Posted on 04/01/2018 9:20:13 AM PDT by gattaca
nvironmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt is facing questions about his housing arrangement after he reportedly rented a residence partially owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist.
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ABC News first reported that Pruitt, who has already been the subject of a controversy relating to his travel expenses, lived in the condo in Washington D.C., for six months in 2017 when he first arrived in the capital. On Friday ABC reported that his adult daughter used a second room in the condo. Bloomberg News reported that Pruitt paid $6,100 over six months -- $50 a night for the nights he slept there -- in what a source told the outlet was consistent with an Airbnb-style arrangement. The condo is co-owned by Vicki Hart, whose husband, J. Steven Hart, is chairman of a firm that lobbies for environmental and energy clients. The Associated Press reported that his firm's clients include Exxon Mobil and Cheniere Energy.
While ethics rules normally prohibit employees in the executive branch from receiving gifts, the EPA denied that it was, in fact, an example of a gift.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Pathetic. Get an appraisal showing, and it rents for the area and tell them to STHU.
These people can go you know where. They never have a problem with leftist lobbyists give multimillion dollar mansions to Democrats like the Clintons and Obmas, but how dare a Republican cabinet member rent an apartment for some lobbyist.
The seriousness of the charges has become their serious need to bring charges.
Was he getting a significant discount? If not I see no issue. I guess every Dem that rent’s our bought a Trump property should be fired too.
This guy must be supported 100% Trump!
and Hillary walks free
But they had no problem with Rahm Emanuel illegally living in Rosa DeLauro’s basement apartment in a house that was zoned as single family. It was even reported on some sites that he paid no rent.
More squealing of LIB loser nitwits. Hahahaaaa.
Sounds more like Airbub or paying for a Hotel Room by the Night.
Did he ever stay at a Trump Owned Hotel? Oh the horror.
I rented a room for a whole month in Williamsburg Va....1/4th the regular price.
Like we really care.
Pruitt’s a good one. Go to the mat for him friends.
yup no big deal for terry mcauliffe to bank bubba & hildabeast their $1.7mm “block buster” house in chappaqua at the same time bubba was in the jug for about $5mm in legal fees
I know he is good and I don’t care that he rented a condo from a lobbyist.
He paid for it so, what do I care...
I live on Capitol Hill. Home prices are insane. Rentals are insane. I am aware that informal rentals and Airbnb are on the increase. I don't have a feel for the Airbnb market, but I looked up Capitol Hill on the website and $50 a night is right in the ballpark. So: if Airbnb is an appropriate yardstick, Pruitt's situation wouldn't appear to be a problem.
This raises some interesting questions about the line between Airbnb arrangements and conventional rental housing. DC law is tilted very heavily in favor of renters and against landlords. Airbnb is an arrangement in which the landlord retains much greater control and in which the risk of getting stuck with long-term proceedings involving a bad tenant is much reduced.
The price differential cited in this story might make for an interesting study of the impact of regulatory impacts, including expansive tenant rights, on housing costs. Center cities used to be much more densely populated than they are today and incomes were much lower, yet people -- including working class people of modest means -- managed to find housing at reasonable rates. There was a lot of renting of rooms, akin to what Airbnb facilitates today, and there were a lot of rooming houses. Then cities got into the business of "improving" the rental market to "protect" tenants. It became much riskier and costlier to be a landlord. The little old widow lady was told she couldn't be selective about the people to whom she rented the spare bedroom because that would be "discriminatory." Before long, she found out she had to rent to people with whom she was uncomfortable and that she couldn't get sketchy characters out of her house. It even became a long, expensive ordeal to evict non-paying tenants. A lot of the informal housing market quickly disappeared. And many places compounded the damage with rent controls, which suppressed new rental construction.
One could perhaps make an argument that Airbnb has simply found a way to reinvent something that cities used to do well. It seems to work and to be popular with both homeowners and renters. It's perhaps a demonstration that relatively unregulated markets can vastly outperform heavily regulated markets in housing. It's therefore probably only a matter of time before leftists find a way to wreck it.
What is wrong with these idiots? Don’t they realize that every scrap of paper will be under scrutiny?
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