House Speaker Paul Ryan called recent reports of President Donald Trump's criticism of Haiti and African Countries unfortunate and unhelpful.
"You know what I thought of right away?" Ryan said. "My own family. My family, like a lot of people, came from Ireland on what they called the coffin ships back then. They came here and worked the railroads. The Irish were really looked down upon back in those days."
"That is a beautiful story of America. It's a great story, and that's the story we still have today," Ryan also said. "That's what makes this country so unique in the first place."
Ryan (R-Janesville) was in Milwaukee on Friday morning to participate in a Q & A session with WisPolitics.com President Jeff Mayers.
During the hour-long program in which the Speaker also took questions from the audience, Ryan repeatedly touted the recently-passed federal tax reform law.
"The reason we have a good economy, and we’re going to get a better economy, is because of our macroeconomic policies that we practiced in 2017," Ryan said.
"Twenty days after passing (the tax law) 2-million people are getting bonuses, people are getting wage increases and benefit increases," Ryan also said.
The speaker also said he hopes the new tax law will help Janesville with redeveloping its old General Motors plant.
Ryan said the plant was sold to developer CDC on Dec. 22. It's 4 million square feet in size.
"It's being redeveloped and marketed in a good economy so we can get more employers coming into Janesville," the speaker said.
"If a business wants to buy a piece of that property in Janesville, now, because of this tax law, if they’re international they can bring the money from overseas and invest it there," Ryan said. "If they want to build something, hire people, buy equipment, they can write it off immediately and call it expensing."
"It’s a huge incentive to build factories in Wisconsin, build factories in America and hire people to run those," Ryan also said.
