If Tom Daschle’s failure to pay taxes was enough to keep him out of the job of Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Nancy Killefer’s failure to pay taxes was enough to keep her out of the job of chief performance officer, why is Charlie Rangel’s failure to pay taxes on thousands of dollars of annual rental income, for about 20 years in a row, not expected to amount to anything?
He’s boasting that the House Ethics Committee is going to give him a pass. If so, it’ll be a whitewash, says the Sunlight Foundation:
. . . it’s hard to imagine that the Select Committee on Ethics will have devoted anything more than a cursory glance at the various issues raised. Consider just one aspect, for which documents are in the public record: Rangel’s financial disclosure forms. We took a look at his filings going all the way back to 1978, the first year members were required to disclose information on their personal finances, and found 28 instances in which he failed to report acquiring, owning or disposing of assets. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appear or disappear with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held, or when they were sold, as the operative House rules at the time required.