JONES: Washington's 'ruling class' plays with another set of laws
The rift between the American people and the politicians in Washington, D.C. has been building at an astounding rate for the past couple of years.
Discontent started towards the end of President Bush’s second term with the bailouts and grew with President Obama’s stimulus and Obamacare. Tea parties and town hall meetings erupted because the American people felt that the politicians were out of touch and not listening to the people who elected them.
Some have begun to refer to those in Washington as the “Ruling Class” because they are acting less like representatives and more like rulers. If you need proof of this, compare what happens when a private citizen and a politician evade taxes.
The actor Wesley Snipes recently began a three-year prison sentence after he failed to file 1040 forms in 1999, 2000, and 2001.
However, as Reason.com pointed out, Snipes was acquitted of felony tax evasion, but sentenced to three years in prison by a Florida judge on a misdemeanor failure to file charge. His sentence was longer than the average sentence in Florida for felony theft, fraud, forgery, and auto theft.
Compare this to Tim Geithner’s failure to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for several years while he was with the International Monetary Fund. He blamed Turbo Tax for the mix-up.
His “punishment” was to pay the back taxes and interest (without penalties) and be appointed secretary of the Treasury. It would be easy to play the race card and say that Snipes was convicted because he is black, while Geithner got off for being white.
But then there is New York Representative Charles Rangel. Rangel failed to report between $250,000 and $500,000 he had in a credit union account in 2007. He also failed to report an equal amount of investments he made, three pieces of property in New Jersey, and he failed to report and pay taxes on income from a villa in the Caribbean.
Going back to 2001, Rangel failed to report more than $1 million in assets. We all know how complicated the tax code is, and most people are confused about how to report and file taxes. However, Rangel was the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, also known as the committee that writes the tax code!
After more than two years of investigation, Rangel stepped down as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and became the 23rd member of the House to be censured for misconduct.
If that sounds like a slap on the wrist, rest assured that he also had to pay a whopping $10,000 in back taxes without having to pay any penalties or interest. He was also re-elected to his 21st term in Congress with 80 percent of the vote. Oh, that’s right, he did get a slap on the wrist.
What do Geithner and Rangel have in common? They are both well-connected members of the ruling class.
Wesley Snipes, a private citizen, is going to spend three years in a minimum-security prison (unless he wins an appeal to reduce the sentence) while Tim Geithner and Charles Rangel are given promotions and symbolic wrist slaps.
Wesley Snipes is also a famous actor, the type that most think about as being able to skirt the legal system. However, even his actor status couldn’t compare to the special treatment afforded to the ruling class.
It has been clear for many years that the ruling class plays by a different set of rules than the rest of us. There seems to be one set of laws for the American people and another for the ruling class.
Activities that would land people in the private sector in prison, are either ignored or paid lip service to when they are committed by our rulers in Washington.
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Ed Jones, of Colorado Springs, is a former El Paso County commissioner and former member of the Colorado Senate. Jones’ website is www.theedjones .com.
