"Charles Rangel, the incoming chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, revealed yesterday that he's got his eye on Capitol Hill office space now held by the man he recently called a "son of a bitch" - Vice President Dick Cheney.
"Mr. Cheney enjoys an office on the second floor of the House of Representatives that historically has been designated for the Ways and Means Committee chairman," explained Rangel, who vaulted to the top slot of the tax-writing panel - one of the most powerful in Congress - when Democrats rolled over the GOP to take control of the House.
"I talked to [future House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi about it this morning," a giddy Rangel crowed during a news conference at his Harlem office.
"I'm trying to find some way to be gentle as I restore the dignity of that office," chuckled Rangel. "You gotta go, you gotta go."
Megan McGinn, a spokeswoman for Cheney, said: "We have not seen Congressman Rangel's comments, but it has always been our understanding that the vice president's office in the House of Representatives was on a temporary loan. As the president said this afternoon, we look forward to working with the new Congress on issues confronting this country."
In Rangel's debut news conference as Ways and Means chairman-in-waiting, he dismissed GOP claims that he's bent on tinkering with Bush's tax cuts before they expire in 2010 - or set on letting them lapse in four years.
"At my age, 76, I don't buy green bananas. Bush won't be around in 2010. We don't know what the economy is going to look like in 2010, so let's get on and see what we can do," he said.
And he dismissed the Republicans' campaign talking point that he'd suspend military funding to halt the war in Iraq.
"I want to make it clear that no member of Congress is prepared to cut funds that would put our brave men and women in jeopardy. What stops a war are the American people," he said.
"The American people have given Democrats a great opportunity to provide leadership. I am not certain whether they were in love with us, but one thing certain is that they were not satisfied with the Republican leadership."
Despite his jab at Cheney, Rangel vowed to work across party lines to tackle issues such as Social Security. "The only way that we can solve these problems is by working with the Republicans," he said. "The president's going to have to decide whether he wants to be a lame-duck president."
"If he wants to reach across the aisle, we too would like to show that the country wanted bipartisanship," Rangel added.
Still, he couldn't resist taking a shot at Bush's immigration-reform plan, calling a guest-worker program "as close to slavery as you can legally get."
Rangel is getting the last laugh in a nasty war of words with Cheney.
Down the closing campaign stretch, Cheney ridiculed Rangel as an irresponsible tax-lover who wouldn't extend a "single one" of the tax cuts." |
