In my field of work, I keep politics outside. It is not appropriate and it is not fair for me to bring politics into the workplace.

Recently, I have had several customers talk about their disdain for the government takeover of health care and also the commercials promoting the Census. While there is certain temptation for me to get into conversation with everyone about these issues, I find this blog to be a better avenue for discussion.

I recall writing an article in 2000 about the Census, calling it "senseless." A google news search now reveals a lot of sources calling it the same in 2010. I am often irritated by the commercials that are played in every town in the United States. They proclaim that it is important to send your form in right away to ensure that your town gets its "fair share" of funding from the federal government. Not only do they have goofy actors doing their bidding, but politicians (i.e. I have seen the Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin on television) as well.

Let's look at the idea of "Fair Share" for a moment. The Census recognizes 25375 "places" in the United States. Places consist of towns, cities, villages, etc. If every one of these places got a "fair share" of $1000, that would be $25,375,000 in "fair share" spread around. Tell me how a country that is trillions in debt can give a fair share of that amount? Of course $1000 for a city like Manchester NH would amount to "only" a penny per person. So it's not even realistic.

To me, it is a total outrage. The intend of the Census is not to find out how many toilets you have in your house. It's not even to find out how many males, females, whites, Hispanics, African-Americans, etc live in your house. It was put together to count people, simply people, in an effort to appropriate US House seats. There very well may be 120,000 PEOPLE living in Manchester NH in 2010. That's all that matters for Congressional representation.

I hope to see a continued outrage at the way the Census is being administered. I hope to see people fill out one question - how many people live in your household. That's it. Nothing more. I also hope to see a stop to the millions being spent on "crafty" commercials trying to entice people nationwide to get their "fair share." Remember, your fair share takes away from my fair share and my fair share takes away from your fair share. So let's be truly fair and cut the mess out with this entire bogus concept put forth by our federal government when it comes to the senseless Census.

Cameron