The political positions of Paul Ryan, the U.S. representative from Wisconsin's 1st congressional district from 1999 to 2019 and the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019, were generally conservative, with a focus on fiscal policy. Ryan was Chairman of the House Budget Committee from 2011 to 2015 and of Ways and Means in 2015. Ryan was the Republican nominee for Vice President as the running mate of Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.
Ryan supports eliminating the capital gains tax, the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the Alternative Minimum Tax. In 1999, Ryan supported the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed some financial regulation of banks from the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933. During the economic recovery from the Great Recession of the late 2000s, Ryan supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which authorized the Treasury to purchase toxic assets from banks and other financial institutions, and the auto industry bailout; Ryan opposed the Credit CARD Act of 2009, which expanded consumer protections regarding credit card plans, and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which strengthened financial regulation.
Ryan believes federal poverty reduction programs are ineffective and supports cuts to welfare, child care, Pell Grants, food stamps, and other federal assistance programs. Ryan supports block granting Medicaid to the states and the privatization of social security and Medicare. Ryan supported the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit and opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as "Obamacare." Ryan supported the American Health Care Act of 2017 (AHCA), the House Republican plan to repeal and replace the ACA, which passed the House on May 4, 2017.
Ryan opposes abortion rights. Ryan opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which bolstered women's rights to equal pay for equal work. Ryan supports same-sex adoption and civil unions, but opposes same-sex marriage. Ryan supports school vouchers, and supported the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 and its repeal in 2015. Ryan is unsure, and believes climate scientists are unsure, of the impact of human activity on climate change. Ryan supports tax incentives for the petroleum industry and opposes them for renewable energy. Ryan supports gun rights and opposes stricter gun control. Ryan supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Conservatism and partisanship
Ryan is "proudly, conservatively ideological" and "religiously conservative," according to The New York Times in 2012. In 2009, he was rated the 39th most conservative member of the House. The 2011 National Journal Vote Ratings rated him 68.2 on the conservative scale, being more conservative than 68% of the full House, and he ranked as the 150th most conservative member based on roll-call votes. Ryan has a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 91/100.
In the 111th Congress, Ryan has sided with a majority of Republicans in 93% of House votes in which he has participated, and has sided with the overall majority vote of all House votes 95% of the time. Ryan chaired the 2016 Republican National Convention. Asked on June 19, 2016, on Meet the Press about his support for Donald Trump, Ryan said "The last thing I want to see happen is another Democrat in the White House." He denied the characterization of his position by interviewer Chuck Todd as "party over country."
Fiscal policy
In 1995, as the top legislative aide for freshman representative Sam Brownback of Kansas, Ryan helped lead the policy team for a group of conservative freshman representatives who called themselves the New Federalists. The New Federalists advocated shrinking the federal government by eliminating federal government departments, spending cuts, and restructuring entitlement spending.
Ryan has an interest in political economics and has been a thought leader in Congress on issues of budget reform. He helped bring the issues of the national debt and the national deficit into the national policy debate. Ryan subscribes to supply-side economics. His positions on fiscal policy have included tax cuts, cuts to entitlement programs, freezes on discretionary spending, the elimination of automatic inflation increases in calculating budget baselines, deregulation, and the privatization of social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and education.
Budget proposals and budgetary process reform proposals
In his sixth term in 2008, Ryan began introducing budget proposals as a member of the House, distinct from his contributions to budget proposals in his capacity as a member and later ranking member and chair of the House Budget Committee. His budget proposals were embraced by many of the Tea Party movement freshman Representatives elected to Congress in the 2010 midterm elections. Ryan supports a line-item veto.
Roadmaps
In early 2007, Ryan briefed members of the House Ways and Means Committee on his plans to draft a "Roadmap for America's Future." On May 21, 2008, Ryan introduced H.R. 6110, the Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2008, commonly referred to as the "Ryan budget". This proposed legislation outlined changes to entitlement spending, including a controversial proposal to replace Medicare with a voucher program for those under the age of 55. The Roadmap found only eight sponsors and did not move past committee.
