What exactly does the Census Bureau spend $982 million on?

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 15 Januari 2015 | 18.18

Now that The Post has assisted the Census Bureau in fixing problems it was having gathering honest economic data, we'd like to help some more.

So this week, we are asking for information on how the Census Bureau spends the millions of dollars given to it each year by taxpayers.

We are requesting, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), details on no-bid contracts given out by Census. I'm told some of these contracts are called "pass through" contracts, which means that higher-ups don't need to sign off on them.

The Post's lawyers filed the FOIA request this week.

The Commerce Department oversees Census, which conducts vital surveys for many government agencies. As my readers already know, I've been investigating quality breaches in Census data for the past year.

Now, I want to know about the money. According to Commerce, in 2014, "the Census Bureau request[ed] appropriations for domestic discretionary spending totaling $982.5 million."

That's a whole lot of dough being spent on someone's whim. And that is just part of what Census spends each year.

Since we don't want to overburden the redactors at Commerce, we are requesting only contracts given out over the last seven years through the Philadelphia and Chicago regions of Census. There are six regions in all, but we'll leave the other four alone for now.

Why Chicago? You might remember that the Chicago regional director — who was apparently tight with Illinois politicians — was "removed" from his job late last year. And Census won't tell us why.

So we'd like to take a look at how Chicago is spending taxpayer money.

The Philadelphia region is where we caught someone cheating on data collection — an event that has led to congressional and Inspector General investigations. The probes resulted in reforms despite the fact that Commerce "obstructed" the Congress probe.

Philly is also where two inspectors were caught falsifying expense reports, a case that almost led to jail terms before the gods of leniency inexplicably blessed the culprits. And it's where a bunch of computers suddenly went MIA right before the last presidential election.

I hear there might already be a surprise audit going on in Philly.

We'd also like to see if there are any more deals like the one that gives the University of Maryland millions of dollars a year — plus tuition payments — despite the fact that a whistle-blower (the person in charge of the contract) has told Commerce that the deal was inappropriate. The former head of Census used to teach at the school.

What are we looking for?

Everything: possible cushy deals with social service organizations that are being back-doored money through Census, inappropriate bonuses that discretion says shouldn't have been given, and questionable internships.

I can see the stone walls going up already.


One of the biggest bitcoin marketplaces — Bitstamp — closed down a few weeks ago because of a supposed security breach. And this dealt a major blow to the so-called cryptocurrency.

It's a shame because this came right after supporters of the currency sponsored the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl, a Florida college football event, and I was oh-so-close to becoming a believer.

Bitcoin tokensPhoto: AP

I would have written about Bitstamp sooner, but I've been busy with important stuff like interviewing Atlantic City strippers and teasing p.r. people. But I'm on the case now.

In the event you aren't aware of what bitcoin is — it's a fake currency that is "mined" on computers by people who are trying to convince us that someday money as we know it will disappear and digital currencies like bitcoin will take its place.

And some people already believe — although bitcoin is now trading at only a fraction of the $1,150 it was fetching in 2013. The value dropped sharply on the Bitstamp announcement and continued to fall this week, dropping 15 percent on Tuesday and 21 percent on Wednesday.

I'm going to (again) get a lot of grief from bitcoin supporters, so let me say something to head them off. Just as soon as I spend all the "My Little Pony" money I accumulated in the 1980s, I promise that I will give bitcoin a try.



And now for the scam of all scams: the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank's dogged campaign to keep the stock market bubble inflated.

Any time stocks weaken — as they have for most of this month — someone from the Fed or ECB talks about keeping interest rates low forever. This is what is politely called "verbal intervention."

The reason they are doing this, of course, is clear. With the world economy in the crapper, the last thing governments need is for the stock market to get a dose of reality.

So far, this manipulation has worked nicely. But someday it won't.

And I wonder if the names of the Fed governors who are going to make these market-pleasing statements are picked out of a hat?

Or do they do it whenever they need their personal stock portfolio to bounce a bit?

Maybe they should invest in bitcoin instead.


Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

What exactly does the Census Bureau spend $982 million on?

Dengan url

http://makananrasaenak.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-exactly-does-census-bureau-spend.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

What exactly does the Census Bureau spend $982 million on?

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

What exactly does the Census Bureau spend $982 million on?

sebagai sumbernya

0 komentar:

Posting Komentar

techieblogger.com Techie Blogger Techie Blogger