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On the Census

confessions of a big government squish

By: streiff (Diary)  |  March 10th, 2010 at 11:49 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Reading our site here and the right-leaning blogosphere there is a lot of anxiety out there about the 2010 decennial census.

During the 2000 decennial I was an employee of the Census Bureau, I don’t put that out as a boast or qualification but rather in the interests of full disclosure, and I’d like to give you my perspective.

The census is required by the Constitution. If fact, if one is a supporter of originalism it is actually one of the few domestic functions of the federal government extant today that is required. It’s purpose is to ensure the mathematical integrity of the House of Representatives and prevent the United States from being infested with a system of rotten boroughs and unrepresented cities which was common in England at the time.

Now a strong case can be made that the Census long form is very intrusive. It its defense one can only point out that a) every question asked is required by federal law to be asked, b) everyone in the Census Bureau knows that the long form is too long, and c) we’ve been on this glide path ever since the Census started asking the names of members of households, their ages, occupations, and places of birth in 1850. One also has to point out that governments at all levels make decisions about schools, hospitals, representation, roads, zoning, land use, etc. based on the federal census. The fact that you don’t like some of those programs or uses of census data is really not germane, the question is do you want those programs to operate based on good information or not-so-good information.

Having said that, there is no legal requirement that you be participate. US Marshals are not going to show up and take you away to be waterboarded if you refuse to participate. If you chose not to, eventually a low-paid, temporarily employed, human enumerator will show up at your house to chat with you. If you turn them away they’ll ask your neighbors the questions about your household that you refuse to answer. So while you have the choice to not cooperate you really don’t have the choice of not being enumerated. It is for that reason that while I am philosophically in tune with the whole declare-your-race-as-American idea (other than the fact that American is a nationality not a race), I think it is doomed to be crushed by the process of physical interviews of households and their neighbors.

Everyone has to use their own prudential judgment in deciding whether or not they will cooperate with the Census. But as you are making that decision you have to decide for yourself how not cooperating moves our cause forward one whit.

There you have it. I confess. I’m a big government squish. I’m a fan of the Census Bureau. I can’t imagine how a developed society functions without a regular census (if you use MapQuest or have a GPS device in your car you also need to think about who actually keeps that underlying database of addresses linked to GPS grid coordinates up to date). My family will participate and do so apologetically. Your choice is yours.

COMMENTS

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  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Beyond that I’m not a fan.

    Thanks for this post!

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    ;)

    • streiff

      I did indeed vote for Carter and I voted for GHW Bush in the 1980 presidential primary. All of this is why I acknowledge my rather flaccid conservative credentials up front.

  • Achance

    Unfortunately, some will refuse to cooperate and there will be protests, protests that will be amplified and distorted by the MSM. Then Comrade Obama will claim that they can’t get an accurate count because of non-cooperation and they’ll probably throw in something about Republican suppressing the count in the cities, so they’ll have to use statistical methods to make sure “everyone” is counted. Then they’ll just make it up.

    • Old_Crow

      I’m sure we will see some ‘statistical smoothing’ or other such nonsense that ensures the desired outcome of the Obama administration is achieved.

      For elections: It’s not the voting, it’s the counting.
      Same with the Census.

      • ss396

        Statistical manipulation and all. Sort of what was done to accomplish the AGW ‘hockey stick’, no?

        Always remember Flannigan’s Finagling Factor: “That quantity that when added to, subtracted from, multiplied by, or divided into the answer you got gives you the answer that you should have gotten.”

        • qsclues

          We had this in my chemistry classes, too, except that it was known as “Kelly’s Constant”, i.e. the number by which you multiply your lab results to get something close to the theoretically correct answer.

    • streiff

      they can use statistical adjustments of the Census numbers for any purpose except reapportionment. For reapportionment they have to use actual enumeration.

      • Finrod

        Since when has this current government considered itself to be bound by the law?

  • Trelaina

    I have no issue with names, ages, occupations, etc. I mean, if the Census hadn’t done that for years my father wouldn’t have found information about our family that got lost when an ancestor ran away from home as a child and never returned or reconnected. It has its merits, absolutely.

    That said, I am seriously considering the “Question 9 – Other/American” idea promoted by a number of people. I don’t know about some of the other questions…I guess I’ll just make a judgement when I get it.

