Rand Paul Pre-Diagnoses The Next Congress

Rand Paul plans to become the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee next year. He has already predicted an unprecedented rush toward socialism. January's Congress hasn't convened, but its medical chart apparently came back positive for government.

Paul says he'll bring the approach he used chairing Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: confronting officials, examining bureaucracy and pursuing pandemic questions. His announcement cites his questioning of Anthony Fauci and the release of pandemic documents, Roll Call reports.

Fair enough. Ask questions. Read documents. Oversight is part of the job. An inspector who actually looks inside the engine is useful; an inspector who announces that every engine contains communism may need a second diagnostic tool.

Paul says he wants to keep Washington out of Americans' relationships with doctors, schools and paychecks. These happen to be rather a lot of the subjects in his prospective committee's name. It will be a fascinating arrangement: a federal HELP desk whose senior Republican has arrived deeply suspicious of the assistance.

Please select one: health, education, labor, pensions, or an extended warning about all four.

He would be the ranking Republican, not the chairman. Democrats take control in January. The distinction matters because having the loudest alarm does not mean you own the building.

His move also opens a path for James Lankford to become the top Republican on Homeland Security. Lankford says he wants bipartisan work while opposing Democratic overreach. There will be opportunities to distinguish useful scrutiny from reflexive obstruction.

Let's see the bills. Let's see the questions. Let's see which problems either party actually solves.

But if the answer to the entire incoming agenda is already socialism, the hearing room may as well replace one microphone with a smoke detector and save everybody the fucking travel.