ACORN wants its money back

This brief heading came up in a recent scan of the news wires: "ACORN lawsuit."

Upon reading that, we naturally assumed that some individual or organization was suing the corrupt ACORN for one misdeed or another. But instead, ACORN actually had the gall to sue the federal government for cutting off its taxpayer funds.

You may recall why Congress and some federal agencies slashed funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. For one thing, the liberal activist group has routinely submitted bogus voter registrations around the country. And it was in the spotlight recently when ACORN workers were filmed offering advice to what they believed to be a pimp and a prostitute on how to claim underage prostitutes as "dependents."

In short order, the Census Bureau and the IRS severed their ties with ACORN, and Congress voted overwhelmingly to cut its funding.

But ACORN says in its lawsuit that that's not fair, and it demands that funding be restored. It complains that it can't carry on operations without the cash and says the funding loss amounts to a conviction without a trial.

That's absurd. Congress is not throwing ACORN workers in prison. It's just cutting off funding, and, after all, receiving taxpayer dollars from Washington is not a "right."

The fact is, ACORN's tens of millions of dollars in funding should have been cut long before the latest scandals, and no apology need be made for that decision now.