    • DamnCat

      Why should the census, or the government as a whole, help track down long lost relatives?

      • streiff

        my grandfather was born in 1908 in southern West Virginia. He didn’t have a birth certificate. Ever.

        When it came time for him to retire and apply for social security he couldn’t prove his age. However, thanks to the Census Bureau enumerating ever member of his father’s family in the 1910 Census they were able to confirm a 2 year old boy (with no name, because it wasn’t unusual for families to wait a while to name a kid because of the high infant mortality rate) living in the household. Based on that, the Social Security Administration approved his application.

        • DamnCat

          I know they asked mine.

          • streiff

            they asked his age but he needed to prove his age. He couldn’t.

            http://www.socialsecurity.gov/retire2/applying5.htm

            Are you saying they accepted your application without any documentation?

          • DamnCat

            Before you say yes please enumeratre all the sources you attempted – school records, hospital records, church records, draft board,…etc.

          • streiff

            records are documentary evidence of live birth and I’d hope you’d know.

            I really don’t care to argue with someone who is profoundly ignorant about so much and willfully obtuse about the remainder.

            You’ve registered your objections to the participating in the census but I’m not going to be hazed by you on a subject you know nothing about.

          • DamnCat

            …to claim that you are the un-named child of some familiy listed in the census.

          • streiff

            I don’t mind disagreement. I won’t tolerate asshats. Go mess with someone else.

        • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

          Seriously though streiff, I do appreciate the civil objectivity of your post. (But maybe that’s ’cause I voted for Carter too…)

          • streiff

            and the moonshining…

    • fideist

      My feelings have been similar. My hobby is genealogy, and the census is the first record we go to for starting research. Census records are released to the public seventy-two years after their completion. So in 2002 we got access to the 1930 census, and in 2012, genealogists will have access to the 1940 census records. I wish my ancestors had done long forms, so I could know more about their lives. I will gladly fill out a long form, because in 2082, long after I am dead, maybe my descendants will be researching me.

      • Paige Dulli

        I agree. And don’t forget to photocopy your completed form and put it in your genealogy records for future generations. Seventy-two years is a long time to wait!

      • DamnCat

        You’re right – everyone should be compelled to answer a lot of intrusive questions if it make’s your passtime more enjoyable.

        Sheeesh!

        • Scope

          That’s the worst excuse I have ever heard for supporting giving the federal government info they have no right to ask for. There’s always basket-weaving if the long lost are never found.

          • Trelaina

            I’m not in support of the invasive questions. My race is NOYB, nor anything about my personal life. I mentioned occupation in my previous post but on reflection I can see that being over the line.

            I see the arguments against it and I do not discount them. That said, I hate that we’re to the point in our society where we can’t trust the government with our names and ages.

      • Tbone

        find out where Obama was born. LOL

        • rwlungren

          Since ‘HE’ was born in 1961, ‘HE’ would first appear in the 1970 Census which is tentatively scheduled for release in 2042, I believe. Their is no guarantee that ‘HIS’ parents filled out the Census form.

          just sayin..

          • Tbone

            get released?

            just askin’

        • renny

          and was never born anywhere. He’s a pod person. Just look at his neck when he’s really into his teleprompter. If that doesn’t look like a stalk of asparagus walking, I’ll eat one of the icky sticks.

  • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica Estrada

    I have a lot of worried friends.

    ty.

  • skey

    and I have to say that a large percentage of the questions were pretty darn offensive. So for me, I pretty much answered the first page and refused everything else.

    ” The fact that you don?t like some of those programs or uses of census data is really not germane, the question is do you want those programs to operate based on good information or not-so-good information.”

    I don’t want them to operate at all, and operating on bad information is more likely to make them go away or not increase in size quite as fast than good information.

    • streiff

      we all have to use our prudential judgment in these matters.

    • eastbaylarry

      is it leaves the progressives more flexibility in rewarding their ‘friends’ with handouts that are supposed to be distributed evenly.

      They will anyway, it just makes it easier.

  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

    and I don’t remember reading that they complained about it. There is a delicious, only-in-America irony in hearing people, after griping that they have been undercounted when marching along Constituition Ave., plotting to become uncounted when in their living rooms!

    • tdpwells

      and I don’t care about that – it’s the only question I’m answering, though. How much money I make in a year has nothing to do with my being counted either in my living room or on Constitution Avenue.

    • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica Estrada

      undocumented ppl, maybe?

      • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

        Rather it was the peculiar political species which wants to be sure the government is constantly aware of its existence, yet curiously enters hibernation once every decade just when the existence-verifiers come around!

        • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica Estrada
          • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

            It was the trans-ethnic, trans-party, ever-endearing “lea’ me ‘lone, but shut up and listen to everything I say” personality type I had in mind.

    • DamnCat

      Made it easy for Herod to find all those babies to kill too.

      • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica Estrada
      • CincoSolas_del_Bronx
  • tngal

    The last couple of times we’ve had one our mayor decided our city was undercounted and screamed for a recount. That cost money, so he charged an extra buck on our utility bill to cover the cost (promising all these lost souls would be found and we would get extra tax dollars.) By the time the recount was done, we had even less people than the first count.

  • erp617

    I agree that a census every ten years is good and necessary. What I don’t agree with is that we should be divided into categories to enable the diversity/multiculti crowd’s mania for social engineering.

    So we’ll follow the excellent advice here at NRO and on line #9 declare our race to be: American.

    • gazill

      I saw “Native American.” As I was born in America, I am surely a native american. My question is why the government needs to ask my phone number.

      • streiff

        they can call you. That’s all.

        • Old_Crow

          Or block unknown callers.

  • RedBeard

    Anything beyond that simple count is unwarranted intrusion by a federal government run amok by passing laws not constitutionally authorized.

    That same government seems quite enamored by the “right of privacy” that it used to help further the slaughter of the unborn. One might think that the holy “right of privacy” would logically extend to other areas of our lives. One would be wrong, however.

    • baserunr

      Although required by the Constitution, it is supposed to be to determine the apportionment of Representatives, nothing more. The insipid commercials that tout “Get your fair share” are insulting with their attempted pandering. As if only via the Omniscient Federal Census can local and state elected officials determine what’s important. I have no problem with enumeration. Beyond that, the census serves as both a pretext and excuse for all sorts of government chicanery.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    You’ve given rational reasons for cooperating with the census questions, so that people who decide differently are at least operating with facts rather than fact-free anxiety (or misinformation).

    That said, each of will have to weigh to what extent we will participate.

    One key barrier to cooperation, which you didn’t really address much (perhaps it seems obvious to you) is the issue of confidentiality – people (myself included) are worried that once in the hands of the government, this information will be available for disclosure to government agencies that may not, shall we say, have our best interests at heart.

    Just how strong are the confidentiality protections against what we see as an overreaching executive branch? That is, how easily can the protections be breached?

    Interestingly, you article identifies an irony that in part may explain the “undercount problem”. It is strong, close-knit communities where the census back-up measures you describe (neighbor interviews, etc) will be most effective – and these are where cooperation is likely to be highest anyway.

    Conversely, in disrupted communities (such as many of our urban and inner city areas) where cooperation is much lower, the neighbor interviews will also be less effective as people will know less their neighbors or be reluctant to talk.

    • streiff

      Confidentiality is an issue. Historically the census has an excellent record of maintaining confidentiality. The only significant breach was in 1942 when the US government used the 1940 Census to assist in the round up of Americans born in Japan who were living on the West Coast,

      The official line is here http://www.census.gov/privacy/data_protection/federal_law.html

      The bottom line is that any system can be breached if some simply abrogates the rules. The question, it seems to me, is whether or not that we believe such an abrogation can be both large scale and secret and that the information could be damaging to you (the IRS knows your actual income, for instance, while the Census takes your word for it) if revealed.

      I don’t believe Congress would ever repeal the confidentiality provisions of Title 13 and I don’t believe the bureaucrats at Census would cooperate in any breach of Title 13 without legal cover. YMMV.

  • realskinny

    the long form is put are legitimate in they make planning and commerce more efficient. The information can easily be put to illegimate purposes however, so I’m with Strieff. Use your own judgement.

    If those who live in deep blue districts were to not be counted it would reduce the weight of those districts in apportionment, Wouldn’t it? Possibly this is trying to be too clever.

  • http://barnettlaw.org Frozen_Man

    that I rarely think that any additional government power is a good thing. It may not seem like a big deal and probably your right it never will be but I just would like the government to know as little about my personal life as possible. Government’s have abused their citizen’s throughout history and I don’t want the government being able to create groups and lists of whomever they want when ever they want. I don’t see most of the information as relevant and therefore am always suspect as to why they want it.

