ACORN and Health Care
Last week, editors at Politico posed two questions to an online panel to which I contribute: “ACORN: Underplayed or overblown?” and “Will the Dems ever get their act together on healthcare?”
The two are intimately connected by a simple proposition: “Most people want more housing and health care than they can afford.” Of course, for “housing” or “health care” one could substitute whatever one wishes: food, clothing, cars, education, entertainment, vacations, you name it. Economists call this the problem of scarcity, and it’s the beginning of economics.
In a free society, most individuals, families, and firms will deal with that problem through such homely measures as creating and husbanding wealth, planning for the future, and living within their means. Some, however, will be indifferent to such discipline and will demand more than they can afford. Enter thus ACORN and the Dems — the party of government. ACORN, like our president, is in the “community organizing” business — a euphemism for putting (some) people in a position to better demand things from government. Some of those demands are perfectly legitimate: reduce crime; fix the potholes. But others, the demands ACORN specializes in, are not thus “common.” They can be satisfied, in a world of scarcity, only by taking from some and giving to others.
And that’s what the housing and health care debates today are largely about. And it’s why on both, the Dems are having difficulty getting their act together, because however much they turn a blind eye toward scarcity or pretend that they all agree, the truth is that they represent discrete constituencies, with discrete conflicting interests. That’s what happens when we’re all thrown into the common pot. What once was decided by individuals, reflecting their own particular interests, is now decided by government — and it’s a Hobbesian war of all against all.
ACORN Challenge for the GOP
Republicans are all over the ACORN scandal and calling for an end to federal subsidies for the group. Well that’s great, but it’s not exactly going out on a limb and pushing for a major budget reform.
Why doesn’t the GOP use this as an opportunity to call for completely ending the programs that funded ACORN? Wouldn’t it be better to save the $13 billion a year that HUD spends on so-called “community development” programs, rather than just the few million dollars a year that taxpayers spend on ACORN?
The federal programs that funded ACORN are particularly wasteful ones, including Community Development Block Grants, Housing Counseling Assistance, and others as Tad DeHaven has explained.
At a minimum, the GOP should be arguing that with deficits of $1 trillion the federal government cannot afford to intervene in classic local and private activities such as community development. Boehner and Canter want the IRS to cut ties with ACORN, but they should be leading the charge to end porky “community development” spending altogether.
Correction of the Day
A Sept. 18 Page One article about the community organizing group ACORN incorrectly said that a conservative journalist targeted the organization for hidden-camera videos partly because its voter-registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although ACORN registers people mostly from those groups, the maker of the videos, James E. O’Keefe, did not specifically mention them.
Funding ACORN
The ACORN scandal provides a good opportunity for citizens concerned about profligacy in Washington to explore some of the tools available to find out where their tax money goes.
A good place to start your research is the Federal Audit Clearinghouse on the Census website. All groups receiving more than $500,000 a year from the government are required to file a report. Just type in “ACORN” as the entity and the system pops up the group’s filings. My assistant John Nelson summarized the federal programs and amounts received by ACORN in recent years:
2003
Housing Counseling Assistance $1,168,388
Community Development Block Grants $388,273
Home Investment Partnership $8,000
Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity $204,082
Fair Housing Initiatives Program $85,000
Total $1,853,743
2004
Housing Counseling Assistance $2,209,009
Community Development Block Grants $221,007
Home Investment Partnership Program $21,092
Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity $127,183
Fair Housing Initiatives Program $105,000
Total $2,683,291
2005
Housing Counseling Assistance $2,605,558
Community Development Block Grants $367,560
Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity $153,082
Fair Housing Initiatives Program $140,917
Total $3,267,117
2006
Housing Counseling Assistance $1,955,074
Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity $59,541
Rural Housing and Economic Development $47,619
Fair Housing Initiatives Program $150,000
Community Development Block Grants $238,809
Total $2,451,043
2007
Housing Counseling Assistance $1,813,011
Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity $46,608
Rural Housing and Economic Development $30,504
Fair Housing Initiatives Program $60,000
Community Development Block Grants $372,950
Total $2,323,073
My colleague, Tad DeHaven, has discussed why these HUD programs that funded ACORN ought to be abolished completely.
Subsidy information is also available from IRS Form 990, which is filed by all non-profit groups and compiled at Guidestar and other websites. I am not an expert on this data, but Velma Anne Ruth of ABS Community Research has done a detailed analysis, which she kindly sent to me. She finds that federal funding for ACORN was about $1.7 million in 2008 and about $2.2 million in 2009.
Finally, a user-friendly website to research recipients of federal grants and contracts is www.usaspending.gov.
ACORN’s share of overall federal subsidies is tiny, but as thousands of similar organizations have become hooked on 1,800 different federal subsidy programs, a powerful lobbying force has been created that propels the $3.6 trillion spending juggernaut. ACORN’s own website touts its lobbying success in helping to pass various big government programs. So cutting off ACORN is a start, but just a small start at the daunting task of cutting back the giant federal spending empire.
NEA Dues and ACORN
Sabrina Schaeffer (yes, related) over at IWF’s Inkwell wonders when the NEA is going to sever its ties to ACORN, given recent revelations that its employees are willing to help set up a brothel with child prostitutes. Good question. I’m sure a lot of union members would be none too pleased with where their dues money ends up.
From the Examiner:
Teachers unions have contributed over $1.3 million to ACORN and its affiliates, since 2005, according to U.S. Labor Department financial disclosure forms.
Many education reformers would call the NEA criminal in their resistance to effective policy change. But that’s a figure of speech. They do, however, need to be more careful with their money.
The NEA, really any activist group on the Left with a shred of dignity, should publicly end their relationship with this corrupt and criminal organization immediately.
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