ACORN Is Very Much Alive; Funding Ban Dies This Week

As I reported yesterday, federal investigators are recommending that government funding for ACORN's still operating housing affiliate be cut off immediately. In a recently completed probe, the inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that ACORN Housing (now renamed Affordable Housing Centers of America) appeared to have committed massive fraud against the taxpayers of the United States. Investigators must have felt it was necessary to urge the funding cutoff because the federal government's prohibition on funding ACORN isn't a permanent ban. It exists at the whim of lawmakers and (because it was attached to annual appropriations bills) runs out at the end of this month. There is no indication currently that the federal ban on funding ACORN, whose last day in effect is Sept. 30, will be extended. As of writing (Tuesday morning) spokesmen for the House and Senate appropriations committees told me they had no idea if the funding prohibition was going to be extended...more