The First Lady’s Servant List
It’s only $1,591,000.00 a year!
Dr. Paul L. Williams
“In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service,” Michelle Obama.
No, Michelle Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn’t perform any official duties. But this hasn’t deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession. Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary.
How things have changed. If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonalds cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Miz Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q. Public:
1. $172,200 -Sher, Susan (Chief of Staff)
2. $140,000 -Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy and Projects for The First Lady)
3. $113,000 -Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary)
4. $102,000 -Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady.
5. $100.000 -Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of the Staff to the First lady)
6. $90,000 -Medina, David S. (Deputy Chief of Staff to the First Lady)
7. $84,000 -Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)
8. $75,000 -Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)
9. $70,000 -Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady)
10. $65,000 -Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director of Deputy Social Secretary)
11. $64,000 -Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
12. $62,000 -Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator for The First Lady)
13. $60,000 -Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)
14. $57.500 -Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)
15. $52,500 -Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary to the First Lady)
16. $50,000 -Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide to the First Lady)
17. $45,000 -Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lacy)
18. $43,000 -Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
19. $40,000 -Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff to the First Lady)
20. $36,000 -Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)
21. $35,000 -Bookey Natalie (Staff Assistant)
22. $35,000 -Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)
There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time who has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First lady’s social life. One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy one; Laura Bush one; and prior to Mamie Eisenhower social help came from the President’s own pocket.
Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and “First Hairstylist” Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom traveled about Air Force One to Europe.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Obamacare Stage Production
Spin Doctors For Obamacare
By Michelle Malkin
Lights, camera, agitprop! The curtains opened on yet another artfully staged performance of Obamacare Theater this week. One hundred and fifty doctors took their places on the plush lawn outside the West Wing -- many acting like "Twilight" groupies with cameras instead of credible medical professionals. The president approved the scenery: "I am thrilled to have all of you here today, and you look very spiffy in your coats."
White House wardrobe assistants guaranteed the "spiffy." As the New York Post's Charles Hurt reported, the physicians "were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image." President Obama's aides hastily handed out costumes to those who came in suits or dresses before the doc-and-pony show began.
But while Halloween came early to the Potomac, these partisan single-payer activists in White House-supplied clothing aren't fooling anyone.
Obama's spin doctors belong to a group called Doctors for America (DFA), which reportedly supplied the white lab coats. The White House event was organized in conjunction with DFA and Organizing for America, Obama's campaign outfit.
OFA and DFA are behind a massive new Obamacare ad campaign, letter-writing campaign and doctor-recruitment campaign. The supposedly "grassroots" nonprofit DFA is a spin-off of Doctors for Obama, a 2008 campaign arm that aggressively pushed the Democrats' government health care takeover. DFA claims to have thousands of members with a "variety of backgrounds." But there's little diversity in their views on socialized medicine (98 percent want a taxpayer-funded public insurance option) -- or in their political contributions.
DFA president and co-founder Dr. Vivek Murthy, an internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, served as a member of Obama's Health Policy Advisory Committee and the New England Steering Committee during the 2008 presidential campaign.
DFA vice president Dr. Alice Chen of Los Angeles is an Obama donor and avowed supporter of Organizing for America, Obama's campaign shop run by the Democratic National Committee. On Monday, she posted on the OFA website with an appeal to Democratic activists for letters to the editor in support of Obama's "health care reform."
DFA "senior adviser" Jacob Hacker is an Obamacare architect who laughed at criticism of the plan being a Trojan horse for single-payer coverage. "It's not a Trojan horse, right?" he retorted at a far-left Tides Foundation conference on health care. "It's just right there! I'm telling you. We're going to get there."
And here's a brief political donation history of other top DFA docs compiled by Brian Faughnan at theconservatives.com:
Dr. Hershey Garner (who stood on stage with Obama at the White House event): more than $10,000 in donations to Democratic candidates since 2001.
Dr. Winfred Parnell: More than $5,700 in donations to Democrats since 2001.
Dr. Michael Newman: $4,550 in donations to Democrats since 2001.
Dr. Boyd Shook: $3,500 in donations to Democrats since 2002.
Dr. Jan Sarnecki: $3,400 in donations to Democrats since 2004.
Dr. Amanda McKinney (who also flanked Obama at the White House event): $2,750 in donations to Democratic candidates since 2001.
Dr. Tracy Nelson: $1,500 in donations to Obama.
Dr. Stanton McKenna: $1,000 in donations to Democrats since 2001.
Dr. Jason Schneider: $600 in donations to Democrats since 2001.
Dr. Biron Baker: $500 donated to Obama last year.
Dr. Nick Perencevich: $500 in donations to Democrats since 2008.
Dr. Elaine Bradshaw: $500 in donations to Obama last year.
Who unveiled Doctors for America earlier this spring? No, not ordinary citizens outside the Beltway. The decidedly un-grassroots sponsors of the Doctors for America launch were Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and the left-wing Center for American Progress, which is run by liberal operative John Podesta and underwritten by far-left billionaire George Soros.
CAP is a lead organization in the Health Care for America Now coalition, the so-called "grassroots" lobbying group for Obama's health care takeover legislation run out of 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C., with a $40 million budget. CAP is also the parent group of Think Progress, the far-left website leading the smear campaign against fiscally conservative activists who protested at congressional town halls this summer. And several CAP alumni are now leading the Obamacare push at the Department of Health and Human Services, including special HHS assistant Michael Halle and HHS Director Jeanne Lambrew, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who worked on health policy in the Clinton administration.
CAP/HCAN's most recent initiative? Bussing protesters to the private homes of health care executives last week to bully them over the public option -- even as many health care executives line the pockets of Obama administration officials and allies lobbying on their behalf.
It's all in keeping with the elaborate Kabuki productions that have marked Team Obama's efforts to manufacture support for government-run health care. They've been doctoring it up from Day One.
By Michelle Malkin
Lights, camera, agitprop! The curtains opened on yet another artfully staged performance of Obamacare Theater this week. One hundred and fifty doctors took their places on the plush lawn outside the West Wing -- many acting like "Twilight" groupies with cameras instead of credible medical professionals. The president approved the scenery: "I am thrilled to have all of you here today, and you look very spiffy in your coats."
White House wardrobe assistants guaranteed the "spiffy." As the New York Post's Charles Hurt reported, the physicians "were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image." President Obama's aides hastily handed out costumes to those who came in suits or dresses before the doc-and-pony show began.
