The Census Is Wasting Millions of Dollars

Okay, so it’s probably not a surprise, but Yahoo! Finance is reporting that the upcoming release of an audit of the census’ costs in 2010 show the costs ran over. According to the article,

While the project finished ahead of schedule, Census director Robert Groves in October acknowledged the costs had ballooned $88 million higher than the original estimate of $356 million, an overrun of 25 percent. He cited faulty assumptions in the bureau’s cost estimates.

Let’s assume this was the private sector and a company ran costs over by 25%. Wouldn’t the business have to take the losses without complaining, or risk a lawsuit by the customer? In this case, the government is taking the losses, but of course those losses are backstopped by the American taxpayer. Fortunately, the article offers a number of solutions (emphasis mine)-

Because the population count, done every 10 years, is used to distribute U.S. House seats and billions in federal aid, many states are pushing for all-out government efforts in outreach since there is little margin for error — particularly for Democratic-leaning minorities and the poor, who tend to be undercounted. At the same time, the national headcount will employ 1 million temporary workers and is the most expensive ever, making it a visible sign of rising government spending.

Allow me to make a statement before offering my ideas: The fact that the census is the most expensive ever is probably not a big deal. It is to be expected, because our population is rising, though I have to wonder- what with the popularity of the Internet- if the census could be partially done online, saving massive costs. However, that is mostly beside the point.

The solution to backstopping the American taxpayer is simple- every state and federal official, as well as any non-governmental activist and advocacy groups, pushing for the census to be so widespread it is losing money should pay for the extra costs personally. Or, better yet, have those organizations and people volunteer their time to go to the inner cities and minority areas where undercounting is alleged and take care of the census issues personally. Conservative, liberal, moderate, Socialist, Fascist, whatever- if the organization or individual is pushing for efforts beyond what the census has done before, those people should cover the costs that go over the expectations.

It is well-established that the census is necessary, and of course it has to be done by the government to ensure (allegedly, that is) that the process is fair and unbiased. With the push for illegal immigrants to be counted in this year’s census, however, and the change in prisoner address policy, private citizens need to keep an eye on what’s going on, and demand that not only are costs reigned in, but that those organizations which influence the census’ policies pay for the costs of said influences.