Paul Ryan

He's only been in Washington since January, but Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is the subject of rampant speculation that he will be a presidential candidate in 2016, particularly after his recent visit to the early-primary state of South Carolina. But complicating the calculus is that Cruz, 42, was born in Canada, raising questions about whether he is even eligible to seek the presidency. Cruz spoke at a state Republican fundraiser Friday and was warmly received by top donors and activists as he railed against the Obama...

He's only been in Washington since January, but Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is the subject of rampant speculation that he will be a presidential candidate in 2016, particularly after his recent visit to the early-primary state of South Carolina. But complicating the calculus is that Cruz, 42, was born in Canada, raising questions about whether he is even eligible to seek the presidency. Cruz spoke at a state Republican fundraiser Friday and was warmly received by top donors and activists as he railed against the Obama...

THE BACKLASH has begun against immigration reform, specifically the provision that would legalize the status of 11 million undocumented immigrants and ultimately give these people a shot at citizenship. Led by conservative Republicans and whipped into a froth by right-wing radio talk-show hosts, opponents of reform are banking on derailing the measure with a strategy of delay and dismemberment. The focus of these efforts is the House, where many Republican backbenchers remain unsold on immigration reform despite the...

THE BACKLASH has begun against immigration reform, specifically the provision that would legalize the status of 11 million undocumented immigrants and ultimately give these people a shot at citizenship. Led by conservative Republicans and whipped into a froth by right-wing radio talk-show hosts, opponents of reform are banking on derailing the measure with a strategy of delay and dismemberment. The focus of these efforts is the House, where many Republican backbenchers remain unsold on immigration reform despite the...

When Todd Akin sneezes, Paul Ryan catches a cold. The Republicans' soon-to-be nominee for vice president is supposed to be delivering a message about jobs and the economy, but he's finding he cannot escape his longtime House colleague, now a national pariah for his exotic views on rape. "His statements were outrageous, over the pale. I don't know anybody who would agree with that. Rape is rape, period, end of story," Ryan told Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV in the first in a series of local TV interviews.

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is Capitol Hill's ultimate self-made man. He began as a 19-year-old intern delivering congressional mail and propelled himself upward with a mastery of wonky detail and a talent for cultivating powerful mentors. Ryan is now a seven-term congressman, a committee chairman and the chief architect of GOP ideas on Medicare, the budget and the national debt. Ryan's big ideas bear the stamp of his own story: They stress independence and self-reliance, the qualities that took...

"This is not a budget," Paul Ryan said as he introduced the Republicans' 10-year budget plan . "This is a cause. " Truer words have never been spoken. The document released by the chairman of the House Budget Committee isn't a serious budget proposal because it fails at the central mission of ending the deficit and taming the debt. Without question, Ryan makes some severe cuts: Taking hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, ending the Medicare entitlement, and slashing planned spending on...

A word of advice: If you're announcing the most radical and reactionary Republican ticket in half a century, don't do it on a ship named for the birthplace of progressivism , to Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man. " But that is precisely the kind of audacity congressman-turned-vice presidential-nominee Paul Ryan brings to the flailing Romney campaign. Courage! Vision! And that hair! (Within minutes of the announcement, @VPRyansCowlick boasted dozens of follicle-fixated followers.)

The Maryland Republican Party has landed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as the featured speaker at an annual fund-raising dinner in June, the party announced Monday. Ryan, the chairman of the House budget committee and the GOP's vice presidential candidate last year, is booked for the June 20 Red, White and Blue Dinner. The location has yet to be announced. "It will be refreshing to hear from a reformer who can help Maryland Republicans before the 2014 elections," Diana Waterman, chairwoman of the state GOP, said in a...

Rep. Paul Ryan will not run for Senate next year. "Our nation is quickly approaching a debt crisis that will do serious damage to Wisconsinites and all Americans if it is not properly addressed," the Wisconsin Republican said Tuesday. "I believe continuing to serve as chairman of the House Budget Committee allows me to have a greater impact in averting this debt-fueled economic crisis than if I were to run for the United States Senate. " Ryan's name immediately came up in discussions about the seat being vacated by Sen....

