| Dems' Earmark could give $4B to ACORN |
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| Written by John Beale | |||||||||
| Wednesday, 18 February 2009 03:31 | |||||||||
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$4.19 billion dollars of your money and your future children's money will be freely available to non-profit "neighborhood stabilization activities" as part of the Democrats' $819 billion stimulus package, despite Republican opposition. Prominent among the non-profit groups that will be eligible for this money is ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has come under investigation for fraudulent voter registration programs in Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, Missouri, Florida, New Mexico, and Washington, resulting in the conviction of some of their employees.
If packaged as a tax cut to all of the approximately 140 million taxpaying Americans as opposed to being handed out to these special interest groups, that $4.19 billion would result in an about an extra $130 in the pocket of every taxpaying American family every year -- not just a one-time handout to a small group of people. "If you want to stimulate the economy, I think the best thing is to give a tax break to the average person, not these [special interest handouts]," commented UMass Sophomore Steve Zemanek. Overall, the $819 billion Democratic economic stimulus package contains so much pork that it has been dubbed a "Porklus" package. Some of the wasteful spending in the package include: $44 million for the US Department of Agriculture, $209 million for Agriculture Research Service, $245 million for the IT system at the Farm Service Agency, $2.7 billion for rural water and waste-disposal loans, $1 billion for censuses, $650 millon for digital-to-analog converter boxes, $79 billion for state education budgets. The bill passed the US House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. The real cost of repayment of this earmark is much more than $4.19 billion. Most people don't realize where this money actually comes from. Some of the money will be printed and some of the money will be loaned to the federal government by the Federal Reserve, which in turn gets is money from the international sales of Treasury Bills. Whether the money is printed or loaned to the Federal government, the average American will pay more than $4.19 billion in the end because printing money simply dilutes the value of the dollar, leaving people with less value in each paycheck -- and raising the money through Treasury Bill loans increases the national debt and requires repayment with interest. At current rates, approximately 3.6%, money loaned to the government for this $4.19 billion program alone in the form of 30-year treasury bills will cost the US taxpayer approximately an additional $2.6 billion in interest payments. ACORN has questionable credibility. As recently as November, Kansas City, MO, officials indicted four ACORN employees on charges that they turned in false voter registration applications. In 2005, Albuquerque officials launched an investigation into fraudulent voter registration cards and absentee ballots submitted by members of the local ACORN office. ACORN's credibility is further called into question by its posturing as being a strong supporter of the "Living Wage," and frequently lobbied for increases in the minimum wage in spite of the group's 1995 lawsuit against the state of California in 1995 to try to exempt it's self from having to pay its workers the wage increase that it lobbied for. ACORN, which actively backed and campaigned for President Obama last year, has consistently favored Democratic political candidates. The Boston Globe reported in 2006 that ACORN and the Democratic party had joined forces to further state ballot initiatives to get minimum wage increases on the ballot -- minimum wage increases that the organization once tried to sue to exempt themselves from. Senator David Vitter (R, Louisiana) expressed concern that the large earmark could be a "payoff" for ACORN's activities in last year's election, when the group overtly supported Obama. Vitter said in a statement to FOX News, "It's just a long list of spending items. Not a real economic job creation bill. It's line after line after line of favorite liberal spending programs, and it amounts to a big government bill – not a job creation bill." John can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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| Last Updated on Sunday, 22 February 2009 01:15 |