Republican leaders have a new way of putting the loss of the House to bed: The party is going to take it back.
That’s the message that Speaker Paul Ryan and his team sent on Monday when they announced the party is working to elect Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives.
“We’re going to make history again,” Ryan told reporters after announcing the election results.
“It’s going to be the first time since 1924, when we had the largest majority of the country voting for a Republican for president, that the House is not controlled by a Democrat.”
It’s a bold claim that has Republicans scrambling to make sure they don’t lose the House in November.
“This is not just a Republican thing,” Ryan said.
“There’s an American thing that we’re going in this cycle to do better.”
But this time, Ryan’s team didn’t stop there.
Ryan told the New York Times that “We need to do the hard work to win back the House.”
Ryan has also told his supporters that he won’t “waste time trying to get out of this fight.”
That means he won.
Ryan and GOP leaders are still counting on a supermajority in the House for their party to retake control of the Senate.
They have the votes to retake the House if they win the majority in the Senate, and they are betting that will happen by defeating the Democratic Party.
The House and Senate are divided by a slim margin.
Republicans hold a narrow majority in both chambers, but a supermajority in the U,S.
Senate.
If Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress, they would have the power to override President Barack Obama’s vetoes of major pieces of legislation and the ability to block legislation from going to a full House vote.
The new supermajority, however, won’t be enough to pass major legislation, even though Republicans control both houses of Congress.
“The next president has a veto,” Ryan insisted on Monday.
“He has veto power.
And the first thing that he will do is sign the bill into law, which he will not do.”
Ryan and the GOP leadership are hoping that their election victory will allow them to pass a sweeping immigration overhaul that would include a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
That is a bold promise, but it’s one Republicans have made repeatedly.
“I will not go into detail on the specifics of the legislation because that would be a spoiler in this race,” Ryan has said.
The immigration overhaul is a key part of Ryan’s plans to rebuild the economy.
“That bill will not only make America stronger but it will also give millions of American workers a path out of poverty, and that is going a long way to making America better off,” Ryan stated.
The plan will also be a boon to the middle class.
“You can’t have a more balanced and comprehensive agenda and economy for working families,” Ryan continued.
“And it is going have a direct impact on families.
We are going to have the most pro-growth legislation in the history of this country, period.”
But there are still some things that Republicans are not sure are going right with the plan.
A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that Ryan’s proposal would cut taxes for the richest Americans by as much as $1.3 trillion.
That would be enough money to offset the projected $4 trillion cost of the Republican Party’s tax overhaul.
“A majority of Republicans in Congress are concerned about the impact of a $1 trillion tax cut for the wealthy on the economy, which is not a bipartisan issue,” Ryan spokesperson Brendan Buck said in a statement.
Ryan’s office declined to provide a full breakdown of the bill’s impact on the middle-class.
Republicans have also made clear that they are not interested in increasing taxes for working Americans.
“Our job is not to tax working Americans,” Ryan asserted.
“What we’re trying to do is raise enough revenue to invest in our infrastructure, to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our airports, our schools, our universities, and our military.
That means we’re not going to go after middle-income Americans.”
Ryan’s message to Americans is that he is not going anywhere.
“As a Republican, I will not abandon you,” Ryan promised his supporters.
“Let me be very clear: The first thing I’m going to do as Speaker is to get you out of your houses and get you to vote in November for Republicans who will govern this country with a Republican Congress.”
This election is about the future of the GOP.
The GOP’s midterm loss is only the latest setback for the party.
The party lost control of Congress for the first year in memory in 2016.
That year, President Donald Trump was reelected with 52 percent of the popular vote.
This time around, Trump is not even in the running to be president.
Instead, Republicans are hoping to get re-elected in 2018.
They are hoping a Trump presidency will help boost their agenda of tax cuts
