information in the census 200 years ago to determine “Indians not taxed” and to figure out the 5/8ths calculation for slaves, but there is utterly no reason, other than race-based political scheming, that they should have it now.
“Applying for a student loan? I see from census data that your ZIP code is 98% white - sorry, no loan for you.”
I was in Boston, walking on Newbury Street two weeks ago, and I saw a liberal with a handprinted cardboard sign and literature, looking for census workers.
The pay? Starting at $22.50 an hour.
Unbelievable.
I applied but no one called me in to work yet!
I never got one either, but a local convenience store has a stack of blank forms for the taking.
I live in the San Francisco East Bay Area and I just met an 82-year-old census employee who also makes $22.50 per hour, and he’s on the clock as soon as he leaves his home. He was a census employee in 2000, as well.
Looks like the ACORN workers in Boston need a cheat sheet to pass the test. Fortunately, the Boston Globe is there to accommodate them:
http://www.boston.com/business/gallery/censustest2010/
Future quote from our Doctors and Nurses once Obombakare hits
That's probably true, but it will also be true that if your precinct/zip code voted against leftists, you will get no loan, OR MEDICAL CARE for that matter.
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