Paul Ryan Biography

Paul Davis Ryan Born January 29, 1970 and raised in the community of Janesville and is a fifth-generation Wisconsin native. Paul is a graduate of Joseph A. Craig High School in Janesville.

Paul is the the youngest of four children of Paul M. Ryan, a lawyer (deceased) and Betty Ryan, they put the kids on an incentive system for allowances -- if they got a B on their report cards, their allowance was cut from $4 to $2, and a C meant no allowance.

At 16, he discovered his father dead of a heart attack,  Ryan's father, grandfather and great-grandfather all died from heart attacks at ages 55, 57 and 59 respectively, which inspired his later interest in health and exercise. Paul had to inform his mother and older siblings. His sister is nine years older and two brothers eight and five years his senior. “It threw me for a loop for a couple of years.” Ryan recalls, “I did a lot of soul-searching. A lot of self-discovery. I started forming my beliefs.” His older brother Tobin, a private equity executive, says that one of Paul's chores was brushing and braiding the hair of their grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer's.

Paul Ryan developed his political philosophy reading the works of free market authors including Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek, and Ayn Rand. "The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

He worked as a marketing consultant for his family's construction business before being elected to Congress. Ryan Incorporated Central began as an earthmoving business created by his great-grandfather in 1884. Ryan Inc. Central, his cousins’ excavating company, is a union shop, Ryan worked there in high school and later briefly as a marketing consultant while running for office. “I grew up in organized labor,” he says. “I have a lot of constituents who are in organized labor. I really do not have this ‘us against them’ mentality.” “He’s an amazing politician,” says John Drew, former president of United Auto Workers Local 72 in Kenosha and now a UAW staff member. “If I called Paul Ryan when I was president of the local, within two hours I would get a personal phone call back. He showed up at my going-away party from Local 72 – on a Saturday night he drove across the district just to see me.

Using the Social Security survivors benefits he received until his 18th birthday, he paid for his education. His grandfather and an uncle were cardiologists, and he went to Miami planning to become a doctor, until the required physics and chemistry courses turned him off. While at school Ryan won a summer internship beginning in 1992 in Wisconsin Sen. Robert Kasten’s office.

Paul Ryan offical Photo (archive) Paul Ryan offical Photo (2012)

Ryan turned his focus to economics. and earned a degree in economics and political science from Miami University in Ohio in 1992 and is a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. After graduating Ryan worked as a speechwriter for Jack Kemp and William Bennett at the think tank Empower America (a predecessor to FreedomWorks) and served as a legislative aide to Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas from 1995 to 1997. Fifteen years ago, Paul Ryan was moonlighting as a waiter at a Mexican restaurant on Capitol Hill. Ryan won his congressional seat in 1998 After Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006, Ryan became the ranking minority member of the House Budget Committee, he introduced his first version of the "Roadmap" in May of 2008, which formed the basis for his updated proposal released this year. His website Americanroadmap.org outlines his plans to rewrite the entire federal tax, healthcare and Social Security system. Currently serving his 7th term as a Member of Congress for the 1st Congressional District including Racine and Kenosha Counties and some of Milwaukee’s southern suburbs. He is now the Chairman of the House Budget Committee. He is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax policy, Social Security, health care and trade laws. On his his support for federal legislation banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, Ryan says, "I take lot of crap for that vote" from conservatives, says Ryan, who doesn't consider himself a strict libertarian but says his views lean that way on this issue. "The way I see that  . . .  may be informed by just friendships I've had, people I grew up with in Janesville who didn't choose to be gay. It wasn't an orientation they decided to experiment (with) or choose. It's just who they are. They were just created that way."

Paul Ryan on Jobs Paul Ryan with wife Janna, Sam, Liza & Charlie 2008 Janna Little Ryan

On Social Security "If we actually accomplish this goal of personalizing Social Security, think of what we will accomplish. Every worker, every laborer in America will not only be a laborer but a capitalist. They will be an owner of society.  . . .  That's that many more people in America who are not going to listen to the likes of Dick Gephardt and Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, the collectivist, class-warfare-breathing demagogues," said Ryan. Paul and his wife Janna (Janna Little Ryan) live in Janesville with their children, Elizabeth, and two sons, Charles and Samuel. A Catholic He is a member of St. John Vianney’s Parish. Mrs. Ryan, was a Washington tax attorney living in Arlington, Va., when she met him. The Oklahoma native graduated from Wellesley College and George Washington University Law School. Janna worked as an aide to a conservative Oklahoma Democrat in Congress and is the niece of David Boren, a veteran Democrat who served in the Senate and as governor. Paul spotted her in camouflage at a dinner for the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, which bird-dogs legislation affecting hunters’ rights. In April 2000, Ryan asked Janna to marry him at Big St. Germain Lake in northern Wisconsin, one of his favorite fishing spots. The couple was married in Oklahoma City in December 2000. Ryan can manage long weekends in the district, dinner at home at least twice a week, with time for "my real passion," bowhunting. His former House colleague Mark Green says he has gotten e-mails from Ryan while the congressman was sitting in his tree stand, with BlackBerry, waiting for a deer. He belongs to his hometown's archery association, the Janesville Bowmen as well as Ducks Unlimited. In Washington during the week, he leads about a dozen congressmen, including former football player Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), through a workout called P90X, a bipartisan series of pushups, pull-ups, karate, and yoga. On August 11, 2012, Ryan accepted Mitt Romney's invitation to join his campaign as running mate, in front of the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia.

TEXT RESOURCES:

• Ryan draws inspiration from family, mentors
• Biography of Congressman Paul Ryan
• The Man With the Plan The American Spectator
• Obama's new adversary
• Ryan shines as GOP seeks vision - JSOnline
• 10 Things You Didn't Know About Paul Ryan
• Why He Matters - WhoRunsGov
• That Hair, Those Eyes, That Plan
• Paul Ryan From Wikipedia
• The most influential US conservatives: 20-1
• Project Vote Smart - Representative Paul D. Ryan

IMAGE CREDIT:

• Paul Ryan offical Photos - These United States Congress images are in the public domain. This may be because it is an official Congressional portrait, because it was taken by an official employee of the Congress, or because it has been released into the public domain and posted on the official websites of a member of Congress. As  works of the U.S. federal government, these images are in the public domain.
• ryanforcongress08, Paul Ryan with wife Janna, Sam, Liza & Charlie 2008
• foxnews.com/ - Janna Little Ryan

VIDEO CREDIT:

• ryanforcongress.com Paul Ryan on Jobs