Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American politician and member of the Republican Party who has served as the United States Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district since 1999 and as Chairman of the House Budget Committee since 2011. He was the Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2012 election.[1][2] Ryan was born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, and is a graduate of Miami University in Ohio. He worked as an aide to legislators Bob Kasten, Sam Brownback, and Jack Kemp, and as a speechwriter before winning election to the U.S. House in 1998.
On August 11, 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney announced that he had selected Ryan to be his vice-presidential running mate.[3] Ryan was officially nominated at theRepublican convention in Tampa on August 29, 2012.[4] On November 6, 2012, Romney and Ryan were defeated in the general election by the incumbent Barack Obama and Joe Biden, although Ryan won reelection to his congressional seat.[5]
On December 10, 2013, Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray announced that they had negotiated a two-year, bipartisan budget, known as the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.[6][7] The budget agreement was the first to pass Congress with the two chambers controlled by different parties since 1986.[8]
Contents
[show]Early life and education
Ryan was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, the youngest of four children of Elizabeth A. "Betty" (née Hutter) and Paul Murray Ryan, a lawyer.[9][10][11] A fifth-generation Wisconsinite, his father was of Irish ancestry and his mother is of German and English ancestry.[12] One of Ryan's paternal ancestors settled in Wisconsin prior to the Civil War.[13] His great-grandfather, Patrick William Ryan (1858–1917), founded an earthmoving company in 1884, which later became P. W. Ryan and Sons and is now known as Ryan Incorporated Central.[14][15] Ryan's grandfather was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin by President Calvin Coolidge.[16]
Ryan attended St. Mary's Catholic School in Janesville, where he played on the seventh-grade basketball team.[17] He attended Joseph A. Craig High School in Janesville, where he was elected president of his junior class, and thus became prom king.[18] As class president Ryan was a representative of the student body on the school board.[19] Following his sophomore year, Ryan took a job working the grill at McDonald's.[19] He was on his high school's ski, track and varsity soccer teams and played basketball in a Catholic recreational league.[20][21][22] He also participated in several academic and social clubs including the Model United Nations.[19][20] Ryan and his family often went on hiking and skiing trips to the Colorado Rocky Mountains.[10][16]
When he was 16, Ryan found his 55-year-old father lying dead in bed of a heart attack.[16][19] Following the death of his father, Ryan's grandmother moved in with the family, and because she had Alzheimer's, Ryan helped care for her while his mother commuted to college in Madison, Wisconsin.[19] After his father's death Ryan received Social Security survivors benefits until his 18th birthday, which were saved for his college education.[23][24][25]
Ryan majored in economics and political science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio,[26] where he became interested in the writings of Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman.[19] He often visited the office of libertarian professor Richard Hart to discuss the theories of these economists and of Ayn Rand.[19][27] Hart introduced Ryan to the National Review,[19] and with Hart's recommendation Ryan began an internship in the D.C. office of Wisconsin Senator Bob Kasten where he worked with Kasten's foreign affairs adviser.[19][28] Ryan also attended the Washington Semester program at American University.[29] Ryan worked summers as a salesman for Oscar Mayer and once got to drive the Wienermobile.[16][27][30] During college, Ryan was a member of the College Republicans,[31] and volunteered for the congressional campaign of John Boehner.[27] He was a member of the Delta Tau Delta social fraternity.[32]Ryan received a Bachelor of Arts in 1992 with a double major in economics and political science.[26]
Political philosophy
At a 2005 Washington, D.C. gathering celebrating the 100th anniversary of Ayn Rand's birth,[33][34] Ryan credited Rand as inspiring him to get involved in public service.[35] In a speech that same year at the Atlas Society, he said he grew up reading Rand, and that her books taught him about his value system and beliefs.[36][37] Ryan required staffers and interns in his congressional office to read Rand[37] and gave copies of her novel Atlas Shrugged as gifts to his staff for Christmas.[38][39] In his Atlas Society speech, he also described Social Security as a "socialist-based system".[40]
In 2009, Ryan said, "What's unique about what's happening today in government, in the world, in America, is that it's as if we're living in an Ayn Rand novel right now. I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault."[38]
