Name at birth: Paul Davis Ryan, Jr.
Paul Ryan is the Republican Congressman from Wisconsin whom Mitt Romney picked as his running mate in the U.S. presidential elections of 2012. 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 built 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, 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 11 August 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney announced that he was picking Paul Ryan as his running mate. The two men lost to incumbents Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the national general election on November 6, 2012.
Paul Ryan married the former Janna Little in December 2000. They have a daughter, Elizabeth (born 2002) and sons Samuel (born 2004) and Charles.
