Paul Ryan delivers farewell address

Paul Ryan, summarizing what Congress did during his time as Speaker of the House, said Congress took on "some of the biggest challenges of our time, and made a great and lasting difference in the trajectory of this country."

A key point to remember: As House Budget committee chairman, Ryan supported the 2011 Budget Control Act that cut government spending, including that for the defense of the country, and prevented a debt ceiling crisis.

Congress has passed laws since then to avert those cuts on domestic and defense programs. This year, President Trump signed a Ryan-backed bill to give the Pentagon $700 billion, which the Associated Press called “the biggest budget” the department “has ever seen.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan, in his farewell address at the Library of Congress Great Hall just now, touted years of economic growth under his leadership and the Trump administration:

Ryan and his fellow Republicans criticized the policies of President Obama for leading to a weak economic recovery after the great recession ended in June 2009. Back when Ryan assumed the speakership in October 2015, the budget sequester was still having a residual effect by reducing federal spending.

Under President Trump, however, GDP growth has picked up, rising to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.8 percent, including a high of 4.2 percent during the second quarter of this year.

For context, during the last seven years of Obama’s presidency, the GDP grew at just 2.1 percent.

Job growth, however, has been similar, if not slightly better during the end of the Obama administration, as Republicans held both the House and the Senate. During Trump’s time in office, the economy has added an average of 196,000 jobs a month, compared to 212,000 jobs a month over the last two years of the Obama administration.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan just claimed that the current Congress passed more than 1,000 bills.

"This House is the most productive we have had in at least a generation," he said. "To date, we have passed 1,175 bills, more than half of them with bipartisan support."

But remember: It appears that Ryan is defining the productivity of the House based upon the number of bills passed, even though he as he notes that many of those bills were never signed into law. And of those bills, many don’t appear to be that important to the nation; Although naming a post office after Merle Haggard is pretty cool, it doesn’t help that many taxpayers.

Ryan contends that there were a number of bills that were significant: a surge in spending for the military, new programs to attack the opioid crisis and a major tax code overhaul that slashed the rate for corporations and the wealthy, and more modestly for other individuals. But that also leaves off his other top goals, including repealing Obamacare and reforming immigration policies, and his self-proclaimed “greatest unfinished business” of reducing Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security spending to curb sky-high U.S. deficits.

Watch Ryan tout legislative accomplishments:

Opening his remarks introducing Speaker Paul Ryan at the Library of Congress, Rep. Trey Gowdy -- who is also retiring -- offered praise for Ryan and his accomplishments, telling members and supporters gathered, “Paul Ryan has been the Speaker of the House, a Vice Presidential candidate, Chairman of the budget committee, Chairman of the ways and means committee."

"He’s the smartest kid in the room,” Gowdy said. “Paul was my favorite member of Congress before I ever got to Congress.”

Gowdy also gently ribbed Ryan for his proclivity for exercise, joking, “Where I saw Paul most often was in the gym. How you’ve worked out so much for eight years and have such little muscles is beyond me."

Watch Gowdy introduce Ryan:

Moments from now, outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan will deliver his farewell address the Library of Congress, a final capstone in a series of events marking his departure after more than two decades on Capitol Hill.

It's the same setting where Ryan delivered a major speech a little more than three years ago, projecting a vision of a "confident America" as he reluctantly started his tenure as speaker of the House.

The Wisconsin Republican announced in April that he would be retiring from Congress at the end of his term.

A little about Ryan's career: Ryan was a staffer on Capitol Hill before he was elected to Congress in 1998 at the age of 28 to represent Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District. He escalated as a rising GOP star and policy wonk, ultimately becoming the chairman of two major committees, the 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate and speaker of the House.

Outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan will say Wednesday that under his watch, the US House of Representatives "made a great and lasting difference in the trajectory of this country" in his farewell address at the Library of Congress, a final capstone in a series of events marking his departure after more than two decades on Capitol Hill.

"We have taken on some of the biggest challenges of our time, and made a great and lasting difference in the trajectory of this country," Ryan is expected to say, according to excerpts of his speech provided in advance by his office.

Ryan is also expected to acknowledge both the difficulties of the state of US politics as well as recognize areas he fell short of his own goals.

"I acknowledge plainly that my ambitions for entitlement reform have outpaced the political reality and I consider this our greatest unfinished business," Ryan says in the excerpts, also adding, "The state of politics these days is another question, and frankly one I don't have an answer for."