Census Notice

[Rev22:17]

Donna,

Originally Posted by You

It got the letter yesterday too, thought I was receiving the actual census. Kind of a stupid waste of money and time, just send the form to fill out and return?

Yes, I had a similar reaction. I'm very busy, and I don't need my time wasted with superfluous mail that I have to open, read in order to figure out that it's not the census form, and put in the recycle pile.

And from the standpoint of waste, this wastes not only the cost of the postage but also the paper, the envelope, and the ink to print it and to mail it.

>> Doesn't our government aleady have enough deficit?

>> And couldn't the agency have sent the information in the letter with the actual census form?

Overall, I was more than a little ired.

Norm.

[Nurse Debra]

I agree that it was just another example of wasted money by the government. I am sure that it cost a lot more than this country can afford, especially at this time. At the end of the day that mailing resulted in no positive gain at a huge expense.

It just goes hand in hand with more than 3 million dollars that "we" spent on that ridiculous super bowl add saying nothing more than the census was coming. For me it shows just how inefficient the government really is in everything that it does.

Debra

[ToddDH]

Debra,

Along the same line as the $200,000 dollars of "Stimulus jobs money" that went to a state university to fund a study of how and why co-eds "hook up." Of course, no new jobs were created. Or I love the fact that if the new Health Care bill is approved, there is now an astronomical earmark attached as of I guess yesterday that now the Government (read American Taxpayer) will now be directly footing the entire cost of and administering all College Loans all of which will, of course, result in a whoe new humongous government beauracracy. I'm sure that must have something to do with Healthcare, but being an ingrnoant idiot, I've just yet to figure out how.

Todd

[hannibal]

I just found this in my local Illinois newspaper.

Q. The federal government recently mailed letters to households notifying residents of the census. How much did this cost the federal government? Were taxpayer dollars used for the mailing?

A. According to the Census Bureau, it cost $85 million — but should save about $500 million — by mailing letters to about 120 million addresses nationwide, notifying households that 2010 Census forms will be arriving Monday, March 15, to Wednesday, March 17.

The Census Bureau said research shows reaching out to respondents with an advance letter and reminder postcard if necessary can boost census mail-back rates and save money.

For every 1 percent increase in households that respond by mail, taxpayers save about $85 million in operational costs associated with census takers going door to door to follow up with households that did not mail back the form.

The 120 million households that receive both the advance letter and 2010 Census form by mail represent about 90 percent of all residential addresses in the country.

The one-page letter urges households to complete the 10-question census form when it arrives and to return it in the accompanying prepaid envelope as soon as possible. The 2010 Census form will be one of the shortest in U.S. history, taking about 10 minutes to complete.

The 2010 Census is a count of everyone living in the United States and is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Census data are used to apportion Congressional seats to states and to distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds to state and local governments each year.


The following is my opinion and was not in the newspaper article.
Remember the Census is mandated by the U.U. Constitution to count everyone living in the United States. It was never mandated that you have to answer all of the other questions that they will ask.

[Mean Dean]

Hannibal,

You may want to refer to my previous post on this topic.

While the Constitution requires only "enumeration", the laws passed by The Congress require citizens to fill out the census form entirely or face monetary penalty. (The monetary penalty being "Not more than $100.")

[Donna]

That's our government....

[hannibal]

This should clear it up.:confus ed::confus ed:

Enumeration as counting

Formally, the most inclusive definition of an enumeration of a set S is any surjection from an arbitrary index set I onto S. In this broad context, every set S can be trivially enumerated by the identity function from S onto itself. If one does not assume the axiom of choice or one of its variants, S need not have any well-ordering. Even if one does assume the axiom of choice, S need not have any natural well-ordering.
This general definition therefore lends itself to a counting notion where we are interested in "how many" rather than "in what order." In practice, this broad meaning of enumeration is often used to compare the relative sizes or cardinalities of different sets. If one works in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory without the axiom of choice, one may want to impose the additional restriction that an enumeration must also be injective (without repetition) since in this theory, the existence of a surjection from I onto S need not imply the existence of an injection from S into I.

[hannibal]

I got the notice that the census was coming, I got the census and sent that in, now I got another card asking me to send in the census or thanking me for sending in the census. That is 3 mailings to one household.

[Donna]

I also got the card the other day, had already mailed in the actual census. Seems like a lot of wasted time and $.