The austerity claque got it wrong. And the harsh bill is being paid by millions of Americans and millions more in Europe in jobs lost, homes foreclosed, families split apart, hopes crushed. They can't repay the costs of their folly. We don't really need an apology. But could they at least get out of the way so we could get on with the jobs programs that we should have undertaken years ago? Austerity has been tried and found wanting in practice. Instead of expansion and growth, Europe has been driven back into recession.

THE LAST WEEK has been rough for Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, too. The Harvard economists, celebrated for their work on financial crises, stand accused of analytical errors — the correction of which debunks their famous 2010 finding that a national debt-to-gross domestic product ratio above 90 percent may substantially retard economic growth. The Rogoff-Reinhart goof was no harmless error, the critics charge, but the intellectual trigger for spending cuts and...

House Republicans have no plans to appoint a conference committee to hammer out a budget deal with Senate Democrats, Rep. Paul Ryan said Tuesday, arguing that the move is pointless unless private talks bring the two sides closer to agreement. "What we want to do is have constructive dialogues to find out where the common ground is and then go to conference when we have a realistic chance of actually coming out with an agreement," said Ryan (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Budget...

The Maryland Republican Party has landed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as the featured speaker at an annual fund-raising dinner in June, the party announced Monday. Ryan, the chairman of the House budget committee and the GOP's vice presidential candidate last year, is booked for the June 20 Red, White and Blue Dinner. The location has yet to be announced. "It will be refreshing to hear from a reformer who can help Maryland Republicans before the 2014 elections," Diana Waterman, chairwoman of the state GOP, said in a...

Sen. Mark Warner holds a wide lead over Gov. Robert McDonnell in a hypothetical 2014 Senate matchup, while the Virginia gubernatorial race remains a dead heat, a new poll shows. A survey from the University of Mary Washington's Center for Leadership and Media Studies gives Warner (D) a 16-point lead — 51 percent to 35 percent — over McDonnell (R) among Virginia adults. (Unlike many polls, the survey did not narrow its sample to include only registered or likely voters.) Warner has an...

For a brief moment there during the House vote Thursday morning on the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan , it seemed that the GOP plan — generally reviled by Democrats — had attracted a tiny bit of support from across the aisle. Make that one lonely "yes" vote. On the budget that Democratic leaders have called a Medicare-slashing, Big Oil-subsidizing horror show? That was a surprise. Alas, for Republicans who no doubt would have liked to call their plan "bipartisan," the sole Dem vote disappeared from...

Jena McGregor is a columnist for the Washington Post's On Leadership section. As Thursday night's lone vice presidential debate approaches, both Joe Biden and Paul Ryan are busy prepping for what some are hailing as a vice presidential debate that could really matter , especially following President Obama's lackluster performance in his own showdown with Mitt Romney last week. Biden is apparently preparing by studying and watching videos of Ryan's interviews and speeches, as well as bookmarking passages in ...

There is something un-Christian about the Gospel According to Paul Ryan. So, at least, says Ryan's Catholic Church. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody this month, Ryan, the author of the House Republican budget endorsed by Mitt Romney, said his program was crafted "using my Catholic faith" as inspiration. But the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was not about to bless that claim. A week after Ryan's boast, the bishops sent letters to Congress saying that the Ryan budget,...

Mitt Romney made a wistful but triumphant return to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, receiving standing ovations from the audience as he expressed optimism about the Republican Party's future and vowed to work with conservatives to achieve "larger victories" after failing to win last year's presidential election. "Of course I left the race disappointed that I didn't win, but I also left honored and humbled to have represented the values we believe in," the 2012 GOP presidential...

Ronald Reagan ran the federal government at 22 percent of gross domestic product when the country's population was much younger and health care consumed about 11 percent of GDP. Put another way, Ronald Reagan ran the federal government at 22 percent of GDP when the country's population was much younger, and health care consumed about 11 percent of GDP. Did I mention that Ronald Reagan ran the federal government at 22 percent of GDP when the...