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A treasury is either

• A government department related to finance and taxation.
• A place where currency or precious items (gold, diamonds, etc.) is/are kept.

The term was first used in Classical times to describe the votive buildings erected to house gifts to the gods, such as the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi or many similar buildings erected in Olympia, Greece by competing city-states to impress others during the ancient Olympic Games. In Ancient Greece treasuries were almost always physically incorporated within religious buildings such as temples, thus making state funds sacrosanct and adding moral constraints to the penal ones to those who would have access to these funds.

The head of a treasury is typically known as a treasurer. This position may not necessarily have the final control over the actions of the treasury, particularly if they are not an elected representative.

The adjective for a treasury is normally "treasurial". The adjective "tresorial" can also be used, but this normally means pertaining to a treasurer.

Examples of treasuries[link]

Treasury[link]

In the United Kingdom, Her Majesty's Treasury is overseen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The traditional honorary title of First Lord of the Treasury is held by the Prime Minister. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs administers the taxation system.

In the United States, the Treasurer reports to an executive-appointed Secretary of the Treasury. The IRS is the revenue agency of the US Department of Treasury.

Ministry of finance[link]

In many other countries, the treasury is called the "ministry of finance" and the head is known as the finance minister. Examples include New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Japan. In some other countries, a "treasury" will exist alongside a separate "Ministry of Finance", with divided functions (Ukraine).

Both[link]

In the Australian federal government a treasurer and a finance minister co-exist. The Department of the Treasury is responsible for drafting the government budget, economic policy (except monetary policy), some market regulation and revenue policy (which is administered by the Australian Taxation Office). The Finance Minister, who manages the Department of Finance and Deregulation, is responsible for budget management, government expenditure and market deregulation.

The government of Poland includes the Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of State Treasury. It was the same in Italy before the creation of the united Ministry of Economy.

See also[link]

Bank Finance Minister Fiscus Mint

Treasury management UK Treasury US Treasury External links[link] Look up treasury in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. [1] This finance-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics.^[1] He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service who has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy.

Roberts is a critic of Israel, calling Gaza "the world's largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations. Although Roberts praised Ronald Reagan, he has compared supporters of George W. Bush to "brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters." He has opposed the War on Drugs and the War on Terror stating it has "made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims". He believes the official explanation for the events on 9/11 is a "scientific impossibility".

Publication[link]

He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship.

His writings frequently appear on OpEdNews, Alex Jones' Prisonplanet.com, Antiwar.com, the web site VDARE.com. LewRockwell.com, CounterPunch. He is a contributor to the American Free Press which is critical of the New World Order and Israel. Roberts has been featured as a guest on the Political Cesspool radio show.^[2]

In order to create a coherent uncensored and unedited archive of Robert's writings, paulcraigroberts.org ^[3] was created by the The Institute For Political Economy and appeared in January 2012. His articles continue to appear in other venues, but are first available on this website along with links to relevant videos and books.

Biography[link]

Roberts is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley and at Merton College, Oxford University.^[4] His first scholarly article (Classica et Mediaevalia) was a reformulation of "The Pirenne Thesis."

In Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971), Roberts explained the Soviet economy as the outcome of a struggle between inordinate aspirations and a refractory reality. He argued that the Soviet economy was not centrally planned, but that its institutions, such as material supply, reflected the original Marxist aspirations to establish a non-market mode of production. In Marx's Theory of Exchange (1973), Roberts argued that Marx was an organizational theorist whose materialist conception of history ruled out good will as an effective force for change.

From 1975 to 1978, Roberts served on the congressional staff. As economic counsel to Congressman Jack Kemp^[5] he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill (which became the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy.^[4] His influential 1978 article for Harper's,^[6] while economic counsel to Senator Orrin Hatch,^[7] had Wall Street Journal editor Robert L. Bartley give him an editorial slot, which he had until 1980.^[8] He was a senior fellow in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then part of Georgetown University.^[5]

From early 1981 to January 1982 he served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. President Ronald Reagan and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy."^[4] Roberts resigned in January 1982 to become the first occupant of the William E. Simon Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then part of Georgetown University.^[9] He held this position until 1993. He went on to write The Supply-Side Revolution (1984), in which he explained the reformulation of macroeconomic theory and policy that he had helped to create.

