Rep. Pressley Raked in Thousands from Rental Property While Arguing to Cancel Rent
Maybe it’s not that leftists are ignorant of the suffering their economy-crushing proposals would inflict, but that they always assume they’re above anything they enact.
At least that seems to be the case for “Squad” member Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts who presumably collected thousands of dollars in rental income while pushing to cancel rent, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The Massachusetts Democrat called it “literally a matter of life and death” in a Dec. 7 tweet that shared the grim statistic that millions of tenants owed an average of $5850 for back rent and utilities.
Rather than addressing the problem of job-killing coronavirus lockdowns or even the reality that millions of tenants in arrears might mean millions of property owners behind on mortgages, Pressley pushed her cause to make things worse.
“Cancel rent. Send recurring cash survival checks,” she wrote as Congress was mulling a second COVID-19 stimulus package.
“This is literally a matter of life and death.”
Cancel rent. Send recurring cash survival checks.
This is literally a matter of life and death. https://t.co/lVcjxzs4X8
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) December 7, 2020
It’s odd that Pressley would want to cancel rent when she raked in an estimated $15,000 in rental income in 2019 — until the Beacon unraveled her part in the scam.
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Pressley bought her Boston rental property for $658,000 and initially listed it for rent at $2,500 per month in June 2019, dropping to $2,300 before the listing was taken down in August that year, presumably after leasing it, the Beacon found.
According to the Beacon, “Pressley and her husband earned roughly $400,000 in combined income in 2019, the Democrat’s financial disclosure shows.”
Then in August 2020, Pressley and her husband refinanced the property and designated it as multifamily rental units, one of which she and her husband occupied.
Besides the tax breaks that come with this arrangement, owners are also required to carry rental income loss insurance, meaning Pressley and her husband would not be on the hook should her proposal take off.
But that’s not all. As is always the case when Democrats talk about “canceling” some sort of financial obligation like rent or student loans, it means they’re actually just forcing other taxpayers to pick up the tab.
That would be the case for the Rent And Mortgage Cancelation Act, a proposal Pressley cosponsored with her radical “Squad” sisters last May. The legislation would “establish and administer a fund to which residential landlords may apply to have the full cost of their tenants suspended rental payments covered by the federal government.”
It sounds like a perfectly fitting plan for Pressley, allowing tenants to shirk their responsibility while taxpayers have their money confiscated to pay landlords just like her.
The striking thing about all of these ideas Pressley and her ilk push is how childish they sound on the surface, kind of like how a five-year-old might ask why everything can’t just be free so parents don’t need to work.
Student loan debt? Forgive it. Mortgage debt? Cancel it. Rental payments? No worries, they have that covered too.
But digging just a little deeper into how politicians like Pressley live reveals that it’s not ignorance, but rather the assumption that they will benefit but won’t have to suffer any consequences that drives such idiocy.
It’s a win-win prospect as such handouts would turn constituents into government-dependant slaves and therefore lifelong Democratic voters while Pressley still gets paid.
It may damage the country’s economy, but as long as Pressley serves in government making at least $174,000 base salary — plus whatever goodies she can secure for herself legislatively — it doesn’t matter.
The same goes for New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who lives in a Washington, D.C. building that features luxurious amenities such as a rooftop pool and tennis court, and fitness facilities like a yoga studio and Peleton cycling room just to name a few.
In 2019, the former bartender-turned-Congresswoman called it a “right” to live in such a high-end apartment building even as rents in her building started at $1,800 for a studio and topped out at $5,200 per month for a three-bedroom unit — all while she railed against the capitalist economy that made that building and her cushy job possible.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders does the same with his rhetoric against evils such as income inequality and the capitalist system while he owns not one, but three houses.
Politicians who suckle at the government teet have the luxury of disregarding the people whose salaries they confiscate to fund their socialist agenda while never sacrificing themselves.
Most people would agree that a social safety net is a good idea, especially after governments made it impossible for countless workers to earn a living with their neverending shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic.
But calling for the cancellation of rent while expecting other Americans to foot the bill is deeply immoral, especially when one of the legislators proposing the idea would surely benefit from it.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
