The Tax Man Faces the Tax Cheat — In the Mirror

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  The Tax Man Faces the Tax Cheat — In the Mirror

• Longtime Democratic congressman from New York
• Admirer of Fidel Castro and Communist Cuba
• Commonly levies baseless charges of racism for political advantage
• Helped to author the largest tax increase in American history
• Was involved in income-tax scandal and real-estate corruption

Born in Harlem, New York in June 1930, Charles Rangel is a Democratic congressman who represents the 15th Congressional District of New York, located in upper Manhattan. He has served in the House of Representatives since 1971.

Rangel, who is black, has a long history of levying charges of racism against his political and ideological adversaries. For example, when the Republican-led Congress pushed for tax relief in 1994, Rangel denounced the plan as a form of modern-day racism. "It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore," he raged. "[Instead,] they say, 'Let's cut taxes.'"

Similarly, when Republicans sought to reform a bloated and abused welfare system through budget cuts, Rangel remonstrated that the planned reforms were beneath even the standards of Nazi Germany: "Hitler wasn't even talking about doing these things," he insisted.

Racism is likewise Rangel's chosen explanation for the disproportionate number of blacks arrested for breaking drug laws, which he has condemned as "racist."

In 2001, while campaigning for Democratic mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer in New York, Rangel suggested that racism would be to blame were the Hispanic Ferrer to lose to his white rivals in the party primary. Speaking before a Democratic audience, Rangel asked, "How do you feel our hurt when you go to apply for a job and you see three whites there and you know before the interview that you're not going to get it?"

When President George W. Bush announced a plan to partially privatize Social Security, Rangel charged that Republicans were seeking to shortchange "African American workers" by providing them with reduced benefits "based on their race."

Following the much-criticized federal response to Hurricane Katrina, a powerful storm that ravaged the Gulf coast in August 2005, Rangel attributed the delayed response to anti-black sentiment within the federal government: “If you're black in this country, and you're poor in this country, it's not an inconvenience -- it's a death sentence."

In the course of addressing the Congressional Black Caucus in September of 2005, Rangel, still exploiting the aftermath of Katrina, likened President Bush to Bull Connor, the Alabama police commissioner notorious for his racist opposition to the early civil-rights movement.

In May 2009, Rangel joined activist Al Sharpton in calling for a federal probe into a recent deadly shooting -- by a white New York City plainclothes police officer -- of a black plainclothes officer who was brandishing a weapon and chasing a criminal suspect on a Harlem street. Said Rangel: "If you become an officer and you have a pistol and you are of color, in or out of uniform, your chances of getting shot down by a police officer are a lot heavier than if you were not of color." The congressman again alluded to the shooting when a reporter asked him what President Barack Obama, who came to New York for a personal matter shortly after the incident, ought to do during his stay in the city. Rangel replied, “Make certain he doesn’t run around in East Harlem without identification.”

In February 2005, Rangel proclaimed that it was inappropriate for Americans to characterize groups like Hezbollah as "Islamic terrorists." "To call it Islamic terror is discriminating, it's bigoted, it is not the right thing to say," Rangel declared.

Rangel is an avowed admirer of the former Cuban President Fidel Castro. In April 1993, the congressman introduced legislation to repeal the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, which ended U.S. assistance to the Castro government, and to lift the American embargo against Cuba. When Castro toured Harlem in October of 1995, Rangel greeted him with a bear hug at an event in a local church, where the congressman joined in a prolonged standing ovation for the visiting dictator.

Rangel is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives. For an overview of key votes he has cast during his legislative career, click here.

In January 2007 Rangel became chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the U.S. tax code. In October 2007, Rangel and this Committee unveiled a proposal for the single largest tax increase -- on all income strata -- in American history. Dubbed the “mother of all tax bills” by Rangel, the legislation not only contained $1.3 billion in new taxes, but it also called for the repeal of the major tax cuts that Congress had enacted in 2001 and 2003; all told, the bill would have resulted in a tax hike of $3.5 trillion.

In September 2008 the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into Rangel's failure to report (and pay taxes on) $75,000 in rental income which he had earned from his beach property in the Dominican Republic. Moreover, Rangel owed back taxes for at least three years, and he was illegally renting four rent-subsidized apartments in New York City -- at less than half of their market value -- while claiming his Washington, DC home as his primary residence for tax purposes. Though Rangel's income was too high to legally qualify him for any rent-subsidized units, he nonetheless rented three adjacent 16th-floor apartments which combined to make up his 2,500-square-foot home in New York, as well as a fourth unit on the 10th floor of the same building, which served as his campaign office. State and city laws stipulated, however, that rent-subsized apartments could only be used as primary residences.

In December 2008, reporters learned that Rangel had paid $80,000 in campaign funds to an Internet company run by his son for the creation of the congressman's Political Action Committee website.

In August 2009, Newsmax.com reported that Rangel had "failed to report at least $500,000 in assets on his 2007 Congressional disclosure form." Newsmax added:

"[A]mong the dozen newly disclosed holdings revealed in the amended forms are a checking account at a federal credit union with a balance between $250,0000 and $500,000; three vacant lots in Glassboro, N.J., valued at a total of $1,000 to $15,000; and stock in PepsiCo worth between $15,000 and $50,000. The new [disclosure] forms report that Rangel’s total net worth is between $1,028,024 and $2,495,000 — about twice the amount listed in the original disclosure statement, filed in May 2008, which declared assets totaling between $516,015 and $1,316,000."

Rangel was also accused of:

• taking a $1 million contribution to the Rangel Center at City College from a wealthy businessman whose company sybsequently received a lucrative tax break; and
• accepting a Citigroup-funded trip to the Caribbean in November 2008, when the bank was in the midst of squandering much of the bailout money it had received from the federal government.

When "Hot Air TV" producer Jason Mattera asked Rangel, on hidden camera, to comment about his continuing tax issues, the congressman replied angrily, "Why don't you mind your own goddamn business?"

On March 3, 2010, Rangel stepped down from his post as the Ways
and Means Committee chairman. The move, which Rangel said was "temporary," came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the congressman that he did not have enough votes to survive an expected Republican challenge to his chairmanship.

In April 2010, Rangel condemned Arizona's Republican governor, Jan Brewer, for having signed into law a bill deputizing state police to check with federal authorities on the immigration status of any individuals whom they had stopped for some legitimate reason, if the behavior or circumstances of those individuals led the officers to suspect that they might be in the United States illegally. Said Rangel: "The racism in this country is well known. Arizona has just pulled the sheets off of it."

On July 29, 2010, House investigators accused Rangel of 13 violations of congressional ethics standards, including, in addition to those listed above, such transgressions as:

• use of congressional staff and stationery to raise money for the New York City college center named in his honor;
• acceptance of favors and benefits from donors that may have influenced his votes in Congress; and
• misuse of the congressional free mail privilege.

Said Rangel in response to the allegations: "Even though they are serious charges, I'm prepared to prove that the only thing I've ever had in my 50 years of public service is service. That's what I've done and if I've been overzealous providing that service, I can't make an excuse for the serious violations."