John Sciacca Writes...

You don't have to be an economist to see that the government is spending money at a pace rivaling the water flow of Niagara falls. Except instead of wherever all that Niagara water is coming from, you and I are the not-so endless revenue stream. And whether you agree with the bank, housing and auto bail-outs or the trillions of dollars for whatever the new health care reform bill means (my insurance rates will go down, right? Right?!?), it's obvious that if anyone ran their own business the way the government did, we'd all be in line for some money handouts.

Yesterday, I experienced a massive case of just flat-out government spending waste. And I'm not talking about some contractror ripping Uncle Sam off for $600 toilets or $300 wrenches, I'm talking about the Census.

By now, you should have received your Census 2010 forms. I got mine last week, spent 5 minutes and filled the thing out and returned it in the pre-paid envelope. (Did it strike anyone else as kind of odd/sad that the first ethnicity question is about Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?) Then, yesterday, a Census worker came to my house. The forms haven't even been out a week, and here is already someone following up. So, I stopped him and said I'd already filled out my form, thanks. But he said that they are doing a double-check, going around to people's homes to take down the information. "Don't worry, you won't be double counted!" (I wasn't worry; count me 5 times for all I care.)

So they paid to print the forms, paid to mail the forms, and paid to have the forms mailed back to them. Then they are paying this (and obviously many other) Jabroni some inflated hourly rate (I believe it is $15/hour) to go around and do it all over again. And, this guy was s-l-o-w. We left to run some errands (re: an entire day of going back and forth to take this massive amount of yard debris to the dump), and in 3 hours he hadn't moved 300 yards from my house.

Wouldn't it make FAR more sense to wait a month or so, see what households didn't return their forms, and then target those individuals? Or just have someone counting the people going into Wal-Marts around the country and use some fantabulous math formula to extrapolate nationwide results? Of course, that's small business thinking, and I can't just ask my fellow Americans for more money when I run out. Or can I......? (evil laugh.....)