The Rangel Rule

Recently House House Ways and Means chairman Charles Rangel has found himself in a bit of a pickle. It seems that the man in charge of writing the nations tax code can’t be bothered to actually obey the laws he forces on the rest of us.

Byron York of the Washington Examiner wrote a piece dealing with the troubles of Charlie.

Titled  “The clock is ticking on tax cheat Charlie Rangel” Mr. York runs through all the tax problems Rangel has.

It hasn’t gotten much attention amid news of Ted Kennedy, Obamacare and the worsening outlook in Afghanistan, but an extraordinary situation is developing in the House of Representatives. With each passing day, it’s becoming more clear that the powerful committee chairman in charge of writing America’s tax laws is a financial wheeler-dealer, a serial asset-hider, and a tax offender.

Frankly, most of the Mainly Stupid Media have been covering up for this tax cheat just like they have with all the other pols and hacks who are democrats.

Along with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and fellow Democratic power brokers Henry Waxman and Barney Frank, Rangel is playing a key role in the effort to push the president’s health care, environmental, and financial initiatives through the House.Last week, we learned that Rangel filed a grossly misleading financial disclosure report for 2007 — failing to report at least half a million dollars in assets.

Whoopsie!! Representative Charles, “I never met a tax I didn’t want to pass,” Rangel sort of forgot to pay his taxes. I’m sure it was just an oversight. A one time mistake. Umm, no, it wasn’t.

The news comes on top of revelations last year that Rangel didn’t report — and didn’t pay taxes on — income from a villa in the Caribbean. In that matter, the Internal Revenue Service gave him sweetheart treatment; Rangel paid about $10,000 in back taxes but was not required to pay any penalty or interest.

Uh Oh!! It seems that Rep. Rangel has a problem with declaring all of his income. Imagine that? And as we can see he never got any special treatment that came from his office as the head of the committee that writes the disaster that is our tax code. (In case you hadn’t guessed, that was a sarcastic remark)

Of course this walking turd was given a pass. He’s one of the “Beautiful people” after all and the rules he makes for the rest of us do not apply to him!

So, what’s being done about this?

Rangel’s doings are under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which so far hasn’t taken any action. Democrats are standing behind their chairman, and minority Republicans can’t do anything about it.

But they’re still trying. In February, the GOP introduced a resolution calling for Rangel to be removed as chairman. It failed, 242 to 157.

The Republican leadership also wrote a letter to Pelosi urging that Rangel “step down from his Ways and Means chairmanship pending an investigation of his ethical lapses.” That went nowhere, too.

Yeah, right, about what we figured. Nothing, nada, zip, the big donut. The “Evil Republithugs” are pushing to have Tax Cheat Rangel removed from his position as head of the Ways and Means committee and the Pelosicrats, as usual, are protecting this crook.

Don’t you find it interesting that Queen Pelosi promised the “Most Ethical Congress Ever!” and it has turned into one of the most incompetent and corrupt in living memory, and possibly in U.S. history?

To continue…

And then there is H.R. 735, also known as the “Rangel Rule Act of 2009.”

Hmm, this sounds interesting. Let’s see what Mr. York has discovered regarding this bill, shall we?

The brainchild of Rep. John Carter, a Texas Republican who spent two decades as a judge before coming to the House in 2002, H.R. 735 would require the IRS to give everyone the same kid-glove treatment it gave Rangel.

What!?!? Giving the hoi polloi the same special privileges as the head of the Ways and Means committee? How dare he? Well, Rep. Carter IS from Texas, he is one of those evil Republithugs, and no doubt he also likes to pull the wings off butterflies and drown puppies in his off hours. (Yes, that was more sarcasm) To continue…

The bill’s title is modeled on something known in Texas as the “Hobby Rule.” In the 1970s, Bill Hobby, then the state lieutenant governor, was pulled over for drunken driving. Hobby was taken to the police station, but when his attorney showed up in the wee hours of the morning, authorities simply let Hobby go — no bond, no nothing. That special treatment became a precedent for future drunken-driving cases, as lawyers cited the “Hobby Rule” to demand their clients be freed with no questions asked, just like Bill Hobby.

A quick google search shows that Mr. Hobby is a democrat. What a surprise! NOT!

Thus the “Rangel Rule.” Under H.R. 735, if you’re caught cheating on your taxes, you would pay what you owe, then write “Rangel Rule” at the top of your return, and you wouldn’t be charged any penalty or interest. That way, Carter said when he introduced the bill, ordinary taxpayers would be “treated with the same courtesy that, it seems, the IRS is treating the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.”

Now there’s a bill I could get behind. Where do I sign up?

Of course Carter’s bill doesn’t have a chance. Democrats undoubtedly see it as a joke. But the Rangel case is very, very serious.

If you don’t think so, just look at this, from the front page of the Oct. 28, 2008 Washington Post: “Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, one of Congress’s most powerful Republicans, was convicted yesterday of lying on financial disclosure forms to conceal his receipt of about $250,000 in gifts and expensive renovations to his house. …”

Ted Stevens may or may not have been guilty, but the Justice Department’s many layers of ethical attorneys screwed up that case six ways from Sunday. Still, when it comes to prosecutorial misconduct, it is better that a guilt man go free then an innocent one go to prison. In Rangel’s case? Toss him in the pokey and lose the key please.

Rangel appears to have hidden greater sums of money than Stevens allegedly did. Democratic leaders don’t want to face it now, but it’s just a matter of time before they’re forced to admit they have a serious Rangel problem.

Dream on Mr. York. This pack of thieves have no intention of sacrificing this steaming pile of molten elephant dung just so they can show “How ethical” they are. We have a continuing criminal enterprise going in Washington D.C., mostly run by the Democrats, but with a few Republican “Made Men” as well. The Mafia wished they could rip off people as efficiently as these scumbags.

Our only hope is a complete flushing of the congressional toilet in the midterm elections in 2010.

~The Angry Webmaster~