Rescuing ACORN

[NASA]

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, September 26, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: Democrats want to use profits from the
bailout as a slush fund for liberal activist groups, even
those involved in vote fraud to help elect Barack Obama.

Prior financial bailouts, or "rescues," such as those
involving savings and loan failures, and Chrysler, have
over time actually made money for the government. It
may be the case here as well, as assets bought by the
government at bargain prices return to marketable
values and are auctioned off.

One of the sticking points in resolving the crisis was a
poison pill in the Dodd/Paulson compromise that would
move 20% of profits from the bailout into the Housing
Trust Fund, a slush fund for political action groups such
as ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations
for Reform Now) and the National Council of La Raza.

Sen. Lindsey Graham told Greta Van Susteren of Fox
News that Democrats had other priorities than just
solving this crisis: "And this deal that's on the table now is
not a very good deal. Twenty percent of the money that
should go to retire debt that will be created to solve this
problem winds up in a housing organization called ACORN
that is an absolute ill-run enterprise, and I can't believe
we would take money away from debt retirement to put
it in a housing program that doesn't work."

Groups such as ACORN and La Raza lobby to secure
government-funded services for their members and seek
to move them to the voting booth. The housing bill
President Bush signed in July contained a similar funding
mechanism for the HTF - a tax on mortgages backed by
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The tax was designed to channel upwards of $600 million
annually in grants for developing and restoring housing,
mostly as low-income rentals, available to ACORN and
other groups. ACORN gets 40% of its revenues from the
American taxpayers and not all of it finds its way into
housing.

A new whistle-blower report from the Consumer Rights
League claims that ACORN routinely commingles funds
from its housing arm into political projects such as voter
registration and get-out-the-vote drives. Money is
fungible. Any taxpayer money that ACORN gets for
housing makes it easier for the group to put its other
funds into voter drives.

"These are taxpayer funds, in an indirect method, being
used to subsidize political activism," says Rep. Jeb
Hensarling, a Texas Republican and chairman of the
conservative House Republican Study Committee. "I'm
sure they're not going out and registering any
Republicans."

Obama cut his "community organizer" teeth with ACORN.
As a young lawyer he represented the group in a suit
against the state of Illinois, which was concerned that
postcard registration and a new motor voter law might
invite fraud. ACORN later invited Obama to train its staff
in leadership seminars.

ACORN has a political arm that endorsed Barack Obama
for president in February and has stepped up its
registration efforts to help elect a future benefactor. The
Obama campaign admits to failing to report $800,000 in
campaign payments to ACORN. They were disguised as
payments to a front group called "Citizen Services Inc."
for "advance work."

Consumer Rights League official Jim Terry says: "ACORN
has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted
Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for
their own political gain. Now it looks like ACORN is using
the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for
Obama's political gain."

A major part of ACORN's sordid history is vote fraud.
ACORN has been implicated in voter fraud and bogus
registration schemes in Missouri, Ohio and at least 12
other states. Last July, ACORN settled the largest case of
voter fraud in Washington state history, involving nearly
2,000 bogus voter forms. In Ohio in 2004, ACORN
submitted forms for the likes of Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy
and someone named Jive Turkey.

ACORN uses taxpayer money to elect people like Barack
Obama who will work to get them more taxpayer money.
Democrats are willing to rip off taxpayers in a national
crisis to make it happen.

© Copyright 2008 Investor's Business Daily. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id07321604674409