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OMB: Existing ACORN Deals Can Be Ignored

By

Cross-posted from Blue News Tribune.

Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, issued an ACORN funding memo to federal agencies. It’s a doozy.

The PDF is linked here (third item).

No future obligations of funds. No agency or department should obligate or award any Federal funds to ACORN or any of its affiliates

Suspension of grant or contractual payment. If your agency has an existing grant with ACORN or any of its affiliates, the agency should: (i) where possible, immediately suspend performance of any obligations under the contract or agreement, including payment of Federal funds; (ii) consult promptly with the agency’s general counsel and, if necessary, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Justice concerning the legal considerations that bear on the performance of such obligations under the existing contract or agreement.

No funding of ACORN and its affiliates through Federal grantees or contractors.

Yay, Democratic Congress! Way to cave to phony Fox controversies and GOP pressure! Great kneejerk management of federal dollars! Yay, President Obama for failing to lead on this!

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  1. In fact doesn’t the Constitution itself forbid action that would impinge on the obligation of a contract?  This should be revisited anyway.  It seems people overreacted to the idiotic actions of a couple of low-level staffers in a single office.

    • I won’t defend OMB’s memo or the congressional rush to judgment, but please don’t treat the ACORN issue like nothing more than a right-wing sting video and the misbehavior of a few low-level staffers. We’re talking about a grossly mismanaged organization, at least $5 million in embezzlement, and leaders who have profiteered by abusing the organization’s tax exempt status. The report that Senator Grassley’s minority staff compiled from public documents (ignore his political affiliation for a moment and just consider the facts) should send shivers down the spine of any self-respecting progressive voter.

      • I’d like to believe Grassley’s staff rose above partisanship and focused on facts.

        <

        p>But I’m sorry, I don’t.

        <

        p>Your description:

        <

        p>

        We’re talking about a grossly mismanaged organization, at least $5 million in embezzlement, and leaders who have profiteered by abusing the organization’s tax exempt status.

        <

        p>could apply to dozens of organizations that get uninterrupted federal funding. Where is Grassley, on them?

        • I know the the founders’ brother embezzled $1 million and that the board kept it private, and that the founder has paid it back on behalf of his brother. Neither one is associated with ACORN any longer.  Well, the founder is running the international now.  Is there embezzlement other than that?

          • But if embezzlement was enough to disqualify someone from federal funding …

            <

            p>Hell, members of Congress have embezzled federal funds. Should Congress stop funding itself?

            <

            p>This is an unwinnable argument, though, because all I’m left with is “everybody does it.” So rather than take that stance, I welcome further investigation.

            <

            p>Start with ACORN, then go the organizations Brookline Tom suggests. And don’t stop there.

            <

            p>

    • It’s our loss as a nation that ACORN has been spurned like a Cordelia by both parties of our King Lear 111th United States Congress. Chris is right on in calling out the de-funding of ACORN as an over-reaction. I’m not a lawyer who could argue how ACORN has a property interest and a liberty interest in remaining as a beneficiary of the pre-established state action of supportive federal funding. That being said,  I’d rather have ACORN around doing its non-profit work of producing high voter turn-out. A record 123 million of us Americans voted late last year. One of the losing candidates voted for was John McCain, an ACORN keynote speaker in a Florida event some time ago. Local elections this year have had poor turn-outs. Framingham had only 1,700 voters out of 70,000 accounted residents. Massachusetts neighborhoods like the deep South of Framingham (South of Bowditch Field) stand to suffer without ACORN to get people to register as voters to re-elect public servants (especially local state senators and representatives) who have worked so hard to maintain minority facilities such as the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority Lift buses. The MRTA lift bus started out with barely any funding, as pointed out by a Framingham Democratic Town Committee member this past Sunday. With no incentive of substantive personal gain, State Senator Karen Spilka sustained and secured this transportation provider, which gives rides to people who are poor and/or disabled. In a town of car owners, the actual five or so thousand riders of The Lift don’t even make up a fat voting bloc. These people don’t even hold a tenth of their town’s population. In a low turn-out election, loonies who never sign up themselves to work as roadwork flagmen while always whining about the salaries of police officers (whilst demanding that they grab every Souza and Silva and fly them back to Brazil), and continually posting non sequitur rants on the MetroWest Daily News’ website, pose a threat to have their way when the ballots get counted.

  2. Joe Nocera is on the case.

    <

    p>

    And the American International Group is contractually obliged to make bonus payments of nearly $200 million in March 2010. The company has promised to try to reduce that amount by 30 percent. But once again, there is nothing Mr. Feinberg can do because those bonuses were already written into contracts – and there is a high likelihood that the bonuses will create another furor in Congress, just as they did earlier this year.

