Question: Under the current situation, is there one candidate that, due to their own decisions, has put themselves into a potentially precarious position in preparation to run for public office? Im talking about “the elephant in the room” that nobody seems to want to discuss. (Incidentally, if you heard NPR this morning there was an extensive discussion on Elephants in the Room and Skeletons in the Closet in an interview with the Author of a book I believe was called The Emperor has No Clothes.)
One attempt at this discussion was met with anger from his supporters that these questions were even asked, the irony was not lost, coming from a campaign that complains about the failure to ask hard questions and tell the truth.. (TV Ad Magic #2)
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So, to review where we are, each of the three candidates has prepared their personal situation, the home front if you will in order to run for Governor.
Lets take AG Tom Reilly. He rents an apartment and will be getting a raise if he is elected Governor. Sounds like he has a well thought out plan for dealing with his personal situation, should he be elected Governor.
Then there is Chris Gabrieli. Chris, left a potentially promising career as a Medical Doctor, by leaving Harvard Medical school, in order to save his family’s business. Chris actually made a decent size fortune and most likely will also be getting a raise if he is elected Governor.That is based on the assumption that his investments are mostly passive investments that dont require active involvement in say, managing a business or working in a high level corporate position.
So before we get to the remaining candidate, let me say this isnt a pitch that you need to be wealthy in order to run for Governor. Tom Reilly, is an example that proves you dont have to be wealthy to run for Governor. Instead it is a pitch that we are selecting our next Governor, based partially on the kind of judgment they will bring to the office. Part of figuring out their judgment, I claim, can be measured by looking at how each candidate prepared their personal situation in order to run.
After all, how would we like to find out someone had put himself or herself in a desperate financial situation, intentionally or unintentionally, shortly before being elected Governor? Would that not subject them to financial stress and possible undo temptation, while controlling the highest elected office in the Commonwealth?
So we return to the Elephant in the Room. The question that is certainly going to be asked of ANY candidate that is the nominee of the party on September 19th. Instead of waiting until then, Ill just ask it now. Since Deval Patrick is the only candidate taking a substantial cut in pay in order to run for Governor, how can he assure us that he has NOT put himself into a precarious situation? Before you jump all over me, let me state again, that the only person that decided “how to prepare the home front” in order to run for public office, was Deval himself.
So based on publicly available records, it appears Devals income if elected Governor will go from the neighborhood of $2.7 million dollars a year to $135,000 a year. In other words today hes making 20 times more than his salary will be as Governor. So the question becomes: how did he “prepare the home front” to live on just 5% of what hes bringing home now? Maybe he did what some of us might do if we were in the same situation? That would be downsize our obligations. Probably cut our expenses by downsizing our primary home and cashing in on any vacation homes we might be lucky enough to own.
Of course this would be less of an issue if Massachusetts had a Governor’s Mansion
Almost two weeks have gone by, since these very questions were put forth, the silence has confirmed, at least for me, that there is definitely an Elephant in the Room.
Since the Governors Office, is a matter of the highest public trust, now is the time to clarify, how the citizens of Massachusetts, can be sure, that he is not placing himself in a precarious financial situation with monthly mortgage payments of $27,000 and estimated monthly real estate taxes of $6,000 a month. That is $33,000 a month in housing expenses while making $11,250/month himself. Again to reiterate the argument made in the previous post
So heres my concern: If you are making $135,000 a year, how can you afford to make $324,000 a year in mortgage payments? That is the figure Frank Phillips came up with, that is $27,000 a month in mortgage payments times 12 months in the year. Chump Change? Thats one nut I wouldnt want to try to crack. $6,000,000 in mortgage loans thats a lot to have hanging over your head when you are a Governor making only $135,000 a year.
OK, maybe you can moonlight. (Thats a lot of moonlighting.) OK, so we know from the financial filings that Devals wifes salary is between $500, 000 to $1,000,000. So, assuming my math is correct, that is a projected combined income of $635,000 to $1,135,000.
So how would a typical mortgage banker look at this couple for loan qualification purposes?
I think you would hear something like this: “You can pay between 25% to 33% of your gross income for housing expenses.”
So this had me thinking of just how much of a house that $135,000 salary could afford. Now days using a liberal mortgage banking set aside of 33% of your income for housing, that would allow annually for $44,550 to cover mortgage principle and interest and taxes (PIT), in order to qualify for the loan. That $44,500 covers a little over a month and a half of the current mortgage payments.
Thirty three percent of those income figures are $209,500 and $377,955 respectively. Drop the qualification percentage to a conservative 25% instead and you have $158,750 and $283,750 respectively. I think you see the problem, using the conservative scenario you are between $168,250 OVER and $40,250 OVER what you should be spending on housing.
So my really tough question is two parts:
1) How can you assure us you aren’t putting yourself in a precarious financial position? (That seems like a fair question that deserves a clear answer.)
and 2)Was it truly “A Failure to Ask Tough Questions” that allowed us to end up two weeks from the primary without a clear answers to assure the electorate that all our candidates are on sound financial footing, a footing without built in conflicts of interest, and one that wont later turn into a possible re-make of All the Kings Men?
