Paul Ryan

Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the vice presidential nominee in the 2012 election with Mitt Romney, but they lost to incumbent President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Ryan is a native of Janesville, Wisconsin, and graduated from Miami University in 1992. He spent five years working for Congress in Washington, D.C., becoming a speechwriter, then returned to Wisconsin in 1997 to work at his family's construction company. He was elected to Congress to represent Wisconsin's 1st congressional district the following year, replacing Mark Neumann, who had vacated the seat to run for U.S. Senate. Ryan went on to represent the district for 20 years. He chaired the House Budget Committee from 2011 to 2015, and briefly chaired the House Ways and Means Committee in 2015. A self-proclaimed deficit hawk, Ryan was a major proponent of Social Security privatization in the mid-2000s. During the 2010s, two proposals heavily influenced by Ryan—"The Path to Prosperity" and "A Better Way"—became part of the national dialogue advocating for the... ()