    <

    p>And the difference here is … what, exactly? AIG execs can afford lawyers?

    • Hell, fire ’em and then offer to hire them back without that part of the contract.  I mean, it’s cool to do it for hotel maids, right?

    • Pink slip otr fire everyone in the company. AIG should have been allowed to fail as well as all the scumbags at Goldman Sachs. I could give a fig what the consequence would be.  

  4. How do you possibly defend ACORN?  How do you honestly trust them with federal dollars?

    <

    p>Conservatives, Moderates, Liberals, Republicans, Democrats, White, Black, Asian WHOEVER…should not support an organization as corrupt as ACORN…especially with Federal Funds.

    <

    p>The “fox controversy” is in many ways the straw that broke the camels back… in other ways it is just the tip of the iceberg.  Watch and learn what happens with all these OTHER investigations into ACORN.  None of which has anything to do with the 20 year olds that posed as a pimp and a prostitute.

    <

    p>Pull the wool from your eyes and forget your ideology for one minute.  Take a close, honest, HARD look at ACORN.  If your not convinced they are as crooked as the day is long, then YOU with YOUR OWN money write them a big fat check.

    <

    p>

    • Corruption should be established in a court of law not by a right-wing cable news using video recorded by a right-wing 20-something year old conservative with a camera posing a pimp.  

    • Wouldn’t you rather have a full investigation before reaching that conclusion?

      <

      p>Suppose it were your company accused of fraud or other malfeasance. Wouldn’t you want Congress to investigate before it cut your funding?

      <

      p>I actually think I have a clear-eyed view of ACORN. It has flaws. But the controversy surrounding it is a pure, highly selective FOX witch hunt.

        • I am blaming Fox for getting Congress all riled up, and I am blaming the Democratic Party for not defending an organization that does a lot of good work.

        • is wrongly reporting ACORN-related voter fraud.  ACORN did do voter registration drives.  As required under the law, ACORN reviewed  the registrations and reported illegitimate ones.  FOX seized on that called is voter fraud.  

          <

          p>There is not one documented instance of voter fraud and FOX stills claims it’s voter fraud, repeatedly and breathlessly.

          <

          p>I would be worried but I don’t think anyone who watches FoxNews thinks it’s a news organization, they think its the media arm of the Republican party.  

          <

          p>Want to see what ACORN phobia has wrought? Meet Tim Jones

          • I don’t know why it keeps repeating its bits, but he’s quite a character. “They blame you for your actions” — ayep.

    • Around here, like in a court of law, if you make an accusation, the burden is on YOU to back it up.  Give specific examples of how ACORN has misused public funds in the past along with links to support those examples.

    • Yesterday, GOP Rep. Paul Broun  had a five-minute dialogue with Rep. Alan Grayson about the unconstitutionality of the Congressional GOP’s numerous amendments directed exclusively at ACORN, all of which bar ACORN from receiving any government contracts due to alleged wrongdoing (not adjudicated by any court).  While being questioned by Grayson about whether these measures are unconstitutional “bills of attainder” — acts of Congress that punish specific individuals for alleged, unadjudicated wrongdoing — Broun was handed a piece of paper, which he dutifully read, claiming that these amendments do not impose “punishment” on ACORN.  Instead, he claimed, Congress is merely barring ACORN from receiving government contracts, and since nobody has the “right” to receive government contracts, there is no “punishment” here.  It’s simply a case of the government exercising its prerogative as to who it will and will not hire.

      As always happens, numerous people who never gave a moment’s thought to what a “bill of attainder” is rushed forward to declare that Broun was correct, because they want to believe that.  But it’s false, and clearly so.

      MORE HERE

  6. Conservatives are distorting and playing up the community organizing group’s so-called scandals.
    By Peter Dreier
    October 22, 2009

    <

    p>For 40 years, the community organizing group ACORN has been a strong and effective voice for low-income Americans. It has registered more than a million citizens to vote. It has provided counseling and other assistance to help Americans buy and keep homes. It has fought on behalf of working people for fair treatment by employers, banks, mortgage companies and payday lenders. It played a leading role in organizing the victims of Hurricane Katrina to gain a voice in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast.

    <

    p>But few Americans had heard of ACORN until last fall, when Sen. John McCain and then-Gov. Sarah Palin began attacking the organization for “voter fraud.” Soon, more than 80% of Americans knew about the group, according to polls. In the last month, Fox News, and then the rest of the media, have broadcast videos of several ACORN staffers advising people posing as a pimp and prostitute to lie on their tax returns. Now people know ACORN for that too.

