........................Paul Ryan was sworn in as speaker of the House....................
Erin Kelly, USA TODAY 2:22 p.m. EDT October 29, 2015
Paul
Ryan was sworn in as the 54th speaker of the House. He remarked that,
to him, the House represents the best of America, but that it is broken
and needs fixing. USA TODAY
WASHINGTON
— Newly elected Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday it is time to fix a
"broken" House and begin solving the nation's problems instead of adding
to them.
"The American people make this country work, and the
House should work for them," Ryan said in a speech on the House floor
after his election. "What a relief it would be to the American people if
we finally got our act together. What a weight off their shoulders."
Ryan
was elected the 54th speaker of the House as his colleagues looked to
the Wisconsin Republican to help unite his fractious party and end the
constant crises that have come to dominate the chamber in recent years.
He
received 236 of the 432 votes cast. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi,
D-Calif., received 184. Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., got 9 votes. A
handful of other people got a total of three votes.
Representative Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, left, and Senator Patty Murray,
The U.S. House passed the first bipartisan federal budget
in four years, which would ease $63 billion in automatic spending cuts
and avert another government shutdown. The legislation now heads to the
Senate.
The House voted 332-94 today for the $1.01 trillion compromise budget crafted by Senator Patty Murray and Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of a special bipartisan panel. President Barack Obama said he’ll sign the final measure.
The
agreement’s main accomplishments are to ease automatic spending cuts
that neither party likes by $40 billion in 2014 and about $20 billion in
2015 and cushion the military from a $19 billion reduction starting
next month. The accord doesn’t include changes to taxes or spending on
entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
“It’s progress,” House Speaker John Boehner
said in a floor speech before the vote. “It’s doing what the American
people expect us to do,” which is to “stick to our principles but find
common ground.”
The budget deal replaces about half of the
automatic cuts to defense and non-defense discretionary spending in 2014
and 25 percent of the reductions in 2015, which means most of the
automatic cuts enacted in 2011 still take effect. It includes $23
billion in deficit reduction.
“This agreement is better than the
alternative, but it misses a huge opportunity to do what the American
people expect us to do, and that is to put this country on a fiscally
sustainable path,” said Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking House Democrat.
Doctors Spared
The
accord also spared doctors for three months from cuts in the Medicare
payment rates set to start in January. The measure doesn’t extend
emergency benefits for 1.3 million unemployed workers, an omission that
frustrated Democrats, who say they plan to continue the fight when
Congress returns in January from a holiday break.
The deal won
bipartisan support because it doesn’t touch entitlement programs
Democrats have pledged to protect or the corporate tax breaks
Republicans favor.
It also doesn’t raise the U.S. debt ceiling, setting up a potential fiscal showdown after borrowing authority lapses as soon as February.
Lawmakers and some economists said adopting a formal budget will provide some certainty to the U.S. economy
after three years of spending feuds that led to a government shutdown,
rattled investors and prompted a downgrade in the nation’s credit
rating.
Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist for Standard &
Poor’s Corp., said in a recent newsletter that adoption of a bipartisan
budget will be a boon to the U.S. economy.
Uncertainty Reduced
“The
budget would reduce a key risk, political uncertainty,” she wrote. “The
private sector will probably be more confident when planning investment
and spending for next year, which would directly boost growth.”
The
deal is far from the $1 trillion to $4 trillion grand bargain on taxes
and spending that previous budget negotiators sought. The plan would set
U.S. spending at about $1.01 trillion for this fiscal year, higher than
the $967 billion required in a 2011 budget plan.
Much of the deficit reduction will come in later years, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The plan would lower the deficit by $3.1 billion in 2014 and $3.4
billion in 2015 and exceed $20 billion a year in 2022 and 2023, the CBO
said.
Medicare Payments
A big portion of the savings
is tied to extending the cuts in Medicare provider payments into 2022
and 2023, rather than letting them expire in 2021 as under current law.
The
accord may help lawmakers repair their image after a 16-day government
shutdown in October that caused congressional approval ratings to fall
to the lowest level recorded by the Gallup Organization polling group.
House approves budget deal, handing major victory to Boehner
By Erik Wasson and Russell Berman
The
House on Thursday approved a two-year budget deal that turns off $63
billion in sequester spending cuts, handing a major victory to Speaker
John Boehner (R-Ohio.).
Large majorities in both parties backed the bill in a 332-94 vote.
Only
62 Republicans defected despite harsh criticism of the deal by
conservative groups that said it did too little to cut spending,
compared to 169 Republicans who backed it. The Democratic vote was
163-32.
Heritage
Action, the Club for Growth and other groups said they would negatively
score votes in favor of the legislation, but those threats failed to
create a stampede against the bill.
Instead, members rallied around
Boehner, who had strongly pushed back at the criticism from the outside
groups, who he charged had “lost all credibility.”
During the debate, he said the does everything conservatives want.
“If
you're for reducing the budget deficit, then you should be voting for
this bill,” Boehner said. “If you're for cutting the size of government,
you should you be supporting this budget.
“If you're for
preventing tax increases, you should be voting for this budget. If
you're for entitlement reform, you ought to be voting for this budget.
These are the things I came here to do, and this budget does them,” he
said.
Boehner was aided by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul
Ryan (R-Wis.), who negotiated the budget deal with Sen. Patty Murray
(D-Wash.).
While the 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate also
came under fire from the right, Ryan’s credentials with conservatives
helped GOP leaders win votes.
While the deal did not represent the
“grand bargain” of entitlement reforms and tax hikes Boehner and
President Obama flirted with in 2011, Ryan argued it represented a
victory for conservatives since it will reduce deficits by $23 billion
over 10 years.
The bill cuts the deficit, avoids tax hikes, and
makes permanent reforms to save money, such as stopping welfare checks
to criminals, Ryan said.
He also said it reflected the reality of
divided government in Washington, where Republicans hold only the House,
and that it would prevent another government shutdown.
Near the
end of the debate, Ryan noted that as the GOP's vice presidential
candidate in 2012, he was part of the GOP effort to return Republicans
to the White House.
“We tried defeating this president,” he said. “I wish we would have.”
“Elections
have consequences,” Ryan added. “And I fundamentally believe — this is
my personal opinion, I know it's a slightly partisan thing to say — to
really do what we think needs to be done, we're going to have to win
some elections.
“And in the meantime, let's try to make this divided government work.”
