Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) downplayed the likelihood of achieving entitlement reform in 2018.
“The sensitivity of entitlements is such that you almost have to have a bipartisan agreement in order to achieve a result,” McConnell said at a press conference Friday.
{mosads}”The only time we’ve been able to do that is on a bipartisan basis, and it was a long time ago,” he said.
McConnell’s comments come as Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said he is eyeing entitlement reform for next year.
“I don’t think the health-care issue is done,” Ryan said in an interview with The Weekly Standard.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got to go after the root cause — health-care inflation and entitlements. Welfare reform is going to be our next lift,” he said.
“We’re never going to give up on entitlement reform and the things we need to do to get the debt under control,” he added.
Ryan added that with one more reconciliation bill, “I think we have a pretty good shot at getting some of these things done.”
But the already slim Republican majority in the Senate will shrink after Alabama’s Doug Jones, a Democrat, is seated next year, replacing Luther Strange.
Reconciliation instructions can be used to pass legislation through the Senate with a simple majority.