County Democrats trying to hit Santorum where he doesn't live

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06255/721036-177.stm

Democrats on Allegheny County Council plan to offer a resolution tonight calling for heightened scrutiny and potential prosecution of property owners who improperly claim a homestead tax exemption.

Amid a highly charged election campaign, the measure seems calculated to again highlight the fact that U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is a part-time resident of Allegheny County, while he and his family spend most of their time in a home in Virginia.

There is nothing illegal or unethical about the common practice of members of Congress moving their families to Washington for all or part of the year, but the residence spotlight has been a political headache for the Santorum campaign in part because he exploited a similar issue against a Democratic incumbent in his first race for Congress in 1990.

Allegheny County's homestead exemption for real estate taxes, worth about $70 annually, is intended to be used only for a homeowner's primary residence. Mr. Santorum claims the exemption on a home in Penn Hills, although he acknowledges that he and his family spend most of the year in his Leesburg, Va., residence.

An aide to Mr. Santorum said that while the senator claims the homestead exemption, he has made a practice of donating a check for the equivalent amount to the county. His campaign did not immediately shed any light on why he would take the exemption and make the compensatory payment rather than simply not taking the exemption -- a procedure that would have the same net financial result for the senator and the county.

[Mnemosyne]

1. It is really quite simple -

A 2 bedroom house in PA for 8 people vs


Mansion in VA

[No Exit]

3. Golly, it's just like Scum DeLay's "modest" Washington digs

(as Chris Tweety Matthews described the Scum's condo in the D.C. area.)

Wonder if there're any dead babies in glass cases buried (or displayed) on those grounds?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

19. It's in Alexandria, and

it isn't fancy. It's in a high-rise building in the western part of the city.

DeLay Won't Have to Live Like a Refugee

[Joe Bacon]

4. Wow, the only things missing from that pix are Eb and Mr Haney!

...oops, I forgot Arnold the Pig }(

[corporatemedia]

6. For ALL the PICS of his HOME in VIRGINIA visit -

SANTORUM CYBERGATE

We first obtained these pics of Tricky Ricky's home in December of 2004 and posted them in January of 2005.

Tricky Ricky's residency has now been an issue for 22 months!

SANTORUM CYBERGATE - the scandal that keeps on giving

[maxrandb]

2. I have an answer to this question

"His campaign did not immediately shed any light on why he would take the exemption and make the compensatory payment rather than simply not taking the exemption -- a procedure that would have the same net financial result for the senator and the county."

It's because Ricky is a crooked little shit who is trying to have it both ways (in other words, he's a typical Republiscam)! He takes the exemption so that he doesn't have to admit that PA is simply "flyover country" for him.

Oh Ricky, didn't your momma ever tell you; "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive".?

[gratuitous]

7. And this exemption is for $70 a year

Seventy fucking dollars. A year. Less than six bucks a month. Santorum screwing around with the system for $70. There's no shortcut too small, no point too petty, that some Republican somewhere won't try to score it. Seventy dollars. Shit.

[cap]

5. the question is "How can he afford these houses on a Senate salary??"

seriously.... that house in the picture is $750K and the other house is a much more modest house, I think $150K...

Santorum makes $150K, his wife doesnt work, he has six kids and he isnt independently wealthy. How does he afford that mortgage? If its on an ARM, which it almost certainly has to be, he cant afford the payments especially with interest rates going up.

Santorum, whose your daddy?

[formercia]

9. Timely investments.

he had staff running a mini-brokerage in his office.

I hear his investing acumen is nothing short of divine intervention.

[Occulus]

10. That kind of acumen smells a bit like insider trading from here

Legislators of all stripes should be forbidden from owning stock. Period. It's far, far too easy for them to game the system with information we, the people, cannot have.

[formercia]

11. K Street project

he was the Maitre'd, matchmaker extraordinaire.

Let's go down to jack's place for lunch.

I wonder how many tape recorders they had going at any given time.

[countingbluecars]

15. Maybe he got a sweet deal

from the developer/builder of that Leesburg McMansion community, Toll Brothers. Aren't they big developers in PA?

[RamboLiberal]

16. Check out this info on Ricky and as artilcle points out

His parents on a government pension help out time-to-time.

Living "paycheck to paycheck" with "a check every now and then" from his parents. Wow. Life sure must be rough for Senator Rick Santorum. I can picture it now -- Santorum picking up clothes for his kids at the Goodwill, Santorum buying no-brand bulk groceries at Sam's Club, Santorum at the kitchen table late at night, trying to figure out how to make ends meet, and so on. He's like a modern-day Bob Cratchit.

That's what you might think, but no. Rick Santorum did what every struggling American worker ought to do -- he started a PAC! Even if it's not illegal, it's pretty tasteless. And as Ulysses1 has diaried, Will Bunch, writing in The American Prospect has the scoop.