He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to 1996. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.^[4]

In The New Color Line (1995), Roberts argued that the Civil Rights Act was subverted by the bureaucrats who applied it and, by being used to create status-based privileges, became a threat to the Fourteenth Amendment in whose name it was passed. In The Tyranny of Good Intentions (2000), Roberts documented what he saw as the erosion of the Blackstonian legal principles that ensure that law is a shield of the innocent and not a weapon in the hands of government.

Recognition[link]

In 1987 the French government recognized him as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism" and inducted him into the Legion of Honor on March 20, 1987. The French Minister of Economics and Finance, Edouard Balladur, came from France to present the medal to Roberts at a ceremony at the French Ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C. President Reagan sent OMB Director Jim Miller to the ceremony with a letter of congratulation.^[4]

In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism from the American Legislative Exchange Council. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.^[4]

Views[link]

Criticism of Bush[link]

Roberts opposed the Iraq War and writes frequently on the subject. On May 18, 2005, in response to the publication of the "Downing Street memo," Roberts wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment for lying to Congress about the case for war.

Roberts was also a critic of a potential Bush administration attack on Iran. In an August 15, 2005 article, he states "Bush...dismisses all facts and assurances and is willing to attack Iran based on nothing but Israel's paranoia."

Although his criticisms of Bush often seem to align him with the political left, Roberts continues to praise Ronald Reagan and to endorse many of Reagan's policies, arguing that "true conservatives" were the "first victims" of the neoconized Bush administration.^[10] He has said that supporters of George W. Bush "are brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters."^[11]

Israel[link]

In an article for Counterpunch magazine titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean", Roberts wrote that for 60 years, Israel has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated charges that Gaza is "the world largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department a "puppet" of the Israelis and the U.S. itself a "puppet state" of the Israelis. He concludes the article by claiming that "there’s no money for California, or for Americans’ health care, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."^[12]

The pro-Jewish [Anti-Defamation League] has criticized Dr. Roberts as promoting anti-semitism for his increasing focus on "criticism of Israel and Jews" making his writings "popular with fringe publications on both the left and the right".^[13] However, Dr. Roberts nominated Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper for the Nobel Peace Prize and he cautions against confusing a right-wing Zionist government with world Jewry. In one of his classic columns, "What Became of Western Morality?" (January 2005), he noted that it is Israeli newspapers, not American ones, that protest the Israeli government's atrocities against Palestinians:

"It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. Gideon Levy’s “The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again” was published in Haaretz on Dec. 29, not in the goyim press. Levy’s words—”Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom”—are not words that can appear in American print or TV media. Such words, printed in Israeli newspapers, never reach the goyim."

Dr. Roberts cautions against blaming all Jews for crimes of a right-wing government:

"The world will need to remember that although Israel is a Jewish state, it is a state whose policies many Jews find objectionable, just as a majority of American Jews oppose President Bush’s wars of aggression in the Middle East and his unconstitutional policies at home. We must not confuse Israel’s Zionist government with world Jewry, just as we must not confuse the American people with the war criminals in the Bush regime.

"Consider, who do you trust with your civil liberties, the U.S. Department of Justice or the ACLU’s phalanx of Jewish attorneys? [Dr. Roberts according to Who's Who In America is a member of the ACLU, a Jewish organization.]

"We must avoid the mistake that was made by blaming the German people for Adolf Hitler. It was the aristocratic German military that tried to remove Hitler. In contrast, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blocked the attempt to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Pelosi is a discredit to California, but shall we blame all of America for Pelosi’s defense of war criminals? How can we do so when U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich courageously read out the articles of impeachment on the House floor?

