Posted on 04/08/2010 8:34:43 PM PDT by WOBBLY BOB
While the United States Census is your chance to be counted, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS learned it is also your chance to spend millions on dog booties, baby bibs and footballs.
The trinkets are part of a marketing plan that some call a huge waste.
Everything from hats and backpacks to pens and t-shirts--all bearing the 2010 Census logo--have been given out at census parties and sent to city clerks to be distributed.
For example attendees at a recent census party in Minneapolis--including politicians and Census Director Robert Grive--took home gift bags filled with census souvenirs.
Nationwide, the government spent roughly 140 million taxpayers dollars on trinkets and other kinds census advertising.
(Excerpt) Read more at kstp.com ...
He said, "I would actually prefer that we didn't have to spend that money, but there are independent businesses measuring people's knowledge of the census and we are at a ten year low. Thirty-one percent of the people 18-29 when asked if they know what the census is, they say no."
this in turn will be used to tell us how we're obviously not spending enough on K-12 education.
Census swag? You have got to be kidding! That’s like spending the last $100 of your max-out Mastercard on quarters for the bubblegum-and-fake-gold-ring machine at Wal-Mart!
Bachmann said, "Like everything else the government does, when they don't have to watch the bottom line like a private business, there is no end to what they will spend people's money on."
Grive said all of the advertising will, in the long run, prove to be money well spent. He believes it will lead more people to fill out their census forms and mail them in.
LOL
IOW, more money to China?
Or like spending kajillions of dollars for a tv ad during the super bowl?
Or the letters sent out to remind us that he census is coming?
Or hiring all those census workers who are all so productive?
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