{"id":656204,"date":"2026-08-22T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=656204"},"modified":"2026-08-22T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:20:00","slug":"waste-of-the-day-millionaire-mortgages-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=656204","title":{"rendered":"Waste Of The Day: Millionaire Mortgages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waste Of The Day: Millionaire Mortgages<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

The Department of Agriculture’s Section 502 loan programs help low-income families buy homes with mortgages that don’t require a down payment. But in 2013, an investigation by Reuters found dozens of millionaires took advantage to purchase vacation and rental homes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Though the millionaires later repaid their loans, the program as a whole covered $500 million in losses from defaults in 2013, or $715 million in today’s money.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.<\/p>\n

Coburn’s Wastebook 2013<\/a> included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth nearly $30 billion, including the loans for millionaires.<\/p>\n

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Key facts:<\/strong> Reuters analyzed mortgage records from 2003 to 2011 and found more than 180 USDA-backed loans went to borrowers who reported annual incomes above $500,000. That was an apparent violation of the program rules. Loans were only meant for buyers whose income was not above the median income of their community.<\/p>\n

The records showed at least 500 USDA-backed mortgages worth $500,000 or more, including more than 90 exceeding $1 million. Loans appeared in resort communities including Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, California wine country, and the “thriving seaside enclave” of Ewa Beach, Hawaii.<\/p>\n

One retired advertising executive told Reuters he used a USDA loan to buy a house in North Carolina. <\/strong>“I could have bought a house another way,” he said, “but this allowed us to travel, and our hope in a few years is to purchase a beach property in Surf City that we can rent out now and retire in later.”<\/p>\n

The program’s definition of “rural” was also generous. Reuters found at least 51,600 mortgages worth $6 billion in cities designated as urban by the U.S. Census, including places near Los Angeles, Washington, Seattle and Austin. Another 300,000 loans worth $38 billion were located in areas that “straddled” urban and rural boundaries.<\/p>\n

USDA said the overwhelming majority of borrowers were the low- and moderate-income families the program was intended to help. The average applicant earned about $48,000 and borrowed $131,000.<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/strong> There is a place for government programs that help families who cannot otherwise afford a home, but people earning $1 million per year probably should not need help affording the down payment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSat, 08\/22\/2026 – 16:20<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Waste Of The Day: Millionaire Mortgages Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations, The Department of Agriculture’s Section 502 loan programs help low-income families buy homes with mortgages that don’t require a down payment. But in 2013, an investigation by Reuters found dozens of millionaires took advantage to purchase vacation and rental homes. Though the millionaires… Continue reading Waste Of The Day: Millionaire Mortgages<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":656187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=656204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/656187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=656204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=656204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=656204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}