U.S. House Speaker Ryan on Thursday said Republicans in Congress were unlikely to begin tackling tax reform legislation until the summer, after first moving to revamp the nation's healthcare system.
In an interview with Fox News, the Wisconsin Republican said lawmakers had to make good on their pledge to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, before they can turn to rewriting the U.S. tax code.
"It's just the way the budget works that we won't be able to get the ability to write our tax reform bill until our spring budget passes, and then we write that through the summer," Ryan told Fox News.
"We feel the need to rescue (Obamacare)," he said. "That's why we're going with healthcare first, and that's the first budget. And then in the spring, when we do our second budget, that's where tax reform comes."
Ryan's comments came as Trump, who has called on Congress to act swiftly to enact his sweeping agenda, prepared to meet with congressional tax writers later on Thursday at the White House.
Republicans, who control both houses of Congress as well as the White House, have pledged a range of overhauls after eight years of the Democratic Obama administration, even as tensions have arisen over timetables and priorities.
"Enough 'all talk, no action,'" Trump told Republican lawmakers at their retreat in Philadelphia last month. "We have to deliver."
He pushed them to move on tax reform as well as his planned U.S.-Mexico border wall and repealing Obamacare.
On Thursday, Ryan pointed to the legislative calendar and the congressional budget process for taking up a tax bill later this year, but vowed it would not be delayed until 2018.
"It's just a sequence of things," he told Fox.