In yet another demonstration of government waste, James O’Keefe, of ACORN hidden video fame, goes undercover at the census bureau.
According to the hidden video (view it below) taken by O’Keefe, census bureau crew chiefs and supervisors actively encourage falsification of time cards. And, while those in charge may not see it as a problem, the American taxpayer is on the hook for at least $50,000,000 for hour not worked – and that’s just during the first week of training.
When Mr. O’Keefe confronted the head of payroll for the census in his office about the falsification of hours worked, his supervisor found it to be a non-issue:
You’re just concerned because you left early and actually got paid for like two hours more than…
I would say don’t be concerned.
You did your best to, you know, bring it to our attention. I don’t think anyone’s going to be questioning it except for you.
So I would just let it go.
…No one’s going to be auditing at that level so far as I know.
This is what happens in the business of government. Because the money being paid to employees of government organizations is taken by force and mandate from the American taxpayer, they essentially have a blank check, and thus, no incentive to be efficient, or to produce anything of value, as is the requirement for survival in the private sector.
The government is ripping off taxpayers to the tune of at least one billion dollars. How’s that for stimulus?
It Took 22 Years to Get to This Point
The head of the Canadian province of Ontario, Doug Ford, has warned that it will retaliate against...
This article was originally published by Willow Tohi at Natural News. The federal deficit has...
This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog. The number...
Commenting Policy:
Some comments on this web site are automatically moderated through our Spam protection systems. Please be patient if your comment isn’t immediately available. We’re not trying to censor you, the system just wants to make sure you’re not a robot posting random spam.
This website thrives because of its community. While we support lively debates and understand that people get excited, frustrated or angry at times, we ask that the conversation remain civil. Racism, to include any religious affiliation, will not be tolerated on this site, including the disparagement of people in the comments section.
Why not? Â
According to news sources Obama has played more golf in the last 16 months………. than Bush did in his entire 8 years.
Lame ass president.   Lame ass census employees.  Any sensible taxpayer can see the connection between the two sets of federal freeloaders.
What’s really shameful is that Obama did not even go to Arlington Va. to honor our military on Memorial Day. He went to Chicago………… and sent his man servant Joe Biden to Arlington.
Lousiana is screwed.Â
Next is Mississippi followed by Alabama.
Â
Honestly, I really think O’Keefe could have come up with something better than this. Perhaps if we saw some hidden camera footage of census bureau employees openly lying about interviews that never took place or some extreme fraud like that would be more condemning to the Census bureau. This info calls for a slap on the wrist at best. I have attended many a training class and have been let out early quite a bit (without adjusting my timecard). I guess the big difference with that is that tax payers weren’t footing the bill. I don’t think this is gonna go too far.
Well, this particular item, by itself, isn’t really THAT big of a deal…
However, it is another junk added to the ever-growing snowball of reasons of why people in this country are so fed up with the federal government. Bailouts, lying politicians, the never ending ass kissing of special interest groups, etc., etc….much of which has been taking place for a long, long time.
With each passing day, the snowball is looking more and more like an avalanche.
Right on Rick.  We’re sick of Washington D.C.’s arrogance. Obama is such a prick the way he articulates to the citizens of this country in his rhetorical speech technique. Like he’s some higher power and we’re all scum. He’s the piece of shit that supposed to be serving us. Instead he’s bending over to foreign dignitaries………….. and on his knees kissing the asses of Wall Street bankers and the Federal Reserve.
Barky Obama has shown himself to be a weak kneed little puppy who is all bark while at the same time kissing anyone’s ass that demands that he do so. And he does this so well!
Barky is the ultimate chump.    Leader no, chump yes.  Â
Yeah, it wasn’t that much of a bombshell. I actually worked for the census as a crew leader for about 2 months or so. I know, I know, sucking the government teet is still actually taboo to some citizens, so my brother made fun of me and called me several names, which I sort of understand. Truthfully I needed a job and couldn’t get one. I resisted even considering a census job, but eventually I did it since I was broke.
Yeah, I had to sign off on my crew’s 308’s and unlike the fellow on the video, I scrutinized them. There was a time or so that I suspected that an enumerator was being greedy and I would ask them about whatever hours had caught my eye. The thing is that once I trained my crew and I set them free to work , there really wasn’t any easy way to catch them stealing hours. As long as they were being productive, I couldn’t outright accuse them. All in all I would have to agree with O’Keefe’s general theme that the census operation is much like the rest of government: a pig trough where a considerable number of greedy, incompetent, lazy people can pretend to be doing something productive, when in reality they are inefficient and have poor work ethics (although I would say that more than half of my crew were actually hard workers, and that they were honest enough for the private sector)Â Overpaid? yeah I would say that compared to the private sector, census payrolls are bloated and like Mac said, that there is less motivation to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
All I can say is that I did my job as trained and tried to do it as fast as possible. I have no doubt that there was a lot more fraud like the above video showed, and that in fact it was on a much large scale than 2 hours.
One thing O’Keefe didn’t mention was that we were paid .5ocents per mile driven both during training and once regular operations began. Workers are also paid travel time to work and home. In my region (Louisiana) crew leaders were paid $14.50/hour, and enumerators(door to door people) were paid $13.00/hr.
The government bailed out GM, AIG, XYZ, LMNOP, and won’t give up the names of the recipients of an additional 2 trillion and people are concerned about some flunky getting paid for 2 hours of ‘work’ that he didn’t do?
The politicians waste millions on ‘hearings’, upon ‘hearings’, upon ‘hearings’ about the same old problems that have existed for decades, and we get some ungrateful moron bitching about how he got paid 30 or 35 bucks for doing nothing, AND PEOPLE ARE MAKING THIS CHUMP-CHANGE BULLSHIT AN ISSUE???!!!!!
WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE????!!!!!
The government bailed out GM, AIG, XYZ, LMNOP, and won’t give up the names of the recipients of an additional 2 trillion and people are concerned about some flunky getting paid for 2 hours of ‘work’ that he didn’t do?
The politicians waste millions on ‘hearings’, upon ‘hearings’, upon ‘hearings’ about the same old problems that have existed for decades, and we get some ungrateful moron bitching about how he got paid 30 or 35 bucks for doing nothing, AND PEOPLE ARE MAKING THIS CHUMP-CHANGE BULLSHIT AN ISSUE???!!!!!
WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE????!!!!!
What do u mean.. U people..?