Nevada Works Hard To Count People
It's Census time once again. Every 10 years as mandated by the U.S. Constitution.
Nevada is in the same position as every state in the Union, count as many people as you can to get increased representation in Congress and more federal dollars. Illegal or not, count the people who live there and they give the state more power at the federal level. Right or wrong, them's the rules. It wasn't always like that, in fact it was never designed by the Constitution to be like this where states are rewarded for having more residents than another state.
When the Census was established under the Constitution there were two purposes, in no particular order:
1) Count people for Congressional Representation and the Electoral College system. Individuals were important in this new government and that mattered deeply to the Founders (we still have this system in place).
2) Taxation (this is long gone). The second is the main topic of this column. Taxation. At the time the new united states were deep in dept from the Revolution and the new federal government needed the cash to pay the bill. States were taxed based on their population. If you had more people, you paid more money. Fewer people, less money. It was a very simple system and provided perfect BALANCE for the states. Balance is the key word here. The Founders were brilliant in knowing that this would provide a system where by the states would have no motivation to count as many people as possible. More people meant you paid more taxes, but got more representation in Congress. Balance.
1913 changed everything. The federal government changed from the system of state taxation to individual taxation (you know, the April 15th thing). Not sure if these consequences were intended, or even known at the time, but it doesn't really matter, those folks are all gone now, we are living it right here, right now. Now the balance is gone. There is only motivation to count as many people as possible and get more representatives in Congress and more Electoral power in the 2012 presidential election.
The Founders were brilliant in their understanding of the balance the Census would bring, but those days are long gone, we are now in an era where the state that does the best job to bring as many people in from Who-Knows-Where, becomes the "winner". Citizenship is not an issue, count people once, count people again, and count them again, just to make sure. Somehow I think we all become the losers in the long run with the balance being a thing of the distant past.
Nevada is in the same position as every state in the Union, count as many people as you can to get increased representation in Congress and more federal dollars. Illegal or not, count the people who live there and they give the state more power at the federal level. Right or wrong, them's the rules. It wasn't always like that, in fact it was never designed by the Constitution to be like this where states are rewarded for having more residents than another state.
When the Census was established under the Constitution there were two purposes, in no particular order:
1) Count people for Congressional Representation and the Electoral College system. Individuals were important in this new government and that mattered deeply to the Founders (we still have this system in place).
2) Taxation (this is long gone). The second is the main topic of this column. Taxation. At the time the new united states were deep in dept from the Revolution and the new federal government needed the cash to pay the bill. States were taxed based on their population. If you had more people, you paid more money. Fewer people, less money. It was a very simple system and provided perfect BALANCE for the states. Balance is the key word here. The Founders were brilliant in knowing that this would provide a system where by the states would have no motivation to count as many people as possible. More people meant you paid more taxes, but got more representation in Congress. Balance.
1913 changed everything. The federal government changed from the system of state taxation to individual taxation (you know, the April 15th thing). Not sure if these consequences were intended, or even known at the time, but it doesn't really matter, those folks are all gone now, we are living it right here, right now. Now the balance is gone. There is only motivation to count as many people as possible and get more representatives in Congress and more Electoral power in the 2012 presidential election.
The Founders were brilliant in their understanding of the balance the Census would bring, but those days are long gone, we are now in an era where the state that does the best job to bring as many people in from Who-Knows-Where, becomes the "winner". Citizenship is not an issue, count people once, count people again, and count them again, just to make sure. Somehow I think we all become the losers in the long run with the balance being a thing of the distant past.
posted by Ron Futrell at
2:58 PM
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