If you listen to the radio, you’ve probably noticed the commercials promoting the U.S. Census. Where I live, stations are intermittently broadcasting commercials for the 2010 Census almost every time I’ve turned the dial. One of the commercial messages contains a story about crowded buses and the need for folks in communities to complete the census so they get more money from the federal government and can buy more buses. Huh?
The advertising budget just to promote this enterprise was initially publicized at $350 million. That included ad plays during the Super Bowl broadcast in February. Some members of Congress tried to find out from Census Director Robert Groves how the money was being spent following an audit, news of which revealed huge sums being wasted including a $15 billion head count campaign that will involve over 140,000 temporary workers some of which were let go after being paid for doing nothing.
In an article relating some of this information the reporter gives us a clue as to something rotten in our country with her description of the Census as “a tradition that has occurred every ten years beginning with the first one in 1790 under Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.” Tradition? Whoa!
Okay, I’m breathing slowly…. I’m better now.
The census is NOT a tradition; it’s a Constitutional mandate. It is required by law: Article I, Section 2. The purpose? To formally establish the number of all persons born or naturalized [citizens] in the states for the expressed purpose of determining that state’s representation in Congress’s House of Representatives. The specific language in The Constitution is “enumeration” from the Latin: ‘counted out’ – and no bus purchases are mentioned.
If you’ve received the official form and looked closely you likely have noticed that two questions asked of responders have to do with your origin and race. Specifically “Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish” origin, and “White; Black, African American or Negro; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian Indian; Chinese; Filipino; Japanese; Korean; Vietnamese; Native Hawaiian; Guamanian or Chanmorro; Samoan; Other Pacific Islander; and my favorite “Some other race.”
Who are the bus riders in that group?
More relevant to all of us, why in an age of equal opportunity, race neutrality, race blindness, race equity and God knows what else, do we ask responders to a questionnaire that by law should only be aimed at counting heads, information that aims at differentiating by group?
“…and all went to be taxed, everyone unto his own city.”
The passage from Luke speaks of a tax but likely the collectors made a count to assure themselves that all were paying at the door. Caesars are like that. Taxes among the tribes of the Old Testament were commanded by God, then kings, and then lawful rulers. “Lawful” conjures up …. conforming to, permitted by or recognized by law. There’s contract law, property law, trust law, tort law, criminal law and that illusive one – Constitutional Law.
(Barak Obama in comments about his healthcare proposal seems to have the same nonchalant attitude for law as the reporter who used the word tradition. That’s not good.)
The census form is addressed to “those living at the house, apartment or mobile home” without any stipulation that they be citizens. Does it make sense to you that the House of Representatives whose numbers are based on a state’s population be required to be citizens of The United States for seven years while the population base of his district needn’t be legal citizens but only residents? Me neither.
More interesting is that a notice three weeks ago alerting me to the census form’s imminent arrival contained messages for those needing help completing the form printed in Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and what I’m guessing is Laotian.
The question begs asking. If court cases sustaining equal opportunity in schools contain phrases such as this: “An educated citizenry is the predicate of a thriving democracy, Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 395 (1983)”, how do people understand the subtleties of a country’s laws without understanding and speaking its language?
And there’s another point to make: if completing the census will, as Robert Groves writes in his letter, “help each community get its fair share of [federal] government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs” why don’t we make it easy for everyone concerned and just keep the money within our states in the first place, using it for local projects the cost of which we can control locally without the worry about things like Mr. Groves’ 140,000 temporary workers. Think about it.
That’s all for now, I have a bus to catch.
