{"id":4251,"date":"2010-03-16T00:32:10","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T05:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=4251"},"modified":"2010-03-16T10:10:55","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T15:10:55","slug":"taxpayer-money-going-to-fund-tv-ads-promoting-big-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/4251\/taxpayer-money-going-to-fund-tv-ads-promoting-big-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxpayer Money Going to Fund TV Ads Promoting Big Government"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2010 Census is quickly turning into an extended metaphor for everything that&#8217;s wrong with big government. There was<a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2010\/02\/08\/census-super-bowl-ad-flops\/\" target=\"_blank\"> a $2.5 million Super Bowl ad buy<\/a>, a huge <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statesman.com\/jobs\/career-center\/feds-hiring-for-1-2feds-hiring-for-1-2-million-temporary-u-330249.html?cxtype=ynews_rss&amp;imw=Y\" target=\"_blank\">spending spree on make-work employees<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/rebooting.personaldemocracy.com\/node\/5479\" target=\"_blank\">(instead of employing technology that would have been cheaper AND more effective<\/a>), and &#8212; my favorite &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.redstate.com\/bs\/2010\/03\/09\/your-tax-dollars-at-work-us-census-edition\/\" target=\"_blank\">a letter letting us know that we&#8217;d be receiving a letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Census Bureau&#8217;s current &#8220;March to the Mailbox&#8221; ad may the biggest offense yet. In the 30-second spot, a suburban schlub touts filling out the census as the cure to every policy ill, from education to health care to transportation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/zvtHJnFgerQ\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/zvtHJnFgerQ\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>If only.<\/p>\n<p>The census serves a legitimate purpose, but its ad campaign is egregious &#8212; and its assertion that more money is all it takes to solve social problems is (a) patently false and (b) a wildly inappropriate use for taxpayer funds. The Census Bureau needs to stay in its lane and save the rest of us some money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2010 Census is quickly turning into an extended metaphor for everything that&#8217;s wrong with big government. There was a $2.5 million Super Bowl ad buy, a huge spending spree on make-work employees (instead of employing technology that would have been cheaper AND more effective), and &#8212; my favorite &#8212; a letter letting us know [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[602,960,959],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-big-government","tag-government-waste","tag-u-s-census"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4254,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions\/4254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}