The Washington Post has repeated its call that House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel should resign his post as Chairman of what is arguably the most important committee in Congress.
FOR POLITICIANS with major bad news to release or to make public, there’s no time like the dead of August to do it. The thinking goes that the public won’t remember a thing come September. We hope Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) will have no such luck. His belated revelation of previously unreported income, property and bank accounts demands that he step aside as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Mr. Rangel’s amended financial disclosure form, which exposes omissions from his 2002 through 2006 records, is a treasure trove of outrage. He neglected to report a checking account with the Congressional Federal Credit Union and one with Merrill Lynch, each valued between $250,000 and $500,000; the tens of thousands of dollars he’s earning from dividends from a number of mutual funds and stocks; and the money made from the sale of a Harlem townhouse. As a result, Mr. Rangel’s reported net worth doubled, from between $516,015 and $1,316,000 to between $1,028,024 and $2,495,000.
It turns out that Chairman Rangel’s tax indiscretions are much worse than first described here at Wizbang. Why should we not be surprised that the full extent of Chairman Rangel’s tax problems were not disclosed last year during the post election zenith of the Hope and Change bubble? If Chairman Rangel gets away penalty free on these violations of the IRS code, will ordinary Americans that have the same problems get the same treatment as the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman (and Secretary Geithner?). Or is there one set of rules for the elites in Washington and another set for the rest of us?
Speaker Pelosi says this is the most ethical Congress in history. Chairman Rangel needs to resign from that Congress before voters figure out there is more than a different healthcare plan that separates them from their representatives. Their may be a different tax code in place also.
An Update:
A commenter asks if House Ethics Committee members are being compromised? Good question. And for those that don’t already know it, Congressman Ben Chandler (D-KY) is not a Blue Dog Democrat. He’s Liberal, pure and simple.
