"Affordable Housing"

clipped from corner.nationalreview.com It's time someone took a 12-gauge to the phrase "affordable housing," which crops up all over the place in the ACORN-related commentary. It belongs with "undocumented immigrant" (he stole your Social Security number) and "vibrant neighborhood" (carry a gun) in the Liar's Dictionary. What actually seems to happen in these "affordable housing" scams is that some nuisance group like ACORN joins forces with some scheming developer to shake down banks and local pols. ACORN gets its grant, the developer gets his profit, the pols get their votes, and the ACORN people move their brothers, cousins, and friends into the "affordable housing." The unconnected poor — people who didn't join the all-day sit-in at the bank lobby because they were too busy working for a living, or just because they thought it was rude — are left where they were before. A little worse off, perhaps, as that much less housing is on the actual housing market.