Ryan: "We Are in a Generational Defining Moment"

Press Conference

At a press conference with Republican leaders today, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) discussed the House plan to strengthen the nation's transportation infrastructure and get the House working as our Founders intended. Following are Ryan's remarks: 

"Thursday was a great day. Thursday was a day where we came together as a conference and unified and agreed to proceed together with a vision.

"This week, you will see the highway bill is a good place to start. We're opening up the process. We're allowing members to participate in a way that the Founders intended and we're advancing an issue that is a big priority to the hardworking taxpayers of this country. Fixing our roads and our bridges, improving our transportation infrastructure. Chairman Shuster has done a phenomenal job putting this together, and that's why we're going to have an open process on the floor with lots of amendments considered by all the members from both parties. I think it's a good example of how we're going to do the people's business, and I've told people we are going to do more of this.

"I'm very committed to a complete set of changes to the House rules to make it a more deliberative and participatory process. We're going to do this as a team, and we're going to get this right for the American people."
--
"I think we need to do more. I think we need to be more specific. I think we need to be more bold.

"Look, I really, truly believe that the next handful of years will determine what kind of country we are going to have for a long time. We are in a generational defining moment. And that is why, if we don't believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction, we don't think that it is, we think the president is leading it in the wrong direction, we think a Hillary Clinton presidency will continue leading the country in the wrong direction. That is why we feel that we have an obligation to the hardworking citizens of this country to show them how we would do things differently, to tackle our country's problems before they tackle us, and to get things fixed, to advance our principles, to show how we can make things better for people who are struggling in America."

Source