36 Facts About Paul Ryan

1. Paul Ryan married Janna Christine Little, a tax attorney, in December 2000.

2. In 2009, Paul 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.

3. Paul Ryan required staffers and interns in his congressional office to read Rand and gave copies of her novel Atlas Shrugged as gifts to his staff for Christmas.

4. Paul Ryan supports tax incentives for the petroleum industry and opposes them for renewable energy.

5. Paul Ryan supports school vouchers, and supported the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 and its repeal the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015.

6. In 2012, Paul Ryan supported civil unions and opposed same-sex marriage.

7. Paul Ryan opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which provides that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new paycheck affected by that discriminatory action.

8. In 2012, The New York Times said Paul Ryan was "his party's most forceful spokesman for cutting entitlement spending.

9. Paul Ryan supported the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit and opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as "Obamacare.

10. Paul Ryan supports block granting Medicaid to the states and the privatization of social security and Medicare.

11. Paul Ryan supports deregulation, including the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999, which repealed some financial regulation of banks from the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933.

12. In 2012, Paul Ryan voted against the Simpson-Bowles commission proposal to reduce the deficit, because the proposal raised taxes and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

13. On October 11, 2012, Paul Ryan debated his Democratic counterpart, incumbent Vice President Joe Biden, in the only vice presidential debate of the 2012 election cycle.

14. Paul Ryan formally accepted his nomination at the 2012 Republican National Convention on August 29, 2012.

15. Paul Ryan is the first individual from Wisconsin as well as the first member of Generation X to run on a major party's national ticket.

16. Paul Ryan maintains a mobile office to serve constituents in outlying areas.

17. The only public meetings Paul Ryan attended in his district required an admission fee of at least $15.

18. Paul Ryan 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.

19. Paul Ryan was an active member of a task force established by Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle that tried unsuccessfully to persuade General Motors to keep its assembly plant in Janesville open.

20. In 2012, Paul Ryan supported a request for $3.8 million from the Department of Transportation for a new transit center in Janesville, which city officials received in July.

21. Paul Ryan said that legislation to protect Mueller's investigation was not "necessary".

22. Paul Ryan supported Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, and did not support legislation to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

23. Paul Ryan provided political cover for Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who many characterized as a source of the dysfunction in the committee as it investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.

24. Paul Ryan urged Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional oversight committees to "do their jobs so that we can get to the bottom of all of this.

25. Paul Ryan is the youngest Speaker since James G Blaine in 1875.

26. Paul Ryan released a statement that said, "While I am grateful for the encouragement I've received, I will not be a candidate.

27. Paul Ryan voted against the final report of the commission.

28. Paul Ryan became the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee in 2007, then chairman in 2011 after Republicans took control of the House.

29. Paul Ryan was reelected with 55 percent of his district's vote and 44 percent of the vote in his hometown, Janesville.

30. In 2012, under Wisconsin election law, Paul Ryan was allowed to run concurrently for vice president and for Congress and was not allowed to remove his name from the Congressional ballot after being nominated for the vice presidency.

31. Paul Ryan defeated Democratic challenger Jeffrey C Thomas in the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections.

32. Paul Ryan was a member of the Delta Tau Delta social fraternity.

33. Paul Ryan was a member of the College Republicans, and volunteered for the congressional campaign of John Boehner.

34. Paul Ryan has a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he became interested in the writings of Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman.

35. Paul Ryan participated in several academic and social clubs including the Model United Nations.

36. Paul Ryan was the 2012 vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party, running alongside Mitt Romney.