Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.)

Health-Care Reform

In 2009, President Obama made reforming the nation's health-care system his top legislative priority, and Rangel joined Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) in unveiling the House Democrats' health-reform bill.

The three Democrats are the respective chairmen of the House committees with jurisdiction over health care, Miller of Education and Labor, Waxman of Energy and Commerce and Rangel of Ways and Means.  Rather than producing three bills, the men pledged to write a “tri-committee” bill.Read  the House health-reform bill

The bill, estimated to cost more than $1 billion, includes progressive reforms such as a mandate that all Americans obtain health insurance with discounts for those who can't afford it, an expansion of the government-funded Medicaid program, and a controversial new public health-insurance option. The bill requires employers to provide health insurance to their employees or face a stiff fine equal to a percentage of payroll.Pear, Robert and David M. Herzenhorn, "House Health Plan Outlines Higher Taxes on Rich," The New York Times, July 14, 2009

Rangel, chair of the tax-writing Ways and Means committee, spearheaded an effort to pay for reforms by increasing income taxes on the rich on a sliding scale. Individuals earning more than $280,000 per year would face a one percent increase, and families earning more than $1 million annually would pay a 5.4 percent "surcharge." "Paying for Health Care Overhaul," New York Times, July 14, 2009

The Congressional Budget Office's Doug Elmendorf estimated that the bill would extend coverage to 37 million Americans, leaving 17 million uninsured, half of whom would be illegal immigrants.Pear, Robert and David M. Herzenhorn, "House Health Plan Outlines Higher Taxes on Rich," The New York Times, July 14, 2009

In November 2009, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)proposed a health-care reform bill that merged the bills drafted by the three committees. In order to get conservative Democrats on board, Pelosi's plan included a publicly-funded health insurance option, but one that paid doctors and hospitals at higher rates than Medicare.  Just before the bill went to a vote, Pelosi had to make significant concessions to Republicans by promising that the public plan would not fund abortions. In the end, the bill squeaked through the House by a vote of 220 to 215.

The Economy

Rangel reluctantly voted in favor of what he called the “imperfect” $700 billion bailout bill. He said it was “an answer for all thosewhose ability to pay rent and to buy basic necessities was shrinking as each minute of inaction passed.”http://www.house.gov/apps/list/heari...gOpEd1008.html Rangel was a co-sponsor of President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan approved in February 2009.Project VoteSmart, Key Vote on Economic Stimulus Plan

Rangel prides himself on sticking up for little guy. In the 1990s, he wrote the $5 billion Federal Empowerment Zone demonstration project to revive urban neighborhoods; it brought $200 million to Harlem. He was a sponsored of both the earned income tax credit and the work opportunity tax credit. The low income housing tax credit, which he authored, has provided financing for 90 percent of affordable housing built in the U.S. since the 1990s.

Most importantly to his constituents, Rangel has delivered money to his district, winning assistance for the upper Manhattan empowerment zone, the Apollo Theater, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Museum for African Art, the Abyssinian Baptist Church and funds to reconstruct Alexander Hamilton’s former home in Harlem.http://www.house.gov/rangel/accomplishments.shtml

Rangel is seen as more open to trade agreements than many other Democrats, as evidenced by his support for an African free trade agreement in 2000, which some other members of the Congressional Black Caucus opposed. When he took over the tax panel, Rangel said he would like the entire panel, rather than the more protectionist Trade Subcommittee, to consider trade agreements. He favors eliminating sanctions on trade with Cuba.

He has been against the Bush tax cuts (and says that fewer than a million taxpayers really benefited from them) and against the Bush plan to privatize portions of Social Security. The administration shot back: “Charlie doesn’t understand how the economy works,” Vice President Dick Cheney, adding that Rangel would destroy the economy and raise taxes if he became chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/ny.../09rangel.html

Rangel responded by calling the vice president a “son of a bitch” and suggested Cheney may need to enter “rehab” to confront a personality disorder.Earle, Geoff, The New York Post, “RANGEL & VEEP IN ALL-OUT WAR,REP. RIPS 'S.O.B.' AFTER TAX ASSAULT,"  Oct. 31, 2006

