The census is coming!

I know that if an agent of the federal government comes out to your house and starts askin' you all kinds of questions about how old you are, and how much money do you make, and who else is livin' with you and what're there names and are they related and all that... Well, you could be forgiven for thinkin' it's a mite suspicious. And you might be tempted to lie. I'm askin' you not to. I know for a fact that folks have been lying to the census takers at least as far back as 1840 and I also know it hasn't done anyone a bit of good. If anyone cares to look up your ratty ol' ass in 100 years (it could happen - most likely a relative, but you never know) you owe them The Truth. And in the shorter run, we could get some federal funds back into the educational system (like up to $3,000 per student), have better planning for social security and health care and whatnot. Just fill out the card and send it in - it'll take about a minute and a half. And yes - Michael White's wife, Maria del Rosario, just got younger with every census. Quite amazing. http://www.census.gov/

Comments

[ken]

they have no legal right to ask anything more then how many people live in the house,its a head count only,the rest is up to you if you want to answer.

[Ambrose]

I agree with Ken.  Take a head count - no more than that.

[Inside_Passage]

Since when is census door-to-door? We got ours in the mail.

[ken]

about one in a hundred are done by census takers,which is a much more in-depth questionarre,and they have no legal reason to do so.

[Inside_Passage]

[this is good] Thanks for actually answering a question in a normal, semi-rational fashion even if it appears you're wrong.

Because what you're saying doesn't seem to make sense, I looked it up.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/censustakers.htm

On looking it up, I discover that the job of the census taker isn't to enforce some random questioning, but to follow up on people who didn't complete their census forms. This is their job - like police, they are making sure people are following the law and aiding them in doing so by personally coming to their house. If they didn't do that, any person could simply ignore the census, which is backed by constitutional law written by the founding fathers.

So yes, they DO have legal reason to be doing this work.You may have problems with questions being asked on the census, and that's your perogative, but whatever Libertarians might tell you, that too is backed by the constitution.

[ken]

you need to dig a little deeper,the census has the responsibilty to do a head count thats it,this has been brought to court before,they can put any questions they want on a census,but the only ones they have a legal right to ask is how many people per households.there are at least 2 different census's one just asks how many people per household,and your race.the other one is more in depth and most census takers will help you fill it out.if this was just a sraight up mailer why do you think so many people were hired to take it.

[Inside_Passage]

Provide the link that proves what you're saying, please.

[ken]

the direct link didn't work,so you will have to go to the home page,type in census in their search,hit enter,then go down to point 9. and it tells you that the only answer you have to give is how many people live in your household,not to mention that they are counting illegals as part of congressional allotment.