Most of us have received a notice that we will soon receive the government-administered 2010 census form in the mail. Surely, you’ve seen the commercial with the “catchy” rap about how “we can’t move forward until you send it back.”
Surprisingly, the census has picked up quite a few famous sponsors from NASCAR driver Greg Biffle to the popular children’s cartoon character Dora the Explorer, who now has a public service announcement regarding the survey.
As silly as it seems, though, some Republicans are actually urging their followers not to fill out the forms. Why is the right wing so paranoid? They claim the census is an invasion of privacy and even had the audacity to bother Congress with these irrational notions. Luckily, there are more sane people in Congress than not, and the majority recognized that this concern is irrelevant.
The census simply acts as a survey. It encompasses only 10 questions which ask citizens about their demographic information.
The information sent in is only available to the Census Bureau, at least until the year 2082 when, according to the Bureau director’s blog, the information will be released to genealogists.
Recently, information from the 1930 census has aided genealogists in completing family trees. The forms we send in will be scanned and saved in the National Archives so, in 72 years, our descendants can not only learn more about where they came from, but they can also see our original hand writing.
Why is everyone’s participation in the 2010 census so important? The Census Bureau calls it “a snapshot of America.” It allows the government to accurately update statistics as well as determine how many seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Even more importantly, the government uses the statistics it receives from the census to determine where more than $400 billion of taxpayers’ money goes. This includes government institutions such as schools and hospitals. Filling out the form allows us to tell the government what we need in our local community.
The census doesn’t just help the government ration out funds. Information from the last census aided the Environmental Protection Agency in ceasing the practice of testing dangerous chemicals on children of low-income families in Florida. The people of this lobbyist group were able to get a petition signed by these low-income families, and a law was successfully passed against testing chemicals on children. (I can’t believe that was actually happening &mdash it’s sick.)
Similarly, there is a petition being filed now by the same group in an effort to lower noise in the San Francisco area. The group was, again, able to gather statistics in their favor from the 2000 census.
Since budgeting has become increasingly problematic for MSU, as we’re no longer receiving as much help from the government, the more of us who fill out the census and send it in, the better shot the university has at getting some of its funding back.
Since this year’s freshman class raised the student population to 18,000 students and next year’s freshman class is expected to be even larger, we could help the government assess how much money the university needs to accommodate so many incoming freshmen, as well as the existing student body. This could include building more dorms, expanding our parking lots, putting more shuttles on campus and hiring more professors.
As trivial as the census may seem, it is important that we all do our part to help out the community and therefore ourselves. In order to help the university and town of Starkville be more efficient in accommodating all of us, the government has to get an idea of how much the population has grown here as more and more students are choosing MSU each year.
Nora Donnelly is a sophomore majoring in communication. She can be contacted at [email protected].