[Ron]

I rec'd my letter as stated like everyone else that the census form would be forthcoming. I rec'd the form, filled it out and dropped it in the mail ( it was pre-paid so I saved the cost of a stamp--that's a start--I was really impressed I could save the price of a stamp to help off set the several thousand dollars of taxes I have to fork over by 4-15 ) and then later rec'd a card advising I had to fill out the form, etc. etc. etc.
I would hazard to guess that when all's said and done with the mother-of-all-census reports, it will end up costing us taxpayers several hundred million, and the end result will be a " guesstimate " at best, which I could give them for free--- we have somewhere between 310 million and 340 million people in the U.S.--no one knows for sure nor will they ever know for sure.
I'm betting all the illegal aliens of all races, religions, nationalities , etc. have promptly and accurately filled out their forms and immediately sent them in!!
Right!!

[ToddDH]

We got the "follow up" card yesterday. Doesn't it just give you the "warm and fuzzys" to know our government cares so very much as to send the very best?

Todd

[Nurse Debra]

Originally Posted by ToddDH

Debra,

Along the same line as the $200,000 dollars of "Stimulus jobs money" that went to a state university to fund a study of how and why co-eds "hook up." Of course, no new jobs were created. Or I love the fact that if the new Health Care bill is approved, there is now an astronomical earmark attached as of I guess yesterday that now the Government (read American Taxpayer) will now be directly footing the entire cost of and administering all College Loans all of which will, of course, result in a whoe new humongous government beauracracy. I'm sure that must have something to do with Healthcare, but being an ingrnoant idiot, I've just yet to figure out how.

Todd

Todd, Keep on working at it and you will figure it out.

The new health care bill does have a 20% reduction in Medicare doctor's fees, but that was offset with a so-called doctor fix for several billion dollars in a "non-healthcare" related bill. So the education loan takeover as part of the health care takeover was to make everything even!!! Hope this clears everything up.

Now if some one could explain the procedure the government has just found to spend the same money twice. I could sure use that tip in my household budget.

Thanks to those who pointed out the penalty for not sending back the census form, as I had considered that option. But as long as the illegal aliens have all promised to send theirs in, I guess I better do the same.

Debra

[Fern]

We've had several "Letters to the Editor" in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from people who received the census addressed to the wrong city. For instance, people who live in Sherwood (close to NLR), had it addressed to them in North Little Rock (right zip, wrong city). There were several similar letters. They're all concerned that their community won't get the $$ allocated from the count by the government, and I don't blame them. The "official" replies have said that everything is A-OKAY, but who knows?

We also got the postcard a few days after we sent in the form. I don't know the reason for this "reminder" card. IMO, they're "preaching to the choir"! If someone is going to fill out the census they will, if they're not, a follow-up postcard isn't going to help !

[CruzNut]

On tonight's news here in Tampa, they spelled out what this all costs.

I, too, received the letter saying the census was coming, got census and returned, got the postcard - whoopee.

All this - plus the TV commercial and billboards - added up to 300 MILLION DOLLARS. All to SAVE having to pay $57 per person that would have to be contacted by someone coming to your home. And, by the way, they tell you to not let anyone IN YOUR HOME to do this count.

And, how is this going to count all the illegals or homeless, etc. who weren't on the receiving list of all this wasteful mail ... as if they would even fill out this kind of form cuz they know darn well that they could be sent back where they came from.

It's absolutely disgusting - as is all the other TRILLIONS of dollars that have been spent not only on this but so many other things. Where the heck do they think the monies are coming from??? We the taxpayers - who will soon get our taxes raised and/or incoming government monies cut - such as social security, medicare. 535 people decide how to spend the money of 300,000,000+ people's money. Time to vote the incumbents out - all parties - do it November 2. It shouldn't be a lifetime job and super income for them. And, health and pension benefits that none of us can touch.

[Rev22:17]

Everybody,

Didn't y'all read the instructions on the census form???

The instructions say to fill out the form as of 01 April 2010.

How can you possibly know that some unforeseen circumstance won't cause a change in your situation between now and 01 April 2010?

In reality, none of us know for sure that we have even another ten minutes left on the face of this planet. If any of us die before 01 April 2010, the answers that we would put on the form now are in fact wrong, and will require correction.

We also cannot discount the possibility that some sort of emergency might create a situation in which somebody else might be living in our residence, or we might be living elsewhere, even if only temporarily, on that date. Sadly, peoples' homes do burn down, and it's also possible that an accident or a stroke could institutionalize any of us.

So my form is tentatively completed, but it's sitting on the counter in my kitchen in case some unforeseen development creates a need for correction. When I will know with certainty that the information is correct, (that is, on 02 April), I will mail it.