But while Halloween came early to the Potomac, these partisan single-payer activists in White House-supplied clothing aren't fooling anyone.
Obama's spin doctors belong to a group called Doctors for America (DFA), which reportedly supplied the white lab coats. The White House event was organized in conjunction with DFA and Organizing for America, Obama's campaign outfit.
OFA and DFA are behind a massive new Obamacare ad campaign, letter-writing campaign and doctor-recruitment campaign. The supposedly "grassroots" nonprofit DFA is a spin-off of Doctors for Obama, a 2008 campaign arm that aggressively pushed the Democrats' government health care takeover. DFA claims to have thousands of members with a "variety of backgrounds." But there's little diversity in their views on socialized medicine (98 percent want a taxpayer-funded public insurance option) -- or in their political contributions.
DFA president and co-founder Dr. Vivek Murthy, an internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, served as a member of Obama's Health Policy Advisory Committee and the New England Steering Committee during the 2008 presidential campaign.
DFA vice president Dr. Alice Chen of Los Angeles is an Obama donor and avowed supporter of Organizing for America, Obama's campaign shop run by the Democratic National Committee. On Monday, she posted on the OFA website with an appeal to Democratic activists for letters to the editor in support of Obama's "health care reform."
DFA "senior adviser" Jacob Hacker is an Obamacare architect who laughed at criticism of the plan being a Trojan horse for single-payer coverage. "It's not a Trojan horse, right?" he retorted at a far-left Tides Foundation conference on health care. "It's just right there! I'm telling you. We're going to get there."
And here's a brief political donation history of other top DFA docs compiled by Brian Faughnan at theconservatives.com:
Dr. Hershey Garner (who stood on stage with Obama at the White House event): more than $10,000 in donations to Democratic candidates since 2001.
Dr. Winfred Parnell: More than $5,700 in donations to Democrats since 2001.
Dr. Michael Newman: $4,550 in donations to Democrats since 2001.
Dr. Boyd Shook: $3,500 in donations to Democrats since 2002.
Dr. Jan Sarnecki: $3,400 in donations to Democrats since 2004.
Dr. Amanda McKinney (who also flanked Obama at the White House event): $2,750 in donations to Democratic candidates since 2001.
Dr. Tracy Nelson: $1,500 in donations to Obama.
Dr. Stanton McKenna: $1,000 in donations to Democrats since 2001.
Dr. Jason Schneider: $600 in donations to Democrats since 2001.
Dr. Biron Baker: $500 donated to Obama last year.
Dr. Nick Perencevich: $500 in donations to Democrats since 2008.
Dr. Elaine Bradshaw: $500 in donations to Obama last year.
Who unveiled Doctors for America earlier this spring? No, not ordinary citizens outside the Beltway. The decidedly un-grassroots sponsors of the Doctors for America launch were Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and the left-wing Center for American Progress, which is run by liberal operative John Podesta and underwritten by far-left billionaire George Soros.
CAP is a lead organization in the Health Care for America Now coalition, the so-called "grassroots" lobbying group for Obama's health care takeover legislation run out of 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C., with a $40 million budget. CAP is also the parent group of Think Progress, the far-left website leading the smear campaign against fiscally conservative activists who protested at congressional town halls this summer. And several CAP alumni are now leading the Obamacare push at the Department of Health and Human Services, including special HHS assistant Michael Halle and HHS Director Jeanne Lambrew, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who worked on health policy in the Clinton administration.
CAP/HCAN's most recent initiative? Bussing protesters to the private homes of health care executives last week to bully them over the public option -- even as many health care executives line the pockets of Obama administration officials and allies lobbying on their behalf.
It's all in keeping with the elaborate Kabuki productions that have marked Team Obama's efforts to manufacture support for government-run health care. They've been doctoring it up from Day One.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
NEA Has No Problem With Teacher Handing Out Banned Books On Perversion
Perversion 101: Kids taught 'gay' sex, rape, bestiality
High school teacher keeps job after handing out pornographic 'banned book'
By Chelsea Schilling
A father of a high-school student is infuriated after he said a teacher provided "banned books" to her 11th-grade students, including at least one with explicit descriptions of homosexual sex acts, rape, masturbation, profane language and even bestiality.
John Davis, father of an 11th-grade student at William Byrd High School in Vinton, Va., told WND that English teacher Kathleen Renard provided her personal copy of a book called "Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky to one of her English students, and it was passed to his son. The book is published by MTV Books.
Davis found the book in his son's possession, along with a bookmark that said, "Read banned books. They're your ticket to freedom."
"My son was reading the book and stated it was a school assignment," Davis told WND. "He was embarrassed that I began to peruse through the book and discovered its contents. He advised that the book belongs to his English teacher, Mrs. Kathleen Renard."
Upon reading the book, Davis discovered the following:
• sex acts between teenagers
• male and female masturbation
• suicide
• oral sex
• extensive use of profanity, especially the "F"-word
• multiple cases of homosexual acts between teenage boys, including kissing, seduction and anal sex
• illegal drug and alcohol use, including smoking marijuana and LSD usage
• anonymous homosexual acts between men and boys
• rape of a teenage girl while she cried
• molestation of a young boy by a woman
• molestation of a young girl by an older man
• how hitting a girl can turn her on and make her love a boy
• attempted sex between a boy and a dog
Davis confiscated the book and arranged to meet with Renard and William Byrd High School Principal Richard Turner.
The father said the English teacher was not present at the Oct. 2 meeting. He asked the principal if he could speak with the teacher, but he said Turner refused to call her in, saying, "I'm not going to fire her over this."
"I was supposed to be meeting with him and the teacher together so I could get some answers," Davis said. "He wouldn't let the teacher come in because he was trying to protect her."
Davis said the principal explained that Renard had made "a whole row" of banned books available to her students in celebration of the American Library Association's "Banned Book Week." She included her personal copy of "Perks of Being a Wallflower," complete with her own name on the inside jacket, among other selections.
The book is listed among ALA's top 10 "most frequently challenged books of 2008." The ALA "banned" books also include many other stories that reference sex, occult themes, violence, offensive language, drug abuse, homosexuality and suicide.
The principal told Davis he believed the book was inappropriate, but he said the father handled his complaint improperly.
Parents were not informed that these banned books would be made available to the students. Davis said that when he expressed this concern to the principal, he replied, "You're right about that."