    • streiff

      as I said we all need to exercise our prudential judgment on this issue.

      • http://barnettlaw.org Frozen_Man

        with giving out all the information that they request. I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist and was pleased to read your opinion and experience with the matter. It is always good to get a different perspective from your own, especially when you can respect that perspective.

  • Scope

    that so many conservatives are running on, or support freedom, liberty and less government, yet have no problem giving the currently Progressive Government much much more personal information than is authorized in the Constitution. For so very many, dreaming about a much smaller, and less intrusive federal government, why would you choose to participate in a form filled with questions, that would determine your area’s fair share of federal monies? I thought many of us supported getting rid of many unnecessary federal programs, and, leaving funding for the necessary programs, hospitals, schools, to the state’s discretion.

    • streiff

      it is a matter of judgment. I respect your inclination to not participate and I will require, at least on this site, that you show me the same respect.

      By the way, go back and read the post. States and localities are much larger users of census data than the federal government. The census is not about federal programs it is about information. The programs are going to exist with or without valid information.

      • http://barnettlaw.org Frozen_Man

        how much of the information was used on a more local level. I guess if I would have thought about it I would have intuitively known it but that is still an interesting facet I had not considered

      • Scope

        that showed a disrespect for you. I referred to many, conservatives etc. I never referred to the diarist, the diary or you by name. I was speaking my opinion on what I consider the intrusion of the federal government where I don’t believe they belong. If I did not make that clear, I am sorry. Nothing I said was in reference to you. There are other similar sentiments expressed in comments above.

  • JadedByPolitics

    don’t be a JERK to the part-timer who shows up as your door or calls your house it really is unbecoming of any American who should see the Census for the only true thing left in the Constitution that gets done everything is violated and mistreated and made up but the Census ENSURES that WE get the correct amount of Legislators and with INSANE politicians today especially out of lefty states ie: CA & NY where they have LOST a ton of people it behooves the RIGHT to get as many as WE can :)

    BTW I intend to answer #9 as American and I intend to ONLY do the short form as the rest of it is NOT the business of the Federal Government!

    • Richard Mullins

      the ones here aren’t all that leftist but I keep getting phone calls for awhile. At least after filling this out, the calls will stop. Also, if North Harris County has more people, then we might be closer to having a Rep. in congress in the area and not also with Beaumont. BTW, if the unincorporated parts of Harris county were are city, it would be almost as big as Houston and be in the Top 10(US of course).

      • JadedByPolitics

        being bad I was talking about all of these 9-11 truther types who SCREAM at you when you knock on their door or have the signs on their property that says they will kill you if you are a government worker and btw that would be the LEFTISTS :)

  • aesthete

    I can’t bring myself to say that I’m a fan of the Census, but I agree with you that it’s pretty much a necessity in a modern industrial state, is Constitutionally-mandated, and is generally useful for virtually any task undertaken by the government, regardless of whether you agree with that task or not.

    • aesthete

      It’s used more by state and local governments than the federal government, which means that the Census would, in many ways, be more useful for Federalists than for centralized statists.

  • saltlick

    Would Obama meet the census requirements if he entered “Caucasian?”

    Seriously, would it be enough if he considered himself “Caucasian?”

    • streiff

      permutations (there are 63 of them) laid out by the Office of Management and Budget. He could call himself anything he wanted to.

      http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/race/racefactcb.html

  • saltlick

    Thanks, streiff.

    I look as white as Chris Matthews, but I’m entering something along the lines of “multiracial.” Been doing it on state and federal forms for years now.

  • longwalker

    In planning for expansion of existing facilities, the building of new facilities and/or the shutting down of unneeded facilities, corporations rely on census data. While working for a private corporatrion, I used census data on various counties in New Jersey to develope the best location for a future plant site. While wotking on my MBA, I used census data as one of the factors in my multiple regression analysis to determine future sales. I will answer all the questions because the data, released without individual identification, is useful to business planners.

  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

    Market Research sampling is heavily dependent on those “too-intrusive” categories of Census data for calibration. Of course it’s fine if you don’t want to answer those questions, but if “your” favorite brand–the one that’s “just right for people like you”–disappears from store shelves in your region without notice, are you really prepared to say “that’s all right, I’ll just take the good old generic ‘American’ kind”?

