The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is in the news for claiming it has eliminated several Census Bureau surveys and that it will be reviewing others in turn. That may do some good. But how about the US government takes a much bigger step and limits the Census Bureau to conducting the one and only census task provided for in the United States Constitution — a once every ten years census that would take about ten seconds for each person in America to answer?
The Constitution calls for a census to be conducted every ten years to determine how many people live in each state. The stated purpose is to aid in making the determination of how many House of Representatives members may be elected from each state. That’s it. The rest of the many nosey questions (such as those in the American Community Survey that come with threats of fines for failing to truthfully answer every one) that census takers bombard people with, have no foundation in the Constitution. Nix them. Answers to those questions are none of the government’s business anyway.
