I hear the

Census Bureau's phone lines have been jammed with people

wanting to complain about the intrusiveness of the

questions on this year's Census.

In one way,

I can understand that perfectly well.

In the

first place, the Constitution doesn't authorize the

federal government to ask all those questions.

In the

second place, people of conservative bent realize the

only reason all those questions are being asked is so our

Big Brother bureaucrats can figure out where the money

is, for the main purpose of taking it away from those who

earned it and giving it to those who didn't.

It's called

redistribution of the wealth. Look it up; it's in all of

Marx's writings.

But what

mystifies me when there's a big reaction to something the

government does is how people decide what to get riled up

about.

Frankly, I

can't get too worked up about the Census in a negative

way. It's just numbers. If you want the numbers used

responsibly, elect conservatives to national offices, and

stay involved enough to keep them under control.

But here

are a few items that people across the country have not

jammed the phone lines about, which really leaves me

scratching my head:

� The selling of our nuclear secrets

to avowed enemies of all that the United States stands

for, i.e. the communist Chinese government, not by some

Benedict Arnold lab guy, but by the president of the

United States, for campaign contributions.

It seems

like a pretty big deal to me, but it raised nary a ripple

in the pond of public opinion.

� Social Security. I shouldn't even

have to say more on the subject, but apparently people

still don't realize the degree to which our government is

robbing us blind. We're paying 15 percent of our incomes

into a system that allegedly will repay the money after

we retire - if we are lucky enough to live long

enough -at an average return of less than 2 percent.

If we don't

live long enough, whatever money we didn't have paid to

us goes back into the pool and is given to someone else.

If you

invested just half of what you've paid in Social Security

in any garden variety mutual fund for the entire period

of your employment, not only would you earn 10 to 12

percent instead of 2 percent, you would also get the

money all at once so that you could invest it in an

income-producing instrument. After your death, your heirs

would get what was left.

Conservatives

always get accused of being heartless. But how much more

heartless can you be than to rob a low- to

moderate-income person of 15 percent of his income for

his entire working life, giving it back to him at such

pitiably stingy levels that he can qualify for food

stamps, and then take it away from him when he dies?

But we get

excited about some questions on a form.

� The lack of a balanced budget

amendment and continued refusal of the government to

grant meaningful tax cuts.

When

Republicans took over Congress, they promised to bring a

balanced budget amendment to the floor for a vote, and

they did that. But everybody knew they didn't have enough

votes to pass it.

The press

barely covered the debate and the vote, and the whole

issue went by with hardly any public notice.

Surely

people can see how much better things are for the country

as a whole with a budget that seems to be coming into

balance. Surely they can put two and two together and

figure out that the dark days of the '70s and early '80s

were caused by a government that spent too much and taxed

too much.

Deficit

spending is a cancer, and we're in remission. But the

only permanent cure is a constitutional amendment that

forever removes the power of the government to spend our

children's income before they're even born.

And on the

tax question, taxes are taking almost half of what every

man, woman and child in this country is able to earn. Can

people not get excited about the fact that these bloated,

parasitic governments are soaking up half of the economy?

� The income tax system itself. While

we're on the subject of taxes, let's not forget that huge

amounts of taxes are hidden.

First, we

have an income tax system that punishes success. Every

little notch up the ladder of success that we're able to

climb is punished with higher taxes. Then, on top of

that, it's so complex that the people who wrote it can't

understand it, yet we can be fine or jailed for failure

to understand it properly.

Finally,

its very complexity is a smoke screen that is used to

hide tax increases. For instance, the Clinton

Administration won't even be credited for passing a tax

increase when, during the first two years when Democrats

were in charge of Congress, it did away with several

deductions. But doing away with a deduction is a tax

increase, no matter how you slice it.

simplified tax system like a flat tax or a sales tax

would empower the people to keep an eye on their

government. What we have now is a way for the government

to keep a grip on its people.

But go

ahead and make those phone calls to the Census Bureau.

I'm sure if

I kept going for another five or six thousand words I

would get down to the Census on my list of things to get

upset about.