On Fox, WSJ editorial board member Moore echoes GOP's ACORN falsehood

Echoing a false GOP talking point, Stephen Moore claimed that “groups like ACORN” received money in the recovery act. In fact, the act does not mention ACORN or otherwise single it out for funding.

During the May 7 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, Stephen Moore, a Wall Street Journal senior economics writer and editorial board member, echoed the false Republican talking point that ACORN received money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Moore claimed that “we know from that stimulus plan that a lot of the money went to liberal special interest groups that helped make the last election possible. Groups like the labor unions, groups like ACORN.” However, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, the recovery act does not mention ACORN or otherwise single it out for funding; ACORN itself has said it is ineligible for the funds and has no plans to apply for them.

As Media Matters has documented, Fox News and other media outlets have frequently repeated this false Republican talking point.

From the May 7 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:

BILL HEMMER (co-host): Let me just be clear. I mentioned $787 billion in the stimulus plan. Of that, 500 billion is supposed to go out to the states, right? So it's a little less than the overall amount. And a --

MOORE: That's right.

HEMMER: -- North Carolina Democrat, [Rep.] Brad Miller, said we're trying to spend $500 billion quickly. That was a quote. I mean, I --

MOORE: Yeah.

HEMMER: -- if you're a taxpayer out there, man, how you feeling about this?

MOORE: Yeah, spending money quickly by the government isn't going to necessarily lead to the most economical ways of spending the money. I mean, I think you're going to see unbelievable amounts of waste.

And, by the way, we know from that stimulus plan that a lot of the money went to liberal special interest groups that helped make the last election possible. Groups like the labor unions, groups like ACORN. Well, does anybody really think that they're going to closely monitor how they're spending that money?