Philly: Answer doorbell pronto or lose big

IT is not even close to conducting its multibillion dollar, every 10year constitutionally mandated survey of all Americans, but the Census Bureau is already having money troubles.

The bureau’s Philadelphia regional office recently told its workers that it was cutting short its monthly American Community Survey (ACS) to save money.

And while I’m all in favor of pinching pennies, the Philadelphia folks are known for cutting corners when it comes to producing reliable data. I investigated this particular region — the worst Census Bureau office in the country — a few years ago, and it led to the uncovering of abuses there and elsewhere in the agency.

“The ACS-Housing Unit currently has a financial deficit,” Fernando

Armstrong, the head of the Philadelphia region, wrote to his workers in an internal e-mail. “In an attempt to save funds, we will be changing the final ACS-HU data collection dates for the remainder of FY 18.”

Each of the surveys for the months up to September will now end several days earlier than normal. “At the end of the last data collection day, the entire field staff should send in all of their cases and no additional expenditures should be charged to the survey,” Armstrong wrote.

The ACS is used to determine how much federal money is doled out to each region for public services, schools and the like. In addition, this survey — the largest that Census conducts on a regular basis — is used to track shifting demographics.

That means Philadelphia will have to rely on a lot of guesswork when it comes to these things.

It also means that the Census Bureau may be unprepared for its really big decennial survey, which politicians like to fight over. That 2020 survey is already running into controversy as the Trump administration wants to include questions concerning whether or not respondents are citizens.

The decennial census is also used to determine representation in the House of Representatives.

A Census Bureau spokesman didn’t respond to my inquiry about whether the other six regional of- fices are having similar funding problems and how Philadelphia was going to solve its dilemma.

Considering the fact that I think the bureau is the worst-run part of the US government and the people there probably think I’m a pain, I don’t expect a call back. What the heck is Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, talking about? Mulvaney, who represents the White House, said this week that the US economy is doing better than the Trump administration thought it would.

“We didn’t even think we can do it [3 percent annual gross domestic product growth] until 2020,” he said. “And we’re there actually ahead of schedule.”

Mulvaney was crowing about the fact that the GDP in the fourth quarter of 2017 grew at a 2.9 percent rate — almost the 3 percent his office wanted.

But the first quarter of 2018 doesn’t look nearly as good.

According to the most recent estimate by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, first-quarter growth was only 2 percent annualized. That’s about the same as the economy had been growing during much of the Obama administration. Mulvaney said the 2.9 percent growth was due to anticipation of the president’s tax cuts.

So what is he going to blame for the 2 percent growth that was likely in the first three months of 2018? Oh, yeah! The weather — the handy excuse whenever a president needs something to blame. The Bureau of Economic Analysis will announce its first estimate of first-quarter GDP — which is really a guess - on April 27

Meanwhile, the US budget deficit was $600 billion in the six months ended March 31, even though tax receipts collected have been sharply higher. That means US debt will be climbing at better than $1 trillion a year for the foreseeable future.

And it’s already at $21 trillion!

What’s Mulvaney got to say about that?

If economic growth doesn’t surge with the Trump tax cuts, the deficit will soar even higher and there will be — as my mom says — hell to pay.

Here is something you already knew.

A new study says 54 percent of Americans find frequent-flier programs confusing. And 44 percent say credit card rewards programs are dumbfounding, while 47 percent think hotel loyalty programs are difficult to understand, according to a study by NextAdvisor. “What’s concerning is that many Americans don’t even know how many miles, rewards or points they have accumulated,” says NextAdvisor. And why does that surprise anyone? These programs have instructions as complicated as the fine print on your medicine bottles. If you understood how the programs work, you probably wouldn’t join. I switch cards whenever there’s a good offer. Then I use up the points on a flight or something else and cancel the card. You need to have good credit to do it, but it’s fun to use up the freebies before you start having to pay an annual fee on the card.

We get everything else from China, so why not some wisdom, via a recent fortune cookie I got? “Success is when you get what you want. Happiness is when you want what you get.”