Rangel Mangles Facts In His Ethics Case
by Matt at Sep 14th, 2008
Isn’t it great that Nancy Pelosi, who promised to lead the most open, honest and ethical Congress in history, won’t strip Charlie Rangel of his chairmanship?
Even when Rep. Charles Rangel tries to explain how he got into his tax mess, he mangles the facts so much it’s easy to see how his accounts - and accountants - are muddled. And this from the lawmaker who has such a big say in determining who pays taxes and how much.
The chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee spent the past week reeling from a series of embarrassing revelations: He failed to report about $75,000 in rental income over two decades from a beach villa he owns in the Dominican Republic; he owes about $5,000 in back taxes to the government; he never knew he paid no interest on the villa’s mortgage for more than a decade.
Rangel’s actions are not just innocent omissions or minor blunders. There is no excuse. He needs to either step down or be stripped of his chairmanship.
Rangel’s basic defense is that he paid little or no attention to a building he bought, the mortgage he got to buy it or the rent it earned to pay the mortgage. Or the taxes due on someone else paying his mortgage. He claims to have no idea what the house is even worth.
Davis says that will change now that he has hired a second lawyer to monitor “all his tax and financial statements going forward and be sure they are meticulously correct.”
Republicans say Rangel had to have known exactly what he was doing.
“It is a sick irony that the top legislator on tax policy in the House is circumventing the very tax laws that he himself has authored,” said Ken Spain, spokesman for the GOP’s House campaign committee.
The fact that he is being protected by his party should bother all voters, regardless of whether they’re a Republican or Democrat. We’re supposed to expect more of our political leaders and hold them to a higher standard. Charlie Rangel has violated the trust of his constituents and the American people.
UPDATE: Even the New York Times is calling on Rangel to step aside.
Mounting embarrassment for taxpayers and Congress makes it imperative that Representative Charles Rangel step aside as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee while his ethical problems are investigated.
[...]
Mr. Rangel has hurt his case with clumsy, combative pleas of ignorance of the facts and law involving his Dominican villa. “We do make errors, even though we consider ourselves experts in terms of tax policy for the nation,” said the lawmaker, who has three decades’ experience on Ways and Means.
His excuse of “cultural and language barriers” with Dominican officials was, simply, offensive. “Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they’d start speaking Spanish,” complained Mr. Rangel.
Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. For once, I agree with the New York Times. Mr. Rangel, step aside.