An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Fire Pelosi!
It’s unanimous: Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel remains chair of Ways and Means Committee
House Democrats voted unanimously today to keep Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the next Congress.
Rangel, 78, is currently under investigation by the House ethics committee for failing to pay about $10,000 in income taxes on a Dominican Republican vacation villa he owns and rents out.
Once the issue surfaced, Rangel said he was only guilty of a simple error, paid the back taxes and himself called for an investigation.
The long-time Congressman hired accounting firm Watkins, Meegan, Drury and Co. to examine his tax returns and House financial disclosure filings and report the findings directly to House ethics officials.
Rangel has also been accused of unfairly amassing four rent-stabilized apartments in the city and using official congressional stationery to fundraise for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College – issues the ethics panel is also probing.
The Ways and Means Committee oversees the nation’s tax policies.
Rangel has said he generally approves of President-elect Barack Obama’s tax platform, which includes a middle-class tax cut.
The chairman also favors abolition of the alternative minimum tax.
House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio has demanded that House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) strip Rangel of his chairmanship until the end of the investigation, saying he had flouted the very tax laws he helped write.
But Pelosi said Rangel wasn’t going anywhere – an assertion confirmed by yesterday’s unanimous vote by House Democrats.
What we’ve got here is the most UNETHICAL Congress EVER! Led by the most UNETHICAL Speaker of the House….EVER!
