Whitley County Patriots

From Big Government:

$15 billion. That’s the budget of the 2010 US Census. Where to begin with how it has been misspent? When we look back at the past ten years, we can see how the Census Bureau is an institution in need of major reforms because poor work has been rewarded and PR spinsters have been left running the show to make it seem like everything is hunky-dory.

The 2010 Census is currently in the non-response follow-up (NRFU) stage of operations (to track down individuals who did not mail back their 2010 Census forms on time), which is the largest and most expensive stage of the 2010 Census. 635,000 workers are involved in this operation, and it is the largest peacetime civilian hiring effort in the history of the United States. Yet this operation has been plagued by failure from the get-go. Let’s first take a look at the now infamous handheld computer debacle:

In 2006 the Census Bureau signed a contract with the Florida-based Harris Corporation to design handheld computers (HHCs) that would be used for the 2010 Census. This contract was initially worth $600 million. Yet because of poor directions and incompetence from Census Bureau officials about what they desired and a the failure on on the part of Harris Corp. to determine what specifications the government needed, the designs that were used for this project were flawed from the get-go.

Rather than creating a “fixed price contract,” the government created a “cost-plus contract” that essentially gave the Harris Corp. a blank check to fiddle around as they wished to the tune of $600 million. And, they fiddled and fiddled and fiddled and failed.

So what did the Census Bureau do to correct this problem? They gave the same company an extra $200 million in 2008 and told them to try it again. Ultimately, Harris delivered some handheld computers that were able to be used during the Address Canvassing phase of 2010 Census operations, but employees have repeatedly claimed that these devices were extremely faulty, slow, and at times completely non-functional. (Had the Census Bureau decided to equip its employees with special versions of the Blackberry or I-Phone, such a debacle would have been avoided.)

Read the rest at Big Government.

From Big Government:

by Shaughn Adeleye

Read the rest at Big Government.

From Big Government:

You know the old saying: “Everyone loves a charade.” Well, it seems that the Census Bureau may be playing games.

Last week, one of the millions of workers hired by Census 2010 to parade around the country counting Americans blew the whistle on some statistical tricks.

The worker, Naomi Cohn, told The Post that she was hired and fired a number of times by Census. Each time she was hired back, it seems, Census was able to report the creation of a new job to the Labor Department.

Below, I have a couple more readers who worked for Census 2010 and have tales to tell.

But first, this much we know.

Each month Census gives Labor a figure on the number of workers it has hired. That figure goes into the closely followed monthly employment report Labor provides. For the past two months the hiring by Census has made up a good portion of the new jobs.

Labor doesn’t check the Census hiring figure or whether the jobs are actually new or recycled. It considers a new job to have been created if someone is hired to work at least one hour a month.

Read the rest at Big Government.

From Big Government:

Article I, section 2, of the Constitution requires the populations of the various states to be enumerated every 10 years. The first such census was conducted in 1790; its main purpose was to apportion seats in the House of Representatives among the original 13 states.

The Founders scarcely could have foreseen the stunningly costly and politically sensitive undertaking the census now has become.

There is much at stake. Census figures will be used to shift representation in Congress from states where populations have declined since 2000 to those where they have grown. By 2012, every state also will have redrawn its own legislative district boundaries to reflect recent population trends.

Moreover, the 2010 headcount will determine how every state and community fares over the next decade when federal funds are allocated for a host of social programs, including health care and job training; highway, bridge and tunnel construction; public education; and much else. The jackpot of taxpayer-financed loot to be doled out based on census results now amounts to about $400 billion. With federal spending reeling out of control, billions more likely will be up for grabs.

How much will it cost to count noses this year? No one really knows. The Census Bureau began planning for 2010 immediately after 2000. It is not yet fully ready. Preparations for 2010 have been plagued by fraud, cost-overruns and failures of computer hardware and software.

Read the rest at Big Government.

From Michelle Malkin:

By Michelle Malkin  •  April 7, 2010 09:48 AM

My syndicated column today responds to Karl Rove’s latest Census PSA and spreads the word about what census workers have been e-mailing me about their politicized, profligate jobs.

On a related note: D.C. Leader Calls on Illegal Immigrants to Fill Out Census for Taxpayer-Funded Resources.

Stoking the “I want mine” culture of entitlement on your dime.

No, this is not what the Founders intended.

Read her column at Michelle Malkin.

From Big Government:

In watching this year’s NCAA tournament, one finds it hard to miss the hip commercials for the 2010 Census. Invariably, the emphasis of these ads is on people gaining “representation” in the form of their piece of the public funding pie. Personally, I find the whole parasitic charade sickening.

The Founders must be turning over in their graves knowing how much something as simple as the Census has been twisted as a result of a government that has so obfuscated the General Welfare clause that it has deemed the Constitution worthless. Where the Census was created with the purpose of representative apportionment, with the parties in power in the states unfortunately gerrymandering districts so as to solidify their political strongholds and marginalize their opponents, reflecting the transformation of our country, this time around the focus of the Census is on ensuring the proper allocation of $400 billion of public money.

Where are we as a nation when it becomes the patriotic thing to do to fill out a form for the purpose of sticking our paws in a $400 billion honeypot? The commercials would be far more honest if they merely stated, “Make sure to fill out the Census so you can feed at the collectivist trough.” What kind of message does it send to immigrants and the poor when we say that the key to improving one’s lot is to make sure one gets one’s fair ration of taxpayer money?

Read on at Big Government.

From Big Government by Pamela Geller:

Census 2010: overreaching and out of bounds. Intrusive. Harassing. I have now received two Census forms and thirteen or fourteen notices from the Census Bureau, and they are still coming.

For the past month I have been called, harassed and visited numerous times by a Pamela Childs of the Census Bureau, who was pursuing me for an interview. Knowing my rights under the law, even under the current Obama coup, I did not respond. I filled out my form — that which is required by law — but still received calls, visits, and notes. Daily.

At one point, I left a message saying I would not speak to her. Period. Mind you, I already filled out and sent in my form the day after I got it.

This nonsense began a month ago. A week passed after my last visit from Childs, and now I am being harassed again by another census drone, Constance Atman.

Read the rest at Big Government.

An interesting and provacative video from Jerry Day: