The ACORN Hangs From Many Branches

The U.S. House Republican Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recently released an in depth investigative report on the activities of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, more commonly known as ACORN, since its inception in 1994. Since then, ACORN has received over $53 million in federal funds, and is said to be eligible to receive $8.5 billion under the Obama stimulus plan.

As stated in the report, “Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate.” Among the specific charges levied against ACORN are the embezzlement of nearly $949,000 in funds by the brother of founder, Wade Rathke, and then subsequently using donor money to pay off the embezzled funds. Furthermore, ACORN has filed thousands of fraudulent voter registrations, engaged in blatantly-partisan political activities on behalf of the Democratic Party and submitted false tax filings to the IRS.

Even after this long resume of corrupt and illegal political dealings, many members of Congress, including our own Sen. Robert Casey, have decided this simply isn’t enough to deprive ACORN of it’s coveted taxpayer funding.