Sorry, Charlie

[chernmax (Premo)]

Rep. Rangel must step aside as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

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.

We called on Mr. Rangel to resign his coveted post last November while the House ethics committee probed his contact with a potential donor to a pet project who also had business before the committee. Mind you, that committee already was looking into his using official stationery to raise funds for that pet project, paying below-market rents on four Harlem apartments, failing to report income from a Florida condominium sale and failing to pay taxes on a home in the Dominican Republic. There's another subcommittee investigation into lobbyist-paid trips by Mr. Rangel and four other members of Congress.

Much is expected of elected officials. Much more is expected and demanded of those entrusted with chairmanships and the power that comes with them, especially when it involves the nation's purse strings. From all that we've seen thus far, Mr. Rangel has violated that trust continually and seemingly without care.

Rep. Charles Rangel Must Step Aside as Chairman of Ways and Means - washingtonpost.com

[EmptyTimCup]

Originally Posted by chernmax

Rep. Rangel must step aside as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Not happening ...

he is too busy stuffing his pockets with reelection cash ....

Rangel rakes in cash from island rum scrum
Chairman weighs two tax bills

By S.A. Miller

The outcome of a legislative tussle over rum taxes between Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands remains in doubt, but there is already one clear winner - the House's top tax writer, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, a New York Democrat who is pocketing campaign cash from both territories.

At issue are competing bills that could make or break a deal that lured rum producer Captain Morgan from its longtime home in Puerto Rico to a new facility in the Virgin Islands with the promise of billions of dollars in subsidies to the liquor company paid out of U.S. rum taxes.

But the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico isn't just asking Mr. Rangel about the legislation.

It has shot up to second in the ranking of places from which Mr. Rangel collected campaign contributions in the current election cycle, according to data compiled by CQ MoneyLine.

Donors in Puerto Rico poured $36,600 into Mr. Rangel's war chest, an amount surpassed only by the $138,400 from donors in his home state of New York.

In four of the five previous years, the Virgin Islands ranked in the top 10 sources for contributions to Mr. Rangel. Puerto Rico didn't make the list in any of those years.

Contributions to Mr. Rangel from the Virgin Islands totaled more than $167,00 between 1999 and 2008. More than half of that - $84,800 - was given during the 2007-08 election cycle, just as the islands sealed the deal to relocate Captain Morgan and give the liquor company about $2.7 billion in tax credits and other subsidies over 30 years.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said such campaign contributions are not illegal unless there is a quid pro quo, or an agreement by the member for specific legislative action in exchange for the money.