Here it is . . .
It's for sale for $675,000. I come from a working class family. My childhood home was a two-bedroom bungalow in Toledo that my folks bought and built on the G.I. Bill when I was five years old after scrimping and saving the $500 down payment. And my folks were nervous about it. When they wanted to improve it, my dad would take on a part-time job to pay for the improvements because, as children of the Depression, they were afraid of debt. My mom made most of clothes my sister and I wore and we always had a garden and my mom canned a lot of veggies and made jams, etc. A house like Rubio's was just a fantasy to us. When I was 12, we moved down here and they bought a 3-bedroom brick ranch. Fancy stuff!!!
Marco Rubio hasn't a clue as to what working class families face.
I love hypocrites, don't y'all?
Happy Blogging!!!
Kay
I'm with you, Kay. If Marco lived a blue-collar childhood he has drifted far from it and has done his best to erase most of those memories. Blue-collar antecedents are to today's politicians what a log cabin beginning was to 19th century pols--a way of pretending they still understand what most of us deal with. Sorry, boys--not convinced.
ReplyDeleteYou said it well!!!! And they lie like hell!!!
DeleteAnd, of course, you know about Obama's house in Chicago and denounce that also...
Deletehttp://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5046-S-Greenwood-Ave-Chicago-IL-60615/50904051_zpid/
Yes, the one he bought in for $1.65 million.
Not a bad little 6100 sq ft house...
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.zillowblog.com/files/2008/09/obamas-house.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.zillowblog.com/2008-09-17/barack-obamas-chicago-house/&h=374&w=442&sz=30&tbnid=xKqCYleIeCFoYM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=107&zoom=1&usg=__YVDi11jnMVLKNB1ZGOcSCGT4-iw=&docid=Qflur_rcudRtXM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=O4gjUZn2BoSA9gSWiYHIAg&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQ9QEwAA&dur=6496
Douglas, the Obamas never claimed that their current house reflected their upbringing. They each grew up in poorer circumstances. By the time they bought their current house, they were both attorneys.
DeleteMaybe Marco Rubio is Middle Class...for a Republican? Relying on a minimum wage of $7.25, keeping the lower classes where they belong. It is still a slave society.
ReplyDeleteYes it is. And I worked for the $9.00 an hour that Obama is proposing and I still qualified for assistance programs --- just less than I was getting when I worked for less.
DeleteI guess I should aspire to be working class. I doubt I could work enough minimum wage jobs to make it to HIS "working class", though. If I worked three eight hour a day jobs, but took weekends off to sleep, I could still never afford a $675,000 house. Not even close.
ReplyDeleteHeck!!!! I'm so poor that I was offered an opportunity through a federal program to buy my own home and it turned out that even with their help, I couldn't do it!
DeleteReminds me of the cartoon where the individual climbing the ladder - Rubio in this case - steps on the hands of those below, also trying to climb up that ladder.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm perhaps but that house was never middle class.
DeleteThanks for showing this, Kay. I almost liked him in spite of myself, but now I see he is either deluded or a dissembler.
ReplyDeleteAlways glad to see you here, Judy!!!!!!
DeleteHOLY COW.. my folks built their own house as they went along.. kind of like your folks.. we weren't dirt poor, but sure weren't up to these standards.. They had it..if they couldn't pay cash for it, we didn't need it.I can't even get my mind around a house worth $675,00. Ours cost $72,000 and we scrimped and saved to pay for it..we never have own a new car.. the our newest one was 7 years old. It really gets me.. they call it middle class.. I guess I am dirt poor.. with our income ranging around $38,000... and all this time I thought we were middle class.. lol.. Heck I can't even afford the taxes on that house never mind the payments. I am not even sure I could afford the front door handle. (walking off, shaking my head... middle class my butt)
ReplyDeleteSigh. It's depressing. My Miss Ruby just turned 13 and she looks and rums just fine.
DeleteI don't know much about Marco Rubio (although I'm sure he does a bit better than minimum wage). But I do know the Clintons' house in Chappaqua is worth north of $2 million. And until he left the Senate last week to become Sec. of State, John Kerry was the richest person in Congress. And Al Gore just sold out to the Arabs for many millions of dollars. So by those standards, Rubio does indeed seem to be pretty middle class.
ReplyDeleteThe Clintons aren't claiming to be middle class (I might add that neither grew up in wealth) nor is Al Gore who was born
Deleteto big money.
Obviously, your definition of middle class is different than mine. By your definition (and Rubio's), I'm just trash and always have been.
And so are the 47% that Mitt Romney didn't care about.
don't forget John Kerry....he married the Heinz woman. Heinz as in ketchup....
DeleteI don't care how much money they have. The point here that Rubio is trying to pass himself off as middle class.
DeleteWhere I come from middle class homes don't cost 675 grand.
I wish the major news networks would mention Rubio’s “immigrant” house – more people would realize that he is a fake. I read about it on Huffington’s Post. Middle-class immigrants, my foot… On top of that he supposedly answered President Obama and used "replies" to sentences that Obama had not even said! And in addition to all this horror he voted against women…I hope women are watching.