In April 2012, after receiving criticism from Georgetown University faculty members on his budget plan, Ryan rejected Rand's philosophy as an atheistic one, saying it "reduces human interactions down to mere contracts".[41] He also called the reports of his adherence to Rand's views an "urban legend" and stated that he was deeply influenced by his Roman Catholic faith and by Thomas Aquinas.[42] Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, maintains that Ryan is not a Rand disciple, and that some of his proposals do not follow Rand's philosophy of limited government; Brook refers to Ryan as a "fiscal moderate".[43]
In August 2012, after Romney chose him as his running mate, the Associated Press published a story saying that while the Tea Party movement had wanted a nominee other than Romney, it had gotten "one of its ideological heroes" in the Vice Presidential slot. According to the article, Ryan supports the Tea Party's belief in "individual rights, distrust of big government and an allegorical embrace of the Founding Fathers".[44]
Early career
Betty Ryan reportedly urged her son to accept a congressional position as a staff economist attached to Senator Kasten's office, which he did after graduating in 1992.[28][45] In his early years working on Capitol Hill, Ryan supplemented his income by working as a waiter, as a fitness trainer, and at other jobs.[16][30]
A few months after Kasten lost to Democrat Russ Feingold in the November 1992 election, Ryan became a speechwriter for Empower America (now FreedomWorks), a conservative advocacy group founded by Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and William Bennett.[16][46][47] Ryan later worked as a speechwriter for Kemp,[48] the Republican vice presidential candidate in the 1996 United States presidential election. Kemp became Ryan's mentor, and Ryan has said he had a "huge influence".[49] In 1995, Ryan became the legislative director for then-U.S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. In 1997 he returned to Wisconsin, where he worked for a year as a marketing consultant for the construction company Ryan Incorporated Central, owned by his relatives.[19][46][50]
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
Ryan was first elected to the House in 1998, winning the 1st District seat of Mark Neumann, a two-term incumbent who had vacated his seat to make an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate. Ryan won the Republican primary over 29-year-old pianist Michael J. Logan of Twin Lakes,[51] and the general election against Democrat Lydia Spottswood.[52] This made him the second-youngest member of the House.[19]
Reelected seven times, Ryan has never received less than 55 percent of the vote. He defeated Democratic challenger Jeffrey C. Thomas in the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections.[53] (In 2002, Ryan also faced Libertarian candidate George Meyers.) In 2008, Ryan defeated Democrat Marge Krupp in the 2008 election.[53] In the 2010 general election, he defeated Democrat John Heckenlively and Libertarian Joseph Kexel.
Ryan faced Democratic nominee Rob Zerban in the 2012 House election. As of July 25, 2012, Ryan had over $5.4 million in his congressional campaign account, more than any other House member.[54][55] Finance, insurance and real estate was the sector that contributed most to his campaign.[56] Under Wisconsin election law, Ryan was allowed to run concurrently for vice president and for Congress[57] and was not allowed to remove his name from the Congressional ballot after being nominated for the vice presidency.[58] Ryan was reelected in 2012 with 55% of his district's vote.[59]
Tenure
Ryan became the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee in 2007,[60] then chairman in 2011 after Republicans took control of the House. That same year he was selected to deliver the Republican response to the State of the Union address.[61]
During his 13 years in the House, Ryan has sponsored more than 70 bills or amendments,[62] of which two were enacted into law.[63] One, passed in July 2000, renamed a post office in Ryan's district; the other, passed in December 2008, lowered the excise tax on arrow shafts.[64][65] Ryan has also co-sponsored 975 bills,[63] of which 176 have passed.[66] 22 percent of these bills were originally sponsored by Democrats.[63]
In 2010, Ryan was a member of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Bowles-Simpson Commission), which was tasked with developing a plan to reduce the federal deficit. He voted against the final report of the commission.[67]
In 2012, Ryan accused the nation's top military leaders of using "smoke and mirrors" to remain under budget limits passed by Congress.[68][69] Ryan later said that he misspoke on the issue and calledGeneral Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to apologize for his comments.[70]
As of mid-2012, Ryan had been on seven trips abroad as part of a congressional delegation.[71]
Committee assignments
Caucus memberships
- House Republican Caucus
- Caucus of House Conservatives Republican Study Committee[72]
- International Conservation Caucus
- Middle East Economic Partnership Caucus
