Census count vital part of our American system

It's only a couple of months until census forms will be mailed out to everyone in the United States and Puerto Rico, asking 10 simple questions:

1. How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?

2. Were there any additional people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question1?

3. Is this house or mobile home: (Four additional choices about owning or renting the home).

4. What is your telephone number? (Called in case Census didn't understand an answer.)

5. Please provide information for each person living here: (First and last names, starting with the resident who owns or lives there, Person 1).

6. What is Person 1's sex?

7. What is Person 1's age and what is Person 1's date of birth?

8. Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?

9. What is Person 1's race?

10. Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else?

And that's it. Return the form, and you probably won't hear from the Census Bureau again. Fail to return it and you'll probably receive a visit from a Census worker attempting to make this decade's count as accurate as possible.

Mandated by the Constitution, and taking place every decade since 1790, the census is guaranteed to be confidential by Title 13, U.S. Code, Section 9 of the Constitution.

All Census Bureau employees, including the Census workers who collect the information, have taken an oath of confidentiality and are subject to a jail term, fine or both for disclosing any information that could identify a respondent or household. The confidentiality extends to prohibitions against sharing information with other government agencies.

The Census directly affects how more than $300 billion in federal and state funding for neighborhood improvements, public health, education, transportation and much more, more than $3 trillion over a 10-year-period.

It also affects our representation in Congress, state and local government. Local governments, as well, need the data to make informed decisions.

We have to take issue with the message of some of the public service announcement that emphasize how an accurate census count is needed for us to receive the funding we need to educate our children, for example.

The PSA's emphasize dependence on the government, something that should stick in the craw of the self-sufficient. The message is not, "How can we take care of our own children?", "How can we make education more effective for our communities?", or "How can we make the local educational system more responsive to our childrens' needs?", but "How can we get more taxpayer money out of Washington?"

Nevertheless, that is the system that is in place, and filling out the census questionnaire is an important civic duty that we should all perform.