Bank that gave Rubio controversial loan received $50 million from bailout
by Michael C. Bender | January 15th, 2010The bank that gave Republican Marco Rubio a questionable $135,000 home equity loan received more bailout money than than any bank in Florida, according to ProPublica, a nonprofit group of investigative journalists.
Rubio didn’t have anything to do with the bank bailout money, which was first approved by President Bush’s administration. But Rubio is opposing a proposed bank tax from President Obama that the White House says could recover some of the projected losses from the bailout. (More about the tax here.)
The bank where Rubio received the loan, Doral-based U.S. Century, received a chunk for the bailout, but it does not appear it would have to pay the tax under Obama’s plan. The tax would be applied to banks with at least $50 billion in consolidated assets. U.S. Century claims 1.8 billion in total assets.
Democrats today jumped on Rubio for “opposing the full repayment of taxpayers for their money used to bailout his buddies in the financial industry.”
But expect more piling on: Democrats are using the issue to paint Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown as a shill for Wall Street for opposing the tax.
Brown is attempting the unthinkable: securing a Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat for Republicans in a special election to replace Ted Kennedy. Rubio is spending some of newly accumulated political capital by sending out multiple e-mails and Facebook messages asking Republicans to support Brown.
Tags: bailout, Marco Rubio
Where's the money? Use The Post's interactive database of who wants and who's getting federal dollars.
Use these interactive graphics to find and contact Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast legislators.
January 15th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
What’s controversial about the loan exactly? He took a HELOC, ok…did he get favorable loan terms not available to anyone else? The article doesn’t say. It just says he got a loan. The Democrats are making a major stretch.
January 15th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
[...] Continue reading here: Bank that gave Rubio controversial loan received $50 million from … [...]
January 15th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
This is a stretch for even the Post to try and slime a Republican. Amazing. There is no there there. The implication is more important than the substance. Surprised this didn’t come out the day before the election.
January 15th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
That explains it.. Just saw the Palm Beach Post headline that says “Florida Democrats treat Rubio as threat.” Since the Post works with the Democrats to achieve party goals it is the only explanation for this non-story. They were even able to mention the arch devil – Bush in the same story as Rubio. Talk about linkage. I’ll never vote for Rubio now.
January 15th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by SayfieReview.com, eric jotkoff, Colin Milligan, PostOnPolitics.com, George Riley and others. George Riley said: The bank that gave Rubio a questionable $135k home equity loan received more bailout money than any other bank in FL http://bit.ly/7KuYzq [...]
January 16th, 2010 at 8:22 am
The loan is a non-issue. But Rubio better rethink his views on the tax designed to get the people’s money back. If he doesn’t, he’ll be rightly painted as just another Republican establishment guy protecting big banks that were “too big to fail”. Just what is conservative about treating dice-rolling bankers that way?
January 16th, 2010 at 8:36 am
Let me get this straight.. tax the bankers to get the money Obama loaned to his friends in the auto unions. Have the banks pass the new taxes on to their customers in the form of fees and we have shown the evil bankers what for. It is thinking like this that is ruining America. Make out the bankers to be evil, throw a punch at them that lands on the jaw of the taxpayer and the unions walk away with the money. Great idea. I’d oppose it too.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
[...] his claim of fiscal conservatism is in question, there’s also the controversy about a questionable home equity loan he received from U.S. Century, a bank that received more of [...]
January 18th, 2010 at 11:12 am
[...] this morning laying out his opposition to President Obama’s bank tax, which we wrote about here and [...]
January 27th, 2010 at 11:29 am
I’m learning more everyday reading your blog. Thanks for all the hard work. I’m looking forward to more reading here!
February 15th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
[...] however, his candidacy faces potential bumps in the road, including questions over an alleged “sweetheart” mortgage, his successor and mentee, disgraced ex-House Speaker Ray “High Quality” Sansom, and [...]
March 1st, 2010 at 9:01 am
[...] stock market because he’s under 40 and rich (complete with a sweetheart mortgage deal from a bailed out bank, and a “donors are suckers” Amex card in his wallet); can suck up to the crazy, [...]