- Sportsmen's Caucus (Co-Chair)
Constituent services
In fiscal year 2008, Ryan garnered $5.4 million in congressional earmarks for his constituency, including $3.28 million for bus service in Wisconsin, $1.38 million for the Ice Age Trail, and $735,000 for the Janesville transit system.[73] In 2009, he successfully advocated with the Department of Energy for stimulus funds for energy initiatives in his district.[73] Other home district projects he has supported include a runway extension at the Rock County Airport, an environmental study of the Kenosha Harbor, firefighting equipment for Janesville, road projects in Wisconsin, and commuter rail and streetcar projects in Kenosha.[74] In 2008, Ryan pledged to stop seeking earmarks.[74] Prior to that he had sought earmarks less often than other representatives.[74] Taxpayers for Common Sense records show no earmarks supported by Ryan for fiscal years 2009 and 2010.[73] In 2012 Ryan supported a request for $3.8 million from theDepartment of Transportation for a new transit center in Janesville,[74] which city officials received in July.[75]
Ryan was an active member of a task force established by Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle that tried unsuccessfully to persuade GM to keep its assembly plant in Janesville open.[76] He made personal contact with GM executives to try to convince them to save or retool the plant, offering GM hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded incentives.[76]
Following the closing of factories in Janesville and Kenosha, constituents expressed dissatisfaction with his votes and support.[77] During the 2011 Congressional summer break, Ryan held town hall meetings by telephone with constituents, but no free, in-person listening sessions. The only public meetings Ryan attended in his district required an admission fee of at least $15.[78][79] In August, 2011, constituents in Kenosha and Racine protested when Ryan would not meet with them about economic and employment issues, after weeks of emailed requests from them.[77][78][80] Ryan's Kenosha office locked its doors and filed a complaint with the police, who told the protesters that they were not allowed in Ryan's office.[77][78][80] Ryan maintains a mobile office to serve constituents in outlying areas.[81]
Political positions
In the 111th Congress, Ryan sided with a majority of his party in 93% of House votes in which he has participated, and sided with the overall majority vote of all House votes 95% of the time.[82]
Ryan has a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 91/100.[83] The 2011 National Journal Vote Ratings rated Paul Ryan 68.2 on the conservative scale, being more conservative than 68% of the full House, and ranked as the 150th most conservative member based on roll-call votes.[84]
Fiscal, education, and health care policy
Ryan voted for the two Bush tax cuts (in 2001 and 2003),[85] the 2003 bill that created the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit,[86][87] and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the $700 billion bank bailout.[88][89] Ryan was one of 32 Republicans in the House to vote for the auto industry bailout.[90][91][92] A number of commentators have criticized Ryan's votes for what they believe were deficit-causing policies during the George W. Bush administration as being inconsistent with fiscal conservatism.[88][93][94][95] In 2011 President Barack Obama criticized Ryan as being "not on the level" for describing himself as a fiscal conservative while voting for these policies, as well as two "unpaid for" wars.[96] Columnist Ezra Klein wrote in 2012 that "If you know about Paul Ryan at all, you probably know him as a deficit hawk. But Ryan has voted to increase deficits and expand government spending too many times for that to be his north star."[97]
Obama initially viewed Ryan as a Republican who could help to reduce the federal deficit. Speaking of Ryan's budget proposal, Obama called it a "serious proposal" and found both points of agreement and disagreement, saying "some ideas in there that I would agree with, but there are some ideas that we should have a healthy debate about because I don't agree with them."[98]
In 1999, Ryan voted in favor of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed certain provisions of the Depression-era Glass–Steagall Act that regulated banking.[99] Ryan sponsored a 2008 bill that would repeal the requirement that theFederal Reserve System reduce unemployment.[62] Ryan voted to extend unemployment insurance in 2002, 2008 and 2009, but has voted against further extensions since then.[100] Ryan voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.[101] Ryan also voted against the Credit CARD Act of 2009 and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which Ryan characterized as "class warfare".[102]
Ryan voted against the 2010 health care reform act supported by Obama and congressional Democrats in 2010,[87][103] and to repeal it in 2012.[104][105]
In 2004 and 2005, Ryan pushed the Bush administration to propose the privatization of Social Security. Ryan's proposal ultimately failed when it did not gain the support of the then-Republican presidential administration.[19]
Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute notes that on "'education, training, employment, and social services,' the Ryan budget would spend 33% less" than Obama's budget plan over the next decade.[106] In particular, the Ryan plan tightens eligibility requirements for Pell Grants and freezes the maximum Pell Grant award at the current level. According to an analysis by the Education Trust, this would result in more than 1 million students losing Pell Grants over the next 10 years. Additionally, under Ryan's plan, student loans would begin to accrue interest while students are still in school.[107][108][109] Ryan states that his education policy is to "allocate our limited financial resources effectively and efficiently to improve education".[110] Jordan Weissmann of The Atlantic said that Ryan's vision on education policy is to "cut and privatize".[109]
Ryan voted for the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.[111] Ryan is a supporter of for-profit colleges and opposed the gainful employment rule, which would have ensured that vocational schools whose students were unable to obtain employment would stop receiving federal aid.[109] Ryan is a supporter of private school vouchers and voted to extend the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program in 2011.[109] The National Education Association teachers' union has criticized Ryan's positions on education.[111][vague]
Ryan has consistently supported giving the president line-item veto power.[62]
In the fall of 2013 Ryan suggested using discussions regarding raising the federal debt ceiling as "leverage" to reduce federal spending.[112][113]
Budget proposals
Main articles: The Path to Prosperity , U.S. House Fiscal Year 2014 Budget (H. Con. Res. 25; 113th Congress) , and Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013
On May 21, 2008, Ryan introduced H.R. 6110, the Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2008, commonly referred to as the "Ryan budget".[114] This proposed legislation outlined changes toentitlement spending, including a controversial proposal to replace Medicare with a voucher program for those currently under the age of 55.[19][115][116] The Roadmap found only eight sponsors and did not move past committee.[19][117]
On April 1, 2009, Ryan introduced his alternative to the 2010 United States federal budget. This alternative budget would have eliminated the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009and imposed a five-year spending freeze on all discretionary spending.[118][119] It would have also phased out Medicare's traditional fee-for-service model; instead it would offer fixed sums in the form of vouchers for those under the age of 55, with which Medicare beneficiaries could buy private insurance.[120] Ryan's proposed budget would also have allowed taxpayers to opt out of the federal income taxation system with itemized deductions, and instead pay a flat 10 percent of adjusted gross income up to $100,000 for couples ($50,000 for singles) and 25 percent on any remaining income.[119] It was ultimately rejected in the Democrat-controlled House by a vote of 293–137, with 38 Republicans in opposition.[121]
On January 27, 2010, Ryan released a modified version of his Roadmap, H.R. 4529: Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2010.[122][123] The modified plan would provide across-the-board tax cuts by reducing income tax rates; eliminate income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolish the estate tax, and Alternative Minimum Tax. The plan would also replace the corporate income tax with a border-adjusted business consumption tax of 8.5%.[124] The plan would privatize a portion of Social Security,[125][126] eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance,[126] and privatize Medicare for those under the age of 55.[125][126] Chief actuary of Medicare Rick Foster compared Ryan's "Roadmap" with the 2010 healthcare reform in congressional hearings, stating that while both had "some potential" to make healthcare prices "more sustainable", he was more "confident" in Ryan's plan.[127]
Economist and columnist Paul Krugman criticized Ryan's plan as making overly optimistic assumptions and proposing tax cuts for the wealthy.[128] Krugman further called the plan a "fraud" saying it relies on severe cuts in domestic discretionary spending and "dismantling Medicare as we know it" by suggesting the voucher system, which he noted was similar to a failed attempt at reform in 1995.[128] In contrast, columnist Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in the National Review, argued that Ryan's plan would lead to less debt than current budgets.[129] Economist Ted Gayer wrote that "Ryan's vision of broad-based tax reform, which essentially would shift us toward a consumption tax... makes a useful contribution to this debate."[130]
In subsequent years, Ryan also developed budget plans that proposed privatizing Medicare for those currently under the age of 55,[131] funding Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through block grants to the states,[19][132][133] and other changes.
