ACORN Ally Barney Frank Lies About ACORN

House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) lied to Lou Dobbs on national television earlier this week, but no one seems to have noticed.

On the May 18 edition of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) said she was worried that the vote-fraud factory known as ACORN and other possibly unethical organizations would “have access potentially to $8.5 billion” in federal funds.

ACORN, which Bachmann noted has received about $53 million in federal money since the early 1990s, has “a pattern of indictment for voter fraud,” she said. “It’s very concerning. No organization has a right to federal taxpayer money.”

Longtime ACORN ally Frank responded, “the notion that they’re eligible for $8 billion is nonsense.” A moment later Frank, who appeared last year in one of the group’s promotional videos called “ACORN Grassroots Democracy Campaign,” repeated his mantra.

“But it’s not $8 billion,” he said.

Oh yes it is, Congressman Frank. Actually it is $8.5 billion.

Let’s break the $8.5 billion down.

The relevant fiscal provisions are in the stimulus package now known formally as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or Public Law 111-5 and in the $47.5 billion proposed fiscal 2010 budget for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The stimulus legislation provides $3 billion that could flow directly or indirectly into the coffers of ACORN and its liberal friends. The $3 billion consists of $2 billion in funds set aside for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes and $1 billion in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG).

CDBG is good old-fashioned graft. Local politicians of both parties adore CDBG because it is flexible. It gives them wide latitude when spending grant money and allows local leaders to use federal dollars on local projects that they wouldn’t dream of asking local taxpayers to fund.

ACORN loves CDBG because it is especially adept at extracting CDBG funds from local governments.

In addition to the $3 billion available in the stimulus package, the proposed HUD budget for fiscal 2010 provides $1 billion for the affordable housing trust fund and $4.5 billion in CDBG funds that could in theory find their way to ACORN and other liberal groups such as the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), the National Council of La Raza (which lobbies for race preferences, amnesty, and open borders), and the Greenlining Institute (which pressures banks to lend money in low-income, high-risk areas).

Why worry about ACORN? Because it has a long track record of election fraud, abuse of federal funds, and use of tax dollars for extreme left-wing political projects. A 1997 congressional probe found that ACORN had improperly used federal resources to carry out partisan political work.

And the investigations of ACORN by the media are only just beginning.