More Excuses

One Charles Rangel makes me as a voter very angry. It could be said that he doesn’t matter to me as he represents Harlem, New York, a district thousands of miles from where I live. That’s wrong because Rangel, as a 20 plus term incumbent, is a very powerful member of congress and has most recently served as the chair of the House ways and means committee, the committee charged with oversight of the tax code. Representative Rangel, while representing a part of New York, directly affects us in New Mexico.

Rangel makes me angry because he committed tax fraud and his punishment is censure, an admonishment of his crime by the speaker of the house in a session of congress. This is less than a slap on the wrist and everyone knows it. There is a kabuki theatre of various congressmen making noise about the punishment being harsh and even unwarranted which makes me even angrier.

Rangel’s incoherent and inconsistent statements have varied from him not knowing that what he did was wrong to that he did not personally benefit from his crimes to that his long tenure should exempt him from the law. Never has he apologized with the closest being the equivalent of saying, if I offended anyone I apologize for their misunderstanding of me doing nothing wrong.

Recently, with all of this going on, Rangel was re-elected with about 80 percent of the vote in his district. It is astounding to me how someone like Rangel could win with the cloud of corruption like this. It is unsurprising that he would not even show a hint of contrition for his guilt when all he gets is an admonishment and is re-elected so resoundingly.

It is a sad commentary when the excuses flow. Because of his position, why wouldn’t Rangel work to make the tax code more understandable for everyone? It is overly complex and I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t harbor some anger at having to pay almost a hundred dollars a year in order to pay taxes in accordance with the law. And is ignorance of tax law an excuse for any member of the public? Of course not. Rangel’s punishment is a joke to anyone over the age of ten and it’s no wonder why the public has lost confidence in its representative body as a whole.