Dan Rostenkowski, congressman sent to prison, dies

CHICAGO (By DON BABWIN, Associated Press) – Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, the Chicago Democrat who became the leading architect of congressional tax policy in the Reagan era but later went to federal prison for corruption, died Wednesday, a family friend said. He was 82.

Rostenkowski, who served 18 terms before losing in 1994, died surrounded by family at his home in Lake Benedict, Wis., friend Ellen Tully told The Associated Press. He had been treated for prostate cancer in the 1990s.

As House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Rostenkowski was known as a consensus builder and a master of legislative tactics. He is credited with leading a 1983 effort to rescue Social Security from insolvency and pushing through a sweeping 1986 overhaul of the nation's tax system.

But Rostenkowski himself acknowledged that his legacy would always be tainted by his stint in federal prison.

"I know that my obituary will say, 'Dan Rostenkowski, felon,' and it is something that I have to live with,'" he said in a 1998 broadcast interview with Robert Novak and Mark Shields.