2013-05-31

Cato: It’s Illegal to Say ‘None of Your Damn Business’


The government’s troops are rallying behind the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. “After the House voted this month to defund a major part of the U.S. Census Bureau, the agency is taking the threat very seriously,” reports the Washington Times, “with its supporters in both business and government rallying to preserve the annual questionnaire.”
Wait. Who could be against the Census Bureau? Its constitutional charter is to enumerate citizens every ten years for the purpose of apportioning representation in Congress. This is a necessary and unremarkable administrative function.
Oh, wait—again. Government bloat is a law of gravity, and the Census Bureau does far, far more than count noses. Its American Community Survey has made the Census Bureau the research arm for the welfare/redistribution state and a source of corporate welfare in the form of demographic data about Americans.
So Census goes around asking people dozens of questions that have nothing to do with the agency’s constitutional purpose.

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