The 2010 Census will cost an estimated $14 billion—far more than any in U.S. history. “The cost nearly doubles every 10 years, and it’s just unsustainable,” says Robert Goldenkoff of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). “Projecting to 2020, we could be looking at a $30 billion Census.”

Census figures are used to determine Congressional representation and the distribution of more than $400 billion annually in federal aid, and the Constitution requires that everyone be counted. While it’s easy enough to collect data from households that promptly mail in their forms, it costs between $65 and $75 to tally each unresponsive household.

This year’s effort will be complicated by the foreclosure crisis, which has left many homes empty, and by an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants who may avoid being counted, according to Kenneth Prewitt, a former head of the Census Bureau who is now a professor of public affairs at Columbia University.

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You don’t have t0 be a doomsayer or a survivalist to worry about the American economy collapsing.

If you can read, you can be worried. You should be worried. A look around the globe shows you why, look at Iceland, Greece and Portugal for a couple answers.
Could you survive or are you prepared to survive if the US economy collapses? An economic collapse is a very real danger that many people just don’t want to face up to.

The American budget deficit as a percentage of our GDP is projected at 10.64% this year after coming in at 9.91% last year. Greece had a 12.7% rate and they collapsed completely.
Greece has riots in the streets over proposed cuts in services, services they simply can’t pay for.

Portugal is at 9.3% and they are close to collapse and cutting every social service including welfare and medical coverage for the next four or five years.

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Arriving at Harv’s Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. “They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending,” says Harv’s owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff’s on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was … 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv’s with an obligation of $202.35.

Zeff, who also owns local parking lots and is the president of the Midtown Business Association, finds the situation a bit comical.

“It’s hilarious,” he says, “that two people hopped in a car and came down here for just 4 cents. I think (the IRS) may have a problem with priorities.”

I do find it comical that the IRS would come after someone for such a small amount yet we have politicians that owe tens of thousands of dollars for years and nothing happens.

Wait a minute something is done. When they are nominated for a position by the presidents they say there accountant made a “mistake”. It wasn’t their fault. I’m sorry. I will pay it now. I wonder if they have to pay penalties and interest?

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When he was a senator, Barack Obama pushed through a law setting up a kind of “Google-for-government” website — a one-stop-shop for tracking the $1 trillion handed out in federal contracts.

Obama said the new site would help create a more transparent government.

But now that he is president, Obama’s Office of Management and Budget is responsible for keeping up the website — and government auditors have found deficiencies.

A Government Accountability Office audit released Friday found broad compliance with the law establishing the spending tracker. But in some cases, information was missing or unreliable, the GAO said.

“Not everything that should have been reported was reported, and that which was reported was not always accurate,” David Powner, the GAO official who led the audit, said in an interview.

The audit of USAspending.gov covered the period from June 2009 to March 2010. A total of nine federal agencies failed to report 15 government contracts, the audit showed.

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As they scrambled recently to trace the source of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds around the country, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention successfully used a new tool for the first time — the shopper cards that millions of Americans swipe every time they buy groceries.

With permission from the patients, investigators followed the trail of grocery purchases to a Rhode Island company that makes salami, then zeroed in on the pepper used to season the meat.

Never before had the CDC successfully mined the mountain of data that supermarket chains compile.

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