Slush Funds for Reform Hostages

The Foundry, Morning Bell: Just like any organized crime group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has a long and established history of using fraud, deceit and intimidation to achieve its goals. ACORN uses intimidation to shake down corporations for operating funds, deceives its own employees into supporting causes they don’t believe in, and cheats the entire country by submitting fraudulent voter registrations.

ACORN is also adept at co-opting government power to fund and legitimize a criminal enterprise. It has been winning federal money since the Carter administration and routinely receives millions of dollars in federal grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In the 1990s, it began shaking down local business communities and has established local “Housing Trust Funds” in more than 300 states, counties, cities and towns . . . .

The Holy Grail for ACORN has been the establishment of a National Housing Trust Fund. During the brief economic downturn in 2001, ACORN pushed the fund as an economic stimulus. . . . Now liberals in Congress have included the National Housing Trust Fund in the latest housing bailout bill, arguing it’s needed because housing prices are too low. . . . This bill has become a trade of legislative priorities between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives would get much needed reform of the government-sponsored entities that are at the core of the current housing crisis; and liberals would get a new permanent slush fund for one of their key political allies. Conservatives need to ask themselves if this is really a deal they can make on principle. . . . [Read More]

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