What we found is that Santorum's exurban lifestyle is financed in ways that aren't available to the average voter back home in Pennsylvania -- namely a political action committee that lists payments for such unorthodox items as dozens of trips to the Starbucks in Leesburg, a number of stops at fast-food joints, and purchases at Target, Wal-Mart, and a Giant supermarket in northern Virginia. Although a Santorum aide defends those charges as legitimate political costs, good-government experts say the expenditures are at best unconventional, and at worst a possible violation of Senate rules, and the purchases appear to be unorthodox when compared with other senators' filings. Santorum's PAC -- a "leadership PAC," whose purpose is to dispense money to other Republican candidates -- used just 18.1 percent of its money to that end over a recent five-year period, a lower number than other leadership PACs of top senators from both parties.

Oh, is that all? Well, no. It gets far sleazier. Take, for example, Santorum's mortgage. The company that holds the mortgage, Philadelphia Trust, isn't your average lender. It seems pretty clear that they aren't extending lines of credit to most families living "paycheck to paycheck."

Rick and Karen Santorum do not appear to fit the profile of customers to whom the financial institution would normally issue a loan of any kind. According to information currently posted on Philadelphia Trust's Web site, banking services "are offered at no additional charge to our clients" and "are available only to investment advisory clients whose portfolios we manage, oversee or administer. Interest rates on loans and deposits are competitive. Loan payments will be customized to match each client's specific needs. Approved loans will be collateralized by your investment portfolio."

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/21/111221/166

[cap]

21. he has no investment portfolio

I forgot what the exact figure is ... but his 401K is no great shakes...

[formercia]

8. It had to do with tuition

for his kids to go to a special school that PA has to pay for rather than it coming out of his pocket. A big chunk of change.

[corporatemedia]

12. No, actually this is a different issue. It's about LYING on his tax

exemption application for his fake home in Penn Hills.

See -

Is it time for Tricky Ricky Santorum to return to PRIMARY school?

[formercia]

13. He had to maintain residency.

to get the tuition paid.

You're right as well. Ricky is a sleeze bomb. He's working all angles.

He is also "one of the boys"

[corporatemedia]

14. He did NOT have to claim this tax break in order to claim residency.

He just got a little too cute (tricky) for his own good.

The tuition scam could have proceeded without this little embellishment to his basic LIE about where his PRIMARY residency is: Leesburg, VIRGINIA.

As the Post-Gazette story says, this is a separate issue from "a related controversy over the Penn Hills school board's effort to be reimbursed for cyber school tuition payments..."

[RamboLiberal]

17. To get tuition the PA home has to be your primary residence

little Ricky told Russert in the debate on Labor Day weekend he spends may be 30 days a year at the Penn Hills home. PA clarified the law last year because of the cyber scam Ricky pulled off. He may have been skating on the edge of legality on this at the time.

Yesterday, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Voted 175-24 to Require Students Attending Online School to Actually Live in the School District That Pays for It. Yesterday, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted 175-24 to require students who attend cyberschools to actually live in the district that is paying their tuition for the online school.

House Move Clarified That Santorum Should Not Have Charged PA School District for His Children's Cyberschool. Rep. Anthony DeLuca, who proposed the legislation, said it was in response to Santorum's use of $100,000 in funds to educate his children in Virginia. Pennsylvania law requires school districts to pay for students who live in the district and enroll in cyber schools. The bill seeks to clarify that school districts do not have to pay cyberschool tuition for students whose families live out of state, DeLuca said. Cyberschools would be allowed to charge tuition for students who do not meet the new residency requirements.

PA School District Paid $100,000 for Santorum's Children to Attend Online School - Even Though Santorum and His Family Live Out of State. Since 2001, the Penn Hills School District paid the cost of sending five of Santorum's children to the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, which students attend online. Santorum owns a two-bedroom house in Penn Hills, assessed at $106,000, but he and his family live on their nearly four-acre property in Leesburg, Va., assessed at $757,000, according to tax records. Santorum has said he returns mainly on the holidays to the Penn Hills home. School officials estimated they spent about $100,000 on tuition for the senator's children since 2001.

Santorum Only Removed Children from Cyber School After Questions Were Raised About Residency. On November 17, 2004, Santorum announced that heand his wife, Karen, would "immediately withdraw" their children from the cyber school after Penn Hills officials raised questions about their residency. Santorum issued a statement that his children would no longer attend the charter school and would instead be home-schooled. "The school district has just informed us that after reviewing our situation, only children who live in a community on a full time basis are eligible to be educated in a public cyber charter school program," read Santorum's statement.

http://www.dscc.org/news/roundup/20050623_santorum/

[RamboLiberal]

18. If you want to see info on Ricky's PA Shack

You can check Allegheny County's Web site. Taxes listed on there of $481 is for the County Real Estate Tax. I'm not sure what he pays in Penn Hills School taxes but I'd venture to guess it is less than $2,000. He paid $87,800 for the house in 1997.

Just get Penn Hills as Municipality and Santorum Richard as name.

http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/search.asp

[corporatemedia]

20. And for comparison purposes, check out the Loudoun County VA site

http://inter1.loudoun.gov/webpdbs/default.htm

Answer Yes
then
Search by property address
then enter
17650 Tobermory


You can get a map and other cool info like -

the fair market value of his house is up to

$ 962,500.00 !!!

Wow, two years ago we were calling it his "3/4 million dollar home".
Now, with rounding off, it's just "Tricky Ricky's Million Dollar Home in Virginia"