Comments on: A Sovereign Right to Public Funding

By: OldT6Flyer

OldT6Flyer — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:27:47 +0000

I would assume that the money given to ACORN is through some sort of government contract administered by a government agency. All government contracts I have ever seen have a clause that enables the government to cancel “for the convenience of the government”. No other reason is needed to terminate a contract. The reason for this clause is that all government funds are appropriated by Congress. If an agency contracts for services that the Congress does not appropriate the funds the agency then has this out. Rarely happens but is happening more and more. For example, I am aware a numerous 5 year contracts awarded for services (mainly people contracted at X dollars per hour) for, say, engineering services. The government is increasingly converting these contractor billets to civil service positions. The government then uses their convenience of the government clause to modify (or cancel) the contract previously executed.

So if ACORN is under contract with an agency I’d say they don’t have a case at all.

Hard to see this one going anywhere. But it will be fun to watch.

By: mojo

mojo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:02:22 +0000

You don’t have a “right” to my money, pal. Take your dog and pony show down the road.

By: RonF

RonF — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:26:35 +0000

But there’s no right to public funding. Congress needs no justification to refuse to fund ACORN. They can do it for any reason or no reason at all.

By: Brian R

Brian R — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:10:23 +0000

Much as I dislike ACORN and think they should be defunded, it looks like they’ve got a point. The resolution does sound an awful lot like a bill of attainder, which are unconstitutional for good reason. The government/Congress should be in the business of setting policy & law, before which everyone is equal. Once they start naming names instead, that goes out the window.

I would prefer they not trample the Constitution for this, particularly since there must be any number of constitutionally legal methods to defund ACORN.

By: David M

David M — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:00:04 +0000

If they are now having financial issues then they better start asking what are they paying for when they are clearly receiving the worst legal advice in history.

As another commenter noted: “Discovery Goes Both Ways.”

By: RonF

RonF — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:52:16 +0000

There seems to be quite the sense of entitlement in the left-thinking sphere.

I’m in a debate on the Stopak Amendment. The cry from the left is that “it restricts women’s reproductive rights.” I challenged this on – well, you can challenge it on a lot of things, but I took exception to the use of the word “rights”, pointing out that not one word of any of the various States’ abortion laws were changed.

The logic presented is that since poor women can’t afford to pay for their own abortions, they need insurance paid for by the State to get them. A refusal by the State to do so therefore effectively (the word used) removes their right to get one.

I expounded on the difference between “right” and “entitlement” and how the first encompasses certain things that the government is forbidden to deny you from earning via your own efforts, but the second appears nowhere in the Constitution. You have to earn your own way in this life. I am guaranteed the right to own a gun, but no one has to buy it for me, etc., etc. But this fails to reach them. Apparently it’s my fault that someone else is poor and I am thus obligated to buy them certain things that they haven’t earned on their own.

Then there’s the “why single out abortion? Insurance pays for other medical procedures.” Well – a) abortion is immoral, b) absent rape, pregnancy is the entirely predictable result of a voluntary act, c) if you’re pregnant that means that your reproductive system is working perfectly and you’re not sick, d) there are other medical procedures like breast augmentation that insurance doesn’t pay for, etc., etc. Apparently the answer is that I hate women and want to control them.

Hey, it’s fun to watch. I made a comment on how ironic it is that the prediction that the government would now control what kind of healthcare we had access to – a prediction they denied – has now come true, but not in a way that they desired. I guess it’s a question of whose ox gets gored.