“The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.”
Article 1, Section 2 of the US Constitution says government should count us. But the Census Bureau [1] says the census is used “to distribute $300 billion in federal funds” – that part didn’t quite make the Constitution.
So instead of “Are you here?,” they ask Age, Gender, Race, Relationships, Fertility (HUH?), language spoken, how many bedrooms you have, home heating fuel…you get the idea.
These geniuses spent 1.3 billion dollars developing a handheld computer before they realized they couldn’t figure out how to do what UPS has been doing for years (H/T Newt [2]), so now the census will be done on paper by 600,000 temps.
Does anyone else think the census should be counting people, and that’s it?