Sep 22, 2009 2 min read

Fraud costs ACORN federal funding The stench of fraud surrounding the community activism group ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has become so pungent that the Democratic-controlled Senate – by a resounding 83-7 margin – voted to strip the group of millions of dollars of funds in an appropriations bill.

That could not have been an easy vote for Democrats, who share the stated values of ACORN in encouraging the use of tax dollars in poor communities for housing, other forms of assistance and political, or at least civic, activism. But, though ACORN was on their team and its advisory council includes prominent supporters of President Obama (who once represented the group as a lawyer), most Democrats correctly concluded that taxpayers should not be expected to fund the group until it’s cleaned up.

The group has been accused of massive voter fraud in several states for registering people not eligible to vote, and the Census Bureau has severed its ties, fearful that ACORN could taint the results of the 2010 Census.

But what really has set off alarm bells was an act of “gotcha journalism” by two conservative activists who posed – in ridiculously overstated costumes – as a pimp and half-naked prostitute and visited several prominent ACORN offices, pretending to seek help to open a brothel. ACORN workers were captured on film advising them how to cheat the taxpayers (and break the law) by labeling their illegal business as “performance arts” on tax forms, and even claiming as “dependents” supposed child prostitutes from El Salvador, to be smuggled into the country illegally. Such seemingly criminal behavior was not confined to one office, but repeated in several locations across America.

We doubt that many organizations, nonprofit or companies receiving millions of federal tax dollars, could be associated with tax evasion, child prostitution, bank fraud and other such activities. If others are doing so, the government and the press should be exposing them.

While conservatives seem to be gloating gleefully over all this, it is sad to see community organizations that serve the poor come under a cloud. Clearly, such groups form a necessary part of the mosaic of helping the less fortunate. But pretending that “everybody does it” is not the approach responsible stewards of public funds should be taking.

The Providence Journal