Paul Ryan, avid hunter
He's been the GOP's man with a budget plan. The fresh face of the Republican Party. The 42-year-old congressman from Wisconsin is taking on one of the biggest roles in town as Mitt Romney's running mate.
But who is Paul Ryan? We know he hearts Ayn Rand. Dick Cheney "worship(s) the ground" he walks on — yeah, that's a quote. But did you know he voted in favor of the auto bailout of GM and Chrysler and, in a totally unrelated nugget of trivia, used to drive the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile?
The Last Word took a closer into the Republican's personal and congressional background:
TAX HISTORY
- Federal financial disclosure forms show last year Ryan, 42, had assets of between $2.1 million and $7.8 million.
- Ryan paid state income tax of $14,150 in 2011, which, at the maximum state tax rate of 7.75 percent would equal taxable income of about $182,000. Members of Congress are paid $174,000 annually.
- Ryan's investments generated income of between $72,905 and $223,000 last year. Many of the investments are in trusts or partnerships managed by other family members, according to an email from Kevin Seifert, a Ryan spokesman. The investments include a partnership and several companies that lease "land and mineral rights to energy companies," Seifert said. Ryan valued investments in those companies at between $350,000 and $800,000. They provided the Ryans with income of between $40,000 and $130,000 last year.
EDUCATION
- Miami University in Ohio B.A. in 1992 - a double major in economics and political science.
- Also studied at the Washington Semester program at American University
- Ryan's father died when Paul was only 16. The Social Security survivors benefits he received until his 18th birthday helped pay for his college education.
FAMILY
- His great-grandfather Patrick William Ryan founded the Ryan Incorporated Central construction business in 1884.
- Ryan's grandfather was appointed U.S. Attorney for Western Wisconsin by President Calvin Coolidge.
- His father was an attorney
- Ryan’s mother Betty Ryan Douglas, 78-years-old, lives part time in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, a small beachside town in Broward County, Florida. A Republican, she has been registered to vote in Florida since 1997.
BEFORE BECOMING A CONGRESSMAN
- Staffer for Wisconsin Republican Sen. Bob Kasten while attending college and after he graduated college.
- During summers, he was a salesman for Oscar Mayer and once drove the company’s Wienermobile.
- In 1992, Ryan served as a volunteer on John Boehner's campaign, putting up yard signs.
- In his early days as a congressional staffer, Ryan moonlighted as a waiter and a fitness trainer.
- Speechwriter for Republican Rep. Jack Kemp of New York
- Then, analyst at think tank Empower America founded by Kemp and conservative pundit William Bennett.
- Legislative director for then-Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas.
- Returned to Wisconsin as a marketing consultant to his family’s business, Ryan Incorporated Central.
VOTING RECORD
- In 2003, Ryan voted in favor of the Medicare Part D prescription drug law.
- 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.
- In 2008, Ryan voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, as well as the bailout of GM and Chrysler.
- In May 2012, Ryan voted for H.R. 4310 which would increase defense spending, including spending for the Afghanistan War and for various weapon systems, to the level of $642 billion – $8 billion more than previous spending levels.
IMPACT OF WISCONSIN VOTING LAW ON HIS CANDIDACY
- Ryan will appear on the ballot as both a candidate for the House and for vice president. If the Romney-Ryan presidential ticket is not successful, but he wins his congressional race, Ryan can keep his seat. If the national ticket wins the White House and Ryan holds his House seat, a special election would be held to replace him in the House.
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Been a congressmen for 14 years and only two laws of his has passed. He is a career politician and really hasn't done anything except some radical budget plan to cut Medicare, social security, Medicaid and programs for the needy. Wow now that your wife has inherited 5 million, your children will never know hunger or go without, like so many Americans. Not every one has the opportunity to be so well off, due to nothing in this country will get done!!!!!!!
Is Ryan an atheist because he rejects the teaching of Jesus? Can you immagine Ryan as president of the United States? Was he born in the US?
Yo, Katie's Karate Mom!! How many of Obama's laws passed while he was a Senator from Illinois? Care to count them out for us all? And what did he do prior to being Senator? Please explain his qualifications to be our President. When you get some time, polish up on your grammar....loved your last sentence.
Obviously, well prepared, especially in legislative and budgetary matters, from his 7 terms as Congressman from what is described as a swing Congressional district of small city, surbaban and rural composition.
Seems you missed his being a senior leading member and now Chair of the House Budget Committee in your resume development, the only Committee that has successfully passed budget authorization bills in the past three years after the Presidents offered budgets met with unanimous opposition from Democrat and Republican legislators for its excessive borrow, tax, and deficit spending provisions. Too bad that Harry Reid and the Democrat flakey liberals in the do-nothing Senate wouldn't even allow the bi-partisan developed and passed House budgets to be taken up for debate and amendment process, or present budgets of their own to go to conferance committee.