According to Davis, the principal said he believed the teacher should not have provided the books. Principal Turner claimed he had met with the instructor and disciplined her, but Davis said he would not say what actions had been taken. Instead, he told the father, "That's between me and her."
Davis said, "As far as I know, he may have just given her a paid day off. He wouldn't tell me."
Renard's personal copy of 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' included a 'banned books' bookmark inside.
Principal Turner acknowledged that the school also carried two copies of the book in the library and said he had asked to have them removed from the shelves.
Messages left with Principal Turner and Roanoke County School Board members had not been returned at the time of this report.
Davis mentioned WND's big list of teachers who have sexual relationships with minor students and said he is concerned that a teacher who provides sexually explicit reading material to her students could have ulterior motives.
Davis is still in possession of the book and has chosen not to give it back to the instructor because he said he doesn't want it back in the hands of students.
"This is one of the better schools around," he told WND. "People need to wake up and start questioning some of the things that are going on in the schools. They wonder why we're having so many problems with teens. A lot of it has to do with what goes on in the schools."
High school teacher keeps job after handing out pornographic 'banned book'
By Chelsea Schilling
A father of a high-school student is infuriated after he said a teacher provided "banned books" to her 11th-grade students, including at least one with explicit descriptions of homosexual sex acts, rape, masturbation, profane language and even bestiality.
John Davis, father of an 11th-grade student at William Byrd High School in Vinton, Va., told WND that English teacher Kathleen Renard provided her personal copy of a book called "Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky to one of her English students, and it was passed to his son. The book is published by MTV Books.
Davis found the book in his son's possession, along with a bookmark that said, "Read banned books. They're your ticket to freedom."
"My son was reading the book and stated it was a school assignment," Davis told WND. "He was embarrassed that I began to peruse through the book and discovered its contents. He advised that the book belongs to his English teacher, Mrs. Kathleen Renard."
Upon reading the book, Davis discovered the following:
• sex acts between teenagers
• male and female masturbation
• suicide
• oral sex
• extensive use of profanity, especially the "F"-word
• multiple cases of homosexual acts between teenage boys, including kissing, seduction and anal sex
• illegal drug and alcohol use, including smoking marijuana and LSD usage
• anonymous homosexual acts between men and boys
• rape of a teenage girl while she cried
• molestation of a young boy by a woman
• molestation of a young girl by an older man
• how hitting a girl can turn her on and make her love a boy
• attempted sex between a boy and a dog
Davis confiscated the book and arranged to meet with Renard and William Byrd High School Principal Richard Turner.
The father said the English teacher was not present at the Oct. 2 meeting. He asked the principal if he could speak with the teacher, but he said Turner refused to call her in, saying, "I'm not going to fire her over this."
"I was supposed to be meeting with him and the teacher together so I could get some answers," Davis said. "He wouldn't let the teacher come in because he was trying to protect her."
Davis said the principal explained that Renard had made "a whole row" of banned books available to her students in celebration of the American Library Association's "Banned Book Week." She included her personal copy of "Perks of Being a Wallflower," complete with her own name on the inside jacket, among other selections.
The book is listed among ALA's top 10 "most frequently challenged books of 2008." The ALA "banned" books also include many other stories that reference sex, occult themes, violence, offensive language, drug abuse, homosexuality and suicide.
The principal told Davis he believed the book was inappropriate, but he said the father handled his complaint improperly.
Parents were not informed that these banned books would be made available to the students. Davis said that when he expressed this concern to the principal, he replied, "You're right about that."
According to Davis, the principal said he believed the teacher should not have provided the books. Principal Turner claimed he had met with the instructor and disciplined her, but Davis said he would not say what actions had been taken. Instead, he told the father, "That's between me and her."
Davis said, "As far as I know, he may have just given her a paid day off. He wouldn't tell me."
Renard's personal copy of 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' included a 'banned books' bookmark inside.
Principal Turner acknowledged that the school also carried two copies of the book in the library and said he had asked to have them removed from the shelves.
Messages left with Principal Turner and Roanoke County School Board members had not been returned at the time of this report.
Davis mentioned WND's big list of teachers who have sexual relationships with minor students and said he is concerned that a teacher who provides sexually explicit reading material to her students could have ulterior motives.
Davis is still in possession of the book and has chosen not to give it back to the instructor because he said he doesn't want it back in the hands of students.
"This is one of the better schools around," he told WND. "People need to wake up and start questioning some of the things that are going on in the schools. They wonder why we're having so many problems with teens. A lot of it has to do with what goes on in the schools."
Obama Calls For Restrictions Of Free Speech At UN
You Can't Say That
At the UN, the Obama administration backs limits on free speech.
by Anne Bayefsky
The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends.
President Obama chose to join the Council despite the fact that the Organization of the Islamic Conference holds the balance of power and human rights abusers are among its lead actors, including China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. Islamic states quickly interpreted the president's penchant for "engagement" as meaning fundamental rights were now up for grabs. Few would have predicted, however, that the shift would begin with America's most treasured freedom.
For more than a decade, a UN resolution on the freedom of expression was shepherded through the Council, and the now defunct Commission on Human Rights which it replaced, by Canada. Over the years, Canada tried mightily to garner consensus on certain minimum standards, but the "reformed" Council changed the distribution of seats on the UN's lead human rights body. In 2008, against the backdrop of the publication of images of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, Cuba and various Islamic countries destroyed the consensus and rammed through an amendment which introduced a limit on any speech they claimed was an "abuse . . . [that] constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination."
The Obama administration decided that a revamped freedom of expression resolution, extracted from Canadian hands, would be an ideal emblem for its new engagement policy. So it cosponsored a resolution on the subject with none other than Egypt--a country characterized by an absence of freedom of expression.
Privately, other Western governments were taken aback and watched the weeks of negotiations with dismay as it became clear that American negotiators wanted consensus at all costs. In introducing the resolution on Thursday, October 1--adopted by consensus the following day--the ranking U.S. diplomat, Chargé d'Affaires Douglas Griffiths, crowed:
"The United States is very pleased to present this joint project with Egypt. This initiative is a manifestation of the Obama administration's commitment to multilateral engagement throughout the United Nations and of our genuine desire to seek and build cooperation based upon mutual interest and mutual respect in pursuit of our shared common principles of tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
His Egyptian counterpart, Ambassador Hisham Badr, was equally pleased--for all the wrong reasons. He praised the development by telling the Council that "freedom of expression . . . has been sometimes misused," insisting on limits consistent with the "true nature of this right" and demanding that the "the media must . . . conduct . . . itself in a professional and ethical manner."
