It seems the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (he of the three rent-controlled apartments rolled into one in Harlem) also was unaware of his responsibilities to pay taxes on income generated from his luxury condo property in the islands. You know, the one that he bought with an interest free loan....
Rangel is a machine politician in every sense of the word. His sense of entitlement knows no bounds. It causes me a great deal of happiness to see him begin to get the scrutiny he deserves.
I'll be surprised, pleasantly so, if this amounts to anything more than a temporary inconvenience for
ReplyDeleteMr. Rangel (or more likely, his staff). With an election year and associated turnover of administration-appointed leadership, I just don't see this going much of anywhere. And finally, having watched my mom work in the IRS for several years of the most frustrating time of her government career where just being a minority equalled a wild card for promotion and where challenging a minority to just give the appearance of doing his or her job was grounds for a lawsuit (and yet another EEO Office wild card for promotion for the non-working minority employee in question). Anyway, I just don't see anyone in the IRS with the cultural upbringing or the testicular fortitude to stand up to the guy who has their tiny little gonads in his very powerful hand. And the ones who could best hold him accountable, the voters of his district, are extremely unlikely to see Rangel's tax evasion as anything worthy of their attention. Indeed, if they are like Washington DC voters who elevate Marion Barry to celebrity status the more he violates the law, Rangel is certain to get reelected precisely because of it. No, I just don't see anything happening on this one. I'd bet Rangel has already had a good chuckle about this one; that's how much he's sweating it.
Maybe not, but it is nice to see him gored a bit.
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