And the answer is...No!

And if they did, America wouldn't even know it. Take a look at the above chart. Paul Krugman then writes:

But the political argument against focusing on the deficit is even stronger than he realizes — because there are very good odds that even if Obama exhibited iron fiscal discipline, voters wouldn’t notice. There’s a remarkable, depressing paper by Achen and Bartels that includes an analysis of voter views of the deficit in 1996 — by which time the huge deficit that Bill Clinton inherited had been drastically reduced.

Yep: after one of the biggest moves toward budget balance in history, a majority of Republicans, and a plurality of all voters, believed that deficits had increased.

Not to put too fine a point on it: if Obama succeeded in reducing the deficit, would Fox News or the Washington Times report it? The truth is that the truth about budgets plays almost no role in real politics.

Bill Clinton actually reduced the deficit and Americans thought just the opposite and that was before FOX News had existed. Ask any of your friends that are deficit scolds this simple question. How is the deficit hurting their life? Ask them to give you real examples. They can't. It's fiction created by Grover Norquist and his conservatives cronies to tear down anything that has to do with the left. I'm not dismissing the deficit, but it's beyond belief the nonsense America believes about it.

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Glenn Beck devoted a long rant last night to his contention that the U.S. Census Bureau shouldn't be counting what he blithely calls "illegal aliens" -- i.e., undocumented immigrants.

But his argument -- that we shouldn't be counting people who can't vote -- doesn't merely cut against the undocumented. It cuts against all immigrants -- who, by definition, are also already non-citizens.

Moreover, the Census Bureau isn't charged with accurately counting the number of citizens living within the United States -- it's charged with counting the entire population.

What Beck wants Census to do -- that is, to exclude non-citizens from its count -- is in direct violation of its charter, which is to count the population whole:

The Census Bureau does not ask about legal (migrant) status of respondents in any of its survey and census programs. As examples, in the decennial census, the American Community Survey, and Current Population Survey as there is no legislative mandate to collect this information. Given the success of Census 2000 in counting nearly every person residing in the United States, we expect that unauthorized migrants were included among people who indicated that the United States was their usual place of residence on the survey date. The foreign-born population includes naturalized U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, temporary migrants (e.g., foreign students), humanitarian migrants (e.g., refugees), and unauthorized migrants (people illegally present in the United States).

Beck would have the Census omit not just unauthorized migrants, but also lawful permanent residents, humanitarian migrants, and foreign-born residents here legally.

Of course, he's arguing for this because he believes counting the undocumented will give the eeeeevil SEIU more power in its quest for total global domination or something like that. You have to watch the video to get it all, and even then it never quite holds together, much less make sense.

PFAW:

There are many unanswered questions about the tragic hanging death of Bill Sparkman, a US Census Bureau employee, in rural Kentucky. But one thing is clear. Right-Wing leaders like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and media outlets like Fox News have whipped up hysteria and paranoia over the 2010 Census.

Mr. Sparkman's untimely demise may or may not have been the doing of an anti-government fanatic, but it’s clear that the Right is creating an environment that is hostile to Census workers and the Constitutionally-mandated Census.

A steady stream of conspiracy talk by Beck, Bachmann, and others on Fox News has legitimized and propelled conspiracy theories among many everyday Americans who are now terrified of their own government. Talk of rounding up dissidents into concentration camps and nefarious plots by ACORN to steal Congress has fed anti-government sentiment, which could boil over at any moment.

This should be an important wake-up call to those national outlets that have employed fear in pursuit of ratings.

It's amazing to me that the party that presided over the biggest growth in government are now stark raving loons over aprogram that has been in place since 1790. Of course, it could be a classic case of Freudian projection, where they project exactly the kind of fascist tendencies in their own little heart and they panic at someone else being able to use the information the way they would if they have a chance. Or perhaps it's the very scary notion of information and facts that has their collective knickers in a bunch. God forbid we actually know that there really aren't 40 million illegal immigrants in this country, what could those wingnuts use to fear monger? Or that thanks to GOP policies, wages are down across the country? Or that those comfortably gerry-mandered seats in the House should actually be changed to the disadvantage of the GOP? [[Shudder]]

Facts are scary things to those wingnuts.

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Lou Dobbs is upset that a Latin television station wants to make people less afraid of census workers by including a plot line in one of their soap operas titled "Don't be afraid to be counted."

