U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., should step down or be removed as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

Rangel has displayed, at the very least, glaring ineptitude in the conduct of his own affairs, financial and otherwise. At most, he may have displayed a glaring ignorance regarding the kind of attention to ethics that voters clearly had hoped would occur when they gave majority control of the House to Democrats in 2006.

Democrats reportedly are fearful of setting precedent, of removing sitting chairmen before ethics investigations are complete or before they've been criminally charged. Others are concerned about Republicans using this as a campaign issue. The problem: Even if Rangel is cleared of any technical wrongdoing, there's still the matter of what we already know. And the campaign damage already is done, whether he stays on as chairman or not.

Rangel owes the Internal Revenue Service $5,000 for failure to report income from a beachfront villa he owns in the Dominican Republic. He said there was a language barrier. OK, he should have hired a Spanish-speaking accountant.

He faces ethics probes for rent-controlled apartments that he got in a deal with a real estate developer. He also is accused of writing letters on congressional stationery asking for contributions to a center that bears his name.

Rangel is chairman of a committee responsible for writing tax legislation, a job that demands attention to detail. If Rangel retains any credibility on that score, it is hanging by the slimmest of threads. Even absent committee findings, that's why he should step down from the chairmanship. And if he doesn't, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., should remove him.

It's time.

— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel• • •It's hard to find a silver lining in the storm clouds on Wall Street. But this week's sobering events will do the nation at least one favor if it gets voters to focus on substance in the presidential campaign — like the future of the U.S. economy — instead of parsing the latest lipstick-on-a-pig quote.The financial crisis is deep and may go deeper still. The next president will still be dealing with it, and the strategy will affect taxpayers' pocketbooks for years to come. It should be the main thing Barack Obama and John McCain are talking about — not only how they think the country can recover, but also whom they would appoint to run economic policy.In the Bush administration, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson reportedly has been calling the shots on the extent of federal intervention. This shows how much a president's choice for key Cabinet positions matters.The latest development Tuesday was the federal government's offer of an $85 billion loan to rescue the huge insurer AIG. Coupled with the earlier bailout of Bear Stearns and the seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it raises the question of how far government should go in rescuing private mega-companies. And it shows the failure of deregulation that left taxpayers on the hook.It also leaves both McCain and Obama with some explaining to do on economic policy.McCain admits that it's not his strength. Last year he said that in choosing a vice president, he'd look for someone with economic experience. Just a hunch, but he probably wasn't thinking Sarah Palin at the time.Unfortunately, McCain's choice of economic advisers so far indicates he's likely to continue down the Bush path.Phil Gramm was a chief adviser until July, when he put his foot in his mouth with the "nation of whiners" remark. Gramm joined McCain in promoting deregulation. McCain's latest choice, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, was Bush's chief economist for 18 months. If you want change, this is not encouraging.Obama's top economic adviser, Jason Furman, is known as a centrist close to President Clinton's treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, but also has ties to the financial industry. Would he push for regulation?Both candidates should be telling voters what they would do in the face of this crisis, including how far they would go to bail out failed financial giants — and whom they would appoint to call the shots day to day.

— San Jose (Calif.)Mercury News