The House passed more bills in President Trump’s first year than in the past four administrations, but more than three quarters sit languishing in the Senate where a political logjam has put them on ice, according to House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Addressing a Wisconsin Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner over the weekend, Ryan said that his chamber OK’d 558 bills in Trump’s first year, more than in the first year of former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or Barack Obama. “Unprecedented,” said Ryan.
Paul Ryan: ‘We’re going to win’ despite midterm challenges https://t.co/jtR76GoGCS pic.twitter.com/NdE7TXIBvQ
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But, he said, “there’s one catch.” And that is that 426 of those bills have not been acted on in the Senate.
“We need to break the logjam over there,” he said, in a plea to Wisconsinites to dump Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in favor of a Republican.
Ryan, at the Republican Party of Waukesha County’s Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner, noted that history suggests that the GOP should lose control of the House in the 2018 midterms.
But, he vowed, “We’re going to win.”
He predicted that Democrats will use history’s prediction and liberal criticism of President Trump to put Republicans in a “funk.”
Said Ryan, “They’re going to try to psych all of us out.”
But, he said Republicans won’t fall for it. “Give me a break,” said the typically upbeat Wisconsin lawmaker.
He said instead, the GOP will run on its record of achievements in passing tax reform, limiting Obamacare and creating jobs.
“So what do we do now? We keep going,” he said, laying out an agenda of further work on Obamacare and focusing on a welfare to work program.
“We’re clicking through our agenda,” he said Saturday night. “We’re proud of what we’re doing.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
