The powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel, is “convicted” (again) by the House Ethics Committee.
First, the facts. The Ethics Committee has concluded that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel knowingly accepted Caribbean trips in violation of House rules that forbid hidden financing by corporations.
My first reaction was, “What about all those other crimes? The multiple rent-controlled apartments in direct violation of the law. The failure to pay taxes on income from rentals he owns. His failure to report assets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on required congressional disclosure forms.
The guy is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg!
Humility and remorse just isn’t in these guys. Rangel himself says he is being “admonished” by the Committee. Given the velvet gloves treatment that they give their own powerful members, that might be sadly close to the truth.
This is a real problem for reform. Rangel’s committee writes the tax laws. Republicans are dug in like ticks on the question of forcing the rich (who have been getting richer at an even faster rate during the eight years of the idiot Bush) to pay their share of the burden keeping the country afloat. When the most visible Democrat in the fight is a tax cheat himself, it hands the Republicans a road-side bomb to blast any progress apart. That’s why the New York Times, the home town newspaper for Rangel, has said his crimes disqualify him for that job.
The problem is that he’s also one of the most accomplished “politicians” – in both the best and the worst senses of that word – in Congress. He’s thoroughly versed in mutual back-scratching, favor banking, good-ol-boy group membership, and even ethnic camoflauge. And they just love him in his district in Harlem. Just as it took a federal courtroom to get rid of Louisiana’s “Cold Cash” Jefferson, it will probably take something like that to get rid of Rangel. Rangel’s district is the one formerly owned (that is the correct word) by the flamoyant Adam Clayton Powell for over twenty-five years.
But then, how long has Utah been relecting Hatch? (Hint … A lot more than twenty-five years.)
There has just gotta be a better way to pick the people chosen to lead this country. I used to think voters should qualify to be ableto vote. Now I think being intelligent is not the same in all parts of our country. But I feel sure a lot of people are voted into office by other people who have no idea who or what they are voting for . Any suggestions . Lena
Absolutely!
W-a-a-a-y back in my college days, I decided that simply expressing an interest would be a sufficient way of separating the wheat from the chaff. My favorite idea is based on the old “town meetings” that (rumor has it) used to be held in New England towns many years ago.
Simply require that people attend at least one meeting of their local government in order to vote. Where I live, Town Council and Planning Commission meetings are normally attended ONLY by the members themselves. I’ll bet that would eliminate a whole bunch of people who shouldn’t be voting.
My Republican friends should like that. They’re always trying to stop Democratic efforts to expand the voter base under the theory that marginal voters are more likely to be Democratic voters. For example, the Washington County Commission doesn’t like the vote-by-mail that was conducted experimentally in a few communities in the last election.
But I’d sure be willing to find out.