Charles Rangel: “when the Enron scandal started, so many reporters were trying to associate this with the administration and they did all…”

“when the Enron scandal started, so many reporters were trying to associate this with the administration and they did all they could to distance themselves from this conduct that was just repugnant to everything that fairness and equity would want us to do. So one would think that the Republican leadership in the House would want to do the same thing, especially as related to protecting the 401(k) employee contributions to their pension plans. This being a tax issue, one would logically believe that it would be the leadership of the Committee on Ways and Means that would be showing our concern about protecting these pension plans. But the silence has been deafening from my committee, and the leadership, what little there was, actually came from the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) who heads the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and I thank him at least for raising the subject. But the President still was not convinced that we had fully appreciated that captains were getting a better shake than employees; that is, the executives in these firms. And so he continues to say that there should be more equity. The bill that comes to the floor really puts the employees going upstream in a canoe without a paddle, because it actually gives protection, even after bankruptcy, to the executives while the employees continue to suffer. One might ask a question, well, why would the Republicans do this to themselves in an election year?”