The congressman from Texas gets the job he’s been gunning for for years, and hands Tea Party activists their first big victory in a committee fight. He’ll lead the Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee in the next Congress.
There were widespread worries that, despite his seniority, Paul’s politics would cost him this job. Incoming Financial Services chairman Spencer Bachus brushes the worries aside.
This is the leadership team that crafted the first comprehensive financial reform bill to put an end to the bailouts, wind down the taxpayer funding of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and enforce a strong audit of the Federal Reserve. By working together, we will honor our commitment to aggressive oversight, reform of the GSEs, and monitoring the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act to ensure more jobs aren’t lost to unnecessary regulations on community banks and businesses. We are ready to hit the ground running, and I look forward to continuing our work in the next Congress.
This move does one favor for the anti-Paul side of the GOP – it makes it less likely that Paul will run for president in 2012. In Paulworld, the denial of this job would have been a clear sign that he couldn’t move up in Congress, nudging him to look for another way to spread his message.