Doing our patriotic duty: filling out the census

I filled out the 2010 Census form last night. I did my duty. It will be back in the mail today. The Census won't have to send someone to knock on my door. And I resisted the temptation, out of fear of getting in trouble with the feds, to mark my race as "other" and write in "American."

But I did get some amusement from the official letter explaining the census sent with the forms. In it the director of the U.S. Census Bureau says, "Your answers are important. Census results are used to decide the number of representatives each state has in the U.S. Congress. The amount of government money your neighborhood receives also depends on these answers. The money is used for services for children and the elderly, roads, and many other local needs." That's what it's all about: Show me the money. That's the reason so many organizations, including local government,s are pushing for a "full and complete" count.

Somehow, I think the authors of the Constitution in 1787 might be amazed by this emphasis on money. Section 2 of Article I of the Constitution establishes the census by requiring an "actual enumeration" of the population of each state. But the enumeration had nothing to do with who got federal dollars — alas, in those simple times, the federal government wasn't handing out grants and entitlements; it was trying to pay off its Revolutionary War debt. The actual enumeration has one and only one purpose, to determine the number of representatives each state would have in the U.S. House. Each state would get two U.S. senators and a number of representatives based on population of the state. For starters, the Constitution establishes a base line of representation ranging from one for Rhode Island and Delaware to 10 for Virginia (North Carolina got five). The entire House comprised 68 representatives. The current number is 435.

The census, no doubt, provides some valuable statistical information, and its use as a determinant of federal largesse makes some sense. The problem is not the conversion of the census into a decider of access to the federal treasury but the transformation of the federal treasury into a jackpot for states and individuals.