Rangel: Popular Lawmaker with Ethics Issues

Rep. Charlie Rangel, the latest congressional titan with ethics problems, is described by a longtime House colleague as the guy who would make sure everyone put on oxygen masks during a flight emergency, but would have to be told to put on his own.

If Rep. Gary Ackerman’s characterization fits the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, then Rangel’s inattention to his ethical conduct has reached epic proportions.

The person most in charge of writing the nation’s tax laws neglected to pay taxes on rental income from his vacation villa in the Dominican Republic. He failed to report assets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on his annual disclosure forms, including a hard-to-miss credit union account worth up to $500,000. And those are only some of his lapses.

Read more: (Larry Margasak, “Rep. Rangel: Popular Lawmaker with Ethics Issues,” Associated Press, 9/20/09)