Paul Ryan Biography

Paul Ryan is the Republican Congressman from Wisconsin who was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015-2019.

Paul Ryan grew up in Wisconsin and attended Miami University in Ohio, graduating in 1992. After graduation he went straight into politics, working on the staffs of Sen. Bob Kasten of Wisconsin and Sam Brownback of Kansas and as a staff assistant for the conservative think tank Empower America.

Paul Ryan was elected to Congress from Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District in 1998, when he was 28. Over the next 12 years he worked to build a reputation as a firm social and budgetary conservative, getting top marks from anti-abortion groups and the National Rifle Association while winning reelection multiple times. When the GOP gained a majority in Congress after the elections of 2010, Paul Ryan became the Chairman of the House Budget Committee.

In 2011 he released “The Path to Prosperity,” a 2012 budget resolution that he said would end “uncontrolled government spending” and “crushing levels of taxes.” The plan proposed repealing the Affordable Health Care Act of 2010, turning Medicare into a private health insurance system, and lowering the taxes rates for top-earning individuals and corporations from 35 to 25%. That made him a hero to fiscal conservatives — so much so that on August 11, 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney announced that he was picking Paul Ryan as his running mate.  They two men lost to incumbents Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the national general election on November 6, 2012.

Paul Ryan was reelected to the House of Representatives that year, however, and in 2015 he was chosen by the Republican-led Congress to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House. At age 45, Ryan became the youngest Speaker of the House since 1869, according to The New York Times. After Republican President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, Ryan and the GOP succeeded in passing his long-desired tax cuts at the end of 2017.

Paul Ryan decided not to run for re-election in 2018. He retired from Congress when his term ended on January 3, 2019, and was replaced as Speaker of the House by Democrat Nanci Pelosi.