House Speaker Paul Ryan told Fox News Wednesday night congressional Republicans have found common ground on policy issues with President Obama.
The Wisconsin congressman, who sat down for an inaugural lunch with the president Wednesday, said both groups believe they can move forward together on mental health and criminal justice reforms.
“Mental health reform is one of the issues we’re working on here in the House … Criminal justice is an issue I think conservatives have really taken great involvement in, that’s an issue I think we have of getting things done,” Ryan told Greta Van Susteren.
Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee, said he informed Obama of the House’s plans to reclaim the power of the purse by getting budget preparation bills done throughout the year instead of waiting until the fall when everything is packed into an omnibus.
The two also discussed the federal government’s age-old war on poverty. Ryan pushed for a results-oriented approach, telling Obama the government’s current mode of determining results by how much funding is poured into assistance programs has not fixed the problem.
