Shocker: Census Becoming Complete Debacle

Imagine my shock to discover a $15 billion government-run boondoggle. Really bodes well when they're going to spend trillions herding us into government-run health care, doesn't it? They can't count the population, but they can administer health care for everyone? Good luck with that.

As the U.S. census nears its final stages, the government is preparing for possible debacles that could derail its $15 billion head count, from mass identity theft and lawsuits to homeowners who refuse to answer their doors.

Census Bureau documents, obtained by The Associated Press, underscore the highly fragile nature of the high-stakes population count before the government dispatches some 700,000 temporary workers to visit homes, beginning in May.

The preparedness efforts are not entirely new. Previous censuses had contingency plans in place, at least conceptually, and the Census Bureau has never failed to meet its constitutional mandate of delivering population counts by Dec. 31 each decennial year.

But this is the first time the Census has detailed - in 300 pages of internal documents released under the Freedom of Information Act - specific risks to the once-a-decade government count. It's part of the bureau's approach to handling threats that could undermine accuracy, omit large segments of the public or add to already ballooning costs.

This could have been avoided if the White House didn't politicize the whole thing, but no, the geniuses there thought they knew best. And now it's blown up in the face. But don't worry, they'll find scapegoats.

One document says the "No. 1 concern" could be a refusal by immigrants to participate.

Placing a cap on costs if immigrants try to evade the count, the response plan notes that a census worker will attempt to visit a home six times at most - or fewer, if a resident makes clear he won't cooperate - before the worker questions neighbors to get the information. If that fails, the Census Bureau will statistically impute data based on characteristics of neighboring households.

In 2000, imputation, a statistical method that was not part of previous court battles over statistical sampling, increased the U.S. population by 1.1 million, particularly among urban racial minorities who would have been missed by a head count. Census Bureau director Robert Groves has ruled out sampling but not other statistical methods.

When that fails, blame those mean old conservatives, a time-honored tradition.

Another risk being monitored by the Census Bureau is the possibility of a conservative boycott following recent rhetoric, including one blogger's threat to pull out a shotgun to scare away census workers. The White House condemned the remarks Tuesday, and the bureau said it remains on the lookout for signs of a boycott or other trouble. Conservatives who refuse to participate may also be counted by way of neighbor questioning or statistical imputation.

Oh, so now if people don't want to participate they'll find neighbors who know people are conservative and count them? I thought this was a non-political process?