    • RedBeard

      …and yet, oddly enough, I don’t actually want the federal government gathering my market research data. As a matter of fact, I don’t want the federal government anywhere near my business. The government has done quite enough to “help” us throughout the years. We have survived despite, not because of, government “help.”

      • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

        Don’t you know that people like you are standing in the way of a socialist utopia!

        • RedBeard

          I know I’ve been bad. Obama should send me to my room without my supper. ;-)

      • CincoSolas_del_Bronx
  • CincoSolas_del_Bronx

    for a base of N=10x “what everyone else is using” and hoping that you really got a random sample THIS time–well, that’s YOUR business!

    • RedBeard

      If the feds continue as they are, violating the clearly defined and limited powers of the Constitution, no business has an advantage over another by virtue of the census nosiness, since the data is available to all.

      But if the feds retracted their grasp to a constitutional level, no business would have an advantage by virtue of census nosiness, since the lack of data would also be equal.

      I’ll take the latter scenario. When in doubt, choose less government. Or just read the Constitution, and accept the small government it mandates.

  • casca

    OUR GOVERNMENT LIES TO US ALL THE TIME.
    According to U.S. Representative Ron Paul, “However, these promises can and have been abused in the past. Census data has been used to locate men who had not registered for the draft. Census data also was used to find Japanese-Americans for internment camps during World War II. Furthermore, the IRS has applied census information to detect alleged tax evaders. May be this is Homeland security stealth way of implementing US Census records, for using E-Verify data bases for ICE, to apprehend illegal aliens and deport them?

    • RedBeard
      • http://dreamsfrommyforefathers.com RoguePolitics

        From “The Naked Consumer”

        In 1864 Union General William Tecumseh Sherman concocted an
        audacious plan–a full-force march from Atlanta to the sea, which
        Civil War historian Bruce Catton called “the strangest, most
        fateful campaign of the entire war.” Sherman set out not to
        engage another army; but to destroy the Confederate economy and
        to convey the message that the United States, in Sherman’s words,
        “has the right, and also the physical power, to penetrate to
        every part of the national domain, and that we will do it
        … that we will remove and destroy every obstacle–if need be,
        take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property,
        everything that to us seems proper.” With the help of the census
        office–it was not yet called a bureau–he made a pretty fair try
        at fulfilling that promise.

        He planned a fast, lean march. Doing so meant he would not be able to maintain conventional lines of supply; in those days
        before helicopter gunships and Harrier jets, an army was only as
        good as its ability to protect the roads, rivers, and railroads
        down which it had already traveled. Sherman would have to live
        off the countryside to a degree no Union or Confederate army had
        done before.

        From the start of the war, Census Superintendent Joseph C. G.Kennedy had been earnestly providing the war effort with maps and
        census information on southern population and industry but had
        sparked only limited interest. Sherman, however, saw in Kennedy’s
        annotated maps the key to his campaign.

        In practical effect Kennedy had provided Sherman with a kind of Mobil guide for the plunder of the Confederate countryside,
        using data produced in more settled times by the very people
        Sherman encountered along his route. He gave his troops explicit
        orders to forage, a practice that until then was technically
        against the law. The army’s mission included destroying mills,
        cotton supplies, railroads, anything of economic or military
        value. An Illinois sergeant wrote that his colleagues seemed “to
        take savage delight in destroying everything that could by any
        possibility be made use of by their enemies.”

        After the campaign, Sherman dropped Kennedy a thank-you note: “The closing scene of our recent war demonstrated the, value of these statistical tables and facts, for there is a reasonable
        probability that, without them, I would not have undertaken what
        was done and what seemed a puzzle to the wisest and most
        experienced soldiers of the world.”

  • renny

    it should never have collected in the first place, I do not feel obliged to help the bureaucrats in charge of my life with determining how much my “community” is entitled to.
    This is all Nixon’s fault, and something a Rep. should never have done. Nixon invented “revenue sharing” in that infamous year of 1972, and all it has ever done is increase state gov’t personnel rolls, blow up school administration hires, and inflate every local and state human resources file in the nation.

  • Flagstaff

    is the year that the government began its long and intrusive invasion of our private lives.

    It was about that time that the Federal government started becoming more important than the states and the Constitution.