"Are all Americans guilty because Kucinich did not prevail?" ^[14]

Neoconservatives and the South Ossetia War[link]

In an interview on August 27, 2008, on a broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, Roberts stated that he believed that influential neoconservatives affiliated with the Bush administration were leading the United States into a nuclear confrontation with Russia over the situation in Georgia and South Ossetia. Roberts gave the conflict “almost total certainty if John McCain gets in office" and stated that the conflict would be in a timeframe of about two or three years.^[15]

2009–2010 Iranian election protests[link]

In a June 19–21, 2009 article in CounterPunch about the protests following the re-election of Ahmadinejad, Robert stated that while "the protests ... no doubt have many sincere participants," they "also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine. It requires total blindness not to see this."^[16]

September 11, 2001 attacks[link]

Of the 9/11 Commission Report he wrote in 2006, "One would think that if the report could stand analysis, there would not be a taboo against calling attention to the inadequacy of its explanations." (see Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission Report). He has reported what he says are findings by experts that conclude there is a large energy deficit in the official account of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, and says that this deficit remains unexplained.

Roberts comments on the "scientific impossibility" of the official explanation for the events on 9/11 and says those engineers and physicists who accept this theory are wrong. On August 18, 2006, he wrote:

I will begin by stating what we know to be a solid incontrovertible scientific fact. We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to “pancake” at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false... Since the damning incontrovertible fact has not been investigated, speculation and “conspiracy theories” have filled the void.^[17]

On the (back) cover of Debunking 9/11 Debunking (2007) he is quoted:

Professor Griffin is the nemesis of the 9/11 cover-up. This new book destroys the credibility of the NIST and Popular Mechanics reports and annihilates his critics.Book Cover Quote

Roberts adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party. "The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated."

When Anwar al-Awlaki, who was linked to some of the hijackers was killed by a drone attack, Roberts objected, calling it "The Day America Died". He wrote that although Awlaki was critical of "indiscriminate assaults on Muslim peoples" and "told Muslims that they did not have to passively accept American aggression", the US lacked evidence that either Awlaki was a real threat or an Al Qaeda operative^[18]

US media[link]

• "Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda."^[19]
• "The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media. Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives—not by journalists—whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers. Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home."^[20]

Society[link]

"If I had time to research my writings over the past 30 years, I could find examples of partisan articles in behalf of Republicans and against Democrats. However, political partisanship is not the corpus of my writings. I had a 16-year stint as Business Week's first outside columnist, despite hostility within the magazine and from the editor's New York social set, because the editor regarded me as the most trenchant critic of the George H.W. Bush administration in the business. The White House felt the same way and lobbied to have me removed from the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies... In their hatred of "the rich," the left-wing overlooks that in the 20th century the rich were the class most persecuted by government. The class genocide of the 20th century is the greatest genocide in history."^[19]

Outsourcing jobs[link]

Roberts has testified before the US–China Commission and written many articles pointing out that the offshoring of high productivity, high value-added jobs in manufacturing and professional services is dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that made the U.S. an opportunity society. Consequently, he is an opponent of Global Labor Arbitrage.

War on Drugs[link]

Though Roberts worked for the Reagan administration, which implemented a "zero tolerance" and "Just Say No" policy on illegal drugs and increased spending to combat drugs, in 2007, he penned an article on the web site VDare.com criticizing the excess of the War on Drugs which he termed the "militarization of local police".^[21]

War on Terror[link]

Roberts asked "Is the War on Terror a Hoax", and claims it has "killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims in six countries". Roberts called the attacks "naked aggression" on civilian populations and infrastructure which constitute war crimes.]]".^[21]

Republican Party[link]

Roberts is seriously dismayed by what he considers the Republican Party's disregard for the U.S. Constitution. He has even voiced his regret that he ever worked for it, avowing that, had he known what it would become, he would never have contributed to the Reagan Revolution.^[22]

American democracy and oligarchy[link]

Roberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracy in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:

"The west prides itself that it is the standard for the world, that it is a democracy. But nowhere do you see democratic outcomes: not in Greece, not in Ireland, not in the UK, not here, the outcomes are always to punish the innocent and reward the guilty. And that's what the Greeks are in the streets, protesting. We see this all over the west. There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street... There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west. Revolution is the only answer... We are confronted with a curious situation. Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?" ^[23]

Cessation and resumption of journalism[link]

On March 26, 2010, Roberts announced he was "signing off" as a journalist in a column titled "Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It".^[24] However two months later another article by Roberts had appeared in counterpunch.org.^[25]

On March 26, 2010, in a farewell column titled, "Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It,"^[26] Roberts effectively announced his journalistic retirement. The article, published at Counterpunch.org, begins: "There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest." It proceeds to a bitter chronicle of the demise of American intellectual integrity, particularly that of financial journalists and economists. These have been thoroughly corrupted by monetary inducements to misrepresent and ignore what has been, in effect, the systematic dismantling of the nation's productive life, in the name of globalization. He holds the members of his own journalistic profession largely responsible for abetting relentless outsourcing of American industry, thereby gutting the American middle class and effectively dooming the nation's future. He describes his own ostracism from mainstream media access, the consequence of his relentless and unflinching criticism of the demolition process over the past decade. His column ends, "The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off."