The new resolution, championed by the Obama administration, has a number of disturbing elements. It emphasizes that "the exercise of the right to freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities . . ." which include taking action against anything meeting the description of "negative racial and religious stereotyping." It also purports to "recognize . . . the moral and social responsibilities of the media" and supports "the media's elaboration of voluntary codes of professional ethical conduct" in relation to "combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."
At the UN, the Obama administration backs limits on free speech.
by Anne Bayefsky
The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends.
President Obama chose to join the Council despite the fact that the Organization of the Islamic Conference holds the balance of power and human rights abusers are among its lead actors, including China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. Islamic states quickly interpreted the president's penchant for "engagement" as meaning fundamental rights were now up for grabs. Few would have predicted, however, that the shift would begin with America's most treasured freedom.
For more than a decade, a UN resolution on the freedom of expression was shepherded through the Council, and the now defunct Commission on Human Rights which it replaced, by Canada. Over the years, Canada tried mightily to garner consensus on certain minimum standards, but the "reformed" Council changed the distribution of seats on the UN's lead human rights body. In 2008, against the backdrop of the publication of images of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, Cuba and various Islamic countries destroyed the consensus and rammed through an amendment which introduced a limit on any speech they claimed was an "abuse . . . [that] constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination."
The Obama administration decided that a revamped freedom of expression resolution, extracted from Canadian hands, would be an ideal emblem for its new engagement policy. So it cosponsored a resolution on the subject with none other than Egypt--a country characterized by an absence of freedom of expression.
Privately, other Western governments were taken aback and watched the weeks of negotiations with dismay as it became clear that American negotiators wanted consensus at all costs. In introducing the resolution on Thursday, October 1--adopted by consensus the following day--the ranking U.S. diplomat, Chargé d'Affaires Douglas Griffiths, crowed:
"The United States is very pleased to present this joint project with Egypt. This initiative is a manifestation of the Obama administration's commitment to multilateral engagement throughout the United Nations and of our genuine desire to seek and build cooperation based upon mutual interest and mutual respect in pursuit of our shared common principles of tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
His Egyptian counterpart, Ambassador Hisham Badr, was equally pleased--for all the wrong reasons. He praised the development by telling the Council that "freedom of expression . . . has been sometimes misused," insisting on limits consistent with the "true nature of this right" and demanding that the "the media must . . . conduct . . . itself in a professional and ethical manner."
The new resolution, championed by the Obama administration, has a number of disturbing elements. It emphasizes that "the exercise of the right to freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities . . ." which include taking action against anything meeting the description of "negative racial and religious stereotyping." It also purports to "recognize . . . the moral and social responsibilities of the media" and supports "the media's elaboration of voluntary codes of professional ethical conduct" in relation to "combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."
More Taxes To Pay For Unbridled Spending
Pelosi says new tax is 'on the table'
By Michael O'Brien
A new value-added tax (VAT) is "on the table" to help the U.S. address its fiscal liabilities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday night.
Pelosi, appearing on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show" asserted that "it's fair to look at" the VAT as part of an overhaul of the nation's tax code.
"I would say, Put everything on the table and subject it to the scrutiny that it deserves," Pelosi told Rose when asked if the VAT has any appeal to her.
The VAT is a tax on manufacturers at each stage of production on the amount of value an additional producer adds to a product.
Pelosi argued that the VAT would level the playing field between U.S. and foreign manufacturers, the latter of which do not have pension and healthcare costs included in the price of their goods because their governments provide those services, financed by similar taxes.
"They get a tax off of that and they use that money to pay the healthcare for their own workers," Pelosi said, using the example of auto manufacturers. "So their cars coming into our country don't have a healthcare component cost.
"Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this. Of course, we want to take down the healthcare cost, that's one part of it," the Speaker added. "But in the scheme of things, I think it's fair look at a value- added tax as well."
Pelosi said that any new taxes would come after the Congress finishes the healthcare debate consuming most lawmakers' time, and that it may come as part of a larger overhaul to the tax code.
The Speaker also emphasized that any reworking of the tax code would not result in an increase in taxes on middle-class Americans.
By Michael O'Brien
A new value-added tax (VAT) is "on the table" to help the U.S. address its fiscal liabilities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday night.
Pelosi, appearing on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show" asserted that "it's fair to look at" the VAT as part of an overhaul of the nation's tax code.
"I would say, Put everything on the table and subject it to the scrutiny that it deserves," Pelosi told Rose when asked if the VAT has any appeal to her.
The VAT is a tax on manufacturers at each stage of production on the amount of value an additional producer adds to a product.
Pelosi argued that the VAT would level the playing field between U.S. and foreign manufacturers, the latter of which do not have pension and healthcare costs included in the price of their goods because their governments provide those services, financed by similar taxes.
"They get a tax off of that and they use that money to pay the healthcare for their own workers," Pelosi said, using the example of auto manufacturers. "So their cars coming into our country don't have a healthcare component cost.
"Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this. Of course, we want to take down the healthcare cost, that's one part of it," the Speaker added. "But in the scheme of things, I think it's fair look at a value- added tax as well."
Pelosi said that any new taxes would come after the Congress finishes the healthcare debate consuming most lawmakers' time, and that it may come as part of a larger overhaul to the tax code.
The Speaker also emphasized that any reworking of the tax code would not result in an increase in taxes on middle-class Americans.
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Green Jobs Scam
Hand Over Your Job If You Want to Dream in Green: Kevin Hassett
Commentary by Kevin Hassett
There may be nothing so dangerous as a policy fantasy. A good one is like the H1N1 virus. It spreads on contact and threatens to infect everyone in its path.
Policy fantasies are dangerous because they cause direct harm, replacing plans that might actually work, and because they spread economic illiteracy that can negatively influence future policies. If we want to address global warming, and we should, we need to adopt a carbon tax or cap-and-trade program to penalize greenhouse-gas emissions. Just about anything else is a distraction.
Right now, one of the most dangerous policy fantasies is the distracting notion that government can create so-called green jobs and should strive to do so enthusiastically.
While the principal proponent of the green jobs hokum, Van Jones, is now out of government, the idea still influences policy design. Witness the Renew Through Green Jobs Act of 2009, which is making its way through Congress. President Barack Obama, of course, has been a veritable Typhoid Mary of the green job virus, promising to deliver 5 million of them.
