The Census stopped being about mere demographics, congressional districts and presidential electors quite awhile ago -- it's now mostly about the money, as Mayor Tom Henry makes clear in remarks urging that every last person be counted:
“The U.S. Census is not only an important tool for demographics, but it is also critical for determining grants and funding for federal programs at the local level. For each person who is not counted, that is much-needed money for health and human service programs, job training, Title 1 education programs, transportation funding, agricultural grants and Housing and Urban Development grants that will not come to Fort Wayne,” said Mayor Henry. “Fort Wayne's Complete Count Committee will supplement the Census Bureau's advertising efforts by using the members' local connections of neighbor informing neighbor to result in every person being counted.”
Of course it is our money, taken to Washington and passed back to us minus waste, fraud, abuse and the costs of administration, but never mind that. The way the Obama administration is printing the stuff lately, we really, really, really don't want an undercount. In the 2000 Census, according to the Census Monitoring Board, it is estimated that Indiana was undercounted by about 27,000 people for a rate of 0.77 percent. I don't know how they make an estimate that precise, but who are we mere mortals to question the methods of the bureaucrat