    <

    p>It was wrong that workers registering voters for ACORN submitted false names. And it was wrong for ACORN employees to offer the advice they did to the posing couple. But the organization took swift action in both cases, notifying election officials in the first instance and terminating employees in the second.

    <

    p>Read on

    • Thanks to a recent congressional investigation, we now know that Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s top political advisor, tried to get several U.S. attorneys to prosecute ACORN for voter fraud. When one of them, David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, discovered no evidence of fraud, he refused to prosecute ACORN. Iglesias was quickly fired.

      • And Bill Clinton pocketted the dough!
        Holder has blood all over his hands—you see anyone going after Holder? Perhaps not now—but they will.

  7. This, IMHO, is a classic case of progressive masochism. There is no way the federal government is going to partially fund an organization as systemically corrupt as ACORN.

    <

    p>Since much of the ACORN supporters in this thread do so by impeaching the credibility of ACORN’s enemies, herewith a post from the left, whose credentials are unimpeachable.

    <

    p>Full Disclosure: I’ve seen the results of ACORN voter registration drives in Boston; blatantly false applications are pretty much of an in-house joke in the Elections Department. (Further disclosure: I don’t work for the city; I was dropping off completed forms from my neighborhood.)

    <

    p>I discuss my personal opinion of ACORN here

    <

    p>There is no constitutional right to contract with accused felons.

    • This, IMHO, is a classic case of conservative masochism. There is no way the federal government is going to partially fund an organization as systemically corrupt as HALLIBURTON/KBR.
      Since much of the HALLIBURTON/KBR supporters in this thread do so by impeaching the credibility of HALLIBURTON/KBR’s enemies, herewith a post from the right, whose credentials are unimpeachable.

      <

      p>Full Disclosure: I’ve seen the results of HALLIBURTON’s contractual abuse in Iraq; blatantly false applications are pretty much of an in-house joke in the Defense Department. (Further disclosure: I don’t work for the Defense Department; I was dropping off completed contracts from my corporate suppliers.)

      <

      p>I discuss my personal opinion of HALLIBURTON/KBR here[.]
      —————

      <

      p>Yeah, we know.  

    • The only “masochism” I indulge in is blogging.

      <

      p>From your link (emphasis mine):

      <

      p>

      The response from the ACORN leadership to this latest incident has been to terminate the employees and insist that this is unrepresentative of the work of ACORN. While I know that this is not representative of the work of ACORN, such an answer is insufficient at best. Leaving aside other allegations targeted at ACORN, the question is what is going on in the leadership such that such actions can unfold?

      <

      p>I’ve acknowledged throughout this thread that ACORN has problems. You know who else has problems? Everybody else.

      <

      p>Sorry, Paul, but I think you’re projecting. I think you’re annoyed at ACORN for creating a problem, and you want to wash your hands of it. Fine. But we are talking about a massive national organization with chapters in most if not all states. The political fact is, this organization was thrown under the bus because our party, top to bottom, is gutless. We cower in the face of Republican hysteria.

      <

      p>In 2003, 2004, and 2005, while we were talking about corruption and waste in Iraq war contracts, was it on Fox? Was it on NBC or ABC, for that matter? Was the mantle taken up by any Democrat in Congress? No — some Republican might get upset.

      <

      p>Do you want me to google to see how many Wall Street firms have been touched by scandal? Off the top off my head, Merrill Lynch and Lehman come to mind. Did the SEC shut them down? No. Was it ever even suggested? Was it ever suggested that federal agencies not deal with them?

      <

      p>ACORN’s corrupt, you say. I repeat, let’s investigate. But let’s do so with the presumption of innocence, which IS a right.

      <

      p>Otherwise, who’s next? And don’t say that’s a silly question, because this administration has already fired someone had someone resign because Fox was squawking. Next month, it will be someone else. And this, while we have the presidency and both houses of Congress. It’s absolutely absurd.

      <

      p>

  8. The right has been working on ways to comeback. Having the left fight each other is a great idea so please keep defending ACORN, please keep trying to isolate FOX and keep those Beck boycotts going strong (have you seen his ratings since the boycott?). Oh ya, and please tell Rachel and Keith (and Ed) on that other “opinion” cable station (but they opinions Obama likes so they are safe) to keep pumping out partisan diatribe. Rachel is looking worse and worse every time. Tell MSNBC to grow some balls and have some guests on who disagree (which makes Morning Joe such a great show). What would you pay for these match-ups for a pay-per-view show…

    <

    p>Mathews vs. Beck ??? $500

    <

    p>Maddow vs. Dick Morris ??? $1,000

    <

    p>Olbermann vs. O’Reilly ???  Priceless

    • Let me make it simple.

