The article says that the federal government will be distributing 400 Billion a year. That 400 Billion is not new money it comes from the money that the federal government has taken from us. A better way of doing it would be for the government to give a tax break to those who had the money in the first place before administrative costs were taken from it. That way we could do away with the census department as well.

The decennial* census is mandated by the U.S. Constitution and is necessary for congressional apportionment and allocation of electoral college seats. It is only *incidentally* used in determining the distribution of federal funding.

The first decennial census was conducted in 1790, under then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Twenty one federal censuses have been conducted since.

(*Decennial = every ten years.)