Taxes

Rangel opposed the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts championed by the George W. Bush administration because he said they would disproportionately favor the rich. Although Republicans said the New York Democrat would immediately act to roll-back the Bush tax cuts if he claimed the committee gavel, Rangel did not. He, like Obama, is instead waiting for (most) of them to expire on their own in 2010. "I don't want to go retroactive in terms of any of the tax cuts. I think retroactive tax increases are bad tax policy," Rangel said right before the 2006 elections.Montgomery, Lori, The Washington Post, "Tax-Cut Rollback Not On Table, Rangel Says:
Lawmaker Tries to Counter GOP Alerts," Oct.28, 2006

Furthermore, Rangel is trying to find a permanent solution to the the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which was instituted in 1969 to ensure the very wealthy paid their fair share to Uncle Sam. But the tax was never adjusted for inflation and hits an increasingly high number of middle-to-upper income taxpayers — many of them in Rangel’s home state of New York. But a comprehensive roll-back failed in 2007 after more conservative House Democrats insisted that the $1 trillion cost of rolling back the tax be offset. Annual “patches” to protect additional taxpayers were instead enacted.The Associated Press, Jim Abrams, June 25, 2008,

Rangel has also stood up for New Yorkers in the tax wars; he fought to preserve the state and local income tax deduction in the 1986 tax reform bill.

But Rangel obstructed President Obama’s first bid to eliminate tax deductions for the wealthy in the president’s first budget announced in February 2009. The plan would have generated $318 billion in savings, but Rangel and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said it would curtail charitable giving.Calmes. Jackie and Hulse, Carl, The New York Times, "Obama’s Budget Faces Test Among Party Barons", March 9, 2009

Iraq and Foreign Affairs

Rangel was in the minority that voted against the 2002 resolution authoring President Bush to use force in Iraq. A year later, he was calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. On Dec. 31, 2002, Rangel issued a plea for the revival of the draft, saying, “For those who say the poor fight better, I say give the rich a chance.”http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/.../rangel.draft/ He reintroduced draft bills in both 2006 and 2007.

The New York Democrat has engaged in some sharp exchanges with the Bush administration over the reasons for going to war. Once, when Vice President Cheney basically called Rangel senile, Rangel responded with a sharp riposte, saying, “I was flattered that he knew I was this old…I knew all I had to do was challenge him to a psychiatric examination, to take a lie-detector test over the reasons we went to war. And I would have fun doing it. But then I realized that I could be showing disrespect for my country and the office.”The New York Observer, Jason Horowitz, Dec.18, 2005, http://www.observer.com/node/38105

Ethics

In 2008, Rangel weathered calls to step down from his post as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on a variety of ethics charges. A Republican-introduced measure to censure him was tabled by a House vote, but Rangel asked for an Ethics committee probe of the allegations. The probe is ongoing.http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecry...es_Rangel.html 

In October 2009, the Ethics Committee voted to widen its probe into whether Rangel filed false financial disclosure forms with the House. In summer 2009, Rangel amended his House forms to report $500,000 in additional income. A Rangel spokesman said the expanded probe was a "technicality.Mullins, Brody, The Wall Street Journal, "Ethics Panel Widens Rangel Investigation," Oct. 9, 2009

But when Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) introduced a motion right before the House Ethics vote to remove Rangel from the chairmanship, it failed, 246 to 143.Roll Call vote

The allegations are these: first, Rangel was discovered to be paying less than $4,000 a month for four rent-controlled apartments in a luxury Manhattan apartment building, despite his net worth of between $566,000 and $1.2 million.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/ny.../11rangel.html He was using one of them as a campaign office, something that was reportedly illegal, and that he later gave up.

A few months later, it was reported that Rangel had been soliciting on congressional stationery private donations from business leaders and others for his new, eponymous center at a public university on his congressional stationery. The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York was originally established when Rangel got a $1.9 million congressional earmark for it.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...071402637.html

Then it became public that Rangel owed back taxes for failing to report $75,000 in rental income from a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic, a situation the congressman blamed on a language barrier.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/ny...rangel.html?hp  Rangel said he believed that the controversies were due to a Republican-led “guerilla war” against him.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/ny.../20rangel.html