IMP.: 2010 Census

The Importance Of Your 2010 Census Form

The 2010 United States Census is underway. Mid-March the forms are to be sent out to your house and mine. Everybody is urged to fill out the forms and send them back when they arrive in the mail.

The official 2010 Census web-site stresses that "We Can't Move Forward Until You Mail It Back." Much depends on every person in the United States taking this serious, and being counted.

Since the 2010 census will be the first in 30 years to be taken under a Democratic administration, Republicans are upset and see all kinds of horrors in the census, fighting straw-men problems of their own creation. The GOP, the party of NO (see last paragraph), has been opposing this decennial census for over a year, with no end in sight.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told the Washington Times that she and her family will not be fully filling out the 2010 census forms, "only giving her household numbers."

If others take her attitude, they will be cutting their nose off to spite their face. (C-Span's televising the House and Senate is usually very dull television, but when some of our representatives get on their high horse, or hobby horse, it is better than Saturday Night Live or a Danny Kaye comedy.)

Time Magazine, not the most liberal of the weeklies, reported that when Republican Senator Judd Gregg announced that he no longer wished to be the Commerce Secretary nominee, he said "that the decision was based in part on serious disagreements with the Obama White House over the 2010 census." That night on Fox News, Sean Hannity claimed Obama's plans for the census process "the biggest White House power grab ever," as his guest Karl Rove ("Bush's Brain") voiced agreement.

Not to be outdone by the Hannity-Rove duet, House Republicans declared that the White House had "an unprecedented plan" for the census that "will taint results and open doors to massive waste of taxpayer funds." The tainted results and massive tax waste were not defined or explained.

The 2010 Census is one of the shortest in history with only ten questions to complete. These ten questions are asked on the form you receive. Counting undocumented immigrants is the law: the Constitution requires that all people living in the U.S. should be included in the census, regardless of citizenship status. (TV side-show barker Glenn Beck, take note!)

Without a full census count, local governments won’t get their fair share of federal resources for housing, healthcare, schools, and roads. Public education is especially important. If the census undercounts undocumented children, the school districts suffer a lack of funds.

Trust has always been a vital part of being a concerned and (dare I say it) patriotic American. Cooperation in this census, that began in 1790, should not be viewed as a political party caper; nor a way to find illegal immigrants or punish anyone.

For at least the last 80 years the GOP has said NO to anything that concerned ordinary Americans. For proof study: Social Security, the war in Vietnam, equal rights, civil liberties, church- state separation, consumer issues, public education, reproductive freedom, national health care, labor issues, campaign-finance reform, the environment and tax fairness. Now we can add the 2010 Census.

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