The analysis to back that up, and spread by green job enthusiasts such as Jones and many of his colleagues at the Center for American Progress, is that transferring society’s resources to the green sector leads to a net creation of jobs. And it provides a tasty free lunch by cleaning the environment.
Eat for Free
Economics teaches, of course, that there are no free lunches. A key force driving such calculations is that alternative-energy production or energy conservation are fairly labor intensive relative to, say, the oil industry. But if the alternative-energy sector were really economically more efficient than other forms of energy, it would create all the wonderful jobs all by itself, without the assistance of Uncle Sam.
If, even after all the subsidies that government already provides to green technologies, we have to also subsidize training for workers in that industry, that suggests we are throwing money at an industry that can’t pass the market test.
The notion is that we make ourselves better off by transferring resources from one sector, which is fairly efficient, to another, which isn’t. Such an assertion might be correct if we account for the damage done by greenhouse gases. But with regard to job creation, the argument is nonsense.
Rickshaw Express
Heritage Foundation economist J.D. Foster recently wrote that the same logic would recommend an even better and greener plan: the federal government could require that we all move about in rickshaws.
The logic is sound, is it not? It will take many environmentally friendly rickshaws to replace the passenger miles currently devoted to travel in cars and buses. With unemployment so high, a rickshaw program could reap huge economic benefits.
Or would it?
In the long run, when real wages and workers have the opportunity to adjust, the economy tends toward full employment. One simply can’t redistribute resources and change the number of jobs. So we get to choose in the long run between an economy with lots of rickshaws and an economy with more efficient transportation, and lots of jobs in other sectors.
In the short run, when unemployment is high, then the government can conceivably create jobs. If it does so by transferring resources from one sector to another, then one must be careful to net the jobs lost in one sector against the jobs gained in another.
Consumers Get It
Even if we use deficit spending and borrow money from the Chinese to create jobs, we can’t be sure that the net creation is very large. If consumers understand correctly that the big deficit means higher future taxes, they will cut their consumption, and businesses outside the green industry will reduce production and employment.
Obama has consistently used Spain as an example of green job paradise.
Spain has, indeed, invested heavily in green jobs. And the results? A recent study by Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada Alvarez and colleagues at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, found that the Spanish program spent 571,138 euros for every job it created. That’s about $833,000 per job.
The Spanish program also sucked resources out of more productive sectors into less productive ones, costing 2.2 jobs for every green job created.
Job Trade-off
While Alvarez’s calculations rely on assumptions that might overstate the case a bit, consider the impact of the Obama green jobs program if his numbers are correct. The president has promised to create 5 million green jobs. If he succeeds, then it will cost 11 million jobs in other sectors, and the medium-term increase in unemployment will be 6 million jobs.
To put that in perspective, the number of unemployed Americans has increased in the past two years by 7.6 million. Creating 5 million green jobs would do almost the same amount of net harm.
Environmental programs should be weighed on their merits. The most efficient way to move toward a cleaner future is to provide incentives to rely on alternative energy with a penalty on carbon. If a carbon tax causes some unemployment, we can address that with tax reductions elsewhere. The green jobs fantasy makes the adoption of such a plan harder, and, to the extent that it affects real policy, hurts real people.
Commentary by Kevin Hassett
There may be nothing so dangerous as a policy fantasy. A good one is like the H1N1 virus. It spreads on contact and threatens to infect everyone in its path.
Policy fantasies are dangerous because they cause direct harm, replacing plans that might actually work, and because they spread economic illiteracy that can negatively influence future policies. If we want to address global warming, and we should, we need to adopt a carbon tax or cap-and-trade program to penalize greenhouse-gas emissions. Just about anything else is a distraction.
Right now, one of the most dangerous policy fantasies is the distracting notion that government can create so-called green jobs and should strive to do so enthusiastically.
While the principal proponent of the green jobs hokum, Van Jones, is now out of government, the idea still influences policy design. Witness the Renew Through Green Jobs Act of 2009, which is making its way through Congress. President Barack Obama, of course, has been a veritable Typhoid Mary of the green job virus, promising to deliver 5 million of them.
The analysis to back that up, and spread by green job enthusiasts such as Jones and many of his colleagues at the Center for American Progress, is that transferring society’s resources to the green sector leads to a net creation of jobs. And it provides a tasty free lunch by cleaning the environment.
Eat for Free
Economics teaches, of course, that there are no free lunches. A key force driving such calculations is that alternative-energy production or energy conservation are fairly labor intensive relative to, say, the oil industry. But if the alternative-energy sector were really economically more efficient than other forms of energy, it would create all the wonderful jobs all by itself, without the assistance of Uncle Sam.
If, even after all the subsidies that government already provides to green technologies, we have to also subsidize training for workers in that industry, that suggests we are throwing money at an industry that can’t pass the market test.
The notion is that we make ourselves better off by transferring resources from one sector, which is fairly efficient, to another, which isn’t. Such an assertion might be correct if we account for the damage done by greenhouse gases. But with regard to job creation, the argument is nonsense.
Rickshaw Express
Heritage Foundation economist J.D. Foster recently wrote that the same logic would recommend an even better and greener plan: the federal government could require that we all move about in rickshaws.
The logic is sound, is it not? It will take many environmentally friendly rickshaws to replace the passenger miles currently devoted to travel in cars and buses. With unemployment so high, a rickshaw program could reap huge economic benefits.
Or would it?
In the long run, when real wages and workers have the opportunity to adjust, the economy tends toward full employment. One simply can’t redistribute resources and change the number of jobs. So we get to choose in the long run between an economy with lots of rickshaws and an economy with more efficient transportation, and lots of jobs in other sectors.
In the short run, when unemployment is high, then the government can conceivably create jobs. If it does so by transferring resources from one sector to another, then one must be careful to net the jobs lost in one sector against the jobs gained in another.
Consumers Get It
Even if we use deficit spending and borrow money from the Chinese to create jobs, we can’t be sure that the net creation is very large. If consumers understand correctly that the big deficit means higher future taxes, they will cut their consumption, and businesses outside the green industry will reduce production and employment.
Obama has consistently used Spain as an example of green job paradise.
Spain has, indeed, invested heavily in green jobs. And the results? A recent study by Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada Alvarez and colleagues at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, found that the Spanish program spent 571,138 euros for every job it created. That’s about $833,000 per job.
