Vadum: A Reminder, ACORN Funding NOT Permanently Cut Off

29 Sep, 2010 by Warner Todd Huston

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Matthew Vadum, ever vigilant on the evils perpetrated by ACORN, reminds us that the criminal community organizer has not had its federal funding cut off permanently. The temporary cut off is soon to expire and Vadum reports that there doesn’t seem to be anyone in Congress taking up a reinstatement of the ban.

In his Sept. 28 piece at the American Spectator, Vadum says that many people are confused about the funding ban imagining it was permanent.

This confusion about ACORN can probably be blamed in part on the quirks of parliamentary procedure and the complexity of the appropriations process. The legal language prohibiting the funding is contained in spending legislation that covers only the federal government’s current fiscal year which ends this Sept. 30.

The current funding ban is due to run out soon.

So is Congress making to fix this lack of attention on ACORN?

One bill pending in Congress would extend the funding ban but it’s not going anywhere. Section 417 of the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill for fiscal 2011 (S.3644) would prohibit funding of ACORN in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2010. It’s very unlikely that the bill will become law by Oct. 1; in other words, despite the earlier funding ban, ACORN is alive and kicking.

The left loves stuff like this. A big show is made about bowing to public pressure and cutting off funds for things the voters dislike but as time rolls on the bans expire and Congress quietly reinstates the offending funding when they imagine no one is looking.

ACORN likely just imagines that all the money will come back and more as the few Democrats that made a big show of cutting them off return to their profligate ways once they feel the photo op time has ended.

Like Vadum says, don’t count ACORN out. It is alive and kicking.