Just days after offering some “interesting” tax advice on film, ACORN was hit with a House bill that would deny federal funds to the group. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) explained:
ACORN has violated serious federal laws, and today the House voted to ensure that taxpayer dollars would no longer be used to fund this corrupt organization.
The group touts itself as an advocate for low- and moderate-income people on fair wage, education and housing issues.
Earlier in the week, the Senate voted to block HUD funding to the group as part of an amendment to a larger bill. However, at least one Senator took issue with the vote: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) felt that the vote was merely ceremonial since the attached bill didn’t include any funding for ACORN in the first place. She said, “All of this is really, I guess, to show people.”
Sen. Feinstein was clearly in the minority with respect to opposing the bill. Both her colleagues in the Senate and those in the House voted overwhelmingly in support of withholding ACORN funding.
Of course, don’t expect the ban to take effect immediately. The bills are not retroactive and would apply to future funding, likely beginning in 2010. The funding could be significant: over the last 15 years, the group has received an estimated $53 million in federal aid.
ACORN’s chief executive officer, Bertha Lewis, noted that ACORN primarily relies on funding from private, not government sources, and indicated that the organization would continue to operate. Despite such optimism, concessions, including reduced hiring, are expected. And ACORN’s woes may not stop there – the FBI has made noise that it may be considering an investigation after the “tax tape” was made public.
I tried to see what kind of response ACORN would offer to the public but their web site was down for the evening (despite repeated attempts to access it). Funding woes already?
As you probably know, 2010 is a key election year. In the Senate alone, there at least 36 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate up for grabs – talk about your shift of power!
The rhetoric is ramping up already and, as you’d expect, many of the real issues are getting lost. So I’m offering you the chance to speak your mind: tell Congress the kind of change you’d like to see!
Here’s the scoop: starting today, I’ll take guest post submissions for publication the week of August 30. You can take any position that you want but the post must focus on what you’d like to see change with respect to taxes – that can include financing health care reform, estate tax repeal, etc., but anything that’s clearly meant to be an “issue piece” about something other than taxes (i.e. abortion, gun control) will be disregarded.
Here are a few more guidelines:
- Posts need to be submitted in plain text format. The best way to do that is just cut and paste your piece in the body of an email. To cut down on the chances you’ll get caught in my spam filter, I ask that you do not send attachments.
- Posts should be submitted to guest@taxgirl.com by Wednesday, August 26, at 11:59 pm EST.
- While I’m hopeful that most pieces are around the 200-400 word mark, you can write up to 1500 words. And then I draw the line. Pieces longer than 1500 words won’t be posted.
- No swearing, no personal attacks, no bad behavior.
- If you submit something, you’re agreeing that the work is your own.
- One post per person.
And here’s the catch: there’s no contest. As long as you follow the rules, you’ll get posted. So, no stress, no muss, no fuss. I want to hear what you have to say.
And lest you think that no one is listening, I have it on very good authority that more than one high profile politician stops by the blog on occasion. Some of them even send an email or two.
So what are you waiting for? Warm up those laptops, glance around at work and make sure no one is paying attention… and write!
It is being reported that a deal has been reached between the House and the Senate on the stimulus bill. Details are still sketchy but you can bet that I’m on it…
A version of the stimulus bill passed the Senate today with a final vote of 61-37. Three GOP Senators broke with the majority and voted with Senate Democrats: Susan Collins (R-ME), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Arlen Specter (R-PA).
But House Republicans may not be so friendly. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that the bill “fails the test as to what a stimulus package ought to be.” He also claims that only three House Republicans were in favor of the bill – not terribly good odds, considering that President Obama hopes to have a final bill on his desk on Monday.
While there isn’t much difference between the final price tags of the House and Senate bills, there are significant distinctions between the make up of the two packages. The House version favors Democrat-friendly education and state aid packages, while the Senate includes a number of additional tax cuts. The discrepancies total billions of dollars.
The challenge will be to find somewhere to meet in the middle. That won’t be easy.
At least one GOP political action group is threatening action for a “yes” vote. Scott Wheeler, Executive Director of The National Republican Trust PAC, has stated, “Republican senators are on notice. If they support the stimulus package, we will make sure every voter in their state knows how they tried to further bankrupt voters in an already bad economy.” Ouch.
And the Senator from my own state of Pennsylvania has thrown down the gauntlet by saying, “My support for the Conference Report on the stimulus package will require that the Senate compromise bill come back virtually intact including, but not limited to, overall spending, the current ratio of tax cuts to spending, and the $110 billion in cuts.”
Democrats will have to compromise because it’s clear that they need some GOP support to pass a final version of the bill. A total of 60 yes votes are needed for the bill to pass: Democrats only have 58 votes. However, many Democrats are resistant to the idea of cutting spending in areas like education and infrastructure. Republicans insist that spending has to be significantly reduced in order to win their support.
President Obama, calling out Democrats and Republicans, has said that Congress needs to “break out of some of the ideological rigidity and gridlock that we’ve been carrying around for too long.” He urged Congress to “act without delay in the coming week to resolve their differences and pass this plan.”
I’m not sure that’s going to happen. Taxpayers are not largely in support of the plan – and Congress is not enjoying a high approval rating. I’m guessing that negotiations will be slow and painful rather than swift and easy. Your guesses?
