Why is Paul Ryan so darned happy?

Senate Budget Committee chair Sen Patty Murray, D- Wash., and her House counterpart Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wisc., gave a vigorous defense Sunday of the budget agreement which they announced last week.

They said the accord showed that serious legislating is still possible even when the two parties appear to be deeply divided on matters of principle.

“It's a step forward that shows that there can be other breakthroughs and compromise if you take the time to know somebody, know what their passions are, and know how you can work together,” said Murray in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press.

She added that “one of the things we had to learn to do is to listen to each other and to respect each other and to trust each other…. Either one of us could’ve taken out and blown up and killed the other person politically. We agreed from the start we wouldn't do that. Very important to where we are today.”

Ryan seconded her view saying, “We spent a lot of time just getting to know each other, talking, understanding each other's principles, and we basically learned that if we require the other to violate a core principle, we're going to get nowhere and we'll just keep gridlock.”

Ryan said that he and his Democratic counterpart were motivated by a desire to “make this divided government work, at least at a minimum, basic functioning level.”
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Both Ryan and Murray voiced their hopes Sunday that the accord they designed -- even if relatively small in its total budgetary effects -- could create a foundation for future compromises.

Murray said, “If we just sit in our corners and yell at each other and that's all we get rewarded for, we'll never get to those big discussions about tax reform, or strengthening our entitlements, or how we fund things in the future, or immigration reform, or any of the other really big challenges of our country. So, what we're trying to do is bring some respect to the word ‘compromise.’”

“You gotta, you know, crawl before you can walk before you can run,” Ryan said. “I'm hopeful, as a Ways and Means (Committee) member as well, that we can start moving tax reform legislation.”

Ryan said that in the first quarter of 2014 the House Ways and Means Committee would “be advancing tax reform legislation because we think that's a key ingredient to getting people back to work, to increasing take-home pay, to growing this economy.”

But discord remains between the parties on whether – as Democrats want – tax reform should be done in a way that raises new revenues, or whether, as Republicans want, tax reform should be revenue neutral and simply be intended to achieve a leaner, more efficient tax system.

“We'll have to disagree” on that point, Ryan said.

After a week in Washington that had laid bare many of the familiar dividing that separate elected Republicans and their party's insurgent, conservative wing, Ryan made nice with many of the groups that had mobilized in opposition to the budget agreement he forged with Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

"I think these taxpayer groups are indispensable to keeping taxpayer interest accounted for, keeping people accountable," Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee said.

"And we sometimes have difference of opinions on tactics," he added. "We all believe the same thing with respect to our ultimate goal."

The House overwhelmingly approved the Ryan-Murray budget on Thursday with bipartisan support, though 62 House Republicans and 32 Democrats voted in opposition to the measure. The Senate is expected to take up the budget, which would stabilize government operations through late 2015, on Tuesday.

Though the budget proposal won over most House Republicans -- due, in part, to the sway Ryan holds among fiscal conservatives -- it did so over the objection of groups like the Club for Growth, Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity. Each of those groups had urged lawmakers to oppose the budget because it set spending levels above "sequester" caps. Those groups had alerted members that they would tally votes for purposes of yearly "scorecards" that can often prove influential during GOP primary fights in House and Senate races.