At Wednesday’s House Republican leadership press conference, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan spoke about the legislative accomplishments by the current Congress. Ryan also talked about some remaining items to be dealt with by House Republicans, including the farm bill and criminal justice reform. The following transcript of Ryan’s remarks were provided by the Speaker’s office:
It’s good to see all of you. So I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.
We’re coming up on the close of one of the most productive Congresses in recent memory.
Two years ago, we took a hard look at what was holding our communities back, and we came up with very thoughtful policy solutions. Those policies have delivered results.
There may be no better example than historic tax reform. Week after week, we’ve told stories of economic resurgence that this country has experienced.
It goes beyond the economy, too. Years of work went into legislation to bring true reforms to the veterans’ administration—to veterans’ health care.
We passed policies to secure new opportunities, including overhauling the career and technical education system, so that we can close that skills gap, and get people to the careers that they want to get.
We’re back on the path to rebuilding our military. This year, we’ve already funded 75 percent of government. That means funding for the military, for veterans, for health, for labor, for education programs, to name a few, are already in place—the most that has been done on time, before the deadline, in 22 years.
So, we have accomplished quite a bit.
And our nation is very much the better for it. Our nation is safer, our nation is stronger for it.
We have an opportunity in the next coming weeks to get a few more things done. To get some good things done. We want to reform our criminal justice system to give people another shot at contributing to their communities. We’re still working on a farm bill. We’re getting very close on the farm bill. We’ve got bipartisan initiatives to build on the success of tax reform.
These are outstanding issues.
And of course, as you can see, we want to secure our border. It’s very important for the national security of our country that we actually secure our border.
So in the next few weeks, we’re going to continue to work to create a more prosperous, more confident, more secure America. And that’s what we intend to do.
