Another Thing the Bush Administration Can't Do: Count

Written by: DFA Staff on Mar 8, 2008 11:15 AM EST

It might seem like a small thing, but the decennial census is one of the most important things the government does.  From McClatchy:

Census data is used to apportion congressional seats, as well as to calculate how much money states receive for subsidized school lunches, highway aid and a host of other federal programs dependent on income and other demographic data.

This being the computer age, the United States Census Bureau wanted to do the whole thing on handheld devices:

The new handheld devices would collect and manage data more efficiently and economically than legions of census-takers armed with pens and pads.

...

They would be used to verify addresses through global positioning software, collect data from households that did not mail back the census questionnaires, and manage a variety of information and tasks.

But, this being the Bush Administration, something went wrong along the way:

The hand-held mobile computers that are supposed to replace the pens and paper long used by census takers aren't working properly, and delays could send the cost from $600 million to as much as $2 billion.

Check out the full article at McClatchy.

Danny
Communications Director

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