"[What] scares Paul
Ryan... excites a lot of other people."
The house speaker knows that
if the GOP loses seats in Congress, Bernie Sanders could become the Senate
Budget Committee Chairperson.
By John
Nichols
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/18/paul-ryan-if-republicans-lose-senate-bernie-sanders-wins
Ryan is famously described as
what Republicans think a smart person sounds like. But sometimes the speaker of
the House outsmarts himself.
Ryan lectured Young
Republicans in his native Wisconsin last Friday, and the national news media
were invited to listen along. The speaker wanted to make the case for
Republican voters to turn out and back GOP congressional candidates, even if
they can’t stomach their party’s scandal-plagued presidential ticket. Implicit
in Ryan’s argument was the suggestion that a Republican-controlled House of
Representatives and Senate could be counted on to obstruct Hillary Clinton’s
supposedly “liberal progressive” agenda.
But in a question-and-answer
session following his unremarkable speech, Ryan inadvertently made a case for
liberals and progressives to turn out in big numbers in order to elect
Democratic candidates in the fight for control of the Senate.
As he outlined
his Wall Street–friendly proposals for tax reforms that would more rapidly
redistribute wealth upward, and for budgets that would put vulnerable Americans
at greater risk while increasing burdens for middle-class families, the speaker
explained that his agenda can advance only if Republicans control both the
House and Senate. “If we keep control of the Senate in the Republican hands…a
nice guy named Mike Enzi from Wyoming is the Senate budget chair and he helps
us get these budgets to the president’s desk, gets these tax bills through,” he
said.
The prospect of Bernie Sanders
writing budgets and setting national priorities is, well, “awesome.”
On the other hand, Ryan
warned, “If we lose the Senate, do you know who becomes chair of the Senate
Budget Committee? A guy named Bernie Sanders. You ever heard of him?”
Ryan’s comment drew a tepid
response from the Young Republicans he was lecturing. No surprise there.
Polling suggests that Bernie Sanders is among
the most well-regarded political figures in the country, especially among
younger voters, and the long-time independent generates far less partisan
antipathy than veteran Democrats.
But when word got out that
Ryan was rattled by Sanders, the response from around the country was electric.
People who might have been having a hard time getting excited about the
presidential race were most intrigued by the possibility that Sanders might
become a powerhouse in the Senate.
The possibility is real
enough.
“Too bad for Ryan, that's a
scenario millions of millennials would welcome.”
The senator from Vermont is
the ranking
member of the budget committee, and if Democrats gain control of the
chamber on November 8, he would be in
line to chair it. But Sanders could also end up chairing then powerful
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which he could
use to advance many of the proposals (for affordable college, empowering
unions, and investing in public-health programs) that made his bid for the
Democratic presidential nomination so popular.
The final list of committee
assignments will be influenced by the choices of senior senators, such as
Washington’s Patty Murray. “There’s lots of individual choices ahead, of people
who are senior to Bernie,” says
Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who is set to replace retiring Senate
Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Yet Schumer says of Sanders, “He will
chair a significant committee if we win the majority.’’
That prospect scares Paul
Ryan.
But it excites a lot of other
people.
Because Ryan’s Friday event—at
which he avoided mentioning the candidate he has endorsed for the
presidency—was otherwise devoid of news, the speaker’s reference to Sanders got
a good deal of attention. Reporters tweeted
about Ryan’s comments regarding the Vermonter, and made mention of them in articles
on an otherwise inconsequential event.
The response was immediate—and
enthusiastic.
The news that Sanders might
end up in a top position in the Senate, and that he might be positioned to
thwart Ryan’s plans, became a digital sensation. Twitter and Facebook
exploded—with messages like “Awesome!” and “Sounds like a plan!” and “Too bad
for Ryan, that’s a scenario millions of millennials would welcome.”
Sanders fans created images of
the Vermont senator with the Ryan quote superimposed on it, and bloggers mocked
the speaker’s “doomsday scenario” with assessments like this Daily Kos observation:
“Good god, people! Sanders might try to expand Social Security. He might look
for ways to ease the burden of college debt. By god, he had a ‘Medicare for
All’ platform. Just think of it: Insured people everywhere! Talk about an
apocalypse!”
Of course, liberals and
progressives understand that an empowered Bernie Sanders is no doomsday
scenario, no apocalypse. For them, it’s a thrilling prospect that builds
enthusiasm for voting—and perhaps for volunteering. Even among young voters are
not all that thrilled with the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency, the
prospect of Bernie Sanders writing budgets and setting national priorities is,
well, “awesome.”
So Democrats will undoubtedly
be pleased if the speaker keeps talking about the Sanders “threat.”
Paul Ryan is making a muscular
case for why control of the Senate should be grabbed away from right-wing
Republicans and handed over to a party that plans to put Bernie Sanders in a
position of power.
