Fairly Expensive

The 2010 Census provides an excellent lesson of how poorly government handles our money. To kick it off, we footed the bill for an expensive Super Bowl ad trumpeting the importance of being counted. For most of us, the bold warning on the envelope reminding us that, by law, we must complete the form is enough.

Just in case you missed the Super Bowl, the government sent every household a form letter announcing we’d be receiving a form. That letter encouraged us to fill out the census to be sure we would get “our fair share”. We’re cautioned that if we don’t fill it out, our community would be shorted when it comes time to distribute the government largesse. Personally, I think it’d be a whole lot fairer if we got to keep our money to begin with rather than send it to Washington for them to skim their percentage off the top and then make us beg to get the remainder back.

But if Super Bowl ads and mass mailings announcing mass mailings don’t seem wasteful enough, the goodie bags passed out to school children clinches it. Census workers are visiting elementary schools and passing out bags of Census 2010 branded trinkets and t-shirts. I don’t see how giving away cheap plastic key chains, spongy balls, and coffee cups will have much effect on forms being completed. Perhaps the belief is that by bribing kids with useless stuff, they will badger their parents to fill out the form.

I must admit however, I truly enjoy the irony of one of the trinkets that sums up our deficit-spending debt-ridden government – an empty piggy bank.

[Letter to the Editor - Farmington Observer. Published 04/09/2010.]