On April 1, 2009, he introduced his alternative to the 2010 United States federal budget. It would have eliminated the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and imposed a five-year spending freeze on all discretionary spending. It would have also phased out Medicare's traditional fee-for-service model; instead it would have offered fixed sums in the form of vouchers for those under the age of 55, with which Medicare beneficiaries could buy private insurance. Ryan's proposed budget would also have allowed taxpayers to opt out of the federal income taxation system with itemized deductions, and instead pay a marginal tax rate 10 percent of adjusted gross income up to $100,000 for couples ($50,000 for singles) and 25 percent on any remaining income. It was ultimately rejected in the Democratic controlled House by a vote of 293–137, with 38 Republicans opposed.
On January 27, 2010, the day of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, Ryan reintroduced a modified version of his Roadmap, H.R. 4529: Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2010. The modified plan would have provided across-the-board tax cuts by reducing income tax rates; eliminating income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolishing the estate tax and Alternative Minimum Tax. The plan would also have replaced the corporate income tax with a border-adjusted business consumption tax of 8.5%. The plan would have privatized a portion of Social Security and reduced benefits for those under 55, eliminated the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, and privatized Medicare and Medicaid.
Obama initially viewed Ryan as a Republican who could help cut the federal deficit. In January 2010, at the House Republican annual retreat, Obama called Ryan's budget proposal a "serious proposal" finding both points of agreement and disagreement, saying "some ideas in there ... that I would agree with, but there are some ideas that we should have a healthy debate about because I don't agree with them". Chief Actuary of Medicare Rick Foster compared Ryan's "Roadmap" with the 2010 healthcare reform in congressional hearings, stating that while both had "some potential" to make healthcare prices "more sustainable," he was more "confident" in Ryan's plan. Economist and columnist Paul Krugman criticized Ryan's plan as making overly optimistic assumptions and proposing tax cuts for the wealthy. Krugman also called the plan a "fraud" saying it relied on severe cuts in domestic discretionary spending and "dismantling Medicare as we know it" by suggesting the voucher system, which he noted was similar to a failed attempt at reform in 1995. In contrast, columnist Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in the National Review, argued that Ryan's plan would lead to less debt than current budgets. Economist Ted Gayer wrote that "Ryan's vision of broad-based tax reform, which essentially would shift us toward a consumption tax ... makes a useful contribution to this debate."
The 2010 version of the Roadmap found only 14 cosponsors. On August 31, 2010, the National Republican Congressional Committee requested members not to defend the Roadmap, noting its proposal to privatize social security.
Paths to prosperity
In the 2010 midterm elections, Ryan advised and endorsed Republican candidates in the primaries and general elections, and his budget proposals were embraced by many of the Tea Party movement-inspired freshman Representatives.
On April 11, 2011, Ryan introduced H.Con.Res. 34, a federal budget for fiscal year 2012, known as "The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America's Promise." The plan included repealing the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as "Obamacare", the privatization of Medicare by issuing vouchers for private insurance, and block granting Medicaid funding to the states. Income tax rates would be lowered. Increases in defense spending, and decreases in federal funding for Medicaid and for health insurance for children, were proposed.
On April 5, 2011, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted that The Path to Prosperity was "a path to poverty for America's seniors and children". On April 13, 2011, speaking of Ryan's budget proposal, Obama said: "I don't think there's anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it. There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires." The House passed the Ryan plan on April 15, 2011, by a vote of 235–193. Four Republicans joined all House Democrats in voting against it. On an April 27, 2011, conference call with reporters Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that passage of the Ryan plan "would be one of the worst things to happen to this country". On May 25, 2011, the Ryan budget plan was defeated in the Senate.
On March 23, 2012, Ryan introduced a version of his federal budget for the fiscal year 2013, known as "The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal." It proposed reducing all discretionary spending in the budget from 12.5% of GDP in 2011 to 3.75% of GDP in 2050. On March 29, 2012, the House of Representatives passed the resolution along partisan lines, 228 yeas to 191 nays; ten Republicans voted against the bill, along with all the House Democrats. The bill was defeated in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
An analysis by the CBO showed that the Ryan plan would not balance the budget for at least 28 years, partly because the changes in Medicare would not affect anyone older than 55. Former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, praised the budget for making tough choices. Walker believed it needed to go even further, tackling Social Security and defense spending. In contrast, David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, has declared that Ryan's budget "is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices" and would "do nothing to reverse the nation's economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse". Ezra Klein also criticized the budget for making "unrealistic assumptions". The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was highly critical of Ryan's budget proposal, stating that it would shift income to the wealthy while increasing poverty and inequality.