The Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, is boasting that under his leadership, "The House has been more productive than any Congress in the modern era."
The comments came after criticism from the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, said both he and the president are annoyed with congressional Republican leadership.
"As an American," Mulvaney said, "I am too."
Ryan, asked about the comments, pointed to a website (didyouknow.gop) that lists all of the bills passed under his leadership.
"The House has passed 316 bills, that’s a record pace," he said in an interview on Fox News. "Now, 260 of them are still in the Senate. The Senate is still busy working on judges and appointees and the rest. But the House has been extremely productive."
"Not just extremely productive," he emphasized, "The House has been more productive than any Congress in the modern era.”
Here's the full exchange:
MacCALLUM: “Mick Mulvaney, your former colleague, was talking to our colleagues at Fox Business, and he was asked, ‘Do you think the president is annoyed with this Republican leadership?’ And this is what he said: ‘Yeah, I think he probably is, and so am I. As an American citizen, I am too.’”
RYAN: “I can’t speak to that. I know Mick and I talk of a time. The point is, at the House, go to DidYouKnow.gop, we have actually passed more bills in the House for the president and his agenda in this first six months of his administration than in the first six of Obama, Clinton, and both Bushes. The House has passed 316 bills, that’s a record pace. Now, 260 of them are still in the Senate. The Senate is still busy working on judges and appointees and the rest. But the House has been extremely productive. Not just extremely productive, the House has been more productive than any Congress in the modern era.”
MacCALLUM: “I think it was mostly talking about health care in terms of his frustration. He went on to say —“
RYAN: “We are frustrated, too. We passed our bill last May on repeal and replace, and we were hoping to get it done then. And, yes, we too frustrated this hasn’t gotten done yet. And what I always say to my colleagues, especially in the Senate, where this bill couldn’t go through, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Health care is collapsing, ObamaCare is a total failure. We’ve got to get on it. The House did its job, passed its bill, and we’ve just got to keep at it.”