Whether or not ACORN workers are prosecuted, the tape is sufficient grounds for withholding federal housing funds. If HUD grants are supposed to help the poor find affordable housing, why should the agency waste resources subsidizing dishonest operators? Other agencies that had previously paid ACORN for services to the poor, including the Internal Revenue Service, came to this conclusion already.
Congress cannot and should not arbitrarily invalidate legal contracts. But there is ample precedent for government cutting off dealings with fraudsters. Medicare and Medicaid blacklist doctors who cheat the system. The Department of Defense has canceled contracts based in fraud -- for example, the sweetheart Boeing air tanker contract of 2001.
Given his political ties to ACORN from his days in Illinois, it is in President Obama's political interest to see that ACORN does not receive preferential treatment from any government agency. Otherwise, taxpayers should hold him personally responsible for wasting their money.
Yes we can.
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