Over the long run of history, who did more to lift people out of poverty and expand opportunity? Former President Ronald Reagan, or the top officers with ACORN who embezzled and misappropriated funds from their own membership? On the anniversary of his 100th birthday, Reagan is widely credited and praised for re-energizing the economy and reversing the “malaise” of the 1970s.
Under his watch, double-digit inflation was eliminated, interest rates were slashed and millions of new jobs were created. But 1982 was a tough period politically. The recovery had not yet become evident and Reagan’s popularity plummeted. The Democratic Party had also regained its footing and would make strong gains in the House and Senate that year.
Into this recessionary climate, stepped an organization known as “The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now” (ACORN), which joined with other left-leaning groups to set up “tent communities” in urban areas that were derisively described as “Reagan Ranches.” The idea was to draw a comparison with the Great Depression of the 1930s. Back then, tent cities known as “Hoovervilles” were established to accommodate urban residents mired in poverty. President Herbert Hoover lost his re-election bid to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and liberal protestors expected Reagan to suffer a similar fate come 1984.
“President Reagan likes to claim he had a mandate from the American people for devastating budget cuts, a massive military buildup and an economic policy that robs from the needy to give to the greedy, but this November, we’ll destroy that myth once and for all and send Reaganomics back to the ranch,” Larry Rodgers, the ACORN national president was quoted as saying in an Associated Press report.
At the time, ACORN claimed 60,000 members in 26 states, the AP report said. Although it was founded in Arkansas just over 40 years ago, ACORN is now headquartered in New Orleans, La. In the aftermath of on-going voter registration fraud investigations and a videotape scandal that called attention to questionable financial practices, ACORN officials have rebranded several national and state affiliates under new, generic sounding community organizer names. The ACORN network remains “active,” in New Orleans, but several affiliates are listed as “Not in Good Standing,” according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office.
The New Orleans-based ACORN Campaign Services, for example, is categorized as an “active,” but it is also listed as “Not in Good Standing for Failure to File Annual Report.” The various ACORN entities that have not submitted their report could lose their legal status Jacques Berry, the press secretary for Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, has said.
“We are not an enforcement agency,” he has explained. “We just change the designation of an organization if they miss their annual report anniversary and if they miss it three years in a row then we revoke their legal ability to do business in Louisiana.”
The city served as a major platform for anti-Reagan demonstrations in the run up to the 1982 elections that ACORN officials organized. About 20 tents were set up along Interstate 10 ramps in New Orleans where a “Nancy Reagan Fashion Show for the Depression-Minded,” an AP report said.
The history is worth recalling as the ACORN network continues to insist upon economically unsound policy measures that work against the interests of people they claim to represent. One of the affiliates that remains active in New Orleans, for example, is devoted to increasing the minimum wage, which typically results in the elimination of entry level jobs.
Community activists ought to revisit the free market solutions Reagan offered to a troubled nation in the early 80s that resulted in a record-setting economic boom.
