It's hard to write this piece and keep the rating at "G", but I will try. Yesterday's Investor's Business Daily posted an article about the current scandal surrounding ACORN. There are currently three or four videos up at YouTube showing ACORN employees giving advice on how to acquire housing loans of federal money to people claiming to want to set up brothels trafficking in underage girls. Sounds like something you'd welcome in your neighborhood, right?
The article at Investor's Business Daily is wonderfully written. It really needs to be read in its entirety, but here are a few points. After the videos surfaced, the Census Bureau immediately cut its ties to ACORN. ACORN will no longer be helping with the 2010 Census. Nebraska Republican Senator Mike Johanns offered an amendment in the Senate to strip ACORN of funding in the Transportation/Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. The measure passed 83-to-7.
After the New York video came out, the Brooklyn district attorney's office promptly launched a criminal probe into Acorn. According to the article:
"The tax-exempt New York Acorn Housing Co. reported receiving $226,000 in grants through last June, including $70,000 from federal housing lender Fannie Mae and its New York counterpart, Sonyma. By one estimate, national Acorn has received $53 million in federal funds since 1994."
If you remember, ACORN shares no small responsibility in the mortgage meltdown. They sent members to annual meetings of banks to pressure them to make risky loans using the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) as justification for their actions.
It's time to stop funding ACORN with taxpayer dollars, and it is also time to begin an investigation of their activities.
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