House Speaker Paul D. Ryan over the weekend laid out five key areas of focus for the House GOP in 2016 — but he admitted little progress will be made over the next 12 months.
Following a three-day Republican retreat in Baltimore that was dominated by talk of the raucous nominating race for president, Mr. Ryan said Sunday the party’s agenda will be driven by voters.
“This is not going to be a top-down process. … Members of Congress and their constituents form this agenda, so it’s way too soon to get into the specifics. We’re going to be rolling this out in the spring,” he said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”
Specifically, Mr. Ryan said Republicans will focus on: jobs and the economy; national security and fighting the Islamic State; poverty and upward economic mobility; restoring the Constitution; and repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.
But Mr. Ryan — who ascended to the speakership last year after former Speaker John A. Boehner stepped down — also said little can be done to advance that agenda until the next president takes office in January 2017.
With Mr. Obama wielding a veto pen for the rest of the year, GOP leaders have cast their eye ahead to 2017, saying they wanted to use the coming year to define the kinds of big philosophical choices voters will make in November’s elections.
“Our goal here is not to simply just pass things and watch them go nowhere,” he said, explaining the House GOP won’t focus all of its attention on pieces of legislation that President Obama surely would veto. “Our goal here is to say what we will do in 2017 if the country gives us the authority to do this.”
House and Senate Republicans used their Baltimore retreat to brainstorm ideas that will offer voters a clear contrast to Mr. Obama’s agenda. But they haven’t guessed at what could make it through the Senate and win Mr. Obama’s signature, other than the 12 annual spending bills that stalled last year.
Specifically, Mr. Ryan said task forces led by committee chairs will roll out their agenda in the coming months.
For his part, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also has hinted that congressional Republicans are essentially stuck until Mr. Obama leaves office.
“And here at home, we know Obamacare, we know slow growth, we know lack of optimism. The president is a good salesman, but I don’t think he could sell to the American people that things are getting better. And so we’re all looking forward to having a new president and a new State of the Union a year from now,” he said in a statement following Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address last week.
In the meantime, GOP leaders are deflecting questions about who that person might be. The primary race has been dominated by heated anti-Washington rhetoric, especially from businessman Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who’s frequently at odds with his own party’s leaders.
“We’re not sitting here thinking about who the nominee is going to be,” Mr. Ryan said on Friday.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.