On April 11, 2011, Ryan introduced H.Con.Res. 34, a federal budget for fiscal year 2012.[134] The House passed this Ryan Plan on April 15, 2011, by a vote of 235–193. Four Republicans joined all House Democrats in voting against it.[135][136] A month later, the bill was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 57–40, with five Republicans and most Democrats in opposition.[137]
On March 23, 2012 Ryan introduced a new version of his federal budget for the fiscal year 2013.[138] On March 29, 2012, the House of Representatives passed the resolution along partisan lines, 228 yeas to 191 nays; ten Republicans voted against the bill, along with all the House Democrats.[139] Ryan's budget seeks to reduce all discretionary spending in the budget from 12.5% of GDP in 2011 to 3.75% of GDP in 2050.[140]
Ryan has proposed that Medicaid be converted into block grants but with the federal government's share of the cost cut by some $800 billion over the next decade. Currently, Medicaid is administered by the states, subject to federal rules concerning eligibility, and the amount paid by the federal government depends on the number of people who qualify. His plan would also undo a Reagan-era reform by which the federal government prohibited the states from requiring that a patient's spouse, as well as the patient, deplete all of his or her assets before Medicaid would cover long-term care.[19][132][133][141]
An analysis by the CBO showed that the Ryan plan would not balance the budget for at least 28 years, partly because the changes in Medicare would not affect anyone now older than 55.[142]Former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, praised the budget for making tough choices. Walker believes it needs to go even further, tackling Social Security and defense spending.[143] In contrast, David Stockman, Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, has declared that Ryan's budget "is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices" and would "do nothing to reverse the nation's economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse".[144]Ezra Klein also criticized the budget for making "unrealistic assumptions".[140] The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was highly critical of Ryan's budget proposal, stating that it would shift income to the wealthy while increasing poverty and inequality.[145]
Parts of the 2012 Ryan budget were criticized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for its proposed cuts to housing and food stamp programs.[146][147] Faculty and administrators of Georgetown University challenged what they called Ryan's "continuing misuse of Catholic teaching" when defending his plan,[148][149] but Ryan rejected their criticism.[150]
In March 2013, Ryan submitted a new budget plan for Fiscal Year 2014 to the House. It would set to balance the budget by 2023 by repealing Obama's PPACA and institute federal vouchers into Medicare. [151] Ryan has cited health care, education and food safety as examples of "runaway" federal spending.[152] This budget, House Concurrent Resolution 25, was voted on by the House on March 21, 2013 and it passed 221-207.[153]
On December 10, 2013, Ryan announced that he and Democratic Senator Patty Murray had reached a compromise agreement on a two-year, bipartisan budget bill, called the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. The deal would cap the federal government's spending for Fiscal Year 2014 at $1.012 trillion and for Fiscal Year 2015 at $1.014.[154] The proposed deal would eliminate some of the spending cuts required by the sequester ($45 billion of the cuts scheduled to happen in January 2014 and $18 billion of the cuts scheduled to happen in 2015).[154] The deal offsets the spending increases by raising airline fees and changing the pension contribution requirements of new federal workers.[6] Overall the fee increases and spending reductions total about $85 billion over a decade.[155] Ryan said that he was "proud" of the agreement because "it reduces the deficit - without raising taxes."[156]
Some conservative Republicans objected to Ryan's budget proposal. Republican Raul Labrador criticized the "terrible plan," saying that "it makes promises to the American people that are false. Today the Democrats realized they were right all along, that we would never hold the line on the sequester." Other conservatives were more positive: “It achieves most of the things we would like to see when we have divided government,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.).[6]
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