Majority Turns a Blind Eye to ACORN

Michele Bachmann | September 23, 2009 2:01 PM

It's amazing to watch the Democrat power players in Washington turning a blind eye to the ACORN controversy, hoping that it disappears in the next news cycle. Unfortunately for them, this ACORN scandal isn't going away, nor should it. When an organization with such a checkered past of nefarious activity is eligible to receive $10 billion dollars in taxpayer funding, and has already received tens of millions, you would think that all legislators, regardless of political party, would want to shut off the funding faucet once and for all.

But, here's what we're hearing from the Democrat majority:

    * President Obama told ABC's "This Week" in an interview broadcast Sunday, "Frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely. I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money."

    * According to the Hill newspaper, Senate Majority Reader Harry Reid "dismissed a suggestion...that he sanction a probe into the organization's business practices."

    * Yesterday, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers wrote a letter to Daniel Mullholland, Director of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), to ask them to investigate ACORN’s recent activities, specifically to "research and report on the federal and state laws that could apply to such videotaping and distribution of conversations without the consent of all parties." So, when ACORN workers are caught on film giving legal advice on setting up an underage prostitution ring as a legitimate business, Chairmen Frank and Conyers think we should be investigating the investigators who broke the story?

While both the Senate and House recently took votes to strip ACORN of its funding, having two votes on two entirely different bills in two different chambers against ACORN looks good, but accomplishes nothing when all is said and done. In fact, these votes haven’t stopped one dime from flowing to ACORN.

Rather than wait and hope the House and Senate come together and pass identical language, President Obama should immediately suspend all federal agencies from doing business with ACORN and using our hard-earned tax dollars to perpetuate their scandalous work.

Washington is on notice: The American people won’t be fooled. They want ACORN off the government payroll.