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This has not been the first unanswered question.
Full Disclosure: I voted for Chris Gabrieli at the convention on the “first” ballot.
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is that we can’t rate diaries, only comments. When a diarist consistently engages in insinuation, innuendo, and repetition of the same old ridiculous assertions, it would be appropriate to be able to rate it “3” or “0.”
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In fact, some bloggers might even get a “Lifetime Achievement” score of “3.”
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If I knew how to work the @#$%^&* links I would link to numerous postings where RM’s tiresome Qs have been fully answered and sent to the dustbin of Massachusetts politics. But RM is nothing if not a recycler, so he keeps fishing them out of the trash, putting a new bow on them, and flinging them against the wall again.
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It’s a free country and a free blogosphere. But one reason to look forward to the end of this campaign is that RM’s “When did Patrick stop kicking his dog?” postings will eventually fade away.
Link
link
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The fact of the matter is that the only “answers” are a statement by Deval claiming he can has no problem and the public filings that seem to contradict his assurances.
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Unless you’re calling the “attacks” on me as answers, please point us to the “so called” answers that you have links to…
Just click on my page here on BMG and read any of several responses to your prior, repetitive postings. Read slowly –there’s some arithmetic and some basic tax law involved.
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Earth to RM: no one but you cares so much about the family finances of DP. Get a life. There’s an actual campaign going on.
If you mean this response? I understand you think you’ve answered the question, but you’ve ignored the whole point that the standard ratios are WAY off in your example, spending over 62% of income on housing? Any if there is investment income, is it enough to drop the ratio below 33%?
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After taxes there isn’t much left. I guess is you think this is wise to ignore, who am I to question it?
that discusses any tax law at all…
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Because I don’t see it anywhere. In fact you ignore discussion of Federal and State taxes in your comments.
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If you don’t know how to make a link, just admit it…
But see my prior post dated August 26 entitled, “Boy, this is getting tiresome.” It contains both a reply to your repeated assertions about income ratios — they are rules of thumb for the situation of people with moderate incomes — and a reminder that home mortgage interest is generally tax deductible.
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It took me a bit, but the macros in the Blogware make it easy:
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highlite and copy the URL, then
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[ link http://www.bluemassg… ]
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But, eliminate the spaces immediately after the [ and immediately before the ]
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link
link
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Let’s see if this works. Thanks, gary.
Look out world.
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For my next trick: blockquote!!
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But not now…gotta go do the 1 a.m. visibility shift on the Storrow footbridge. Wonder if there’ll be any Gabreli sign holders tonight?
Complimenting and agreeing with your post link here. So does it still appear to you I’m so unreasonable?
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By the way on the arithmetic, show me more than one post where I’ve brought this up. The thread on that post is all you’ll find, yet you imply there are many when you say “repetitive postings”.
Mr. Patrick’s income, even combined with his wife’s is very low to comfortably for any extended period of time to cover the significant debt, even with federal tax subsidy. All interest on real estate loans is NOT deductible.
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It seems likely from the numbers that the Govenor’s position, if achieved by Mr. Patrick, is intended to be very temporary. Remind me, when is Sen. Kerry up for re-election?
Which means there might be an open US Senate seat if Kerry is running for President…
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His Six year terms:
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1984-1990
1990-1996
1996-2002
2002-2008
Readers can review my posts here, and they will see that this issue was brought up ONE time on August 24th, and they can judge for themselves if it was “answered” as you claim.
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I have discussed loan industry standards and ratios that are “reality based” and nobody has refuted those standards, and there has been one confirmation that I’m correct.
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Your answer, is simply to claim these 50% plus “higher ratios” are “acceptable” with out any backup, links, sources or documentation. What expertise do you offer in this area to make these claims that incomes between $500,000 and $1,000,000 are given higher income to loan payment ratios beyond the higher industry standard of 33% allotted to housing? one source here
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Frankly, your response is a typical of the Deval Patrick Campaign in general. Don’t like the questions? Attack the questioner with a personal attack. Ad Hominem.
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There are many instances where I have agreed with alternate views, dropped lines of questioning when answers were forthcoming and generally dropped subjects when I have been satisfied with the answers to my questions. But when these questions fail to get meaningful answers, waiting close to two weeks and re-framing it is hardly “consistently engaging in insinuation, innuendo, and repetition of the same old ridiculous assertions.”
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In fact anyone, going for mortgage loans with ratios like that would be very unlikely to get loans of that size with the declared income discussed in those posts. Granted the loans are already recorded. But if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had income to debt service ratios such as that we’d be headed for eventual bankruptcy or substantial devastating tax increases…
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Let’s set it in Dorchester, with a charismatic, short, bald Irish politician who rules the Legislature with an iron fist!
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Naaahhh – nothing like that could EVER happen here!
the iron fisted ruler gets shot… Are you suggesting that Billy boy get shot?
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Great book by the way
…who would DARE shoot Billy? ;~o
…but I do not have anything to report yet.