DOBBS: Well, fans--if you like that, you're going to love this. Fans of telenovellas on Spanish-language television could soon be seeing more than they tuned in for as well. The Telemundo network, owned by NBC, will incorporate a story line in a popular soap opera to promote the U.S. Census. That's right. They're going to put that into a storyline. It is part of an Obama administration plan to make sure the Latino population is fully counted next year. Ines Ferre with our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When it comes to Latin television, no other genre is more popular with more viewers than steamy, plot-driven telenovellas, or soap operas. For the first time, a telenovella will include a plot line surrounding a U.S. Census message. "Don't be afraid to be counted." Telemundo's top soap opera "Mas Sabe el Diablo" or "The Devil Knows Best," will soon feature Michelle Vargas playing the role of a young Census Bureau recruiter.

DON BROWNE, PRESIDENT, TELEMUNDO: This character will live in the novella and basically be entertaining but educational, because education, empowering people with good, accurate information is really critical to the success of the Census.

Continue reading »

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Rachal Maddow talks to the AP's Devlin Barrett about the apparent homicide of Census worker Bill Sparkman.

From the AP:

A U.S. Census worker found hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.

The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word on the chest of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and teacher. He was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky.

The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation. An autopsy report is pending.

Investigators have said little about the case. FBI spokesman David Beyer said the bureau is assisting state police and declined to confirm or discuss any details about the crime scene.

"Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved — and that's part of the investigation — and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a Census worker," said Beyer.

Attacking a federal worker during or because of his federal job is a federal crime.

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Michelle Bachmann makes number one in Keith's Best Persons segment for being too silly to realize that asking Minnesotans not to fill out their census information might cost their state a seat in the House....hers.

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Michelle Bachmann once again proves to America that she's downright insane. TPM and Think Progress have more debunking Bachmann's fear mongering.

Bachmann: Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the census bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations, at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I’m not saying that’s what the Administration is planning to do. But I am saying that private, personal information that was given to the census bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up and put the Japanese in internment camps.

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From Fox News Sunday, "Big Bad" John Cornyn is worried about the cencus being politicized if it's moved away from the control of the Commerce Secretary.

Wallace: Sen. Cornyn we now learn that the Obama administration is going to have the Director of the Census Bureau report not only to the Commerce Secretary, but also to the White House. What's wrong with that?

Cornyn: Well ordinarily this has been something that the Commerce Secretary's done and I think it ought to be done on a competent as much as possible non-partisan basis and to shift it to the White House to me just politicizes the census which is not something we should be doing.

Wallace: What's the danger briefly of politicizing the census?

Cornyn: Well because of course that determines who gets what Congressional districts. States like Texas were going to get probably at least three new Congressional districts based on the reproportioning and of course in drawing those lines, redistricting within states it's all based on those census figures. So if you cook the figures up front I think it distorts that process going forward and undermines the concept of one person one vote.

Coming from Texas, John Cornyn should know all about gerrymandering after what happened there in 2003. Hyprocrisy thy name is Republican.

By BRIAN KNOWLTON

The number of Americans living in poverty rose by 1.3 million last year, to 35.9 million, while those without health insurance climbed by 1.4 million, to 45 million, the Census Bureau reported today.

It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. 

The figures, which the administration issued a month earlier than usual, quickly became the focus of political charges.

"Today confirms the failure of President Bush's policies for all Americans," Senator John Kerry said, referring to the new data. "Under George Bush's watch, America's families are falling further behind."

President Bush, while not specifically addressing today's report, said in a campaign appearance in Las Cruces, N.M., that "we have more to do to make quality health care available and affordable."

But he said his administration had strengthened Medicare, and "expanded quality care through community health centers for low-income Americans."

The president, as he usually does, credited American workers and entrepreneurs, as well as his own "well-timed tax cuts," for moving the country beyond the worst economic woes.

Other Republicans noted that even as the number of uninsured Americans grew, the number of insured did as well, by a million.

Median household income remained basically flat, at $43,318 when adjusted for inflation.

The numbers were not unexpected, and do not reflect the economic growth of the past several months that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Dan Weinberg, a Census Bureau analyst, said that the data were typical for a post-recession economy but that the numbers of insured reflected continued uncertainty over employment. Employers have cited the high costs of providing health insurance as a reason to hire conservatively.

Still, the new data come amid a close election campaign in which debate over economic health and fairness loom large.