      <

      p>No future obligations of funds. No agency or department should obligate or award any Federal funds to Halliburton or any of its affiliates.

      <

      p>Do you agree or disagree?

      <

      p>Suspension of grant or contractual payment. If your agency has an existing grant with Halliburon or any of its affiliates, the agency should: (i) where possible, immediately suspend performance of any obligations under the contract or agreement, including payment of Federal funds; (ii) consult promptly with the agency’s general counsel and, if necessary, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Justice concerning the legal considerations that bear on the performance of such obligations under the existing contract or agreement.

      <

      p>Do you agree or disagree?

      <

      p>No funding of Halliburton and its affiliates through Federal grantees or contractors.

      <

      p>Do you agree or disagree?

      <

      p>No future obligations of funds. No agency or department should obligate or award any Federal funds to Blackwater or any of its affiliates.

      <

      p>Do you agree or disagree?

      <

      p>Suspension of grant or contractual payment. If your agency has an existing grant with Blackwater or any of its affiliates, the agency should: (i) where possible, immediately suspend performance of any obligations under the contract or agreement, including payment of Federal funds; (ii) consult promptly with the agency’s general counsel and, if necessary, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Justice concerning the legal considerations that bear on the performance of such obligations under the existing contract or agreement.

      <

      p>Do you agree or disagree?

      <

      p>No funding of Blackwater and its affiliates through Federal grantees or contractors.

      <

      p>Do you agree or disagree?

      <

      p>Six simple yes/no questions.

      <

      p>Where do you stand?

      • Why won’t the Democratically controlled House, Senate and Oval Office do anything about it? Is Cheney still running things?

        • In February of this year, Halliburton agreed to pay $579 million in fines (emphasis  mine):

          Halliburton and Kellogg Brown & Root have agreed to pay $579 million in fines related to allegations of foreign bribery, the biggest fines ever paid by U.S. companies in a foreign corruption case, federal authorities and the companies said yesterday.

          The Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice alleged that Houston-based Halliburton and KBR were part of a joint venture that spent $182 million to bribe Nigerian government officials over a 10-year period to win more than $6 billion in construction contracts.

          Halliburton, which owned KBR during the time of the alleged actions and spun it off in April 2007, will be responsible for paying all but $20 million of the penalty.

          KBR, one of the top U.S. government contractors, pleaded guilty to violating the federal law banning companies from paying bribes to get business in foreign countries. Halliburton did not admit or deny wrongdoing.

          <

          p>I don’t remember any action like this while Mr. Cheney was in office — it doesn’t look to me as though he is still “running things”.

          <

          p>Funny how Fox Noise seems so disinterested in these two companies — even though the amount each appears to have improperly received dwarfs the total amount paid to ACORN, never mind embezzled from them:

          [Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity] have largely ignored major scandals involving military contractors that have huge government contracts

          Halliburton, KBR, and Blackwater have received tens of billions of dollars in military contracts and have been connected to major scandals, some even resulting in death. Major controversies concerning work performed by Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown and Root (a Halliburton subsidiary), and Blackwater (now named Xe) broke between 2006 and 2009. According to news reports, Blackwater, Halliburton, and KBR have received a combined total of at least $25 billion dollars in federal contracts since 2001. By comparison, ACORN has received an estimated $53 million in federal funding over the past 15 years, which is an average of $3.5 million per year.

          <

          p>Let’s just see the instant replay on that.

          <

          p>Blackwater, Halliburton, and KBR have received $25B since 2001 — $3.125 BILLION per year.

          <

          p>ACORN has received $53M over the past 15 years — $3.5 MILLION per year.

          <

          p>For the numerically challenged, those two numbers look like this:

          <

          p>$3,125,000,000
          $       3,500,000

          <

          p>How many US soldiers and civilian contractors has ACORN killed? ZERO

          <

          p>I’d say that President Obama’s administration is “doing something about it”. I think it’s pretty clear that Mr. Cheney is not still “running things.”

          • No future obligations of funds. No agency or department should obligate or award any Federal funds to Halliburton or any of its affiliates.

            <

            p>Suspension of grant or contractual payment.

            <

            p>No funding of Halliburton and its affiliates through Federal grantees or contractors.

            <

            p>No future obligations of funds.

            <

            p>Suspension of grant or contractual payment.

            <

            p>No funding of Blackwater and its affiliates through Federal grantees or contractors.

            <

            p>Change we can believe in … HA!

            <

            p>The fine you mentioned probably got added to their next government contract.

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