The Center for LESS Responsible Lending

If the road to Hell (or serfdom) was paved with good intention (and economic ignorance) then surely that road starts at the North Carolina doorstep of the Center for Responsible Lending. Haven’t heard of it? Not surprising. It’s less well-known than ACORN and SEIU, but its actions have terrible consequences for the rest of us.

The Center for Responsible Lending is part of a giant web of financial institutions that make cheap loans (and act like loan sharks as they sue their customers over loans as small as $96) — all while smearing the reputation of customers and lobbying to restrict competing financial products. (Click here to learn more.) For what it’s worth, the Consumers Rights League, a watchdog group, has filed a massive IRS complaint alleging:

• The totality of the Center’s activities seems to constitute lobbying in violation of their tax-exempt status.
• The Center receives the vast majority of their revenue from only two donors—both of whom have potentially made billions of dollars as a result of the Center’s lobbying activities.
• The Center may have attempted to hide the role of major donors who stood to benefit from the Center’s lobbying activities by failing to file disclosures required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
• The Center may have attempted to mask the extent of their lobbying by illegally combining entities on reports and improperly or outright failing to report lobbying expenditures and activities.
• The Center has reported significantly fewer lobbying expenditures to the IRS than to Congress in what seems to be an attempt to camouflage lobbying expenditures that exceed the allowable amounts for tax-exempt 501c3 organizations.

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Tags: Center for Responsible Lending, Consumers Rights League
Posted Nov 11th 2009 at 8:13 am in Economics | 2823425 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bjacobson/2009/11/11/the-center-for-less-responsible-lending/The+Center+for+LESS+Responsible+Lending2009-11-11+15%3A13%3A40Bret+Jacobson

ACORN’S Enron-Style Accounting: Playing Musical Chairs with Big Money

The activities of the radical, corrupt to the core, left-wing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has tangled itself up in an infinitely complex web of deceit, thuggery, and questionable financial dealings, are long overdue for a RICO probe.

Recent well-publicized events that I need not recount here show ACORN’s criminal propensities. In a moment I’ll explain how ACORN’s financial affairs ought to raise a red flag for investigators at the U.S. Department of Justice, but first some background.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which was created to prosecute organized crime, allows the federal government to go after individuals who commit any two RICO-related crimes over a decade. The law allows courts to convict persons if it can be shown that they committed those crimes as part of an illegal enterprise and can order disgorgement of their ill-gotten gains from the enterprise.

RICO is the right tool for the job.

Perhaps it’s the only tool for the job because the ACORN network is deliberately structured to deter scrutiny. Its nebulous legal status and opaque corporate structure allow it to keep its activities largely hidden from public view.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN International Inc., Affiliated Media/Foundation Movement, American Institute for Social Justice Inc., American Spectator
Posted Sep 25th 2009 at 7:10 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Obama | 797431 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvadum/2009/09/25/acorns-enron-style-accounting-playing-musical-chairs-with-big-money/ACORN%E2%80%99S+Enron-Style+Accounting%3A+Playing+Musical+Chairs+with+Big+Money2009-09-25+14%3A10%3A22Matthew+Vadum

ACORN’s Roots Watered by Taxpayers

Until last Thursday, many Americans assumed ACORN’s massive tax windfall was just a way to funnel taxpayer money to a radical organization. That was before the shocking video revelation that ACORN Housing staff — funded by millions of dollars of the public’s money — is willing to offer their “counseling services” to would-be operators of child prostitute rings.

Clearly, it’s time to take a closer look at how taxpayer money drives the ACORN empire.

The Public Trough

Until recently, few knew much about ACORN or the reach of its 300-plus organizations with a hundred-million-dollar budget. The main financial sustenance for the behemoth comes from unions (which outsource dirty work, strategy, and anti-corporate attacks to the group), powerful and politically minded non-profit foundations, political campaigns (including $800,000 from then-Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008) and taxpayer money.

That public trough has been open to those who seem to feel they are more equal than others. The Washington Examiner investigated and found out that “at least $53 million in federal funds have gone to ACORN activists since 1994.” (See the spreadsheet here.)

A large chunk of that money flows from the federal government to the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC). On the group’s IRS filings for the fiscal year ending in June 2007, AHC reported taking in more than $2.8 million in that year alone — accounting for approximately 30 percent of that year’s budget. A 2008 report from the Consumers Rights League found that from 2004 through 2006, government funds accounted for 40 percent of the group’s $18.3 million in revenue.

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Tags: ACORN child prostitution video, ACORN Housing, ACORN videos, Consumers Rights League, taxpayer funds
Posted Sep 14th 2009 at 12:18 pm in ACORN | 2170157 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bjacobson/2009/09/14/acorns-roots-watered-by-taxpayers/ACORN%27s+Roots+Watered+by+Taxpayers2009-09-14+19%3A18%3A44Bret+Jacobson