Uh oh! What's up with the mcbushes? Are they going senile?

Okay, what is up with this??? I live in a rural area about an hour from Tahoe, they have a home in La Jolla, have you seen those houses? They are huge and very expensive, especially beachfront. So I paid in taxes over 4 years around 9k, and my house is $1300 sq. ft.

Is this a corporate tax break, WTF??? That bill is so off by thousands of dollars.

Comment left on Huff Post.

There is something really fishy about this story. Property tax in San Diego County is 1% and with the numbers provided by San Diego County as far as the debt owed and the penalty they assess the house is worth $133,000. Call me crazy, but I find it incredibly difficult to believe that a piece of beach front property in that area would be valued so low.

Four years of unpaid taxes on a home in California amount to less than $9000???

I'm being robbed!!!

From Media Matters:

Last week, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released a new report by Michael Ettlinger estimating that under McCain's tax plan, he and his wife, Cindy, would save $373,429. That's nearly $400,000 -- per year, not over the course of their lifetimes. (Under Barack Obama's plan, the McCains would save less than $6,000. The Obamas would save nearly $50,000 under McCain's plan, and slightly more than $6,000 under Obama's plan own plan.)

By the standards the media applied to (John) Edwards, the fact that McCain supports tax policies that would save him and his wife nearly $400,000 a year -- and require massive cuts to public services to pay for those tax breaks -- should surely be news.

Richard Cohen will bet to the bottom of this, just as soon as he changes out of Cindy's French maid outfit.

Thanks to prop 13 the educational system is screwed as well in cali.

However, thanks to Prop 13, good old Señor Timba is able to afford to stay in the house he paid 80K back in the 80s. Without P13, and prior to Mr. McCain's adviser Mr. Gramm's subprime mortgage scam, I wouldn't have been able to afford the property taxes on this dump.

There are all sorts of little old ladies with tiny little social security checks sitting in crappy little houses that were driven up to a million bucks. They'd be even more screwed.

(For those who don't know, Prop 13 says that when you buy a house, the base property tax rate is fixed at 1% per year of what you paid. So, since I paid 80K, my base rate is 800 a year (my real rate is 2000 a year after they tack on all the other stuff). But at the height of the bubble, my house was worth about a million (supposedly), which, had whatever might have replaced prop 13 reappraised it, would have increased my base rate to 10,000 a year!! So let's say I decide to sell. But now the subprime thing has forced the value back down to ... ? ... see what I mean?

Okay, now let's look at the young people. They mortgage themselves to the teeth to buy a house. Some have 10K/month mortages! In their case, if the prop tax went up they'd also be forced into default.

All that said, you're right that the educational system is way screwed up. To say nothing of the state is still way underwater from Mr. McCain's economic advisor Mr. Gramm's Enron heist.

But anyway ... for the McLame's to owe 8K over 4 years, or 2K per year ... that's the same as I pay, so we can deduce that they paid 80K for that La Jolla house!

Here's a google streetview where you can actually see the street the McBane's house is on - hard to know WHICH house. TPM will probably choke on it, so to search for it, just go to maps.google.com and type camino de oro, la jolla, ca and then click the streetview button.

Camino Del Oro, La Jolla, CA 92037
Link:

Now ... even AFTER the subprime bubble burst, any house on that street is currently worth a minimum of 3 or 4 million - probably much more. Old Cindy must've bought it in the early 60s.

Yeah - I know - I'm making my pro-Prop 13 argument look pretty lame here! How about you only get to freeze the property taxes on your FIRST house?

The problem is that the price of real estate fluctuates madly and over time goes up WAY more than income (in CA anyway), so you buy a house, and without P13, the tax would soon become unaffordable, but if you sell the house, you still can't afford to buy another because they've all gone up that much.

Of course this is really an isolated symptom of the overall war on the middle class. In the 50s and 60s a guy with no education could work a normal unskilled job 40 hours a week, and be able to buy a house and support 4 or 5 kids without his wife working. Now a college educated couple with both people working and no kids still can't buy a frikkin' house.

