Posted on 07/28/2010 5:22:25 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
The curse of Ways and Means Committee chairmen hangs over the House this week.
As with Charles Rangel, the careers of his longtime Democratic predecessors ended with sad and ignominious ousters that weakened the once-powerful committee and ultimately the Democratic majority.
The sins of Dan Rostenkowski and Wilbur Mills, as well as those of Rangel, had little to do with the work of the tax-writing panel, as Ways and Means defenders point out. But in each case, Democratic barons were taken down by sins of venality and the perception of personal entitlement.
Given the potential for gross corruption by chairmen who help write the U.S. tax code, each of these three Democrats paid the price for relatively penny-ante misdeeds, though the violations were enough to send Rostenkowski to the slammer for more than a year. Perhaps the unifying thread in each case is that the chairmen appeared to lose the common touch from their cavernous sanctuary at 1100 Longworth House Office Building or the more private room a few steps from the House chamber.
The late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) once talked sympathetically about the fate of his friend Rosty. “The road curved. But he kept driving straight.”
Rangel has already lost the committee gavel, but his ethics “trial” — set to begin Thursday — will determine his ultimate fate.
One big difference for Rangel is that Rostenkowski and Mills had more time to make their mark. Mills, a small-town lawyer from Arkansas, was known as a wizard of the tax code who gloried in reviews of Internal Revenue Service regulations. As chairman from January 1958 until the end of 1974, he was a master coalition builder who typically sought bipartisanship.
Mills’s greatest legacy probably was the 1965 enactment of Medicare, in which his earlier years of work helped President Lyndon B. Johnson achieve a signature goal of his Great Society. But he ultimately was brought down by a combination of back pain, prescription drugs and ego enhancements. They resulted in humiliating episodes in which he was caught by D.C. police in Washington’s Tidal Basin with a stripper, Fanne Foxe, and appeared with her a short time later at a seedy strip club in Boston. Facing certain ouster, he resigned as committee chairman in late 1974 and quietly served a final term.
A street-smart Chicago pol, Rostenkowski had no pretense of policy mastery. But he took pride in his success at putting “ink on parchment” during more than 13 years as Ways and Means chairman, including during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment on the Washington stage was his deft management of the 1986 tax reform law. Like Mills, Rostenkowski had few reservations about his frequent clashes with liberal Democrats.
Rostenkowski was forced to step down as Ways and Means chairman after his indictment in May 1994 on multiple corruption charges, mostly involving small-dollar abuses of his office. Shockingly, he was defeated in November by the previously unknown Republican, Michael Patrick Flanagan — who, in turn, was defeated after one term by the later-controversial Rod Blagojevich. Rostenkowski pleaded guilty to reduced charges in April 1996 and served time in a federal penitentiary.
Unlike his predecessors, Rangel spent 10 years in the minority as the senior Ways and Means Democrat, giving him a chance to watch the Republican majority work its way with taxes.
When he took over as chairman in 2007, the House and its committees were no longer the fiefdoms over which Mills and Rostenkowski had reigned. Committee chairmen could no longer go their own way. Bipartisanship had mostly become a lost art. And national party fundraising had become essential to holding a powerful House post — even for a lawmaker like Rangel from the safe Democratic confines of Harlem, N.Y. So Rangel often found himself in awkward tax policy struggles with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who sometimes circumvented the committee to get her way.
Rangel’s alleged offenses have resulted from a combination of New York and Washington abuses, ranging from rent-controlled apartments to tax aid for a major donor to his academic research center. Earlier ethics violations resulting from an overseas junket led Rangel to step aside as chairman in March.
Whatever the outcome in the House ethics committee, Democrats fear that Rangel has become a political albatross — much like Rostenkowski in 1994.
Longtime House insiders said these patterns are no coincidence. “Many members remember the way the House was when they came in. Sometimes, they don’t pay any attention to the changes,” said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), a senior member of Ways and Means.
Despite ethics problems elsewhere in the GOP, the top Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee never ran afoul of ethics rules, including during the 12 years they recently ran the House.
