Before becoming President, Barack Obama was a "community organizer" who taught groups like ACORN a special type of math that would ensure their "fair share".
Like Henshaw, your venerable Daily Plunge host, Club Soda received a notice from the Census Bureau stating that the Bureau would soon invade my home with a form to fill out with such pertinent information as my race, gender and so on and so forth. As noted in Henshaw’s earlier post about the Census Bureau notification, it reads in part:
Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.
As with the Henshaw notice, the words “fair share” made an appearance on my notification form. I immediately picked up my copy of The Federalist Papers, which also includes The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and The Constitution, to see what the founders had to say about getting my “fair share”.
Shockingly, the phrase “fair share” does not make an appearance in either The Constitution or in any of the letters that constitute the founders’ defense of the new Constitution, The Federalist Papers. However, I did find some interesting notes about the census, its purpose and why the founders believed a census was a crucial element of the republic.
“As the accuracy of the census to be obtained by the Congress will necessarily depend, in a considerable degree, on the disposition, if not on the cooperation of the States,” wrote James Madison in Federalist No. 54, “it is of great importance that the States should feel as little bias as possible to swell or to reduce the amount of their numbers. Were their share of representation alone to be governed by this rule, they would have an interest in exaggerating their inhabitants. Were the rule to decide their share of taxation alone, a contrary temptation would prevail. By extending the rule to both objects, the State will have opposite interests which will control and balance each other and produce the requisite impartiality.”
With the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913, which established the personal income tax, these “opposite interests” – taxation versus representation – no longer applied. Now, the temptation to exaggerate essentially doubles with the added incentive for everyone to grab their “fair share” when it comes time for the Feds to dole out cash.
As Madison implied, without some type of counterbalance to ensure an accurate and unbiased census, corruption would taint the entire process as the states and various special-interest groups within those states would look for ways to make the numbers come out in their favor. This is fertile ground for ACORN-like groups that are not above filling out forms on behalf of dead people, movie stars and professional athletes in order to get their “fair share”.
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