Paul Ryan spent five years working for Congress in Washington, DC Paul Ryan became a speechwriter and returned to Wisconsin in 1997 to work at his family's construction company.
71 Facts About Paul Ryan
2.
Paul Ryan was elected to Congress to represent the following year, replacing a Republican Congressman who left and ran for US Senate.
3.
Paul Ryan chaired the House Budget Committee from 2011 to 2015 and briefly chaired the House Ways and Means Committee in 2015 prior to being elected Speaker of the House in October 2015 following John Boehner's retirement.
4.
Paul Ryan declined to run for re-election in the 2018 midterm elections.
5.
Paul Ryan's father was of Irish ancestry and his mother of German and English descent.
6.
In 2018, while filming a segment for the PBS series Finding Your Roots, Paul Ryan learned that his DNA results included 3 percent Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.
7.
Paul Ryan was on his high school's ski, track, and varsity soccer teams and played basketball in a Catholic recreational league.
8.
Paul Ryan participated in several academic and social clubs including the Model United Nations.
9.
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.
10.
Paul Ryan often visited the office of libertarian professor Richard Hart to discuss the theories of these economists and of Ayn Rand.
11.
Paul Ryan was a member of the College Republicans, and volunteered for the congressional campaign of John Boehner.
12.
Paul Ryan was a member of the Delta Tau Delta social fraternity.
13.
Betty Paul Ryan reportedly urged her son to accept a congressional position as a legislative aide in Senator Kasten's office, which he did after graduating in 1992.
14.
Paul Ryan later worked as a speechwriter for Kemp, the Republican vice presidential candidate in the 1996 United States presidential election.
15.
In 1995, Paul Ryan became the legislative director for then-US Congressman Sam Brownback of Kansas.
16.
In 1997 he returned to Wisconsin and worked for a year as a marketing consultant for the construction company Paul Ryan Incorporated Central, owned by his relatives.
17.
Paul Ryan was first elected to the House in 1998, winning the 1st District seat of Republican Mark Neumann, a two-term incumbent who had vacated his seat to make an unsuccessful bid for the US Senate.
18.
Paul Ryan defeated Democratic challenger Jeffrey C Thomas in the 2000,2002,2004, and 2006 elections.
19.
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.
20.
Paul Ryan was reelected with 55 percent of his district's vote and 44 percent of the vote in his hometown, Janesville.
21.
Paul Ryan became the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee in 2007 and became chairman of the committee in 2011 after Republicans took control of the House.
22.
In 2010, Paul Ryan was a member of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which was tasked with developing a plan to reduce the federal deficit.
23.
Paul Ryan voted against the final report of the commission.
24.
In 2012, Paul Ryan accused the nation's top military leaders of using "smoke and mirrors" to remain under budget limits passed by Congress.
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Paul Ryan later said that he misspoke on the issue and called General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to apologize for his comments.
26.
Dan Balz of The Washington Post wrote that Paul Ryan was promoted as a candidate for vice president "by major elements of the conservative opinion makers, including The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Weekly Standard and the editor of National Review".
27.
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.
28.
Paul Ryan formally accepted his nomination at the 2012 Republican National Convention on August 29,2012.
29.
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.
30.
Romney and Paul Ryan lost the 2012 presidential election, but Paul Ryan retained his seat in the House of Representatives.
31.
Paul Ryan became the leader of the House Republicans upon becoming Speaker.
32.
Nevertheless, Paul Ryan continued to endorse Trump, believing that more Republican policies will be enacted under Donald Trump than presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
33.
In October 2016, following the Donald Trump Access Hollywood controversy, Paul Ryan disinvited Trump from a scheduled campaign rally, and announced that he would no longer defend or support Trump's presidential campaign but would focus instead on Congressional races.
34.
Two months after the 2016 elections, Paul Ryan was re-elected Speaker of the House on January 3,2017, the opening day of the 115th Congress.
35.
Paul Ryan received 239 votes to House Democratic Leader Pelosi's 189 votes.
36.
On February 7,2017, Paul Ryan told reporters a replacement for the Affordable Care Act would be introduced "this year" amid speculation Donald Trump would not act toward doing so until the following year.
37.
In May 2017, Paul Ryan said Congress' goal was "calendared 2017 for tax reform" and reported progress was being made in doing so.
38.
In June 2017, Paul Ryan expressed support for strong sanctions on Russia in response to Russian interference in the 2016 elections and its annexation of the Crimea, saying that Russia's actions were "unacceptable".
39.
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.
40.
The House Intelligence Committee was one of few so-called "select" committees in Congress, which meant that it was up to Paul Ryan to decide the chairman of the committee.
41.
Paul Ryan said that legislation to protect Mueller's investigation was not "necessary".
42.
In May 2018, Paul Ryan led the House in passing the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, which partially repealed the Dodd-Frank Act.
43.
In fiscal year 2008, Paul Ryan garnered $5.4 million in congressional earmarks, including $3.28 million for bus service in Wisconsin, $1.38 million for the Ice Age Trail, and $735,000 for the Janesville transit system.
44.
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.
45.
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.
46.
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.
47.
The only public meetings Paul Ryan attended in his district required an admission fee of at least $15.
48.
Paul Ryan maintained a mobile office to serve constituents in outlying areas.
49.
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.
50.
Paul Ryan subscribed to supply-side economics and supported tax cuts including eliminating the capital gains tax, the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the Alternative Minimum Tax.
51.
In 2018 as House Speaker, Paul Ryan helped pass the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act that repealed large parts of Dodd-Frank.
52.
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.
53.
In 2012, Paul Ryan supported civil unions and opposed same-sex marriage.
54.
Paul Ryan supported school vouchers, and supported the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 and its repeal the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015.
55.
Paul Ryan is unsure, and believes climate scientists are unsure, of the impact of human activity on climate change.
56.
Paul Ryan supported tax incentives for the petroleum industry and opposed them for renewable energy.
57.
Paul Ryan condemned Barack Obama's decision not to block a UN resolution criticizing Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories as "absolutely shameful".
58.
Paul Ryan supported President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
59.
Paul Ryan supported US involvement in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and used his power to block a House vote on the war in Yemen.
60.
At a 2005 Washington, DC, gathering celebrating the 100th anniversary of Ayn Rand's birth, Paul Ryan credited Rand with having inspired him to get involved in politics.
61.
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.
62.
Paul Ryan called the reports of his adherence to Rand's views an "urban legend" and stated that he was instead deeply influenced by his Catholic faith and by Thomas Aquinas.
63.
In March 2019, Paul Ryan joined the board of directors of Fox Corporation, the owner of Fox News Channel and the Fox broadcast network.
64.
In October 2019, Paul Ryan launched a non-profit called American Idea Foundation.
65.
In October 2020, Paul Ryan joined the public relations and advisory company Teneo as a senior advisor.
66.
On May 17,2023, Paul Ryan unveiled his official portrait at the US Capitol during a ceremony in Statuary Hall.
67.
In December 2000, Paul Ryan married Janna Christine Little who is a tax attorney.
68.
Janna Paul Ryan is a native of Madill, Oklahoma and a graduate of both Wellesley College and George Washington University Law School.
69.
Paul Ryan is a member of St John Vianney Catholic Church in Janesville.
70.
Paul Ryan is a granddaughter of Reuel Little, who helped found the American Party to support the 1968 presidential campaign of George Wallace.
71.
Paul Ryan has always been a fitness enthusiast and was a personal trainer after graduating from college.