Even though the work of Ways and Means continues — now under Chairman Sander Levin of Michigan — the unmistakable loss of the committee’s influence can be linked to the failings of its three long-serving Democratic chairmen. After the demise of Mills, Democratic leaders stripped Ways and Means Democrats of their “committee on committee” authority to appoint Democrats to House committees. And Al Ullman of Oregon, who served six years as chairman — between Mills and Rostenkowski — floundered in seeking a lower-profile role. He lost reelection in 1980.
The diminished power of the committee and its chairmen has also had substantive policy implications.
What Rostenkowski proudly called the “Cadillac committee” narrowly approved a stripped-down version of President Bill Clinton’s health care reform bill in June 1994, and the legislation never made it to the House floor. Once Democrats regained the majority a dozen years later, House committees were no longer independent kingdoms.
And in what would have seemed unimaginable to a previous generation of Ways and Means members, House Democrats are now deferring to the Senate to take the initial steps on phasing out some of the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003.
The diminished power of the committee has also been felt on K Street.
For decades, Ways and Means has been viewed as friendly territory for Washington lobbyists — perhaps too friendly for many Democrats. Long before he became Appropriations Committee chairman, liberals such as Rep. Dave Obey of Wisconsin annoyed Rostenkowski and his allies with House reforms to restrict members’ personal finances and their dealings with lobbyists.
Legendary House reformer Rep. Richard Bolling, who was a key ally of Speaker Sam Rayburn’s and later served as Rules Committee chairman, “thought that Ways and Means” had too much power, Rostenkowski conceded.
Still, there’s hope for the committee, whose former members include eight U.S. presidents, eight vice presidents and 21 House speakers. In a glossy coffee-table history of the committee to celebrate its bicentennial in 1989, the authors aptly noted that the panel’s history has been marked “for its accomplishments and its shortcomings” and that its chairmen also have had diverse records. Ethically challenged chairmen obviously are a low point.
“Mills’s greatest legacy probably was the 1965 enactment of Medicare, in which his earlier years of work helped President Lyndon B. Johnson achieve a signature goal of his Great Society. But he ultimately was brought down by a combination of back pain, prescription drugs and ego enhancements. They resulted in humiliating episodes in which he was caught by D.C. police in Washington’s Tidal Basin with a stripper, Fanne Foxe, and appeared with her a short time later at a seedy strip club in Boston. Facing certain ouster, he resigned as committee chairman in late 1974 and quietly served a final term. “
Whilst all the hubbub was going on, Mills had Fanny whisked away to Poi Pu Beach, Kauai. I met her as she came out of the surf one morning. She was HOT!
This is the tip of the iceberg! The question, IMO, is who are the handful of politicians in DC who are honest patriots and “not” cheating on their taxes or taking under-the-table money or demanding personal goodies for their votes? Amoral Prostitutes abound in this Regime and this Congress.
Anybody who feels free to extract trillions from his fellow citizens and to rule their lives will not have a problem with minor personal shenanigans.
Was she wearing a swimsuit?
Behold the traitors and enemies within. Who needs foreign enemies when we have our own home-grown Ruling Class within seeking to destroy our country and steal freedom from our children and grandchildren? IMO, they are vile and have earned the wrath of God and will share eternity in Hades together.
“Was she wearing a swimsuit?”
Yes. An itsy, bitsy, teenie weenie bikini. Fascinating woman! Wunnerful, wunnerful figure. Lovely features, and what a smile!
You got that right!
We need to do everything that we can to ensure a record turnout of responsible voters on 2 November, this year.
I would really love to hear the SRM weinies pissing and moaning about the historic proportions of the RATs (and RINOs) defeat in this election cycle.
97 days and counting!
If she was all that, I doubt if I would have noticed she even had a head, much less a smile.
These “people” have no problem taking our hard earned money away from us.
Yet they Refuse to pay even a dollar of their fair share.
Did you hear about the hissy fit Barney Fwank threw when he didn’t get a $1.00 Senior Discount somewhere?
Oh The Humanity!
“...Oh The Humanity...
These human waste have NO humanity.
amen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.