I wonder if this Family Values pervert will attempt to blame
this one on his Christian gods, also.
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http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/13939423.htm
The flap over Sen. Rick Santorum's unorthodox $500,000 mortgage for his
family home in Leesburg, Va., took another twist yesterday when a
leading watchdog group filed a formal complaint with the Senate Ethics
Committee - charging that the loan from a private bank was an illegal
gift because Santorum did not meet its stated guidelines.
The complaint by the Committee for Responsible Ethics in Washington, or
CREW, alleges that the mortgage from Philadelphia Trust Co. is a gift
in violation of Senate Rule 35, which says that senators can receive
loans or other banking services only on terms "generally available to
the public."
Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, said in a statement that
"Santorum's decision to accept a loan not available to other people in
his financial position demonstrates his contempt for the rules. This is
particularly ironic given that Sen. Santorum has long attempted to
position himself as the poster child for public morality."
The Democratic Senate campaign of state Treasurer Bob Casey Jr.,
Santorum's likely fall opponent, also slammed the GOP senator's loan -
releasing copies of Casey's loan records for his house in Scranton and
calling on Santorum to do the same.
The fallout stems from an investigative report on Santorum's personal
and campaign finances that was published this week in American Prospect
magazine and on the front page of Tuesday's Daily News.
It found that the Philadelphia-based private bank had given the
$500,000, five-year "balloon" mortgage to Santorum and his wife even
though its policy is to lend money only to its "affluent" investors,
which the senator is not.
After the story was published, the Santorum campaign released more
details on the loan, which had no points and an interest rate of 5
percent, and required payments only on the interest and not the
principal.
Experts said such a mortgage could have reduced monthly payments for
Santorum - who told the New York Times Magazine last year that he lived
"from paycheck to paycheck" - by as much as 25 percent to 30 percent.
News reports from November 2002, when the loan was issued, showed
national average rates for conventional 30-year loans hovering around 6
percent.
Santorum told reporters in Pittsburgh this week that he knows
Philadelphia Trust's chief executive officer, Michael Crofton - a major
campaign donor - through philanthropic work and did not think of his
institution as a private bank.
"One of the things about Mike is, in the years I've known him, he's
never lobbied me for anything, never asked me for anything, never did
anything that was related to my professional capacity," Santorum said.
He said he had told Crofton, " 'I want the same deal that you would
give anybody else. I'm not allowed to have special deals.' "
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George W. Bush _is_ a Christian. Get over it!
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