Published works[link]

Books[link]

• Alienation and the Soviet Economy (1971, 1990) ISBN 0-8419-1247-5
• Marx's Theory of Exchange, Alienation, and Crisis (1973, 1983) ISBN 0-03-069791-3
• The Supply Side Revolution: An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington (1984) ISBN 0-674-85620-1
• Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy (1990) ISBN 0-932790-80-1
• The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America (1997) ISBN 0-19-511176-1
• The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy (1995) ISBN 0-89526-423-4
• The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice (2008) ISBN 0-7615-2553-X
• How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds (2009) ISBN 978-1-84935-007-5

Articles[link]

• CounterPunch
• Creators Syndicate
• LewRockwell.com
• Antiwar.com
• VDARE
• World News Daily Information Clearing House

References[link]

1. ^ Roberts, Paul Craig (June 10, 2004). The Real Reagan Record (August 31, 1992). National Review. Retrieved on February 27, 2010.
2. ^ "GUEST LIST". http://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/guestlist.php. Retrieved November 29, 2009. 
3. ^ www.paulcraigroberts.org
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Biography - Paul Craig Roberts
5. ^ ^{a b} The Bulletin, 30 January 1981, "Roberts nominated"
6. ^ Paul Craig Roberts, "Disguising the tax burden: Little-known facts beneath the rhetoric of reform", Harper's, March 1978
7. ^ Bruce Bartlett, Human Events, 28 January 2002, "'Rich' Pay More Than What's Fair.", 58(4), p14
8. ^ Paul Craig Roberts, Washington Times, 17 December 2003, "Two who made a difference"
9. ^ Toledo Blade, 19 January 1982, Treasury Dept. Economist Quits Post: Advocate of Tax-Cut Plan Going To Georgetown U
10. ^ Paul Craig Roberts: Who Will Save America?
11. ^ The Reality Beneath the Flag-Waving
12. ^ Counterpunch
13. ^ Syndicated Columnist Paul Craig Roberts Promotes Anti-Semitism Syndicated Columnist Paul Craig Roberts Promotes Anti-Semitism
14. ^ 09-01- 2009 article
15. ^ Infowars
16. ^ Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?" Is This the Culmination of Two Years of Destabilization by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS]
17. ^ Roberts, Paul Craig (2006-08-16). "What we know and don’t know about 9/11". Information Clearing House. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14566.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
18. ^ "the day america died". lewrockwell (London). October 3, 2011. http://lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts328.html. 
19. ^ ^{a b} Paul Craig Roberts: Who Will Save America?
20. ^ VDARE.com: 08/16/06 - What We Know And Don’t Know About 9/11
21. ^ ^{a b} Paul Craig Roberts, Drug War Has Militarized Your Local Police
22. ^ The mother of all messes
23. ^ Video Interview: Co-Founder Of Reaganomics, Paul Craig Roberts, "There Is Probably More Democracy In China Than There Is In The West" May 2011
24. ^ "Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It" (counterpunch.org March 24, 2010)
25. ^ Progressives Want "Direct Action" But a Disarmed Public by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS counterpunch.org June 18–20, 2010
26. ^ http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03242010.html | Good-Bye: Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It (March 24, 2010)

External links[link]

• paulcraigroberts
• Column archive (2003-2009) at Antiwar.com
• Column archive (2006-2010) at Creators Syndicate
• Column archive (1995-present) at LewRockwell.com
• Column archive (1995-2009) at Vdare.com
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Works by or about Paul Craig Roberts in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Profile at SourceWatch
• Nomination of Paul Craig Roberts To Be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, President Ronald Reagan, January 30, 1981

