At Least I've Lived Long Enough to See Bernie Sandersas Chair of the Senate Budget Committee |
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a> |
Sunday, 14 February 2021 14:07 |
Pierce writes: "The day's most interesting congressional sideshow probably was the appearance before the Senate Budget Committee of Neera Tanden, the longtime progressive activist and Internet lightning rod and the new administration's nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget."
At Least I've Lived Long Enough to See Bernie Sandersas Chair of the Senate Budget Committee14 February 21
Tanden, whom I know and whom I like, was heretofore known as a ferocious partisan activist and a longtime ally of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was policy director for HRC’s primary campaign, and that got her sideways with a lot of people who opposed HRC because she’d voted for the Iraq War. Nevertheless, Tanden joined Barack Obama’s campaign and later, his administration, the latter as an aide to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, which put Tanden in the middle of the bloody legislative brawl that culminated in the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But it was in 2016, during HRC’s primary campaign against Sanders, that Tanden was turned into a cartoon bogeyperson by the Sanders forces, and she took the piss out of them in return and in kind. The whole matter always seemed to me to be the living definition of the old saw about academic politics: that they are so vicious because the stakes are so small, particular given the stakes in 2016, which only grew in retrospect over the ensuing four years. So it was a fairly cool Washington moment when Tanden appeared before Chairman Sanders in her confirmation hearings on Wednesday. The senator got right to the point. SANDERS: I have a letter in front of me from, I'm sure you have seen, a number of Republican members of the House concerned about some of the things you said as the head but, of course, your attacks were not just made against Republicans, there were vicious attacks made against progressives. People I have worked with, me personally. So as you come before this committee to assume a very important role in the United States government at a time when we need serious work on serious issues and not personal attacks on anybody, whether they're on the left or the right. Can you reflect a little bit about some of your decisions and the personal statements that you have made in recent years? There were a few bad-faith dives for the fainting couch from the minority-party members of the committee; Lindsey Graham pronounced himself positively vaporous on the subject of Tanden’s having been mean to Sanders. Then there was Senator John (The Wrong) Kennedy, the Jubilation T. Cornpone of Magdalen College, Oxford, who decided to channel some neolithic Saturday Night Live. KENNEDY: Okay, let me interrupt you. I have to go to another subject. I have to tell you I'm very disturbed about your personal comments about people. It's not just one or two. I think you deleted about 1,000 tweets. And it wasn't just about Republicans. And I don't mind disagreements and policy. I think that is great. I love the dialectic. But the comments were personal. I mean you called Senator Sanders everything but an ignorant slut…did you mean them when you said them? Tanden is an unusual choice for a job virtually designed to be done by a bloodless pedant. But given that the administration seems to be spoiling for a fight with 40 years of oligarchical conservative economics, somebody who swings back from that chair probably is what’s called for. In fact, the most compelling exchange of the hearing came when Sanders asked Tanden about the corporate fundraising that she’d done when she was running the Center For American Progress. SANDERS: Let me get to another issue that concerns me very much. I happen to believe that big money has an undue influence over the political and economic life of our country. That too often campaign contributions are what determines policy rather than the needs of ordinary Americans. According to the "Washington Post" since 2014, the Center for American Progress has received roughly $5.5 million from WalMart, a company that pays its workers starvation wages. $900,000 from the Bank of America, $550,000 from JPMorgan Chase, $550,000 from Amazon, $200,000 from Wells Fargo, $800,000 from Facebook and up to $1.4 million from Google. Some of the most powerful special interest in our country. How will your relationship with those very powerful, special interests impact your decision making if you are appointed to be the head of OMB? This was the discussion worth having. Sanders then took Tanden through a litany of progressive issues, from a living wage to the climate crisis. And it took place almost entirely on grounds that would have been unthinkable back when Tanden was working for the Clintons. Times have changed, and Bernie Sanders is the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, and make what you will of that. |