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Today, the House voted 345-75 to approve the “Defund ACORN Act.” This followed action in the Senate this week, which voted 83-7 to prohibit ACORN from receiving housing grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The House legislation will now proceed to the Senate.
This week’s votes in the House and Senate followed the highly publicized disclosure of undercover videos revealing operations offering assistance to underaged prostitutes exclusively reported by Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government news portal. On the videos, ACORN workers were shown giving advice on how to evade taxes, set up a brothel, and even use minors as prostitutes.
Andrew Breitbart, BigGovernment.com, and new media deserve the credit for this taxpayer victory for bringing sunlight to the long-corrupt ACORN group, for forcing the controlled media to finally pay attention, and for moving the politicians to finally take action to defund the racket.
The revelations have already led to the U.S. Census revoking its partnership agreement with ACORN in the official 2010 Census count, as ALG News previously reported.
According to the legislation, no organization may receive funding that has “been indicted for a violation under any Federal or State law governing the financing of a campaign for election for public office or any law governing the administration of an election for public office, including a law relating to voter registration… had its State corporate charter terminated due to its failure to comply with Federal or State lobbying disclosure requirements… [or] has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.”
The impact of the bill is far-reaching. ACORN is currently eligible for more than $3 billion under the $787 billion “stimulus” spending bill, and $5.5 billion from the 2010 budget. Since 1994, ACORN has received at least $53 million from American taxpayers, according to the Washington Examiner. ACORN is also eligible for over $500 million of an “affordable housing fund” created under the $300 billion Foreclosure Prevention Act passed this past summer.
According to the Consumer Rights League, ACORN receives some 40 percent of its funding from taxpayers annually. This fiscal year it has received $1.6 million received thus far for housing services.
These votes have been a long time coming. ACORN Housing Corporation has had a troubled history in giving out cheap mortgages that played a key role in weakening credit standards. In addition, ACORN is under investigation for voter registration fraud in several swing states, including Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Missouri, and has a long history of such fraud in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Mexico.
Both the House and Senate have acted, but now the Senate must act again. This week, the Senate only voted to defund ACORN’s funding via the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The House version completely defunds this despicable and corrupt group. The Senate should act immediately on the House version of the legislation, and once and for all end ACORN’s horrifying abuse of the taxpayers’ trust and the federal treasury.
