Several buildings in D.C. are home to our richest ruling class tax predators, living in multimillion dollar loft penthouses, paid for with your money. Senator Claire McCaskill and Attorney General Eric Holder just bought new ones in the brand new City Center condos at 9th and H Streets NW downtown near the Cato Institute on 10th Street and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform on 12th. Congresscritter Nancy Pelosi lives in one at Washington Harbor at 3030 K Street NW with a view of the Potomac River, the Key Bridge, and the Kennedy Center.
Senator Harry Reid lives in a $750,000 one bedroom at the Ritz Carlton (1155 23rd Street NW DC 20037) he bought in 2001 down on the second floor in apartment N2E (I’m sure it is large and has two baths and two garage spaces) across the street from my own more modest home. (And it’s OK for me to post Harry’s exact address – he spends your tax money on several large black SUVs full of men who park downstairs all day and sometimes threaten tourists who take photos on the block.) He’s not alone – mortgage crisis villain Franklin Raines lives there, as does libertarianish former Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Fortuno (now a Steptoe and Johnson lawyer in what for DC passes as the private sector). Federal Express also seems to own the largest unit, over 6,000 square feet, as a corporate executive suite.
It remains a question how “public servants” like Reid and some of the others come up with this kind of scratch. Buying cheap property and using political connections to change the zoning laws so it becomes more valuable is often the way, as well as getting your spouse a high paid lobbyist job by telling a law firm or corporation to hire them…if they know what’s good for them….
InTheCapital, an interesting local blog, reports that someone is selling a penthouse there for $7.6 million. It’s not in the local multiple listing system. It may be a pocket listing with the listing broker, who claims the unit is 5600+ square feet and last sold for $5.5 million. There are only three units over 5,000 sq ft at 1155 23rd Street NW (the one of the two Ritz buildings that this unit is supposed to be in), according to property tax records. One is the FedEx unit, one is Franklin Raines’s condo, and one belongs to a couple who are not public personalities. But the tax records and the multiple listing system have nothing that sold for $5.5 million in 2012, and even a private sale that long ago should be in the property tax records. So it is unclear if this unit belongs to Raines, the private couple, or someone else. But you can see my balcony, across the intersection, from their balcony. I think it probably isn’t the Raines unit, which I think has a private roofdeck which these peeps aren’t promoting or claiming.
The Insomniac Libertarian 