Well, maybe not all — but there’s some nervousness out there. After yesterday’s post on why reducing spending and government is so tough — today I find that Congress has just enacted a way to really cut back on expenditures that I whole heartedly endorse:
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who’s Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.
Anyone laughing yet? Rep. Greyson is planning on filing a list of organizations charged with “breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency” or with employees so charged so that judges can be really clear who got defunded. Want to help him build the list? Greyson set up a Google Spreadsheet where you can suggest contractors to add.
And apparently there are some other constitutional hurdles for this ACORN bill, but I love that this may have just functionally put out of business a huge swath of the military industrial complex. PleasePleasePlease, Democrats, do NOT fix this without getting multiple pounds of flesh out of it…..