ACORN's Last Redoubt

The United States Department of Housing & Urban Development, which the Donk SuperCongress bequeathes a runaway budget no matter how wasteful, boondogglerous, and corrupt it gets:

Federal funding for a housing counseling program carried out by local non-profit groups such as ACORN has more than tripled since 2002, even though it has been criticized by government auditors for failing to show results.

President Obama’s budget calls for a 54% increase next year – $100 million in all – for the program, which helps people buy or refinance a home, prevent a foreclosure or find rental housing. The Senate agreed, while the House of Representatives suggested $70 million; final negotiations over the bill are pending.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been unable to provide much proof the program works, according to government reports, despite an increase in funding from $20 million in 2002 to $65 million last year.

Logic would suggest that if the program doesn't work, it should be defunded.  And a big, fat 23% "success" rate would seem a prima facie indication that it doesn't work.

But, of course, there's very little genuine pragmatism on the hard Left.  Such programs get overfunded in perpetuity for purely blind ideological reasons.  Government as utopia-creator is more discredited than the idea of a flat Earth, but libs keep pushing relentlessly and belligerently forward because their godless secular "faith" demands it - and also, you know, because their very livelihood and power depend upon it.  No surprise that the two sinister factors found consummation in a criminal Marxist conspiracy the counseled in fraud, tax evasion, child prostitution, and all manner of other racketeering.  Care to bet that whatever ACORN successor entity rises like the proverbial undead hand from a musty lake won't find its way into that taxpayer-syphoned cash stash?

Heck, Maxine Waters has offered Big Bertha's bunch a whole new line of "business" - surrogate federal financial regulators:

During consideration of H.R. 3126, legislation to establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee voted to pass an amendment offered by Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) that will make ACORN eligible to play a role in setting regulations for financial institutions.

The Waters amendment adds to the CFPA Oversight Board five representatives from the fields of “consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, or representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgages” to join Federal banking regulators in advising the Director on the consistency of proposed regulations, and strategies and policies that the Director should undertake to enforce its rules.

By making representatives of ACORN and other consumer activist organizations eligible to serve on the Oversight Board, the amendment creates a potentially enormous government sanctioned conflict of interest. ACORN-type organizations will have an advisory role on regulating the very financial institutions from which they receive millions of dollars annually in direct corporate contributions and benefit from other financial partnerships and arrangements. These are the same organizations that pressured banks to make subprime mortgage loans and thus bear a major responsibility for the collapse of the housing market.

This is a level of corruption and power abuse that beggars belief even for as jaded a cynic as moi.  It's a towering lasagna inferno of corruption.  It's the architects of the Democrat Financial Logic Bomb that sabotaged the financial sector, benefitted enormously at the ballot box from it instead of being frog-marched in handcuffs off to federal prison, self-congratulatorily rewarding its criminal racketeer proxy army (think Iran and Hezbollah) with power over (in addition to blizzards of taxpayer lucre from) the very financial sector they raped and pillaged.  To dwell on this stupendous miscarriage of justice is to risk a level of frustrated rage and righteous indignation that could result in hospitalization.  And the bastards want to take THOSE over as well.

Perhaps all of the above (and more) helps explain this:

For the first time in recent years, voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on all ten key electoral issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports. The GOP holds double-digit advantages on five of them.

Republicans have nearly doubled their lead over Democrats on economic issues to 49% to 35%, after leading by eight points in September.

The GOP also holds a 54% to 31% advantage on national security issues and a 50% to 31% lead on the handling of the war in Iraq.

But voters are less sure which party they trust more to handle government ethics and corruption, an issue that passed the economy in voter importance last month. Thirty-three percent (33%) trust Republicans more while 29% have more confidence in Democrats. Another 38% are undecided. Last month, the parties were virtually tied on the issue.

It's a tragic shame that Americans' memories are so short, and so many Americans are so airheadedly non-ideological (and just plain ignorant) that the lesson of what Democrats are and why they should never, EVER be elected, much less to majority power, has to be administered over and over and over again.  But now it's reached the point across the issue board that we're pretty much down to our last chance.  If we don't get rid of these malevolent, authoritarian, treasonous animals like the cancers they are and keep them out of power permanently - and assuming we can even survive the Obama relapse - it's pretty much a certainty that if there's a next time, it will be the last time.