The Spanish program also sucked resources out of more productive sectors into less productive ones, costing 2.2 jobs for every green job created.
Job Trade-off
While Alvarez’s calculations rely on assumptions that might overstate the case a bit, consider the impact of the Obama green jobs program if his numbers are correct. The president has promised to create 5 million green jobs. If he succeeds, then it will cost 11 million jobs in other sectors, and the medium-term increase in unemployment will be 6 million jobs.
To put that in perspective, the number of unemployed Americans has increased in the past two years by 7.6 million. Creating 5 million green jobs would do almost the same amount of net harm.
Environmental programs should be weighed on their merits. The most efficient way to move toward a cleaner future is to provide incentives to rely on alternative energy with a penalty on carbon. If a carbon tax causes some unemployment, we can address that with tax reductions elsewhere. The green jobs fantasy makes the adoption of such a plan harder, and, to the extent that it affects real policy, hurts real people.
Rangle Is A Tax Cheat - Duh!!!
The case against Charlie Rangel
Forty years of tax evasion, misdeeds and contempt
By ISABEL VINCENT and MELISSA KLEIN
On April 9, 1965, a 34-year-old lawyer named Charles Rangel took out a low-interest mortgage to renovate his childhood home — a row house on West 132nd Street that he had just inherited from his grandfather.
The $39,350 loan came from a New York City program to develop low-income housing. Rangel and his sister Frances were to use the money to turn the family home in Central Harlem, which Rangel affectionately called Buckingham Palace, into six apartments.
While Rangel may have thought he scored a sweetheart deal, the loan came back to haunt him during his first run for Congress in 1970. An opponent in the Democratic primary accused him of violating the conditions of the mortgage because he was living in one of the apartments that were supposed to be rented only to poor people,
“If Charlie Rangel is low income, then we have a new crisis in this country,” Jesse Gray, a longtime housing activist, charged.
Rangel brushed aside the accusations, and went on to defeat both Gray and Adam Clayton Powell, who had held the Harlem congressional seat since 1944.
But even as he celebrated his victory, the loan dogged the young, ambitious politician. City and federal investigators launched a probe into the dealings of the $135 million Municipal Loan Program, which was set up to give loans to building owners who couldn’t otherwise get funding to rehabilitate their properties. The Post, in a front-page story in July 1971, fingered the newly minted Congressman and another elected official in the scandal.
Rangel denounced the accusations by attacking the “yellow journalism” of The Post and said that he didn’t see anything wrong with living in a Harlem apartment renovated with money reserved for poor people. He also said he was not a public official when he received the 1965 loan.
“The New York Post has the power to destroy,” said Rangel at a 1971 press conference in his Harlem office. “I received a loan to rehabilitate a building I lived in all my life, to rebuild my homestead where five low-income families now live.”
But even people who should have been his political allies were upset.
“I am shocked that Congressman Rangel, who has a Congressional budget of more than $200,000 a year, has used thousands of dollars of New York City money to feather his own nest when welfare recipients are being thrown out into the streets or being forced to live in squalid hotels,” said Leonard de Champs, chairman of Harlem’s Congress of Racial Equality, a civil rights group.
So it would go for Charlie Rangel over the next four decades — a pattern of tax evasion, special treatment and enrichment that seemed to increase with his power and prestige in Congress. Whether it’s living in rent-stabilized apartments while making a hefty salary, or failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings and assets, his actions betray a consistent, defiant sense of entitlement. And when he is caught, the powerful Democrat blames a right-wing conspiracy.
Never mind that his critics are often independent, or even liberal.
“Although Charlie Rangel has an admirable record over 40 years, none of that excuses his reprehensible ethics violations,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan government watchdog group that since 2008 has included Rangel on its list of the most corrupt members of Congress. “There is a pattern of violations that suggest at a minimum carelessness and arrogance that he doesn’t think the rules apply to him.”
The Harlem row house loan was only the first step in Rangel’s history of playing fast-and-loose with real estate.
In 1971, soon after his arrival in Washington, Rangel and his wife Alma purchased a four-bedroom house on North Colorado Avenue.
During his nearly three decades of ownership, he applied for tax breaks in DC, declaring the property as his primary residence even as he still lived in the row house and later in a posh apartment complex in Harlem. Then, in 1989, he took out a $60,000 loan on his childhood home in New York, declaring that home to be his primary residence in order to obtain a low interest rate.
But a year earlier, he moved to Lenox Terrace, scoring a giant rent-stabilized apartment — two units combined into one — the kind of perk New Yorkers covet. He later leased a small studio on the same floor and yet another apartment in 1999 which he used as a campaign office. Since it was built in 1958, Lenox Terrace has been the home of prominent politicians, such as former Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton, former New York secretary of state Basil Paterson and his son New York governor David Paterson.
Rangel was listing three addresses as his primary residence, and, at least between 1995 and 2000, getting tax breaks because of it.
Meanwhile, Rangel began to distinguish himself as an important power broker on Capitol Hill. He was a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, and, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, participated in Richard Nixon’s impeachment hearings. He later championed tough measures to combat drug trafficking. As a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, he advocated for low-income housing tax credits which fueled a boom in affordable housing.
Two years ago, Rangel rose to the height of his power, when he became chairman of Ways and Means. His National Leadership PAC is an important fundraising tool for the Democratic Party and he has become a foreign policy leader in forging business and trade ties with Caribbean nations.
As he rose through the ranks, Rangel made important friends along the way, among them Theodore Kheel, the prominent New York labor lawyer and businessman. In 1987, Kheel gave Rangel an interest-free loan on a beachfront villa in a resort Kheel and his partners were developing in the Dominican Republic.
Once again, Rangel’s real estate pursuits led to some hard questions. The Congressman used the vacation home a few times a year, renting it out during the peak holiday seasons. Last year, The Post revealed Rangel’s failure to fully disclose rental income on the villa. In a press conference, Rangel admitted that he had failed to declare $75,000 in rental income, and later paid the IRS and New York State $10,800 in back taxes.
But this time the scandal did not go away so easily. He was already on the hot seat for his use of the four rent-stabilized apartments in Lenox Terrace. Rangel gave up the campaign office, admitting that it “presents an issue.” Rent stabilization rules require that tenants use their apartments as a primary residence.
Last September, the Ethics Committee launched a wide-ranging investigation looking at the Caribbean property, among other issues.
