The Census, how does it work?

[KosherCowboy]

I am sure most if not all of you have gotten or will get the Census shortly. I just got mine and plan to fill it out however some folks I know ( employed and tax payers) already stuck it in the shredder. An accountant tells me for each resident of Austin/Travis County who does not fill it out and return it cost us $10,000 per incident as a city. It also denies us federal funds. I am sure it all balances out and for every resident of TX who shreds it an equal % shred it in Montana, California, New York, Rhode Island etc. Anyone know how this all breaks down. I already pay taxes to the school district here via my property tax and have no kids, it is already high enough, do these ' census shredders' force property taxes up, sales tax???

If the above is true, it will cost us $$, we already get screwed enough by the folks up in DC so why screw ourselves worse?

[GneissGuy]

I've heard that if they don't get a response from a particular address, they assume some non-zero number of people live there. I don't know if it's true or not.

[CLoner]

It's just a few short questions. The way some people complain about it you'd think it was a big hassle; even though the potholes on the road they drive are tougher to deal with day in and day out. Don't give someone an excuse not to fix roads and bridges around your area due to "lack of population".

[rCoder]

The Constitution authorizes the census for congressional redistricting. All other uses are not authorize and can be argued violate the 10th Amendment. As such I just filled in the first box (number of residents) and left the rest blank.

Interestingly it was hand delivered. That should tell us something about either the USPS and/or the fiscal policy of the federal government gang...

[ANONONE]

It took me five minutes to fill it out.

Why do people shred it?

[selot]

My understanding is that if you do not fill out the form. Then one of the census workers will attempt to make contact with you at your home address.

[OneHotMale]

Originally Posted by selot

My understanding is that if you do not fill out the form. Then one of the census workers will attempt to make contact with you at your home address.

What Selot said is exactly true. It seems that the Census Bureau is expecting many not to return the form. I know that here in SA they were testing people last week to do this job and plan on hiring 4500 people at the hourly rate of $14.00.

[dammit]

That's nuts....4500 x $14 is $63,000 per hour...lets say they average 2 hours per day working their neighborhood for 1 week, that's $882,000 for one town. assume what, 300 cities with that many workers like S.A. is $264 Million and 2000 cities where there is 300 people working 1 hour per day for a week is another $59 million...so, besides the costs for printing, mailing, receiving, and compiling the paper forms we are paying for another $323 million to count how many people we have in the US? rather than asking the city's to send in their tax roll counts and multiply by 2.5?

[Guest120311-2]

If I fill out the one I recieved at home AND the one I recieved at my "other place" I guess it will take care of one of the shredder folks huh?
Tess

[dammit]

Great...you just cancelled out my no-response!

[Dagny D.E.W.]

Originally Posted by selot

My understanding is that if you do not fill out the form. Then one of the census workers will attempt to make contact with you at your home address.

yep the Census taker will come by, even if you filled out some but not all questions. So if you didn't fill out all questions be ready to tell only what you want to the census taker (who this year might be SEIU or ACORN)

But then you might answer like this:
http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?t=28005

[KosherCowboy]

I'm filling it out in full and not missing any blanks, I'll also add in some comments so the government gives me my BCD credit.

[VictoriaLyn]

Originally Posted by KosherCowboy

I'm filling it out in full and not missing any blanks, I'll also add in some comments so the government gives me my BCD credit.

:laughin g1:

[rekcaSxT]

Ugh, why can we do it online???

[selot]

Originally Posted by rekcaSxT

Ugh, why can we do it online???

I agree, and it seems like it would save the Gov a TON of $$ by not having to mail out all those Forms.

Of course, I think we should also be able to Vote online, but that is another thread.