Want to understand why 2009 has witnessed the eruption of Tea Party and Town Hall protests of unprecedented intensity? Look no further than Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that writes tax law for the rest of us.

A parade of steadily more serious revelations was capped with news that Rangel somehow forgot to report as much as half a million dollars in assets and income on his 2007 financial disclosure report. It’s impossible to know exactly how much he forgot to report because Rangel and most of the rest of the career politicians in both parties who have run Congress for the past several decades conveniently designed their disclosure form to be as opaque as possible.