The probe also focuses on his use of Congressional stationery to solicit donations from corporations and private foundations for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College in New York. Later, the investigation widened to include what critics referred to as among his most egregious ethical lapses — his efforts to preserve a tax loophole for Nabors Industries, an oil drilling company, at the time that its chief executive pledged $1 million in donations for the Rangel Center, which opened in 2008.
“Rangel looks more and more like a clown car in a circus,” said a source close to the ethics probe. “Nobody knows how this is going to end.”
Or when it will end.
The probe is multiplying. It also includes questions about Rangel’s participation in junkets to the Caribbean sponsored by corporations and lobbyists, a violation of House rules. Even his car did not escape scrutiny, as Ethics Committee members ponder why he parked his vintage Mercedes for free in a House garage. In August, Rangel amended his required financial disclosure forms for 2002 through 2006, acknowledging that he omitted as much as $780,000 in assets in previous filings. He also apparently forgot on earlier filings to disclose two small vacant lots in Glassboro, N.J., land on which he owed back taxes. He paid the $164 bill the next month, after The Post revealed the debt.
Sources say that the Ethics Committee, which has been hampered by staffing issues over the past year, may vote to widen the Rangel probe even further to include an investigation into Rangel’s former childhood home — the now dilapidated row house in Harlem.
Among the issues that have recently surfaced about the brick building are Rangel’s failure to disclose any rental income for eight years, between 1993 and 2000 — a period during which The Post found tenants were living there.
In 2004, Rangel sold the row house to the First AME Church Bethel for $410,000. But Rangel left open three building code violations for failing to file an annual boiler inspection report. He owes $1,500, according to the city’s Department of Buildings.
Earlier this year, Rangel wrote a letter supporting the church’s application for low-income housing tax credits in order to renovate an apartment building on the same street, The Post found.
A source close to the Ethics Committee says Rangel’s support of tax credits for the church’s proposed $9 million renovation amounts to a conflict of interest since the Congressman had a business relationship with the pastor, the Rev. Henry Belin III.
But while Rangel acknowledges that he may have been sloppy in his accounting records, his office has repeatedly refused to answer any specific questions on his real estate transactions.
Early on, in order to get ahead of a scandal, Rangel himself called for the Ethics Committee probe. He initially blamed his wife Alma, who handled the family finances, for the Dominican villa omissions and cited cultural and language barriers in his failure to disclose rental income. Although he hired a forensic accountant to scour 20 years worth of finances, he stopped short of making his tax returns public.
When all else fails, Rangel tends to go back to his favorite target: A media conspiracy.
Once again, Rangel denounced The Post, saying that he was the victim of conspiracy theories concocted by the Congressman’s political enemies.
“The Post’s persistent and vicious attacks are an effort to undermine Democratic leaders who are trying to enact health care reform and to undo the damage done to this country by the Bush Administration,” said Emile Milne, his spokesman.
After 19 terms in Congress, won with easy victories in his district, Rangel may believe he is immune to criticism. But the mounting evidence could prove too much.
“Congressman Rangel’s record of unpaid taxes, false financial disclosure reports and hidden assets has been unfolding for more than a year,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative ethics group that has filed several complaints against Rangel. “Speaker Pelosi has done nothing to remove him as Chairman from the House committee that writes the tax laws. Apparently, there is one set of laws for powerful Congressmen and another for everyone else.”
Republicans, watchdog groups and editorial boards have called for Rangel to resign his chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee — demands which have intensified in recent weeks.
“To allow Mr. Rangel to continue to serve as chairman is the same as allowing a confessed bank robber to serve as chairman of the Banking Committee during the trial,” Republican Congressman John Carter said last week.
Carter said that if Rangel did not resign, he would introduce a resolution to force his removal.
Additional reporting by Lois Weiss.
Forty years of tax evasion, misdeeds and contempt
By ISABEL VINCENT and MELISSA KLEIN
On April 9, 1965, a 34-year-old lawyer named Charles Rangel took out a low-interest mortgage to renovate his childhood home — a row house on West 132nd Street that he had just inherited from his grandfather.
The $39,350 loan came from a New York City program to develop low-income housing. Rangel and his sister Frances were to use the money to turn the family home in Central Harlem, which Rangel affectionately called Buckingham Palace, into six apartments.
While Rangel may have thought he scored a sweetheart deal, the loan came back to haunt him during his first run for Congress in 1970. An opponent in the Democratic primary accused him of violating the conditions of the mortgage because he was living in one of the apartments that were supposed to be rented only to poor people,
“If Charlie Rangel is low income, then we have a new crisis in this country,” Jesse Gray, a longtime housing activist, charged.
Rangel brushed aside the accusations, and went on to defeat both Gray and Adam Clayton Powell, who had held the Harlem congressional seat since 1944.
But even as he celebrated his victory, the loan dogged the young, ambitious politician. City and federal investigators launched a probe into the dealings of the $135 million Municipal Loan Program, which was set up to give loans to building owners who couldn’t otherwise get funding to rehabilitate their properties. The Post, in a front-page story in July 1971, fingered the newly minted Congressman and another elected official in the scandal.
Rangel denounced the accusations by attacking the “yellow journalism” of The Post and said that he didn’t see anything wrong with living in a Harlem apartment renovated with money reserved for poor people. He also said he was not a public official when he received the 1965 loan.
“The New York Post has the power to destroy,” said Rangel at a 1971 press conference in his Harlem office. “I received a loan to rehabilitate a building I lived in all my life, to rebuild my homestead where five low-income families now live.”
But even people who should have been his political allies were upset.
“I am shocked that Congressman Rangel, who has a Congressional budget of more than $200,000 a year, has used thousands of dollars of New York City money to feather his own nest when welfare recipients are being thrown out into the streets or being forced to live in squalid hotels,” said Leonard de Champs, chairman of Harlem’s Congress of Racial Equality, a civil rights group.
So it would go for Charlie Rangel over the next four decades — a pattern of tax evasion, special treatment and enrichment that seemed to increase with his power and prestige in Congress. Whether it’s living in rent-stabilized apartments while making a hefty salary, or failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings and assets, his actions betray a consistent, defiant sense of entitlement. And when he is caught, the powerful Democrat blames a right-wing conspiracy.
Never mind that his critics are often independent, or even liberal.
“Although Charlie Rangel has an admirable record over 40 years, none of that excuses his reprehensible ethics violations,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan government watchdog group that since 2008 has included Rangel on its list of the most corrupt members of Congress. “There is a pattern of violations that suggest at a minimum carelessness and arrogance that he doesn’t think the rules apply to him.”
