From May 3rd to May 8th of this year, I worked for the United States Census Bureau in Lafayette, Louisiana. With the aid of a hidden camera, I witnessed and captured evidence of wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars–one systemic failure after another of this a Constitutionally mandated entity during a time of great recession and high unemployment.
The training course consisted of four three-hour days and one eight-hour day. I was paid for a total of 20.75 hours, 3.5 of which I did not work. I was paid with your money, money that was stolen from you.
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On multiple occasions I was given three 15-minute breaks over the course of three hours and was instructed to fill out false ending times. When I confronted the supervisor about the discrepancy, she said she was just “giving us this time” and told me “I think you’re worrying over nothing.” At any business, this would be theft.
We were also coached to indicate government phone numbers were in fact our personal cell phone numbers (a blatant lie) in order to prevent people from calling and harassing us.
When I addressed what seemed to be a discrepancy on my form, I was told to not worry about it: “As long as you don’t have any major felonies or your fingerprints don’t come back as jack the ripper, you’ll be fine.” And yet sex offenders and rapists find a way to squeeze through the government filter. If a business hired this way, they would be held criminally liable for the actions of their employees.
I had a payroll supervisor tell me not to worry about having been paid for hours I did not work: “I think you are just making a big deal out of it… I would just throw it away.” Yet within a few minutes I was told it was an offense worthy of termination.
I resigned prior to doing any of the enumeration work door-to-door. There have been other reports around the nation of the systemic waste and abuse on the part of the United States Census. The nation sees it for what it is. It’s the same continual waste of taxpayer funds in a time of need, the fraud that frolics freely through our political landscape, and corruption that would rather see us silent and submissive. The media will say that all government steals, is inefficient, and wasteful, but during this time of budgetary crisis, when everyone else is asked to tighten their belts, Obama’s Census gets to lie, cheat, and steal as much as it can get away with. Obama moved control of the census to directly report to the White House, and yet the quality is dreadful. No one is accountable, no one takes any responsibility, and the media yawns while as much as a billion dollars is wasted.
This is what’s wrong with America.
paystubs – Louisiana
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