Census letter about Census form sends wife into fit

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March 15, 2010

By BURTON SPEAKMAN Glasgow Daily Times The Glasgow Daily Times Mon Mar 15, 2010, 09:18 AM CDT

GLASGOW — I’ve rarely seen my wife as angry at government waste as she was this week after opening a letter from the U.S. Census Bureau.

I didn’t read the letter, but it roughly stated, “Hi. We’re from the U.S. Census Bureau and we’re sending you this letter just to let you know we’re soon going to be sending you the Census survey.”

The next thing I know I’ve got an angry woman in the house wanting to know why the government is wasting money to send us a letter letting us know they’re going to send us a letter. She was irritated about the waste of paper, man hours that went into it being sent — basically the entire process.

You know I thought I might get this reaction after the numerous commercials on television and radio talking about the Census, but I guess she just hasn’t received the same barrage since all her TV watching is recorded and she listens to NPR, while I spend most of my time watching and listening to sports and don’t skip commercials.

Look, I understand the Census is important. Population counts impact government funding, etc., etc.

The government is doing the best it can to receive an accurate count, but at some point the spending is enough. Just imagine the cost in paper to send the letter stating the government is going to send the letter, it would have to be millions of dollars. That doesn’t even include the postage, unless the Postal System cuts the Census office a break, probably not the best idea when the postal service is losing money faster than the Federal Reserve can print it.

In a down economic time, when the government agencies throughout the nation are considering cutbacks, fighting over budgets and working to try to find any way to increase revenue, is it really in anyone’s best interest to brow beat the public into filling out a Census form?

As Kentucky’s government is considered cuts to the higher education and removing two much needed days in the yearly education of the state’s youth, it is irritating to see such a blatant waste of money.

You read stories all the time about government waste and inefficiency, but rarely does the issue show up in the mailbox. I had written off the commercials as just something that needed to be done for an accurate count, but now I believe that money could be have spent much better elsewhere, in fact it would have gone to better use just about anywhere else.

There had to have been a better way to inform people.

The government probably could have saved everybody some money if they had just given people a small tax break, $5 or $10, if they would send the Census form back in with their taxes. But, then again, that would be asking the government to act in an efficient manner, not exactly a strong suit.

Burton Speakman is news editor for the Daily Times. He can be reached by e-mail at bspeakman(at)glasgowdailytimes.com.

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