Census count diminishes citizenship ~ By Tom Tancredo

From WorldNetDaily

By Tom Tancredo Posted: October 31, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 A funny thing happened on the way to the 2010 census. A United States senator stood up and said the next census will be a fraud on the American people. Louisiana Sen. David Vitter set off a firestorm recently when he introduced an amendment proposing that the upcoming census ask respondents if they are U.S. citizens, and if not, if they are here as Legal Permanent Residents. Under his amendment, the census would count all persons, but illegal aliens, tourists, foreign students or other temporary visitors would not be included for the purpose of the congressional apportionment or divvying up federal funds. This seems like common sense to most Americans, but in fact, illegal aliens and millions of others here on a temporary basis have traditionally been included in the census count. This was not a big problem in past decades while those numbers were small, but today, we have over 30 million persons in the country who are neither citizens nor Legal Permanent Residents ("green card holders"). Counting these millions of non-citizens as equal to citizens for all census purposes seriously distorts our nation's politics and government. How so? States with high numbers of illegal aliens profit by gaining more congressional seats and more federal grant monies. This creates a perverse incentive for states to attract illegal aliens to increase their clout in Congress and their share of federal funds. By the same token, states with laws discouraging illegal aliens from taking up residence are penalized by losing representation in Congress. In September, Sens. Bennett, Enzi and others proposed a new law to fix the problem, the Fairness in Representation Act, but the Democrats who control the Senate have not allowed a hearing on the proposal. The New York Times called the proposal for redoing the questionnaire for the 2010 census "ridiculously expensive." But curiously, they don't object to the Census Bureau's $300 million dollar campaign to encourage illegal aliens and other non-citizens to participate in the census. Nor do they object to the extra money spent for bilingual forms, Spanish language public service announcements and funds given to far-left groups to set up "Census Information Centers." Can you say, ACORN Walking Around Money? [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]