When I first visited CA in 1967 to visit, I remember it had the most wonderful roads and amazing rest stops. Their education system was excellent. By the time Prop. 13 came along, I actually voted against it. We were renting, but I was really concerned about our schools and libraries, and was a very young 20 something, new resident of the state. But housing was taking off again, and the taxes were forcing people to sell their homes due to ridiculous prices. It was a very effective way to fix that problem, but our highways are for s**t, our schools are pathetic portables, and our libraries incredibly outdated. This issue definitely needs to be revisted, but even going there is political suicide. The lottery was suppose to save the schools, righttttttt. People like the McCain's only know what is good for them, they put greed over goodness, their needs over all others, and don't ever get the concept of do unto others: the rest of us, 'my friends', can rot for all they care.

Timba

Has it ever occurred to you that if you had a fair property tax system California could lower its levy and values might not fluctuate so wildly.

Two of the states with the worst real estate peaks and valleys are California and Florida. They both have property tax systems that reward the early buyers who held on for dear life but screw the young folks trying to raise a family. The education systems in both states are in serious decline.

If it's only $2000 a year property taxes for that house, Cindy probably inherited it and it was probably purchased in the 50s or before.

My thoughts exactly, I pay more in property taxes on house worth substanially less than I imagine this property is worth.

IT is only the very wealthy who can be nonchalant about not paying property taxes on a vacation home and like Lenora Helmsley they view the world very differently than those many Americans who are now fearful of losing the only home they have.

The McCains are not average Americans but average Americans might not know it. We hear only about John flipping burgers at their down home ranch--no arial photos please!--yet we heard endlessly about John Edward's expensive haircuts and were regaled with photo spreads of the lavish homes of John Kerry's wife. These candidates were labeled as being somehow tainted for public services because they must lack true empathy for the average Joe. Yet we have heard nothing of the McCains having seven homes. Where is the Newsweek spread for us to ogle their luxurious lifestyle? Where are the photos of that corporate jet Cindy lends to her husband every week like it was merely the family Volvo? Where are the charges of out-of-touch elitism? Where is the outrage that would be expressed were the Obamas to be in arrears on their property taxes? Is there some type of MSM standard that states being wealthy as a Democrat is a stigma but being a wealthy Republican is a badge of honor making them fit for public service?

Well, I certainly appreciate the fact that the Obamas have managed their money intelligently. I'm a fan of pay as you go - and I wasn't always. Mr. Tena is the one who insisted and now I'm glad as hell he did, cause we don't have any debt at all. Taxes and cars - that's the only debt we carry. We pay every 30 days - credit card companies just hate us - we use their money. We don't let them use ours.

Truly...an american hero of sorts! Debt for one and debt for all! What a complete fool!

Speaking of "Good" questions for Bombin" Johnnie McWattle: HERE'S one I'd Dearly like to ask.

It don't move.

{{{sob}}} just a little tiny edit button - it wouldn't take up much room and I swear I'll take care of it myself...

Why isn't the right-wing media as outraged over this as they were about Al Franken not having paid certain corporate employee taxes for his book research interns? That dominated the MN press for months and made it to FAUX Newz on multiple occasions. I expect the CA press to give this McCain story at least equal coverage and for FAUX Newz to lead off with this for he weekend election coverage. It's not as if there is ever any other McCain news to cover on the weekends.

--

Official Obama Campaign Gear End-of-the-month bargains: $15 car magnets and $30 T-shirts

Off subject: McCain said last night at a fundraiser that Obama cannot be trusted to keep his word. You can see where the GOP are going with this, they will be saying he can't be trusted to end the war because that is the issue that they can't win against. The amount of flip flopping that McCain has done, it is ridiculous that he is saying this about Obama. I wonder sometimes if McCain has been brainwashed by Bush/Cheney because he is not even the same politician he was seven years ago. I think we need a grassroots movement to make sure the media picks up on McCain's flip flops on the issues. Something funny like thousands of Obama supporters mailing McCain a pair of flip flops would work. That would get media attention and slow down the GOP in saying Obama's word can't be trusted.

The disparity in media coverage of this is startling. Had it been the Obama's with the credit card debt, we'd get roadblocked coverage on all the cable channels and discussions about their ability to handle finances.

