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{Topical RANT] Wrangling Rangel |
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Okay, so here's one for us Americans, as well as anyone else who enjoys a good political farce.
So what we have is an 80-year-old House Representative, Charlie Rangel, who has been found to have been extremely wishy-washy with his finances. The easist portion of everything to understand is the part where he failed to report income from property he owns in the Dominican Republic. This means he didn't pay taxes on said income, and did so for 17 years.
I will say that again.
Charlie Rangel dodged portions of taxes he owed to the US Government for 17 damned years. His excuse, and it was an excuse since he was trying to not own up to it, but his excuse was bad book keeping.
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Now, I myself am a very forgetful person. I forget appointments, dates, and very often names. But if I had a big fancy property on a big island off the coast making me money, I'm pretty sure I'd remember that I was making money off of it. But let's assume that I did forget to claim this income one year. Conceivable? Not really, but we'll roll with it. So I forget one year, and then the next year comes around. What are the odds that I'll 'forget' again? Probably not very good, but what are the odds that a guy could forget to report the same income for 17 entire years?
So basically, Mr. Rangel has been fiscally irresponsible with his money and the paying of taxes. So what kind of punishment has been recommended? Well, thankfully he has been instructed to pay up on his owed taxes, though I doubt he'll have to pay anything but the actual dollar amount owed, with no interest. Though techincally, he should have so many late penalties stacked up on that first year he didn't pay from 17 years ago, that he would have a whopping 102% of the amount owed in interest due (approx.). So yeah they probably won't hold him to that. But what else? Arrest? Pfft. Of course not. Expulsion? (ie: Get Fired) No that's apparently to harsh. No, the recommended punishment is for him to be Censured.
And right now I can practically hear the head scratching. What the hell is Censure? Well get a load of this. Censure is where the subject, Representative Rangel in this case, stands on the floor of the House in front of everyone while the Speaker admonishes him publicly. That's right, they're hauling him up front and telling everybody he was a bad boy.
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So, this sort of thing may have been needed back in the days before say television, when in order to inform everyone as to what a jackass a guy had been was to do this. But now? Thanks to TV and the internet, the whole bloody planet already knows. Therefore this public humiliation serves no purpose except for politicians to point at it and say, "See, we did something about the problem." And it gets better. In his defense, Rangel expressed his hopes that he'll be judged "on my entire record as a soldier and a dedicated public servant -- not by my mistakes." Well guess what [********]? The whole reason this is going on is because of your 'mistakes'. To pass judgement on these 'mistakes' is infact the entire purpose of the investigation.
Jack a**.
Obviously this is insuffcient. In a time in which a family can lose thier home because they can't afford to pay exhorbent levels of rent even with two or three jobs going to it, we cannot let this man who skipped out on portions of his taxes, amongst all the other wrong doings, off with just a tab and a 'No-no'. If a person cannot follow the law, he has no business being a representative of that law. Fire that sonovabitch, and then don't come back until you find me a politician who's not trying to bilk the system.
Don't worry. I'll wait, but it's not like I'm gonna hold my breath or anything.
- FireSpark Out
Suppose your were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress...
But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain
 FireSpark · Sat Nov 20, 2010 @ 08:45am · 0 Comments |
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