Norm.

[ToddDH]

CruzNut,

I'm sorry, but IMHO, things are literally far far worse than most Americans can imagine.

I want to stress right here, that the blame for what is happening up to the passage of the recent healthcare legislation is the fault of both major political parties. Anyone who wishes to even put in an hour's worth of research will quickly realize that as horrendous as it is, the current financial situation of the U.S. is a joke compared to the frightening disaster which must soon occur.

In the very near future, regardless of any possibly dramatic increases in healthcare costs to the average American (whether that be increased taxes (yes, even on those making less than 250,000 dollars a year), increased costs for goods and services as a result of increased taxes on business and industry or drastic cuts in Medicare services) Amercia is as of today facing in the near future ... I suggest someone take a very deep breath here... unfunded mandates impacting existing Social Security Retirement benefits as well as Medicare that will total over forty TRILLION dollars!

What's unbelievable is the annual funding (you know, all that money that comes out of your payroll check for FICA meant to support Social Security Retirement), probably the one single most important entitlement for our seniors, has been switched to something else, well a lot of somethings else, such as earmarks (pork), etc. And you actually believed that this was the money that you were contributing to assisting you in retirement.

In short, while the politico's have voted "increases for our retired citizens" they knew all along that there was no way to pay not only for those increases but they were actually taking the mandated funding intended to keep our Social Security solvent, period!

It is so unnecessary and so very sad. Our government over the past decades, in its zeal to be everything to everyone, has incredibly not given a thought to how it was ever going to pay for all it's largesse. Now, the same elected officials after which we name public buildings, whom we honor with public statues (and will undoubtedly continue to do), have in effect, unquestionably made the most destructive decisions when it comes to the economy of the United States.

I don't know about you CruzNut, but I am so disgusted and depressed that I'm ashamed to admit I'm glad I won't be around when the whole house of cards collapses, as it must unless some brave soul takes a huge meat cleaver to government debt, which of course IS NOT going to happen.

Todd

[Ron]

Nothing to do put pay up--can't fight something so big and out of control as our public " servants " in the brain center of the world, Wash. D.C. !

On the local front last year we had an 18 % increase in water rates --get this--our water company is owned by a company in -----Germany!! More good news! This year they're announcing a rate increase of 37%--that's on top of last years raise. Guess we'll give new meaning to the word funky--as in not bathing nor washing clothes too often.
The electric co. ( I don't know who owns them--maybe some monks from outer Mongolia ) has hopped on the band wagon with an increase of 11 % due to start about the time the A/C has to be turned on, and you can bet they'll be back next year for some more. And, my dear friends, so it goes.
Everyone should be a politician so we all could be wealthy, work little, travel at others expense and scorn the little guy, then retire with a huge pension and benefits fit for a member of Congress!!
But I'm going on two more cruises this year before they completely break me !!

[Nurse Debra]

I agree with the above posters 100%. The only answer is to vote all of them out. If ever there was undeniable evidence for term limits the time is certainly now!!

The only chance this country has to recover is to be informed and get out and vote this November.

Debra

[venice]

the power of the vote is under utilized by so many Americans, and yet we complain..in the most recent election for mayor in new orleans less than 20% of the eligible voters actually voted

i would suspect in the last presidential election, less then 50% of eligible voters actually casted a ballot

what does this say about us ?

[ToddDH]

Venice,

Not much, that's for sure!

As I'm fond of saying, whether or not I agree, I'll listen to your complaints BUT ONLY IF YOU VOTE! If you don't, you have no leg to stand on.

Problem is, in some areas it's now forbidden for poll workers to actually ask to see a voter's registration card! Incredible? Maybe, but it's a fact.

Todd

[CruzNut]

Originally Posted by ToddDH

CruzNut,

Originally Posted by ToddDH

I'm sorry, but IMHO, things are literally far far worse than most Americans can imagine.

I want to stress right here, that the blame for what is happening up to the passage of the recent healthcare legislation is the fault of both major political parties. Anyone who wishes to even put in an hour's worth of research will quickly realize that as horrendous as it is, the current financial situation of the U.S. is a joke compared to the frightening disaster which must soon occur.

In the very near future, regardless of any possibly dramatic increases in healthcare costs to the average American (whether that be increased taxes (yes, even on those making less than 250,000 dollars a year), increased costs for goods and services as a result of increased taxes on business and industry or drastic cuts in Medicare services) Amercia is as of today facing in the near future ... I suggest someone take a very deep breath here... unfunded mandates impacting existing Social Security Retirement benefits as well as Medicare that will total over forty TRILLION dollars!

