Remember when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House and she promised to “restore integrity and honesty to Washington, D.C.” and that the Democratic Congress would be “the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history?” Right. What a joke. Yes, Republicans have had their share of scoundrels and embarrassments (Mark Foley), but the level of dishonesty, incompetence, cronyism and downright corruption under Pelosi and Reid is unprecedented. No wonder the people’s faith in this Congress is down to an all time low of 14%. (And what in the world are those 14% thinking?)
The latest example is Charlie Rangel, the Chairman of Congress’s powerful Ways and Means Committee. The House Ethics Committee has just announced that he is being admonished for breaking House rules by taking a number of trips to the Caribbean that were illegally paid for by corporate sponsors. He also remains under ethics investigation for a variety of other misdeeds, such as failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars of income and assets, and failure to pay taxes. The tax charge is particularly ironic when one considers Rangel is Chairman of the committee (Ways and Means) which is responsible for the entire U.S. tax code. It reminds me a little (actually a lot) of President Obama appointing Timothy Geithner to head the Department of the Treasury, which is in charge of the IRS, when Geithner admitted that he hadn’t paid his own taxes!
When Rangel’s foibles first came to light last year, a resolution was brought before Congress to strip Chairman Rangel of his gavel. Seems logical – shouldn’t the Chairman of the tax-writing committee have to pay his own taxes, just like every other American is expected to do? Well, not according to our Congressman, Steve Driehaus. He voted to allow Rangel to stay on as Chairman. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Charlie Rangel and his PAC had given Driehaus $14,000.
By the way, Nancy Pelosi, whom Steve Driehaus has voted with a slavish 94% of the time, is sticking by Charlie Rangel, at least for the time being. And this from the Speaker who was going to give us the most honest and ethical Congress in history.
America deserves better.