Ryan ready for tax bill effect
He hopes 2018 elections do hinge on GOP’s vision of results from passage
WASHINGTON – House Speaker Paul Ryan said in an interview Wednesday that he would be happy to have the battle for Congress next year hinge on the sweeping tax bill that Republicans just passed, despite the bill’s unpopularity today.
“I think that would work very well for us,” Ryan said of the GOP tax plan, which he termed “the biggest achievement for sure that I have notched since being in Congress.”
But as to his own political future, the 47-year-old Ryan would not say whether he will seek an 11th term in the U.S. House in 2018.
He has dismissed reports that he is eager to leave Congress “anytime soon” and flatly denied speculation that he might step down as speaker in the coming year.
But asked whether he will be on the ballot in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District next fall as a candidate for reelection, Ryan declined to answer.
“That’s a down-the-road thing. (My wife) Janna and I, it’s my 10th term, we have that conversation in the spring of the election year, every (time). We haven’t even had that conversation yet. We always have that conversation down the road. It’s sort of like a ritualistic thing we do,” said Ryan in an interview in the speaker’s office shortly before fi-
nal House passage of the sweeping GOP tax rewrite.
Ryan said that his comments should not be read as a sign that he won’t run again.He has said in the past he did not intend to spend his entire working life in Congress or electoral politics. But he said Wednesday that doesn’t mean he is about to walk away.
“I’m young,” he said. “I mean, I think I’m young.”
With the tax bill now headed to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature, politicians in both parties have said they have every expectation the issue will work in favor of their side at election time next year. Both can’t be right, of course.
“I think we are,” said Ryan, notwithstanding the bill’s poor performance in national surveys and signs of a potentially troublesome electoral climate for the party in power. Democrats have argued the tax plan is tilted toward the wealthy and corporations, will drive up the deficit, and provide Republicans with a pretext for cutting entitlements in the future.
The Janesville Republican blamed the bill’s negative image on “the media and Democrats driving a message that this is raising a bunch of people’s taxes when it actually does not. … The average family of four in America will see a $2,059 tax cut.”
Ryan said: “I feel good about where we are politically. … People are going to benefit … businesses are going to prosper and hire and increase wages.”
Appearing on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday, the speaker predicted that Senate Democrats in states carried by Trump last fall are “going to regret not having supported (the tax bill), at least some of them.”
Interviews with dozens of Wisconsin voters in recent weeks in communities carried by Trump found broad skepticism and uncertainty about the tax plan. Many who are in line for a tax cut said they doubted the bill would benefit them.
In interviews with four networks Wednesday morning, Ryan touted the legislation’s benefits for both corporations (a large corporate tax cut is the centerpiece of the plan) and families and workers.
When people see their taxes go down, “I think minds are going to change,” Ryan said on NBC.
In the Journal Sentinel interview, Ryan said: “I have been working on this issue my entire adult life. … I have talked to so many manufacturers in Wisconsin who have told me the tax code really holds them back and it’s killing them in global competition. So, I have just long believed this is one of the most important things I can do to help people in Wisconsin, workers in Wisconsin and businesses in Wisconsin.”
Ryan wants Congress to move on to welfare reform and Medicaid reform next year, as part of what he said would be an effort to curb spending and move people from welfare to work.
Ryan said the entitlement changes he would be seeking next year do not extend to Medicare and Social Security benefits, noting that Trump does not support Ryan’s stance on overhauling Medicare benefits.