What's unbelievable is the annual funding (you know, all that money that comes out of your payroll check for FICA meant to support Social Security Retirement), probably the one single most important entitlement for our seniors, has been switched to something else, well a lot of somethings else, such as earmarks (pork), etc. And you actually believed that this was the money that you were contributing to assisting you in retirement.

In short, while the politico's have voted "increases for our retired citizens" they knew all along that there was no way to pay not only for those increases but they were actually taking the mandated funding intended to keep our Social Security solvent, period!

It is so unnecessary and so very sad. Our government over the past decades, in its zeal to be everything to everyone, has incredibly not given a thought to how it was ever going to pay for all it's largesse. Now, the same elected officials after which we name public buildings, whom we honor with public statues (and will undoubtedly continue to do), have in effect, unquestionably made the most destructive decisions when it comes to the economy of the United States.

I don't know about you CruzNut, but I am so disgusted and depressed that I'm ashamed to admit I'm glad I won't be around when the whole house of cards collapses, as it must unless some brave soul takes a huge meat cleaver to government debt, which of course IS NOT going to happen.

Todd

Guess I wasn't clear enough - I completely agree with you and am extremely scared of what's happening to our country.

I also agree with Nurse Debra re term limits BUT you know that's not going to happen because why would congress give up all the goodies they have? We the people can't initiate that without at least 2 senators and 2 representatives submitting it in a bill. The ONLY thing we can do is VOTE (and I always do because I consider it a great privilege to have that freedom) - VOTE the incumbents out (all of the house members are up for reelection this November - that's 435) and 1/3 of the senate is also up for reelection.

[ToddDH]

CruzNut,

My apologies, I'm the one who wasn't clear. I understood you completely. When I wrote, "I'm sorry......." I should have added "for the American people."

Todd

[Nurse Debra]

Originally Posted by ToddDH

Venice,

Not much, that's for sure!

As I'm fond of saying, whether or not I agree, I'll listen to your complaints BUT ONLY IF YOU VOTE! If you don't, you have no leg to stand on.

Problem is, in some areas it's now forbidden for poll workers to actually ask to see a voter's registration card! Incredible? Maybe, but it's a fact.

Todd

I agree with Todd and Cruznut about the mess the current party in power has left us with the healthcare debt piled upon the USA, while at the same time totally ignoring the will of the people. Suddenly the leaders of this county seem to have taken on some kind of a supreme visionary attitude that they have been empowered to know what is best for all of the people. Obama said not to look at the process as to how this bill was passed, but IMHO the process used to be called Democracy! There certainly would be a different name for what the "process" was for this bill.

For sure, the seeds for this government takeover of healthcare and various businesses in the US were planted a long time ago, by both parties.

I think the idea of it being somehow wrong to see a voters registration card or ID is from radical the fans of socialist type government like ACORN, move-on, ACLU...

One of the posters on this board includes the quote that says "Socialism is great until the other guy's money is gone".
I could not agree more with that one!!!

Debra

[Manuel]

Are we still on Cruisemates or is this a political forum

I for one prefer to discuss cruises over politics.

TM

[hannibal]

I agree Manuel, especially after an 8 year stint by a person who sent this country down the crapper.

[CruzNut]

Originally Posted by hannibal

I agree Manuel, especially after an 8 year stint by a person who sent this country down the crapper.

Hannibal - now who's getting political!!!

Watch out for when you and the rest of us taxpayers have to pay the multi-trillion dollar bill.

[Manuel]

This is the only politics anybody needs.

I was told this many years ago by my great uncle.

Work hard, save some money out of every paycheck and things will work out for you.
I did that and today I am 63 years old, retired and doing ok. The political BS will allways be here but that is not my job to worry about. I served in the US ARMY, did a tour in Vietnam, and now I plan our vacations and do the best I can to take care of my family, and that is as political as I am going to get.
In a few days I wiil be getting ready for the Oasis cruise.

TM

[thecruisequeen]

Originally Posted by Manuel

I was told this many years ago by my great uncle.

Work hard, save some money out of every paycheck and things will work out for you.
TM

TM your great uncle must be related to my parents....

Saving from each and every paycheck adds up rather quickly.
Mom and Dad always told me work, work, work, save, save, save.
My mom's favorite words are...bank and deposit.

[Manuel]

Originally Posted by thecruisequeen

.
Mom and Dad always told me work, work, work, save, save, save.
My mom's favorite words are...bank and deposit.

That is the same thing that my parents would say.

TM