A Stunningly Bad Deal

While some folks wonder how Sen. Barack Obama managed to get an exceptional mortgage rate on the home he purchased in June 2005, Rep. Laura Richardson of California is at the other end of the spectrum.

She's the Democrat who was busy defaulting on mortgages and lost a home in foreclosure.

It seems that her stunning lack of fiscal knowledge extends to car leases as well.

She's currently paying $1,300 a month for a lease on a 2007 Lincoln Town Car.

She may have defaulted on mortgages and lost a home in foreclosure, but that hasn't stopped Long Beach Rep. Laura Richardson from driving in style and at great expense, courtesy of the taxpayer. The lease on Richardson's 2007 Lincoln Town Car costs about $1,300 a month -- the most expensive lease of any member of the House of Representatives, reports the Daily Breeze. Richardson's monthly lease, paid by the federal government, is much larger than the $400 to $800 a month that other House members pay, according to a taxpayer group.

That's a whole lot of money for the lease, and makes me wonder just who negotiated this deal.

A new 2008 Town Car at the MSRP runs about $45,000. Assuming that there's no trade in, no down payment, and that registration is $150, and taxes are 7.25%, the monthly payment on a 36 month lease runs about $870. My calculations are based on this website.

The cost would decrease if the term was extended to 48 months, a down payment was provided, or a trade-in offered, to say nothing of negotiating down from the MSRP.

Why is there such a huge discrepancy? We're talking $430 a month, or $15,480 plus interest over 36 months.

Something stinks here.

CA Congresswoman Defaults on Three Homes

A California Congresswoman, Rep. Laura Richardson, shows just how batty the political system is in this country.

She defaulted on not one, but three homes and saw one foreclosed. As is typical, she claims that there was miscommunications on the parts of others and takes no responsibility for her own situation:

U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson was in default this spring on three separate California houses, and lost one to foreclosure, according to a hard-hitting report in today's Daily Breeze.

The Daily Breeze's Gene Maddaus: "Rep. Laura Richardson, who lost her Sacramento home in a recent foreclosure auction, has also defaulted on properties in Long Beach and San Pedro, records show."

Richardson, a Democrat from Long Beach, has declined to answer detailed questions about her finances, but has blamed her financial woes in part on the distractions caused by her whirlwind political rise, which saw her climb from local politics in Long Beach to the state Legislature in Sacramento and then to Congress in the space of two years. She also has heavy debts from her campaign for Congress in a special election last year. But with a congressional income of nearly $170,000, it is not clear why she failed to make payments on all three properties, and faced potential foreclosure on all of them.

The newspaper reports Richardson had fallen behind by $12,400 on payments on a San Pedro home in March, and was threatened with foreclosure on that property, and had fallen behind by $19,900 on payments on a Long Beach property in March, though it appears she paid that balance off. She owed more than $570,000 on the Sacramento house when it went into foreclosure this spring.

More: Richardson "was able to bring her payments up to date on the Long Beach home relatively quickly, but the San Pedro property lingered in the foreclosure process for almost eight months, and still has a pending auction date. In her first interview since the news broke Tuesday that her Sacramento home had been foreclosed, Richardson blamed the foreclosure on a miscommunication by her lender. She offered no apologies for failing to make payments on three separate homes and expressed no regret for failing to pay nearly $9,000 in property taxes.

She says that the home foreclosure was improper, and claims that she used her own money to finance the campaign and fell behind on her house payments. Richardson also claims that she's renegotiated the loans and will repay the loans and delinquent property taxes but says that she received no preferential treatment because she was a Congresswoman.

Yet, she's entrusted by her constituents to know how to spend taxpayer money? She can't manage her own home(s) and basic lending contract issues - like timely repayment of loans, but she's responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars of spending during her term in office?