RANGEL UPDATE: Taxing Problems:
But Geithner isn’t the only national leader on finances who deserves to be questioned in greater detail. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that oversees the federal tax code, was caught last fall for failing to pay taxes on a rental property he owns in the Dominican Republic.
Rangel paid $10,000 in back taxes last September, and basically received a free pass from his fellow members of Congress for his tax mistakes.
The Senate may yet decide that Geithner is unfit to become treasury secretary because of his tax problem. But we have argued since autumn that Rangel should lose his chairmanship of the important Ways and Means Committee with his tax problems.
Indeed. He’ll probably try to show his dedication to the tax code by sticking it to the rest of us, to make up for his own transgressions. That’s how these things usually work . . . .