Had it been followed up by a story of the Obamas not paying taxes for four years, on a beachfront property in La Jolla, of all places, the nation would grind to a halt, and all we'd hear is "tax cheating elistist Obama".

Stunning.

Wow, my property taxes, which are tied to 'sale value' are now a full 11.7% of what I paid for the property in 1976. In 1976, the property taxes were 1.3% of the purchase price.

Now, nearing retirement myself, I need to come up with 1% of that original purchase price PER MONTH to simply pay property taxes and be able to continue to live in my home. Funny though, that in the last year before I would reach age 65 [at which time my property tax level is supposed to be ceilinged to help me as a 'senior'], my assessment went up 25% while my next door neighbor in her 50's with a house also built in 1920, had her tax assessment go up 12%. Funny that.......

Yeah, I believe the system is rigged across this land to squeeze the little folks and give breaks to the already wealthy.

1. Regarding Proposition 13:
California has always had a habit of spending more than it takes in. If property taxes collected were ten times as much, the civil servants would still be short funding. Right now, 40% of California's state civil servants fall under a special catagory that allows them to retire at 50 years old with 90% of their salary.

Over 80% of their California Highway Patrol is now able to retire with a disability (they are unable to pass the physical stamina test their last year... so they get a nice, mostly tax free, early retirement so they can work in another capacity.

Without Prop 13, the schools would still be failing, not due to the funding, but due to the California Teachers Association powerful lobby.

But enough...

Tax laws have been horrendously abused for at least a generation, and no president will be able to change this fact because it is... and has been... both republican and democrat ran... senate and congress, which is the problem.

Notice with the "new" lobby laws introduced by our "new" democrat run congress... pork is worse than ever!!

"We the People" are FOOLS!

We seem to find rooting for OUR team (whether it be dems or reps) is more important than actually resolving the many problems which exist solely because we seem to be stuck voting for our TEAM. A good look at our history has definitely shown that it is OUR TEAM which has destroyed this great nation of ours.

We have a mob running Washington. This MOB consists of two corrupt families... the Republican family and the Democrat family. As long as we continue to believe the adage

"Our Mob, right or wrong"

the Mob will continue to eat at our souls... IMHO

the Mob will continue to eat at our souls... IMHO

Honey, don't you see? If there were 4 families fighting for the cheese, whichever one got it would automatically become your enemy.

Say the Green Party gets viable and elects a president. Are you telling me that the Green president would be incorruptible? That a Congress made up of Greens and Lydon LaRouchists would somehow not be self-interested like the Democrats and Republicans? The reason the founders wrote the constitution the way they did was to directly address the fact that power corrupts. The whole thing is a limit on government power. It does the best job of that that any government does, frankly. None are perfect, but we aren't perfect and cannot produce perfection.

The more power, the more corruption. That goes for both parties

Thank you for repeating what I just said, you silly son of a bitch.

I refuse to believe that everyone is equally prone to corruption, that all Democrats are just as corrupt as typical Republicans. History just doesn't support that. No question, members of Congress from both parties will look after their constituents by earmarking as much money as they can to make work in their districts. That is nickel and dimes compared to the massive corruption of the past 7 1/2 years.

Democrats held all of the executive branch jobs under both Clinton and Carter, but they did nothing even remotely comparable to the gross corruption of the Bush years. Even under Reagan the executive branch corruption was much worse than under Carter and Clinton.

People are not inherently corrupt.

Most places allow individuals or companies to purchase tax liens from the taxing authority. Does anyone have the difference in what he paid and what he owed? If allowed in California--you could pay off the remaining taxes and then you would own a lien on the property. That might be fun.

Why is this nowhere on the front pages of any newspaper? Not paying taxes is way more unpatriotic than not wearing a lapel pin.

You know if Obama had forgotten to pay his taxes, this would be all over the front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, Drudge.

The "I didn't get the tax bill" excuse makes no sense.

Based on the current property value and the amount the McCain's are delinquent in taxes, they have owned the home for a very long time (see prop 13 posts above).

He is only 4 years delinquent on a home they (necessarily) have owned for decades. Either the person living in the house or an accountant would have noticed the absence of a property tax bill, since they would have been getting and paying the bill for at least 20-some years.