Report: Gov't Agencies Slow to Implement ACORN Funding Restrictions

According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, 11 out of 27 federal agencies failed to promptly implement ACORN funding restriction even though lawmakers voted in 2009 to cut of funds.

"Not all agencies had taken action to implement the funding restriction provisions prior to when we began our review in August 2010," the report determined. "Specifically, 11 agencies—CNCS, DOD, DOS, DOT, HHS, NASA, NEH, NARA, NSF, the Small Business Administration (SBA), and Social Security Administration (SSA)—indicated that they took action to implement the restriction, at least in part, as a result of our inquiries and subsequent conversations."

It goes on to say that four agencies gave nine awards to various ACORN-related groups in FY 2010, including the Tides Foundation. However, it noted that some of those were later retracted while other recipients were determined to no longer have an ACORN affiliation:

For fiscal year 2010, four agencies initially made nine awards to organizations included in this report—specifically, Tides Center (six awards), ACORN Albuquerque (also known as ACORN Associates) (one award), ACORN Community Land Association of Louisiana (one award), and New York Agency for Community Affairs (one award), but the awards to the latter three organizations were retracted, and we determined that after 2009, Tides Center no longer had any indicators of affiliation with ACORN. For the first two quarters of fiscal year 2011, one agency made two awards to ACORN Housing Corporation (New Orleans)—currently Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA). One of these awards was retracted, and in September 2010, we found that AHCOA did not have any indicators of affiliation with ACORN.

Still, despite its main branch essentially disbanding after being shamed by series of debacles -- from registering the deceased to vote Democrat in 2008's presidential election, to its employees telling an undercover pimp and prostitute how to launder money -- it seems ACORN, like the phoenix, rises again.

Fox News reports that the community organizers, via their affiliates -- or rather, new incarnations --might still eligible to collect federal dollars:

The report also revealed that some groups with past ties to ACORN may still be eligible for funding. For instance, the Department of Housing and Urban Development wrote a memo determining that Affordable Housing Centers of America, formerly known as ACORN Housing Corporation, was "not an ACORN subsidiary, affiliate, or allied organization." Though ACORN Housing Corporation was formed in the 1980s by ACORN organizers and shared executives and addresses with ACORN itself, GAO reached a similar conclusion in September 2010.

Read the full report here.

(H/T: FoxNews.com)