Following the release of the bunker-busting ACORN videos, more than 130 House Republicans sent a letter to President Obama yesterday urging that the Federal Government cut off all funding to and sever all ties with ACORN.
Dear Mr. President:
We write to you today in the wake of new reports of potentially criminal activity involving associates of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to respectfully request that you use your authority to publicly disclose and terminate all federal funding to ACORN and its affiliates. It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law. Immediate action is necessary to ensure that no additional tax dollars are directed to ACORN. Simply put, ACORN should not receive another penny of American taxpayers’ money.
Congressional pressure, coupled with the impact of recent media reports, prompted the U.S. Census Bureau on September 11 to end its partnership with ACORN. We support this decision by the Census Bureau, and believe it is vital that all other federal agencies with ties to ACORN follow the Census Bureau’s example by severing all ties to ACORN and its affiliates, whether those ties consist of partnerships or the awarding of federal funds, including federal funds distributed through state and local governments from federal block grants.
This is a matter of common sense and respect for taxpayer dollars. Last year, millions of Americans were outraged to learn their tax dollars were being used to subsidize an organization linked to multiple instances of voter registration fraud and other illicit activity. An analysis of federal data by the Office of the Republican Leader determined that ACORN has received more than $53 million in direct funding from the federal government since 1994, and has likely received substantially more indirectly through states and localities that receive federal block grants.
The Census Bureau has made the commendable decision to sever ties with ACORN, and it is now critical that all remaining federal entities with ties to ACORN do the same. We ask that you use your authority to ensure that all federal funding of ACORN is publicly disclosed and terminated immediately. To facilitate this effort, the Republican staff of the Oversight Committee has compiled a complete list of the corporations that form the ACORN Council, and we would be pleased to share it with you and members of your administration.
CNSNews.com is reporting that Pawlenty sent a letter today to the director of the Minnesota Commission of Management and Budget with orders to stop all state funding to ACORN.
The report reads, in part:
“The letter cites recent reports of questionable behavior and potentially illegal activity by ACORN and states that they are of great concern to the governor and underscores the recent vote by the U.S. Senate to ban federal funding to ACORN, which also reflects those concerns,” Pawlenty spokesman Alex Carey told CNSNews.com.
In the letter, the governor directs Hanson to stop all state funding to ACORN, unless the state is legally obligated to continue funding. No precise dollar amount is available, Carey said.
“In addition, the letter directs” the commission “to conduct a thorough review of the state’s relationship with ACORN and to report back to the governor with his findings,” he said.
The bill contains 204 instances of the word tax(es), 36 occurrences of the word fine(s), 26 instances of the word shall, and 69 occurrences of the word must. This version of the visualization omits the “current law” language in the bill.
According to a new IBD/TIPP survey of 1,376 randomly selected practicing physicians from across the country, a whopping 45% of doctors “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if the health care “reform” plan being pushed by Congress and the President passes.
•Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration’s claims that doctors are part of an “unprecedented coalition” supporting a medical overhaul.
•More than seven in 10 doctors, or 71% — the most lopsided response in the poll — answered “no” when asked if they believed “the government can cover 47 million more people and that it will cost less money and the quality of care will be better.”
The Tax that Isn’t a Tax Because President Obama Isn’t a Liar, and Even if He Were, He Wouldn’t Lie About Something Like Taxes on the Middle Class, Except to Stop Global Warming, Which May or May Not Be Real, Depending On Who Is Lying About that
Declan McCullagh reports at cbsnews.com:
The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.
“A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says that the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.”
Forget the Peabody and the Pulitzer and all those other awards that journalists love to pass back and forth among themselves for, like, getting a leaked document, word-processing it up and then going to lunch.
James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles – who made the brilliant undercover ACORN videos – aren’t likely to get any of those. What they are likely to get is the sense of accomplishment in doing the job that journalists and government officials would not or could not do: they have begun to unravel an enterprise that has for decades wrapped its slimy tentacles around the underbelly of this country and squeezed the dead presidents from the hands of unwilling private interests and more-than-willing government agencies.
How ACORN must have reveled in the election of a live president, one of their own. The estimated $53 million (at least) that the organization has received in federal grants since 1994 would be pocket change compared to what ACORN could reap with a special friend in the White House.