ReplyDeleteI hear you!!!! I made sure I had all the names of the 22 GOP who voted against the Violence against Women act so we know who they are amd Rubio was one of them!!!
DeleteThe good news for me is that no Ohioans were on that list.
Hmph....what does Casa Boehner look like? Bet it's no tarpaper shack.
DeleteWhere I live it is not possible to ignore poverty. It's all around us, all the time. And I think raising the minimum wage to $9.00 is ridiculous. It is not nearly enough. I think $15.00 would be more like it. We always paid that to the people who worked as caregivers for my mother in law.
ReplyDeleteBut Hattie, you're a progressive and believe that we need to help others. What galls me about these people is that they are forever hiding behind their Christianity rather than living it. I always fall back on Gandhi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
Deletewhich brings us to the Pope....ha.
DeleteKay: But we were the ones who got help! By paying caregivers a living wage we saved ourselves a ton of money that would have gone into a nursing home or assisted living for my MIL. She was able to live out her days in her own home, which we inherited after her death. I could continue to work and did not have to drop what I was doing in order to take care of MIL. The primary caregiver was so conscientious that we could even leave for as long as a month at a time and know that MIL was in good hands with her caregivers, who also scheduled other workers and stayed overnight when we were gone. She died in her own home at age 97 with Terry, the caregiver and me holding her hands.
DeleteI am glad to say that her primary caregiver is graduating from college now and plans to get an M.A. in education.
Elders are being sold a bill of goods about how they have to go into those homes or force a dedicated family member to give up her life to look after them. And a lot of it has to do with being stingy about paying people who could help elders stay in their own homes. It's false economy all around.
Instead, we took good care of our elder parent, consolidated our family wealth and provided decent work for several people. It wasn't always easy, and at times it might have seemed more sensible simply to put her somewhere, but I am so glad we didn't. And boy do I sleep well at night!
I know these solutions can't work for everyone, but what IS working well? Nothing I see!
I think about this every time I look at the bleak facade of the nursing home across the way from our condo in Ballard. Old people deserve better than to be warehoused in those places, no matter how fancy they look.
Unlike Word Tosser, we WERE dirt poor - Dad built us a house on the back of an old Ford flat-bed truck (his only vehicle), without heat, water, electricity, plumbing. Only the wealthy would be impressed with Mr Rubio's penury!
ReplyDeleteCop Car
Rubio is another Republican claiming to understand the poor and middle class, while trying to screw them.
ReplyDeleteHey there friend, just stopping in to wish you a Happy Weekend. I hope everything is going okay with you.
ReplyDeleteKay, your post got me thinking, and inspired me to use it as a departure point for a blog entry asking What Is Middle Class? Hope that's okay . . . thx!
ReplyDeleteGreat!!!! I love it when I set folks a-thinking!!! I'll be over to check it out! Everything is relative, don't ya know?
DeleteI'm glad we can discuss this here and hope others join in.
Actually, he said he lived in the "same middle class neighborhood", not "home". Quite possible. And the house he lives in now is reflective of his success as a first generation American, son of immigrants.
ReplyDeleteOK. I'm so weary of this post but where I live in Ohio real estate is a lot cheaper. All our industry and businesses have died. Then again, They're building (what I call) McMansions all around my mom's little house. She and my stepdad bought it because it would be a nice retirement home for them after my brother grew up. We might get to hold bidding wars. LOL It's on about 3-4 acres. My mom's middle class neighborhood has been overrun with what my nephew calls "yuppie scum" from the Cleveland area. And yeah, if you're not rich when you go to Congress, you will be in minutes. I think Bernie Sanders is the only one who hasn't sold his soul. Thank you for being polite.
DeleteDade County (where Rubio lives) is high-priced, not as bad as the D.C. (and northern Virginia), New York City (and surrounds), or Boston (and suburbs) but still pricey. I imagine that Rezko didn't help him get a deal on the house. I looked up the modest 4 bedroom (2 bedroom when my parents bought it, 4 after my father revamped the attic) home in Farmingdale, NY a few years ago, it was worth well over $500,000. I thought I paid too much for the 1300 sq ft house in 1975 ($40k) but it was worth $96k just 4 years later. I have no idea what my ex sold it for but she bought a $700k house the next year. Current estimated value for my old house today is $780,000.
DeleteThat's because he's busy trying to find ways to make us believe that he understands the majority of Americans, where they come from and what they understand.
ReplyDeleteI once worked for a company that was bought by another company. The new president came in and on the first day stuck both feet in his mouth when he explained that he knew what it was like to be middle-class, that one of his grandparents had served in WWII and that the median income in his hometown had been 19K. Completely tone-deaf...
Pearl
Rubio is still a bit of an unknown quantity, but I didn't appreciate the absurd - and untrue - statements he made about the current administration. Our current crop of politicians are dumbing down their comments to appeal to the low information voters who don't want to think about our problems beyond a sound byte. And who I've heard say over and over "I don't care, that's just how I feel". Some of his interviews re immigration do sound empathetic - and intelligent. I kept wondering why he's not a Democrat, given how badly the Republicans ran up the deficit in Bush's administration.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post but I really really loved all the comments. It's so very interesting.
ReplyDelete