The Founding Fathers thought the Census important enough to mention high up in the Constitution, the fifth paragraph. They commanded an "actual Enumeration," a term that literalists insist means a physical headcount and rules such shortcuts as statistical sampling.
Although the 2010 Census actually started in January with workers going door-to-door in rural Alaska, the real work begins this week with 120 million forms being mailed out.
Filling out and returning the form is no great chore. It has been pared down to only 10 questions - name, address, phone number, age, gender, race and ethnicity, living arrangements and homeownership of the people living at that address.
At times various nefarious theories are floated about why the government wants this information, but it's actually simple and important - money and political power. The government uses per capita figures to apportion the more than $400 billion a year it spends on hospitals, schools, emergency services and roads and other public works.
The Census also determines how many seats in the U.S. House each state will have and the size of the districts they will represent. Fast-growing states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina stand to gain a seat. Texas may gain as many as four. Massachusetts, on the other hand, could lose one seat, maybe more.
Cooperating with the Census is a small enough civic obligation and, besides, we don't want to let down the Founding Fathers, do we?
