Even Washington Post Calls for Charlie Rangel’s Resignation
Charlie Rangel needs to resign to save his party's credibility.
The Washington Post (not known for being right-of-center) called for Democrat Congressman Charlie Rangel to step down today as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee amid the discovery that Rangel failed to report almost half of his assets. Rangel is currently facing an ethics investigation since it has been discovered that he did not disclose significant portions of his assets including a checking account at the Federal Credit Union worth somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 and another checking account of similar size at Merrill Lynch. He also did not disclose tens of thousands of dollars of income from dividends and other investments along with money made from the sale of a Harlem townhouse.
Even as Rangel’s dishonesty has been widely reported, Rangel recently announced that he is calling for increased enforcement of tax evaders. The chairman of the committee that oversees writing the nation’s tax code sought to end leniency for errors on tax returns, even when the IRS fully believes they were honest mistakes, made in good faith. Curiously, Rangel didn’t mention whether there would be a specific exception to the harsher enforcement for both himself and Treasury Secretary, Tim “Chronic Tax Cheat” Geithner.
Democrats need to act quickly to remove Rangel from his post if they seek to retain any image of credibility. They cannot impose drastically higher tax rates and penalties for mistakes while allowing their own members to play as fast and loose with the tax code as they wish, especially when the member is the person in charge of writing the tax codes. Rangel has been under investigation for quite awhile now and there is no word from Speaker Nancy Pelosi whether any action will be taken. Voters need to keep Rangel in mind when they head to the polls in November 2010. It would seem that Pelosi’s promise to run “the most ethical Congress in history” has fallen well short of its stated goal.