ACORN is rightly taking its lumps, including the loss of all its federal funding, after staff in four cities was secretly videotaped giving advice to actors posing as a pimp and a prostitute on how to buy a home and start a brothel.
On Monday, the Senate voted to block the Department of Housing and Urban Development from giving grants to ACORN. On Thursday, the House of Representatives followed suit, voting 345-75 to block taxpayer money from reaching the group. Both U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, R-1st, and U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, favored pulling ACORN’s federal funds.
When office staff – either too gullible, foolish or corrupt to say no – is willing to help people who claim they want to buy a house to run a brothel, Congress must turn off the tap.
But it’s also worth noting that staff in some offices did not fall for the scam. ACORN workers in four offices were duped by or willingly accepted a ruse by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, 25, and Hannah Giles, 20, who went to offices in Baltimore, Md.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; San Bernadino, Calif.; and Washington, D.C., pretending to be a pimp and a prostitute. But the pair were turned away by staff in Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, where workers called police and filed a report.
According to USASpending.gov, a Web site that tracks government grants, ACORN Housing Corp. received $1.6 million to provide housing services to low-income communities this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development gave $8.2 million to ACORN between 2003 and 2006, as well as $1.6 million to ACORN affiliates.
Taxpayers who are strapped with their own needs, and millions who have been thrown out of work, should not pay for any organization with staff that is ignorant or corrupt enough to encourage illegal behavior. But this funding is chump change, frankly, in a mushrooming federal budget.
Conservatives who want to link the president to ACORN’s tarnished reputation support a federal investigation but the link is thin. Obama did represent ACORN in a lawsuit in 1995, but ACORN was on the same side as the Justice Department. Drawing the connection keeps diverting attention from other issues like the health care debate.
Rep. Charles Boustany, R-7th, who gave the Republican response to Obama’s health care address to Congress, has already called for a hearing of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, regarding potential tax fraud.
ACORN has proven it cannot police itself through earlier instances of embezzlement and voter fraud. On Friday, the Census Bureau notified the group that it is severing ties for all work related to the 2010 census.
But we fear protracted congressional investigation, especially if fueled by partisan politics, could be more costly than the annual grants previously made to ACORN.
We support Congress’ move this week to cut off funding until an investigation can be completed. The next step should be for the IRS to track down the money, offer transparency to the public and hold ACORN fully accountable for its fiscal management.
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