Westmoreland tells U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachman to end census boycott
July 2, 2009 at 10:48 am by Thomas Wheatley in NewsU.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., recently said she’d protest the upcoming census survey by only filling out the number of people who lived in her household. (Bachmann said ACORN, which is a census “community partner,” wanted to eat her home. She was wrong. Earlier this week the Libertarian Party’s DeKalb County party issued a press release in support of Bachmann’s stance.)
U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Uppity, and some fellow elephants are asking their cosmos-dwelling colleague to come back to Earth.
From the Washington Post’s Federal Eye blog:
Republican colleagues have now called her boycott illogical and illegal.
“Every elected representative in this country should feel a responsibility to encourage full participation in the census. To do otherwise is to advocate for a smaller share of federal funding for our constituents,” Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) and John Mica (R-Fla.) said in a statement. The trio is members the House Census Oversight Subcommittee.
They argue that her boycott only increases the likelihood of political interference, because Census staffers and volunteers would have to visit her home to do a followup interview.
“Anyone who completes and returns their census form will remove any need for a census taker to visit their residence,” the group said.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I agree with her to some degree. The constitution says that they shall “enumerate” (count) residents, but does not require me to tell them how many televisions I own, my race, or when I leave for work. The government has shown time and again they are not responsible stewards of personal information, and besides I maintain my right to privacy. I will answer the constitutional requirement and that is all.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:40 pm
It’s actually a bit more disturbing than that.
This year will mark the introduction of a specialized census tool called an FDCA (Field Data Collection Automation) hand held device built by Harris. It’s kinda kool as it will record and transmit it’s own GPS location every time a street address is typed into it’s keypad and it has a resolution of 40 feet or so. That means that when Johnny or Jill the census taker stands in your driveway, the GPS coordinates for your front door are painted into the system. You can’t make a phone call on it but it can recognize fingerprints, an odd feature for a census counting device.
So anyway this new massive data collection system is in place and ready to roll for the upcoming census at a cost of around 600 million of our tax dollars.
But wait, there’s more! The US census website estimates that the cost of the 2010 census will be in the 1 Billion dollar range yet the fine folks over at the GAO say the number for the life cycle cost of the 2010 census might range between 13.7 Billion to 14.5 billion when all is said and done. Call me old fashioned, but that’s a hell of a lot money to count noses so we can figure out how many US house of Representatives a particular state is entitled to.
Like any other government program you could name, there are lots of other oddities in the 2010 census. Since about 10% of you are currently unemployed, why not dig around the internet a while and see what turns up? Oh, and by the way, ACORN is a “partner” with the 2010 census. It’s a good fit as they have a stellar reputation for doing things by the book and always getting accurate results.