By Luis Iglesias / January 27, 20121
The long-standing Republican nightmare about a defender of the working class and the common good, one who has dedicated his political career to curbing poverty and injustice while denouncing corporate greed, endless wars and the cruelty of a system of For-profit healthcare that leaves millions upon millions without health insurance or affordable access to care, I would assume that the powerful position of chairing the Senate Budget Committee is about to become a reality.
“It is time to face the harsh reality, the socialist Bernie Sanders will become the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. He has vowed to use his post to enact his progressive agenda on health, climate, infrastructure spending, and cut defense spending, ” Nikki Haley tweeted on Saturday.
While it came from Trump’s former United States ambassador to the United Nations as something of an ominous warning, Sanders’s wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders , was one of those who responded with a clever and simple joke. “Yes, soon it will be,” he tweeted in response.
Jane O’Meara Sanders: Yes, soon it will be.
Nikki Haley: It’s time to face the harsh reality, Socialist Bernie Sanders will become Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. He has pledged to use his post to enact his progressive agenda on health, climate, infrastructure spending, and cutting defense spending.
.
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Poor Nikki and the host of Trumpists, supremacists, and racists. Senator Sanders is about to commit an enormous CRIME : using this country’s budget to take care of the working class and the middle class, not the smug and arrogant elite who think they deserve it all.
Not that Jane Sanders was alone:
Sandeep Vaheesan: Imagine being horrified by the prospect of spending more money on things that improve the lives of people everywhere and less on things designed to kill people outside of the US.
“You forgot to mention raising the minimum wage and taxing your rich friends ,” the organizing group People for Bernie tweeted to Haley.
Republican fears of Sanders taking over the committee date back to at least 2016 when Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, then GOP-controlled House Speaker, said before that year’s election: “ If we lose the Senate, do you know who becomes Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee? A guy named Bernie Sanders. Have you ever heard of him?“.
Olivia Becker: We are lucky to be alive to see Paul Ryan’s worst nightmare come true.
The Republican Party’s unease about such a reality is about to materialize now that Democrats have seized little majority control of the Senate. And, while he has yet to get the mallet in his hand, Sanders and his staff have signaled in recent days that they will be ready and willing to wield it to power the incoming Biden administration, as well as the Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate to enact the kinds of bold, working-class policies that fueled both of his presidential careers.
Among the main powers that the committee chair will use is the promotion of legislation through the Senate using the budget reconciliation process , a procedural tool that will allow, even under current rules, to pass legislation with a simple majority.
On Sunday, Sanders posted this on social media:
Bernie Sanders: For too long, our country has prioritized corporate profits, tax cuts for the rich, and military spending over investment in the American people.
That is why I will fight to change as chair of the Senate Budget Committee.
“Yes, we can, and should, use budget reconciliation to raise the minimum wage to at least $ 15 an hour with a simple majority of votes in the Senate, just like Republicans did to pass massive 1% tax breaks“, he stated. Warren Gunnels, one of Sanders’ top aides who went out of his way to identify himself as the “Incoming Majority Personnel Director ” of the “Senate Budget Committee” in a tweet Friday morning.
Following Democratic victories in Georgia that restored the party to a majority in the Senate, Sanders told Politico in an interview that he has no plans to be embarrassed from his position at the top of the committee.
“I am going to use reconciliation in the most aggressive way possible to address the dire economic and health crises facing workers today,” Sanders told the news outlet. “As we speak, my staff and I are working. We are working with the Biden people. We are working with the Democratic leadership. We will work with my colleagues in the House to find out how we can get to the aggressive reconciliation bill to address the suffering of working American families today. “
Nina Turner , the national co-chair of Sanders’s 2020 campaign and now running for the U.S. House of Representatives in her home state of Ohio, has been among those in the progressive movement championing the legislative potential of her powerful new role in the Senate:
Nina Turner: Go big, Mr. President. We have a moral imperative. Hello someone.
Taken and translated from: www.eldiariolatinoamericano.com
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