The Harlem row house loan was only the first step in Rangel’s history of playing fast-and-loose with real estate.
In 1971, soon after his arrival in Washington, Rangel and his wife Alma purchased a four-bedroom house on North Colorado Avenue.
During his nearly three decades of ownership, he applied for tax breaks in DC, declaring the property as his primary residence even as he still lived in the row house and later in a posh apartment complex in Harlem. Then, in 1989, he took out a $60,000 loan on his childhood home in New York, declaring that home to be his primary residence in order to obtain a low interest rate.
But a year earlier, he moved to Lenox Terrace, scoring a giant rent-stabilized apartment — two units combined into one — the kind of perk New Yorkers covet. He later leased a small studio on the same floor and yet another apartment in 1999 which he used as a campaign office. Since it was built in 1958, Lenox Terrace has been the home of prominent politicians, such as former Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton, former New York secretary of state Basil Paterson and his son New York governor David Paterson.
Rangel was listing three addresses as his primary residence, and, at least between 1995 and 2000, getting tax breaks because of it.
Meanwhile, Rangel began to distinguish himself as an important power broker on Capitol Hill. He was a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, and, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, participated in Richard Nixon’s impeachment hearings. He later championed tough measures to combat drug trafficking. As a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, he advocated for low-income housing tax credits which fueled a boom in affordable housing.
Two years ago, Rangel rose to the height of his power, when he became chairman of Ways and Means. His National Leadership PAC is an important fundraising tool for the Democratic Party and he has become a foreign policy leader in forging business and trade ties with Caribbean nations.
As he rose through the ranks, Rangel made important friends along the way, among them Theodore Kheel, the prominent New York labor lawyer and businessman. In 1987, Kheel gave Rangel an interest-free loan on a beachfront villa in a resort Kheel and his partners were developing in the Dominican Republic.
Once again, Rangel’s real estate pursuits led to some hard questions. The Congressman used the vacation home a few times a year, renting it out during the peak holiday seasons. Last year, The Post revealed Rangel’s failure to fully disclose rental income on the villa. In a press conference, Rangel admitted that he had failed to declare $75,000 in rental income, and later paid the IRS and New York State $10,800 in back taxes.
But this time the scandal did not go away so easily. He was already on the hot seat for his use of the four rent-stabilized apartments in Lenox Terrace. Rangel gave up the campaign office, admitting that it “presents an issue.” Rent stabilization rules require that tenants use their apartments as a primary residence.
Last September, the Ethics Committee launched a wide-ranging investigation looking at the Caribbean property, among other issues.
The probe also focuses on his use of Congressional stationery to solicit donations from corporations and private foundations for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College in New York. Later, the investigation widened to include what critics referred to as among his most egregious ethical lapses — his efforts to preserve a tax loophole for Nabors Industries, an oil drilling company, at the time that its chief executive pledged $1 million in donations for the Rangel Center, which opened in 2008.
“Rangel looks more and more like a clown car in a circus,” said a source close to the ethics probe. “Nobody knows how this is going to end.”
Or when it will end.
The probe is multiplying. It also includes questions about Rangel’s participation in junkets to the Caribbean sponsored by corporations and lobbyists, a violation of House rules. Even his car did not escape scrutiny, as Ethics Committee members ponder why he parked his vintage Mercedes for free in a House garage. In August, Rangel amended his required financial disclosure forms for 2002 through 2006, acknowledging that he omitted as much as $780,000 in assets in previous filings. He also apparently forgot on earlier filings to disclose two small vacant lots in Glassboro, N.J., land on which he owed back taxes. He paid the $164 bill the next month, after The Post revealed the debt.
Sources say that the Ethics Committee, which has been hampered by staffing issues over the past year, may vote to widen the Rangel probe even further to include an investigation into Rangel’s former childhood home — the now dilapidated row house in Harlem.
Among the issues that have recently surfaced about the brick building are Rangel’s failure to disclose any rental income for eight years, between 1993 and 2000 — a period during which The Post found tenants were living there.
In 2004, Rangel sold the row house to the First AME Church Bethel for $410,000. But Rangel left open three building code violations for failing to file an annual boiler inspection report. He owes $1,500, according to the city’s Department of Buildings.
Earlier this year, Rangel wrote a letter supporting the church’s application for low-income housing tax credits in order to renovate an apartment building on the same street, The Post found.
A source close to the Ethics Committee says Rangel’s support of tax credits for the church’s proposed $9 million renovation amounts to a conflict of interest since the Congressman had a business relationship with the pastor, the Rev. Henry Belin III.
But while Rangel acknowledges that he may have been sloppy in his accounting records, his office has repeatedly refused to answer any specific questions on his real estate transactions.
Early on, in order to get ahead of a scandal, Rangel himself called for the Ethics Committee probe. He initially blamed his wife Alma, who handled the family finances, for the Dominican villa omissions and cited cultural and language barriers in his failure to disclose rental income. Although he hired a forensic accountant to scour 20 years worth of finances, he stopped short of making his tax returns public.
When all else fails, Rangel tends to go back to his favorite target: A media conspiracy.
Once again, Rangel denounced The Post, saying that he was the victim of conspiracy theories concocted by the Congressman’s political enemies.
“The Post’s persistent and vicious attacks are an effort to undermine Democratic leaders who are trying to enact health care reform and to undo the damage done to this country by the Bush Administration,” said Emile Milne, his spokesman.
After 19 terms in Congress, won with easy victories in his district, Rangel may believe he is immune to criticism. But the mounting evidence could prove too much.
“Congressman Rangel’s record of unpaid taxes, false financial disclosure reports and hidden assets has been unfolding for more than a year,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative ethics group that has filed several complaints against Rangel. “Speaker Pelosi has done nothing to remove him as Chairman from the House committee that writes the tax laws. Apparently, there is one set of laws for powerful Congressmen and another for everyone else.”
Republicans, watchdog groups and editorial boards have called for Rangel to resign his chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee — demands which have intensified in recent weeks.
“To allow Mr. Rangel to continue to serve as chairman is the same as allowing a confessed bank robber to serve as chairman of the Banking Committee during the trial,” Republican Congressman John Carter said last week.
Carter said that if Rangel did not resign, he would introduce a resolution to force his removal.
Additional reporting by Lois Weiss.
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