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How Rick Santorum got a $2 million Virginia estate
washingtonexaminer.com ^ | mar.2012 | bySteve Contorno

Posted on 03/09/2012 11:05:29 AM PST by VU4G10

Rick Santorum built his presidential candidacy on the premise that he is very different than wealthy, establishment front-runner Mitt Romney, that he is someone who has faced the plights of the average American. Among the hardships Santorum claims to share is an underwater mortgage, the kind that's forcing millions from their homes.

"The value of my house is a fraction of what it was when I bought it," the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania recently told Michigan supporters.

But the Republican presidential contender's housing situation is quite unlike the one so many other Americans actually face, according to experts and documents obtained by The Washington Examiner.

Santorum bought his $2 million, five-acre home in the tony Washington suburb of Great Falls, Va., in August 2007 through a trust in a deal aided by a high-profile tax lawyer who serves as an officer for one of the largest homebuilders in the country.

(Excerpt) Read more at campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: dcinsider; emptyvest; fairfaxcounty; idontcare; insidersantorum; lobbyistrick; millionaires; santorum; santorumhome; santorumhouse; santorumlies; va2012; wedontcare
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To: silverleaf

As a military family who homeschools, which has permanent residency in a homeschool friendly state, we must comply with the laws of our current state and deal with the local school district. I wish it were otherwise.


61 posted on 03/09/2012 12:18:26 PM PST by greatvikingone
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To: GracieOMalley

*BZZZT*

Wrong.
Benefits two liberals specifically.
Mittens and Barry Bigears.

I live in New York.
If more people took your point of view, New York would be even worse.


62 posted on 03/09/2012 12:18:58 PM PST by Darksheare (You will never defeat Bok Choy!)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

Did you even read the article???

“Tax assessments show a nearly 25 percent drop in the house’s value since its peak in early 2008 just after Santorum purchased it”

the rest of this HIT PIECE tries to make it sound ominous that he got a job here and decided to move permanently to Virginia, purchased his home in the name of a trust (financial planning), that the source of the down payment was not public (he sold another house plus he got a big job with maybe a signing bonus, common), that he refinanced it several times even thought the values declined (at LTV normal and acceptable for home refinance) and that he claimed (accurately) that his home value dropped - but he’s not underwater (??so??)

Say What? What is it again you “care” about?


63 posted on 03/09/2012 12:22:12 PM PST by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: VU4G10

When I first saw the pic I thought that he got very screwed at that price.

Then I read about some of those ‘common man’ things—the house features an 800-square-foot outdoor swimming pool and a 704-square-foot basement rec room. LMAO

It’s not the price of the house that should bother anyone...... it’s the deception, stupid.

This guy is a pretender....


64 posted on 03/09/2012 12:23:35 PM PST by Gator113 (** President Newt Gingrich-"Our beloved republic deserves nothing less." ~Just livin' life, my way~)
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To: Jonty30

The issue is his bringing it up to make it look like he feels for the regular Joes. I have no sympathy for easy credit and easy mortgages that people get in over their head with and are not prepared for the worst.


65 posted on 03/09/2012 12:24:11 PM PST by greatvikingone
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To: Steelfish
"Wonder why these sudden pieces on Santorum? And why on FR?"

Because VU is a Romneybot. Check his history.

66 posted on 03/09/2012 12:25:44 PM PST by CatherineofAragon (I can haz Romney's defeat?)
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To: greatvikingone

The issue I see with it, is not that he has a 2 million dollar house or that he took out a large mortgage.

I’ve seen his house and it’s a nice house.

Imagine the ads that the Dems could take out on Santorum, using his words about feeling the pain of the common man and then, in the ad, doing a fly-by of the house and asking the question, “Does this look like the house of a man who can feel your pain of losing your house?”

He’d be far better off trying to tell us how he’d solve the housing problem, using conservative principles and not worry about trying to feel our pain.

I’m not saying that because I’m jealous of his house, but I know how the Dems would use his words against him.


67 posted on 03/09/2012 12:30:42 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: VU4G10

Thanks to our greedy rulers, DC is one of the richest areas in the country. $2 million isn’t all that impressive.


68 posted on 03/09/2012 12:32:31 PM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: GracieOMalley

I just would like to see Americans get back to the situation that they could own $2 million properties without going broke. I don’t begrudge Santorum a $2 million dollar house.


69 posted on 03/09/2012 12:34:57 PM PST by Maryhere ("HE comes to rule the earth")
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To: VU4G10

How did the boy get rich, anyway? And what job did he take up after losing his Senate seat? Flipping burgers at a Bun-n-Run?


