Today, there was a hearing on the lessons learned from the 2008 elections and I was there to tell the unexamined story of ACORN.

Although ACORN has – routinely and repeatedly violated laws – it has been rewarded by the Democrats with up to $2 billion in taxpayer dollars. This is as outrageous as the bonuses AIG paid to the same executives who ran it into the ground.

If you reward bad behavior, you tend to encourage it – one shudders to think what ACORN would do with up to $2 billion, given the fraud and abuse it was engaged in prior to receiving stimulus money.

As background, ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is, despite its claims, a massive political enterprise that includes as many as 175 subsidiaries, including two labor union locals, and lobbying and political organizations.

ACORN, in violation of numerous laws, strongly supported then-Senator Obama’s presidential aspirations. Its political wing endorsed Obama, and during the 2008 primary, his campaign paid an ACORN affiliate more than $800,000 for political services.

It must be understood that ACORN has both official and unofficial programs called “Muscle for the Money.” The official “Muscle for Money” program is the ACORN political operation. Under this program, the Obama campaign paid an ACORN affiliate nearly $900,000 not only to register voters, but to also convert those voter registrations into votes at the polls. ACORN used employees of other subsidiaries, irrespective of the subsidiary’s tax status, to accomplish this objective.

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