Recess Roastings: Rangel Unplugged
Recess Roastings: Rangel Unplugged
Harlem Boss Responsible for Shepherding Healthcare Bill Puts Fellow Dems in Crosshairs
Democrats Promised an August Healthcare Offensive:
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer: “‘We’re going to be on the air, we’re going to be in neighborhoods,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have a lot of help.’” (Steven T. Dennis, “Hoyer Says Democrats Going on Offense Over August,” Roll Call, 07/30/09)
Recess Roasting: Notoriously Corrupt NY Congressman Hilariously Accuses Dem Colleagues of Being Bought Off
“There are no press at this press conference, but the show goes on anyway. When it is Rangel’s turn to speak, he launches into a tirade against those who are working his health-care bill, which at the moment was making its way through committee.
“On the insurance companies: ‘They are what we call on Lenox Avenue, skimming. That’s all they do—skimming. And when they get together, then the skimmers are in control of the price. The public option means we don’t have to buy your product.’
“On his hold-out Democratic colleagues: ‘Now, wherever you see money, you see hustlers. We have that problem in the House of Representatives today. They call themselves Blue Dogs, or whatever you want, but at the end of the day, if you got enough for the doctors and the insurance companies, you got their vote.’
“He spends the next several minutes at the press conference talking through the public option, cost containment and the status of various bills moving through the House and Senate. He ends with some advice for those Blue Dogs and other enemies of reform.
“‘Don’t spit into the wind,’ he said.”
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“‘I tell you, this last month and certainly the last couple of weeks is the hardest working legislative weeks I’ve had. You have to take out the Judiciary Committee impeachment with Nixon. It wasn’t nearly anything as glamorous [as that]. It’s just that the president’s bill for health care was so important and our committee was the key committee, so we had to get the bill out because we knew Energy and Commerce was going to have problems. Not only that but we have more caucuses in the Democratic Party.’
“Rangel rolls his eyes.
“‘The black caucus. The Hispanic caucus. The Blue Dogs. The Progressives. The New Democrats. I had to go to every one of them and defend what we were doing,’ he said.”
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“Rangel is, after all, in charge of the most powerful committee in Washington, one that is now tasked with reforming a fundamental sector of American life. He remains the chief Harlem power broker, even as the rest of political establishment quietly wonders when he will exit the stage. And all the while, he is still operating under a cloud of allegations that he – and this is a partial list – lived in four rent-controlled apartments at a $3,000 month discount; that he keeps one of them illegally as a campaign office; that he paid his son $80,000 to design a shoddy campaign website for him even though he has never really faced serious opposition; that he keeps a Mercedes-Benz parked in a House of Representatives garage in violation of Congressional rules; that he has failed to pay more than $75,000 in taxes on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic; and that he used his perch on the Ways and Means Committee to write a tax loophole on behalf of a corporation that donated funds to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College.
“‘I don’t know of any other state that treats their Ways and Means chairman like this,’ said [Assembly Member Keith] Wright, rejecting all the charges. ‘Goddamn. That doesn’t help anybody.’” (David Freedlander, “The Last Campaign: Charlie Rangel fights to Save Health Care, Harlem, and Himself,” City Hall, 8/24/09)
To read the full article, click here; http://cityhallnews.com/news/127/ARTICLE/2087/2009-08-24.html
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