I Believe Charlie Rangel
By Mary Theroux • Monday August 2, 2010 2:13 PM PDT • 5 Comments
When he says “everybody else does it, too.”
Rangel helped create the Rangel Center for Public Service in 2004 to archive his papers and provide what potential donors were told would be a “well-furnished office for Congressman Rangel.” He secured federal earmarks totaling $1.6 million for the center. (His attorneys make clear that this, too, is accepted congressional practice.)
In addition to self-dealing with federal funds, at a time that he served as senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Rangel sent out dozens of fundraising letters on his congressional stationery to a group of corporations and corporate-controlled foundations that included AT&T, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, AIG, Merrill Lynch & Co., Wachovia—all of which had “interests in tax matters overseen by the panel.” Also:
On three occasions ... he discussed donations to his center with registered lobbyists: Melvin Norris, a former aide lobbying for Verizon Communications; George Nichols, a lobbyist for New York Life Insurance; and Edward Cloonan, a lobbyist for AIG.
We ought to know by now, surely, that Rangel is speaking the truth when he says everyone else does it—from my City Councilwoman with her boyfriend’s daughter drawing a full salary in her office—a neat trick for a student enrolled in college 3,000 miles away—to former Presidents with their ever-larger “Monuments to Me” Presidential Libraries littering the country.
It’s time to say “enough,” and go beyond trying to cut “waste” and “fraud.” Let’s just eliminate all the money and power at their disposal: they’ve shown they can’t be trusted, and now they’re even saying they can’t be trusted. Got it?
Tags: American History, Budget and Tax Policy, Charity, Corruption, Money and Banking, Morality, Politics, Power, Regulation, Transparency 
Like so many other things, people become desensitized to violence, corruption, and mind boggling bills that no one understands.
But you are right: the only way is to cut the Gordian knot because it cannot be untied. Getting there is the problem.
(I will say one thing about presidential libraries: the archivists keep everything and, if justice is not done while the person is in office, historians like me will be there to pore over the dirt.)
Jonathan Bean | Aug 2, 2010 | Reply
“Every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods”. – H.L. Mencken
Paul Mollon | Aug 2, 2010 | Reply
Furthermore, like everyone else, he did “nothing wrong”. (He did every thing right.)
richard | Aug 3, 2010 | Reply
I recoil every time I hear the vapid mantra, “Cut wasteful spending.”
The only spending that isn’t merely wasteful (fraudulently so, in many cases) is that spending which is outright DESTRUCTIVE. And there’s a great deal of that.
Cutting government spending (ANY spending) saves us so MUCH MORE than just what it cost.
N. Joseph Potts | Aug 4, 2010 | Reply
As I said from time to time, to a good friend of mine, the nation would turn when the weight on the side of the scales marked truth overwhelmed the side piled with lies. That time is either here or very close at hand. Our job is to push it hard but nicely and to never let up.
Brandon Lachner | Aug 4, 2010 | Reply