Posted on 10/10/2007 4:42:36 AM PDT by kristinn
SNIP
The onslaught began over the weekend, a week after 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democrats' weekly radio address with a plea to Bush to sign the bill. A contributor to the conservative Web site Free Republic noted Graeme's enrollment in the private Park School and the sale of a smaller rowhouse on the Frosts' block for $485,000 this year and questioned whether the family should be taking advantage of the state program.
SNIP
The Frosts say the description of their family's circumstances now circulating is misleading. Halsey, they say, is a self-employed woodworker - he has no employees - while Bonnie works part time for a medical publishing firm. Together, they say, they earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year.
That would make the Frosts eligible for Maryland's Children's Health Program, which is open to families that earn no more than 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or $82,830 a year for a family of six.
The Frosts declined to show The Sun their 2006 income tax returns...
SNIP
Halsey Frost purchased the family home for $55,000 in 1990, according to city records, and refinanced in 2005, he says, to make improvements to accommodate the return of Graeme and Gemma from the hospital. The 1936 brick rowhouse, on a side street near Patterson Park, has an assessed value of $263,140.
Halsey Frost purchased a 1920 warehouse in East Baltimore for $160,000 in 1999, according to city records. It is assessed at $160,500. Frost says he is still paying off the mortgages on both properties.
The four Frost children depend on financial aid to attend private school, the Frosts say. In addition, they say, Gemma receives money from the city for special education made necessary by her injuries.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Another article about this “firestorm”.
Here we go again. Every time you raise unappealing (to the Left) facts, you’re accused of an attack.
On the other hand, it’s okay for Democrats to attack people with lies.
swiftboating (adj.) 1. Telling the truth about a Democrat.
I think everyone is just GUESSING that the grandparents help pay the tuition.
I read it yesterday, but you know not every word is reliable!
Wondering that too? Their mortgage payments alone would be over $1000 a month. Add in expenses and I don’t see how they could be living here? Heating, cooling, insurance, car payments, food for 6...?
It would make sense that they are paying.....they should have paid for health insurance FIRST!
Let’s see. $50k annually. Mortgage for $125 ? on commercial bldg,w taxes and ins comes to roughly $12,500. Mortgage on house (doesn’t say how much they refinanced), say $200k, comes to roughly $20k per year. Now, that leaves $17.5 for EVERYTHING ELSE.
Not likely. Sorry to say, if these figures are accurate, they would qualify for most state insurance programs. This is another “phony soldiers” soros tactic. Sorry for the father, but i’m pretty sure if anybody dug into his finances, we would find either tax or loan fraud, cuz these numbers don’t add up.
No kidding!!! He’s got an ILLEGAL LLC!!!
Same - hitting the head on the back of the seat, the doorframe, whatever was solid.
I have no idea what type of car they were riding in, nor the path of the car after impacting the tree, but if you look at most cars today (not SUVs or vans) the back of the front seats are so close to the back seat that someone violently thrown forward will have their head into the back of the seat even with a shoulder harness. Add to that the usual scenario that the car spins somewhat immediately before or upon impact, and you have the scenario where the person gets thrown violently forward then sideways.
I know several people who had these types of injuries, one of whom died from brain stem injuries; they were all wearing shoulder harnesses and all impacted immovable objects (oncoming car, bridge abutment, telephone pole) at speeds in excess of 45 mph. Two accidents were at speeds over 60 mph.
Go back to your h.s. physics class and refresh your memory on speed, velocity, trajectory, and force. It’s sobering.
Think about the private school thing from a market angle.
If The Park School was in the business of giving middle-school children (and we’re talking BEFORE the accident)
nearly full-rides due to financial need, they would not be able to hold the crowds back.
Those kinds of scholarships are few and far between, and generally reserved for a select few high-schoolers from the inner city that have shown much promise.
Nice, white, liberal kids like the Frosts are not that unusual or interesting enough to get that kind of aid.
(Notice I’m not talking about NO aid, just not the full ride)
Also, another of the kids, it was reported, goes to Jemicy, another expensive private, this one for dyslexic children. I don’t know about the fourth child.
I would be shocked if there is not another source of funding for these kid’s education.
I agree. IMO,like another FReeper said, he is getting other income from the business or their home expenses are paid by the business. He sure stepped in it when he agreed to let his son be a poster boy for the dems. Either he is not telling the whole truth about their income or the IRS needs to look at his business income/expenses or both. I believe the truth will eventually come out but whether or not the MSM reports it is another thing.
1. Kids go to school on "scholarships" that require the family to pay $500 per year per child (probably the cost of books) for a school that would usually cost $20,000 per year per child.
2. Wealthy grandparents make substantial (tax-deductible) annual contributions to the school in the amount of $40,000 or more.
In essence, this allows wealthy family members to write off the cost of educating the kids at an exclusive private school.
It is still not cheap by any measure of the word.
That would be the salient point, not any desirability.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
Nor would I be surprised if they’re receiving generous annual cash gifts from mom and dad as part of their estate planning.
Halsey ALONE could receive $24k a year from his parents and he wouldn’t have to declare it as income, right?
