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Political foo: The Census
Mar. 9th, 2010 07:54 amThe thing that strikes me about this letter, just like the commercials I've seen, is that it says that it's important to fill out the census form so that your neighborhood can get its "fair share" of government programs.
This is not what the census is for.
According to The Constitution, the reason we have a Constitutionally mandated census every ten years is to allocate representation in the House of Representatives. Districts are redesigned and new ones may be created in order that the population as a whole is equally represented in our "lower" House.
The federal government may also use this data in order to send money to people, but this is not the intended purpose of the census and has nothing to do with why we have to redo it every ten years.
On that note, I really like this idea and think I will do it. Let's all be Americans.
This is not what the census is for.
According to The Constitution, the reason we have a Constitutionally mandated census every ten years is to allocate representation in the House of Representatives. Districts are redesigned and new ones may be created in order that the population as a whole is equally represented in our "lower" House.
The federal government may also use this data in order to send money to people, but this is not the intended purpose of the census and has nothing to do with why we have to redo it every ten years.
On that note, I really like this idea and think I will do it. Let's all be Americans.
