Excerpt: "To the chagrin of Republicans, the democratic socialist senator will play a central role in shepherding Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s agenda through Congress."
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said he would move quickly in his new role to push through a robust and deficit-financed economic stimulus package. (photo: Elizabeth Frantz/NYT)
Atop the Powerful Budget Committee at Last, Bernie Sanders Wants to Go Big
13 January 21
To the chagrin of Republicans, the democratic socialist senator will play a central role in shepherding Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s agenda through Congress.
hortly before the 2016 election, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican nominee for vice president and the speaker of the House, told a group of college Republicans why he thought Democrats winning control of the Senate would be a policy nightmare.
“Do you know who becomes chair of the Senate Budget Committee?” Mr. Ryan asked. “A guy named Bernie Sanders. You ever heard of him?”
Republicans have long feared the prospect of Mr. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist from Vermont, taking the helm of the powerful committee given his embrace of bigger government and more federal spending with borrowed money. With Democrats reclaiming the Senate, that fear is about to become a reality. Mr. Sanders, the most progressive member of the chamber, will have a central role in shaping and steering the Democrats’ tax and spending plans through a Congress that they control with the slimmest of margins.
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