This added information. First, we now know that all 4 children go to private school (we knew the girl went to a different school now paid for by Maryland because of her disability, which is fine of course).
We know they get financial aid. I presume that every resident of Baltimore doesn’t have access to this school and the financial aid needed to attend it, but the school does offer financial aid.
It’s still possible the grandparents paid for a lot of this, as they’ve never told us what makes this family special enough to be desirable members of the school. We are just speculating, maybe the kids are all really smart, but it could also be that their parents are really well-connected.
We could make them the poster children for why we should have school vouchers. Apparently the democratic-controlled public school system isn’t good enough for this family.
If they bought a house for $55,000 in 1992, they wouldn’t have had much of a mortgage on it. So most of their payments on that one would be for the 2nd mortgage they took out for home improvements, which probably aren’t a large portion of the value.
I wonder if their latest assessment included those improvements though.
We have been told though that their mortgage payment is $1200 a month, so assuming an average interest rate we could figure out how much they owe. Commercial mortgage probably has a higher interest rate.
I presume their tenant pays rent, and it pays most of the commercial mortgage though, and his company probably pays the rest through a “lease”. Just a speculation, but that’s how you would set it up — the building shouldn’t cost him a dime from his own reported income unless he’s a really bad businessman and doesn’t have a lawyer.
But he should have had a lawyer to set up the LLC.
Then there’s the reports that his LLC isn’t active. Don’t know what to make about that.
$1200 a month doesn’t pay for too much of a mortgage, so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include the commercial property.
I wonder if he operates an “office” for his business out of his house. I would, and that would allow him to lease the house and pay part of the mortgage and taxes from his business, again taking it out of his personal expenses.
But I’ve never cared to attack this family for getting SCHIP. I like highlighting how much they seem to have, and how the SCHIP program AS IT ALREADY EXISTED took care of them.
They are a perfect example of why the program doesn’t need to be expanded. Certainly people better OFF than the Frosts don’t need the coverage. We can say that, without saying the Frost’s don’t deserve coverage.
That way, we can also note that the FROSTS don’t have coverage now because the democrats are holding them hostage to blackmail the president into signing an unwarranted expansion of the program.
The President would sign a bill that kept the SCHIP program for families like the Frosts. It’s not the President that took the program away, it’s the Democrats.
That the Frosts are willing to say otherwise makes them dishonest.
Lets take a look at some key points: "A contributor to the conservative Web site Free Republic noted Graeme's enrollment in the private Park School and the sale of a smaller rowhouse on the Frosts' block for $485,000 this year and questioned whether the family should be taking advantage of the state program." Fair explanation.
"It was the news coverage of that broadcast that set off the blogo- sphere. A pseudonymous contributor to Free Republic cataloged the $20,000 cost of tuition at the Park School, the $160,000 Halsey Frost paid for his warehouse in 1999 and the $485,000 for which a neighbor sold his home in March. Links were provided to photos of the Park School's 44,000-square- foot Wyman Arts Center and the Frosts' 1992 wedding announcement in The New York Times.
Getting it right.
The Frosts say the description of their family's circumstances now circulating is misleading. Halsey, they say, is a self-employed woodworker - he has no employees - while Bonnie works part time for a medical publishing firm. Together, they say, they earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year.
Just as I had said. He used to employ his wife when his company was called Frostworks, he later create a new company but now is just "self employed".
The Frosts declined to show The Sun their 2006 income tax returns
You already told everyone how much you make, you do it in every interview. The tax info from both your 3,000sf home and your commercial property is already in the public domain. What is it that you don't want the Baltimore Sun to see? Would the tax return show activity of the LLC or rental income from your tenant(s) at the commercial property?
"and the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would not confirm their enrollment in the program. But John G. Folkemer, the deputy secretary for health care financing, said yesterday that applicants must prove their income levels through Social Security numbers or tax returns to be accepted for coverage.
Folkemer said a family's assets are not considered in determining eligibility. Halsey Frost purchased the family home for $55,000 in 1990, according to city records, and refinanced in 2005, he says, to make improvements to accommodate the return of Graeme and Gemma from the hospital. The 1936 brick rowhouse, on a side street near Patterson Park, has an assessed value of $263,140.
"Halsey Frost purchased a 1920 warehouse in East Baltimore for $160,000 in 1999, according to city records. It is assessed at $160,500. Frost says he is still paying off the mortgages on both properties."
That bold part is going to get some comments.
"The four Frost children depend on financial aid to attend private school, the Frosts say."
Olberman? What happened to full scholarships Keith? Since you were a little off in your reporting I guess we should dismiss your entire argument right? So it appears that the full vs partial scholarship issue still isn't settled but the quote seems to back up the reporting that the family is paying, albeit less than others, to send their child to private school. The lefty blogs will still argue all day that since the family doesn't write a check for the full 20k tuition that somehow the entire original article was all wrong.
"The Frosts say they stand by their support of the State Children's Health Insurance Program."
Supporting an existing program is not what they were doing. They allowed their son to be used by democrats to push for EXPANSION of the program to families that earn higher incomes...like mine.
Had another thought. If the dad bought the business building, he can rent it out to the “business” for a lot more than the mortgage.
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