Gotta love this earmark. Congressman Charles Rangel has tucked a $2 million appropriation into a pending piece of legislation -- for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel has been raising funds from taxpayers and corporations for a center in Harlem to be named after a prominent U.S. congressman – Charles Rangel.

The Democrat has quietly raised nearly $25 million for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College, located in a four-story Harlem building and aimed at steering low-income and minority students into politics, the New York Post reports.

Last week Rangel – chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee – pushed through a $2 million "earmark” in the House to serve as seed money for the project.

Corporate contributions so far include $10 million from insurance company AIG and $500,000 from the Verizon Foundation. Rangel’s committee has jurisdiction over taxes and trade, including corporate taxation.

I'm curious -- aside from the fact it is named after the chairman of the committee, what does the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service have to do with taxes and trade? And why are we appropriating public money for a monument to a sitting congressman?

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