Mortgage Fallout has ACORN Roots to Presidential Candidate

2008-10-09 22:44:08 (GMT) (WiredPRNews.com - Real Estate, Top Stories)

Barack Obama has strong ties to the group that pressured banks into making high-risk loans.Fort Worth, TX (WiredPRNews.com)— ACORN, which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, pressured banks into making mortgages to those who would otherwise not qualify for them, according to an October 7, 2008 article by Stanley Kurtz, which appeared on the website for National Review.

As all Americans are footing the bill for the $700 billion bailout to prevent the collapse the financial market, ACORN leader Madeline Talbot—who has close ties to Senator Obama—personally strong-armed banks into making mortgage loans to low income minorities in the Chicago area, according to the National Review article. Kurtz writes that ACORN intimidation tactics include showing up at the home of bankers, breaking into offices and flooding bank lobbies with protestors.

Talbot, according to the Kurtz article, was able to use a provision from the Community Reinvestment Act to coerce banks into lowering their credit standards by blocking the banks’ efforts to expand their business. The program expanded to the national level when prominent Obama advisor Jim Johnson—then the head of government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae—joined ACORN’s efforts to expand home ownership among minorities who normally would not qualify for a mortgage, according to the article.

Kurtz adds that the Obama is closely tied to ACORN because he gave $800,000 to the group to get out the vote when Obama kicked off his presidential campaign. In addition to this, the article indicates that Obama worked with ACORN on the Project VOTE effort, which registered 500,000 voters for the 1992 election.

Speaking of voter registration drives, ACORN is in hot water for allegedly submitting fraudulent voter registration cards, according to an October 8, 2008 Las Vegas Review-Journal.com article by Adrienne Packer and Molly Ball. On Tuesday, Nevada authorities raided the Las Vegas offices of ACORN and confiscated files as part of a voter fraud investigation.

According to the Review-Journal article, Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller—a Democrat—stated that some of the registration forms raised red flags because they had names like Terrell Owens and Tony Romo.

Aside from the fraudulent forms, the article indicates that ACORN may have hired prisoners from a nearby halfway house to do some of the work. The effort, called Project VOTE, is similar to what Barack Obama worked on in 1992.

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Jason Meeks · Filed Under Real Estate, Top Stories