The work of O’Keefe and Giles may provide the push to end that. If the videos (from Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn and California) individually are devastating, releasing them one by one (and we have no idea how many more they have) is sheer genius. Likewise, the sneering, dismissive reaction of the mainstream media – running off more viewers, readers, subscribers and influence than could have been imagined a decade ago – is sheer idiocy.
It can only be hoped that the off-the-scale radioactivity that now emanates from ACORN will be enough to move the Congress and the President to quickly deny all federal funding and to order a full-scale investigation of all past practices.
But even that will not be enough, because ACORN has many aliases in its subsidiaries and affiliates, and much of its income comes from state and local governments, and those tentacles also must be severed.
The vote, as one would expect, was mostly a party-line vote (240-179). Seven Republicans voted for the resolution while twelve Democrats voted against “censuring” Wilson. Five members voted present (Engel, Foster, Frank, Shea-Porter and Skelton).
House Democrats apparently aren’t accepting Representative Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) apology for his outburst last week. Today, House Democratic leaders will move forward with a “Resolution of Disapproval” for Wilson’s “You Lie” statement.
Wilson recently pledged, “I won’t be offering any more apologies.”
Prediction: President Obama’s comment that rapper Kanye West is a “jackass” will get the President a bigger poll boost than his ObamaCare infomercials.
Question: Would it be fair to say that West “Taylor Swiftboated” himself?
Comment: If you don’t have the slightest idea what we are talking about, congratulations. You have a life.
This week, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released one of its periodic assessments of public attitudes toward news organizations.
It’s major findings: “The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades… Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get their facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate….
“Similarly, only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60 % who say news organizations are politically biased. And the percentages saying that news organizations are independent of powerful people and organizations (20%) or are willing to admit their mistakes (21%) now also match all-time lows.”
Strangely, only a handful of major news organizations reported the Pew Study.
Yes, the U.S. health care system has its flaws. The cost, payment by third parties, government involvement, and defensive medicine are all factors that limit access and drive up costs. But, with the slice of capitalism that still exists in our system, money will always allow patients to receive care in a timely fashion.
In Canada, the government runs the single-payer system and determines what procedures are covered and who receives care. Fortunately, capitalism still exists across the border and a firm has started to make money off of long waiting lines.
Yes, one stop to Timely Medical can drastically reduce your waiting time and allow you to leave the rationing to the bureaucrats. One has to wonder if such a company will exist here if the U.S. goes the single-payer route.
Senator Olympia Snowe, one of three Republicans who have been negotiating with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus on a health care reform compromise, is urging the President to take the public health insurance option “off the table.” On CBS’s Face the Nation yesterday, Snowe said Obama “should take it off the table.”
In addition, Senator Susan Collins is out there claiming that she wouldn’t even support a “trigger” for the “public option,” an idea floated by Democrats last week. Collins correctly argues, “The problem with the trigger is it just delays the public option.”
Senate Democrats have been courting both Senators in an effort to pass a bipartisan bill – something that will be next to impossible without Snowe and Collin’s support. Without any Republican support, Democrats may have to resort to the nuclear option of the health care debate, which is to use budget reconciliation rules, if they insist on a public option as part of a final package. Budget reconciliation would only require 51 votes for passage.
Following the taxpayer uproar, including the protests over the weekend, they may want to think twice about that.
The 9-12 taxpayer rally was simply an amazing experience. I arrived just before noon, having to endure a packed Metro ride full of taxpayers headed to the event.
It took about 30 minutes to walk from 12th and Pennsylvania to the Capitol. Contrary to what some left-of-center pundits might say, the rally was not packed with crazies preaching secession.
The rally was full with ordinary taxpayers who drove thousands of miles for the rally. I met a group from Georgia who drove through the night to attend the rally. They planned to drive through the night again because they couldn’t afford to spend two nights in a hotel. They weren’t paid off by anyone to come and this was actually the first protest they had ever attended.
This was not an AstroTurf rally. The 9-12 rally was a legitimate expression of taxpayer frustration over reckless taxing and spending. Estimates vary from 60,000 to 100,000, but whatever the number, the experience was amazing and the politicians in this city ought to listen. As our friend Andrew Moylan noted, “Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored.”
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