And with the Senate flakey liberal Democrats balking against dealing with the issues of spending reductions and passing the extension of the all of the tax rates that have been in effect since 2001 and 2003 consecutively with the result of plunging us over the fiscal cliff of another breaching of the debt ceiling and another credit downgrade subsequebtly,
Good thing we will have this Paul Ryan in the House leadership for Nov and Dec, 2012 after the election, and still there, if not leading the battle as the winning ticket's and the nation's new Vice President in Jan, 2013.
Wow...Ryan's an Aristocrat who hunts, and exists so far up in his ivory tower that he can't clearly view the folks all the way down on the lower ground. The view down from the top of his tower is obscured by fog and cloudy green mist. The folks all the way down on the ground must appear as hazy grey mist to Rep. Ryan. Folks who only vaguely enter his sphere of vision and awareness, and his teeth just glisten, while he pumps his pecs., in his gold plated power gym, in his Ivory tower, in the sky, with deer heads on the walls. . His teeth just shimmer as he views his own reflection in the mirror of his Aristocracy. He also looks like a Mountie who just came out of a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon.
Nothing aristocratic in selling hot dogs (and sandwich meats) summers while in college, and being involved with the family contracting line of work, reveal. He looks pretty Joe Average to me, just seems he has a better mind than most of facts and figures, and a fire in his belly to do something to save his nation and fellow Americans from the spiral down that this Administration and the previous Administration has put us on for our fiscal state of debt, debt, and more debt....and the inattention to the necessary steps to take to spur an a recovery from this prolonged unnecessarily recession.
By the way...sounds to me like you have bad teeth, and are a little jealous of Mr. Ryan, hmmm? Take responsibility, and go get them fixed...you'll feel and look better for it. It's not up to the government to borrow money from China or confiscate it from the investor class of capitalists in America to pay your dental bills, fool!
Isn't it nap time or arts & crafts time at the Senior Center, old man?
You folks kind of exist in your own little fantasies. It's ok, you can imagine anything you like.
So it is a requirement of Republican VP candidates to be able to field dress cervidae?
Just in the last hour, our national debt went over $16,000,000,000,000 dollars (that's trillion folks, more than the accumulated assets of our nation). It official...we joined the PIG nations of soutnern Europe; Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain. And how quickly it happened, just 3 and 1/2 years from just over $10 Trillion at the end of all the other Presidential Administrations in our history, with all our majpr and minor wars. That is what conducing the nations business without a budget for the last three years will get you. And you have Obama and the Democrats in the Senate to thank for that;manipulative Harry Reid, that lying, crooked, real estate lawyer from Nevada in chief.
Social Security Survivor Benefits to Paul but he will work hard to make sure that kids like he was will have thee benefits under his proposed changes? How will he pay for them?
Barbara....would you disavow SS benefits to your son or daughter if you died when they were 16....especially since they would only get the benefits for 2 years until they were 18? Personally, I don't think Paul wanted those benefits at all, but had no choice, because Democrats had expanded the original intent of FDR's Social Security to include benefits to minors. I doubt these benefits paid for a dime of Paul's college expenses (unlike the story above claims), since they were likely small and expired at age 18, when most kids begin college.
Let's have a real discussion (before the election this November) about the future of the United States. Status quo with Obama (starting Year 6 of the Great Recession) or something different?
Speaking of Paul Ryan, I stumbled upon a BEAUTY of an article over on foxnews.com this morning entitled "Repubs should be careful what they wish for with Paul Ryan on the ticket". I couldn't believe THEY would write such a thing!
Here are the facts about Paul Ryan and the Romney-Ryan budget:
• The Romney-Ryan budget would turn Medicare into a private voucher system, which the Congressional Budget Office says would increase the cost to seniors by at least $5,900 by 2050.
• Ryan has long sought to privatize Social Security, handing the money over to the same Wall Street firms that crashed our economy in the first place. Incidentally, even George W. Bush thought Ryan's plan was too radical…
• The Romney-Ryan plan would actually kill over 4 million jobs in the next two years, including vital roles like police officers, firefighters and teachers who help our communities and whose spending helps private industry.
• The Romney-Ryan plan would also gut Pell Grants for students, food stamps for hungry families and Medicaid — in fact, 62% of the cuts in Ryan's budget come from programs that mostly help poor families in America.
• And the Romney-Ryan plan would raise taxes on 95% of Americans but give extra tax breaks to the already-rich.
• Oh yeah, and the Romney-Ryan plan actually INCREASES the deficit .
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