ACORN's Stimulus

(Info From Other Blogs)

ACORN's Stimulus for various vote fraud and extortion rackets. The legislative package provides these funds without the usual prohibition on using government money for lobbying or political activities. Obama proves again he is a FRAUD and LIAR!

With a new president ensconced in the White House, it's time to roll out the goodies for loyal supporters in left-of-center political advocacy groups such as ACORN.

The latest economic stimulus bill promises to do just that by providing a huge bailout --up to $5.2 billion in taxpayer funds -- for some of the same liberal groups that helped get Barack Obama elected.

The three relevant fiscal provisions are buried deep in the $825 billion monstrosity known as the proposed "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009."

Title XII of the spending legislation backed by the Democratic congressional leadership and the Obama administration would dole out $1 billion in old-fashioned slush funds for the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) program. Local politicians love CDBG because it is flexible. The program 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 spending their own local tax dollars on. ACORN loves CDBG because it is adept at lobbying for CDBG funds.

A separate $10 million is provided in the stimulus package to develop or rehabilitate low-income housing under the Self-Help and Assisted Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP).

But the biggest chunk of the $5.2 billion comes in the form of $4.19 billion for foreclosure relief through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Although ACORN operatives usually get their hands on such funds only after they have first passed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or state and local governments, the new spending bill largely eliminates these dawdling middle men, making it easier to get Uncle Sam's largess directly into the hands of the same people who run ACORN's various vote fraud and extortion rackets. And the legislative package provides these funds without the usual prohibition on using government money for lobbying or political activities.

The current version of the stimulus package would allow nonprofit groups to compete with states and localities for $3.44 billion from the $4.19 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program allocation. The remaining $750 million from the program plus the $10 million in SHOP funds would be set aside exclusively for nonprofit groups.

Probably chief among the groups to benefit from stimulus spending will be ACORN, the infamous network of 100-plus left-wing activist groups.

As everyone who hasn't been in a coma for the last year knows, ACORN and President Obama go way back.

You may remember in October when ACORN's CEO, "chief organizer" Bertha Lewis, appeared in a YouTube video in front of a banner reading "Working Families Party: Fighting for Jobs and Justice," and endorsed Obama for president. (The Working Families Party, a minor New York party, is an ACORN affiliate.) This plea to voters eliminated any doubts that the most diehard benefit-of-the-doubt-giving ACORN supporters may have been harboring that ACORN's voter-registration and get-out-the-vote drives were aimed at getting conservatives and Republicans to the polls.

ACORN's national political action committee, ACORN Votes, also endorsed Obama. ACORN national president Maude Hurd said Obama was "the candidate who best understands and can affect change on the issues ACORN cares about like stopping foreclosures."

You may also remember that during last year's primaries, the Obama campaign paid $832,598 to Citizens Services Inc., another ACORN affiliate, for get-out-the-vote activities. It's also well known that Obama led a voter drive for ACORN affiliate Project Vote, represented ACORN in court, and lectured at ACORN on organizing techniques.

Then-candidate Obama promised a gathering of community organizers in December 2007 that he would involve them in the policy process. "Before I even get inaugurated, during the transition, we're going to be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda. We're going to be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next presidency of the United States of America."

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"Stimulus" Hidden Healthcare Horror

Much of the criticism of the $787 billion stimulus bill is focused on its cost. But what's really at issue is a matter of life and death. Buried deep in the package, there is an expensive new healthcare program that could jeopardize the health, even the lives, of millions of patients.

The bill funnels about $1 billion into government-run "comparative effectiveness research" (CER). Sounds innocuous enough -- that's a relatively paltry sum given the package's $800 billion-plus price tag. But CER will have profound effects on the availability of top-notch treatments in this country. Stripped of bureaucratic jargon, it is the precursor for a national healthcare rationing board.

CER basically involves comparing different pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices, and other treatments in order to determine which is most cost-effective for fighting a particular disease. Theoretically, that sounds like a good program. But, in practice, CER will likely be used to justify rationing and restrict patient treatment options.

That's been precisely the result of CER programs in other countries.

Britain's comparative effectiveness agency, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), recently denied approval for the osteoporosis drug Protelos. NICE officials claimed that it was too pricey to be covered by the country's public insurance system. Never mind that research shows that Protelos's cheaper alternatives aren't effective for one out of every five osteoporosis patients. Countless Britons will now suffer from preventable bone fractures.

Canada's government-run healthcare system is equally stingy about approving state-of-the-art medical treatments. One recent example: A 57-year-old man living in Alberta went in for treatment for an arthritic hip. A specialist recommended he receive a cutting-edge surgery known as "Birmingham" hip resurfacing. Public bureaucrats denied the man coverage for the procedure, claiming he was "too old" for it. Worse still, they forbade him from paying for the procedure himself on the private market.

Virtually every government-run CER program ends up closing off patient access to the best treatments in the name of "cost consciousness." When bureaucrats are put in charge of medical care, cutting down on bills is prioritized over fighting disease.

So it's imperative that this CER proposal be closely scrutinized and that, at the bare minimum, appropriate checks be put in place to insure the program doesn't compromise patient health. The deeper the government's involvement in the healthcare sector, the more life-or-death decisions are handed over to callous budget analysts instead of individual physicians and patients.

It's important to note that CER wouldn't just determine the care options for patients covered under public health insurance. The program's determinations will affect everyone. The federal government is the single biggest buyer of pharmaceutical drugs in the country. If, based on CER findings, the government decides to stop covering a particular medicine, public programs will stop buying it from its manufacturer. But medical companies will have a hard time turning a profit on a particular treatment if the government isn't a customer, and many will be forced to simply stop producing it altogether.

There are plenty of proposals included in the stimulus package that aren't actually tied to economic recovery. But CER is the only one that threatens the lives of countless Americans. It's too dangerous to be ignored.