Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) leaves a meeting about his bid to be the next Speaker of the House with moderate members of the House Republican caucus on Capitol Hill in Washington October 22, 2015. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
October 28, 2015
By Susan Cornwell and David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Republican Paul Ryan, pledging not to run the House of Representatives like a Roman emperor, made a final appeal Wednesday to Republicans to vote for him for speaker even as he backed a controversial two-year budget deal that would avert a government debt default.
Ryan’s support could provide a boost for the budget bill, which was set to reach the House floor for a vote later on Wednesday, after Republicans meet behind closed doors to nominate their official party candidate for speaker.
Republicans are trying to turn a page on weeks of internal party chaos after House Speaker John Boehner announced in late September that he was retiring.
The bipartisan budget deal, announced on Tuesday and criticized by right-wing Republicans for increasing spending, was Boehner’s attempt to clear the decks for the new speaker and relieve market worries over a possible default next week.
Ryan, who has criticized the backroom process by which the deal was struck by congressional leaders and the White House with no input from rank-and-file lawmakers, said in a statement that he would still vote for it.
“What has been produced will go a long way toward relieving the uncertainty hanging over us, and that’s why I intend to support it,” said Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate and chair of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee,
But Ryan also said he wanted a more bottom-up approach if he is elected speaker.
“I don’t plan to be Caesar, calling all the shots around here,” he told a closed-door meeting of Republicans, according to Representative Matt Salmon, an Arizona conservative.
Ryan reluctantly decided to run for speaker after various quarreling party factions unified behind him. But he still faces a longshot challenger, Representative Daniel Webster of Florida. The full House will elect a new speaker on Thursday, and Boehner plans to retire on Friday.
“If I’m elected speaker, we will begin a conversation about how to approach these big issues – as a team – long before we reach these kinds of deadlines,” Ryan said of the budget and debt deal.
Several right-wingers, even some who plan to support Ryan, have said they will reject the budget deal, which would extend the U.S. Treasury’s borrowing authority through March 2017 and allow $80 billion in additional spending over two years.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Republicans needed to provide a “basic number” of votes for passage.
Asked how many votes Democrats would provide, she said, “We’ll have enough.”
The U.S. government is approaching a Nov. 3 deadline for lifting its debt limit, or face the risk of default.
The outlook for the legislation in the Senate was unclear. Conservative Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said he will launch procedural objections to slow its advance because he wants to hold the line on both military and domestic spending.
Farm-state lawmakers from both parties have objected to a provision of the bill that cuts subsidies for crop insurers, which would save an estimated $3 billion over 10 years.
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Cynthia Osterman
http://www.oann.com/speaker-in-waiting-ryan-says-supports-budget-deal/
