U.S. Census...the bidding war has started. I bid $20.00 per person. Do I hear $15.00?

----- Original Message -----

From: link removed

To: link removed

Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 9:56 AM

Subject: FW: This guy nails it

 

Robert M. Groves, Director, U.S. Census Bureau Washington, DC March 10, 2010 Dear Mr. Groves: Thank you for your kind letter of March 8th telling me  that you will be sending me a Census form in about a week. It made me wonder, do you also send your employees emails giving them a “heads up” that you’ll be sending them future emails? I will have plenty of time to wait in eager anticipation of your census, as I am currently unemployed. Since you are into numbers, you might be interested in knowing that 4 million Americans have become unemployed over the last 18 months or so. That’s a lot of people waiting for your census! Of course not every job market is suffering; the government has added about 55,000 jobs during this same timeframe! That stimulus bill has really done a number on us, hasn’t it? I know this is a really busy time for you, but perhaps you will humor me by answering a few survey questions: •How does it cost $14 BILLION to count 350 million people?  That’s $40 per person. Oh, and why did you give  this out to a private company under a no bidding contract?

 I’ll count everyone in my town for $25 per person. Please send me $250,000 and I’ll send you back the
information (care to guess how many people live in Groton?).I’m also willing to do a few surrounding towns if you want.
•Are you really hiring 800,000 people to conduct this count?
Is this really just a government plot to temporarily reduce the
unemployment figures for two months? Each new hire only has to
count 437.5 people—I could do that in one morning and be
done!
•Why did you think you needed a Super Bowl ad to tell people about
the Census? Never mind, I guess that’s obvious since you think you
need to send me a letter to tell me that you’re going to send me a
letter.

•Is it true that every person identified could be “worth” $1,000
in Federal government aid, prompting cities and counties to aggressively
seek out and count illegal residents in their area?
•How many Acorn activists are working on the Census? Are you
comfortable hiring people from an organization that is facing charges of
voter registration fraud?
•The census only has 10 questions, so why are two of them focused
on race? Instead of asking me if I’m Hispanic and THEN asking my
race, you could pretty much just add Hispanic to the race
question.¿Entiendes?
Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate your letter. It is a stark reminder of
how wacky and over-blown our government has become. I only wish
you were doing this survey in October so we’d be even more energized for
the November elections, if that is possible.
Good luck with your census—we’re all counting on you!
Chuck McKinney
Groton, MA