70 posted on 03/09/2012 12:38:16 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: silverleaf

Stupid is giving up your objectivity in your lust to bolster your candidate. Santorum is an inside the beltway establishment type that can’t win a simple Senate reelection. This article gave me new information about him. Yet, you want cover up this information to try and make him look better than he is.

Snarky, know-it-all activists like yourself always resort to personal insults in an effort to shame folks into silence. Do you even know how stupid you sound?

Naw, didn’t think so.


71 posted on 03/09/2012 12:39:17 PM PST by stevestras
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To: Ozymandias Ghost; South Hawthorne

Nope, I didn’t get it quite right, but both of you correctly get the gist of my point.

Multi-tasking you know.....


72 posted on 03/09/2012 12:40:02 PM PST by C. Edmund Wright
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To: Steelfish
And why on FR?

We HEART your boy, don't we, boys and girls?!

73 posted on 03/09/2012 12:40:33 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Maryhere

I’m glad that you don’t mind that he might have a house large enough to be seen from the moon or that it’s worth half the national debt.

I don’t mind either.

What I do mind is him making it an election issue for the Democrats to play his words, about being in the same boat as the rest of us, when he’s not and giving them a soundbite that can be played over and over again in some of the swing states.

That, I mind very much.


74 posted on 03/09/2012 12:41:38 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: VU4G10

Wow I was going to put my money on the good friend of the Obama’s Tony Rezko as the answer.

Antoin “Tony” Rezko (born 1955) is a American businessman, political fundraiser, restaurateur, and real estate developer in Chicago, convicted on several counts of fraud and bribery in 2008. He was a fundraiser for local Illinois Democratic and Republican politicians since the 1980s. After becoming a major contributor to Rod Blagojevich’s successful gubernatorial election, Rezko assisted Blagojevich in setting up the state’s first Democratic administration in twenty years. Rezko was able to have business associates appointed onto several state boards. Rezko and several others were indicted on federal charges in October 2006, for using their connections to the state boards to demand kickbacks from businesses that wanted to do business with the state. While the others pleaded guilty to the charges, Rezko pleaded not guilty and was found guilty of 16 of the 24 charges filed against him. On November 23, 2011, Rezko was sentenced to 10 1/2 years in prison


75 posted on 03/09/2012 12:47:02 PM PST by THE_RAIDER (Somewhere in Kenya a village is missing their idiot.)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

Understood. We’re of the same opinion; just trying to help clarify. Your main point was quite valid.


76 posted on 03/09/2012 1:02:29 PM PST by Ozymandias Ghost
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To: stevestras

“Snarky, know-it-all activists like yourself always resort to personal insults in an effort to shame folks into silence. Do you even know how stupid you sound?”

(crickets)


77 posted on 03/09/2012 1:19:07 PM PST by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

I’m a Newt supporter, but seriously you are buying into the MSM.

Santorum owns a house in PA too. What has happened to THAT value?


78 posted on 03/09/2012 1:19:42 PM PST by netmilsmom (Happiness is a choice)
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To: Jonty30
For those that might be having a problem with this, it’s not necessarily about the house.

No, it is about dragging every democratic hit piece into a God fearing Forum in order to trash one candidate to benefit the candidate that is currently running 4th in a three man race.

My prediction at the beginning of this season was that none of the nine candidates would ever be President, this is the reason why. SO live it up while you can.

79 posted on 03/09/2012 1:21:29 PM PST by itsahoot (Tag lines are a waste of bandwidth.)
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To: silverleaf; All
Once again, nothing is ever the hypocritical Santorum's fault? I'm shocked.

He did it to himself. He ran for the House on the theme that the Congressman for the district had "abandoned" it and moved to DC. Then he turned around and did the very same thing as senator, stiffed Pennsylvania taxpayers for his so-called "cyber homeschooling" of five kids while living in VA.

Legal? It was; he's a lawyer, you expect such technical compliance. Is it a moral or ethical way to treat the home folk he supposedly represented? NO.

It's even more galling when he uses homeschooling as a campaign prop for how moral and righteous he is.

You're comparing a mess of Santorum's own making to the trials and tribulations Palin went through just for breathing? That's pathetic.

80 posted on 03/09/2012 1:21:33 PM PST by newzjunkey (Santorum: 18-point loss, voted for Sotomayor, proposed $550M on top of $900M Amtrak budget...)
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