Paul Ryan Invites Donald Trump To Address Congress

WASHINGTON ― It won’t technically be a State of the Union, but it will have the same effect.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) announced on Tuesday that he was inviting President Donald Trump to address a joint session of Congress on Feb. 28. “This will be an opportunity for the people and their representatives to hear directly from our new president about his vision and our shared agenda,” Ryan said.

The speaker described Trump’s plans as “ambitious” and said Republicans want this to be “a government of action.”

The GOP is taking aim at the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and proposing a tax overhaul that looks like it will be coupled with an infrastructure bill. Ryan said Tuesday that a tax system rewrite would not add to the national debt, though Republicans are apt to use budgetary tricks ― calculating massive amounts of economic output that may never come ― to achieve the revenue-neutral status.

Ryan also declined to answer questions about the size of an infrastructure bill until Republicans know the size of the tax bill, which would likely help pay for those projects, at least on paper.

Trump is almost certain to address all these topics in his speech to Congress.

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