Interviews and articles

• Paul Craig Roberts interviewed on Alex Jones Show regarding active nuclear threat within next 2-3 years
• Paul Craig Roberts interviewed by Webster Tarpley^{[dead link]}
• Roberts' first article calling for Bush's impeachment^{[dead link]}
• Chuck Harder Interviews Paul Craig Roberts
• A Brief Interview with Paul Craig Roberts
• Downloadable audio interview with Scott Horton

Paul Craig may refer to:

• Paul Craig (law professor)
• Paul Craig (soccer)

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2012)

Craig Roberts (born 25 January 1991) is a Welsh actor. He is best known for playing the lead role of Oliver Tate in the coming-of-age comedy-drama film Submarine, and for playing the character Rio in The Story of Tracy Beaker.

Life and career[link]

Roberts was born in Maesycwmmer, Caerphilly, Wales.

He has appeared as the vampire fanatic Robin Branagh, in two seasons of the television show Young Dracula. He has also appeared in Care and Casualty.

Roberts appeared in the pantomime 'Snow White' in Worthing, where he played the evil queen's sidekick 'Drax' in January 2009. In 2008 he worked with Y Touring Theatre Company where he played the part of 'Ryan' in a UK national tour of 'Full Time' which was a play that explores issues of racism, sexism and homophobia in football. He also appeared in the BBC Three television show Being Human and the online spin-off series Becoming Human as Adam.^[1]

Roberts starred in the 2010 film Submarine^[2] which also stars Paddy Considine and Yasmin Paige.^[3][4]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y5m86
2. ^ Henry Barnes (2011-03-15). "'I love deadpan': Richard Ayoade and Craig Roberts on Submarine | Film | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/15/richard-ayoade-craig-roberts-submarine. Retrieved 2012-03-15. 
3. ^ White, James (2009-11-06). "Paddy Considine starring in Submarine". TotalFilm.com. http://www.totalfilm.com/news/paddy-considine-starring-in-submarine. Retrieved 2012-03-15. 
4. ^ "Submarine stars Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige: Q&A". Film4. http://www.film4.com/features/article/submarine-craig-roberts-yasmin-paige-interview. Retrieved 2012-03-15. 

External links[link]

• Craig Roberts at the Internet Movie Database

This article about a television actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Paul Ryan
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 1st district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 1999
Preceded by	Mark Neumann
Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2011
Preceded by	John Spratt
Personal details
Born	Paul Davis Ryan (1970-01-29) January 29, 1970 (age 42) Janesville, Wisconsin
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Janna Ryan
Children	Elizabeth, Charles, and Samuel
Residence	Janesville, Wisconsin
Alma mater	Miami University (B.A.)
Religion	Roman Catholic
Website	U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan

Paul Davis Ryan^[1] (born January 29, 1970) is the U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, serving since 1999. He is a member of the Republican Party, and has been ranked among the party's most influential voices on economic policy.^[2][3][4]

Born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan graduated from Miami University in Ohio and later worked as a marketing consultant for Ryan Incorporated Central, run by a branch of his family. In the mid to late 1990s, he worked as an aide to United States Senator Bob Kasten, as legislative director for Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, and as a speechwriter for former U.S. Representative and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp of New York. In 1998, Ryan won election to the United States House of Representatives, succeeding the two-term incumbent, fellow Republican Mark Neumann.

Ryan currently chairs the House Budget Committee, where he has played a prominent public role in drafting and promoting the Republican Party's long-term budget proposal. He introduced a plan, The Path to Prosperity, in April 2011 as an alternative to the budget proposal of President Barack Obama, and helped introduce The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal in March 2012, in response to Obama's 2013 budget.^[5] Ryan is one of the three co-founders of the Young Guns Program, an electoral recruitment and campaign effort by House Republicans. He endorsed Republican presidential candidate and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney for the 2012 United States presidential election.^[6] Ryan has been considered as a possible running mate for Romney.^[7]

Early life, education, and career[link]

Ryan was born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, the youngest child of Elizabeth A. "Betty" (née Hutter) and Paul Murray Ryan, a lawyer.^[8][9][10] He is of Irish and German ancestry,^[11] and is a fifth-generation Janesville native. Ryan's great-grandfather is Patrick William Ryan, who founded the Ryan Incorporated Central construction business in 1884.^[12] Ryan's mother is an outdoors enthusiast who led her husband and four children (Ryan's sister Janet and two brothers, Tobin and Stan) on regular hiking and skiing trips in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.^[9][13] As a boy, Ryan attended Camp Manito-wish YMCA, a wilderness canoe tripping camp located in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin; while in college, he returned there to work as a staff member and counselor during summer vacation.

