Census is a waste of money

Michael Sneed's story on census sportswear outrage over foreign products made me cringe ["Census outrage," April 13].

Buying the lowest-priced item is called "good business practice."

What is wrong with buying items from Haiti, China or Bangladesh? As I recall, we are trying to help those countries. If the cost of labor was not so high in America, perhaps the U.S. Census would buy its T-shirts here.

What I'm outraged about is with 10 percent unemployment, our government is spending more than $14 billion dollars of taxpayer money on this census.

By using existing government databases, a more accurate count could be done for a fraction of the cost.

The census redistricts congressional seats. We don't need a bunch of cheap T-shirts and hats to do that.

Mark Weyermuller,

Wilmette