Ryan attended Joseph A. Craig High School in Janesville. In college, he briefly worked for Oscar Mayer as a Wienermobile driver.^[14] Ryan went on to graduate from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, with a BA in economics and political science in 1992. He also studied at the Washington Semester program at American University and was a member of the Delta Tau Delta social fraternity. Following his studies, Ryan returned to Wisconsin and worked as a marketing consultant for an earth-moving company run by a branch of his family.^[13][15]

Ryan was 16 years old when he found his father in bed, dead from a heart attack at age 55. As a result, he received Social Security survivor's benefits until he turned 18. Ryan's grandfather and great-grandfather had also died from heart attacks, at ages 57 and 59 respectively.^[16]

Early political career[link]

In 2005, Ryan said, "The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand".^[17] New York magazine has claimed that Ryan requires his staff to read Atlas Shrugged.^[18] In 2012, however, he said that while as a young man he became interested in economics because of her novels, "It’s a big stretch to suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist... I reject her philosophy. It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don't give me Ayn Rand."^[19]

During his junior year at Miami University, Ryan worked as an intern opening mail for the foreign affairs advisor assigned to Senator Bob Kasten of Wisconsin.^[20] Concerned that her son "...was destined to become a ski bum", Betty Ryan reportedly nudged him to accept another congressional position as a staff economist attached to Kasten's office.^[20][21] In his early years working in D.C., Ryan moonlighted on Capitol Hill as a waiter at the Tortilla Coast restaurant and as a fitness trainer at Washington Sport and Health Club, among various other side jobs.^[22]

After Kasten was defeated by Democrat Russ Feingold in 1992, Ryan became a speechwriter and a volunteer economic analyst with Empower America, an advocacy group formed by Jack Kemp, former education secretary Bill Bennett, the late diplomat Jeane Kirkpatrick, and former Representative Vin Weber of Minnesota.^[16][23]

Ryan worked as a speechwriter for Kemp, the Republican vice presidential candidate in the 1996 United States presidential election, and later worked as legislative director for US Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. Ryan then returned to Wisconsin, where he worked as a consultant to an earth-moving company.^{[citation needed]} In 1998, he ran for Congress.

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Following his first election to the US House of Representatives in 1998, one of Ryan's priorities as a new congressman was to convert a truck into a rolling district office. This allowed him to keep regular congressional office hours with his constituents at various locations across Wisconsin's 1st congressional district.^[24][1]

In 2002, Ryan voted in favor of the Iraq War resolution, authorizing President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq.^[25] In 2003 he voted in favor of the Medicare Part D prescription drug expansion.^[26]

In 2005, Ryan spoke at a Celebration of Ayn Rand event hosted by The Atlas Society. During the event, Ryan spoke about the influence of Atlas Shrugged on his life.^[27]

He is one of the three founding members of the House GOP Young Guns Program.

In 2008, Ryan voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Wall Street bailout that precipitated the Tea Party movement, and the bailout of GM and Chrysler.^[28]

In 2010, The Daily Telegraph ranked Ryan the ninth most influential US conservative.^[2] In 2011, he was selected to deliver the Republican response to the State of the Union address.^[29]

In 2012, Ryan accused the nation's top military leaders of using "smoke and mirrors" to remain under budget limits passed by Congress.^[30] Ryan later said that he misspoke on the issue and called General Martin Dempsey to apologize for his comments.^[31]

Ryan's Second Budget Plan[link]

At the end of March 2012, the House of Representatives passed a newer version of Ryan's budget plan along partisan lines 228 yeas to 191 nays; ten Republicans voted against bill, along with all the House Democrats.^[32] Ryan's budget would reduce all discretionary spending in the budget from 12.5% of GDP in 2011 to 3.75% of GDP in 2050. This goal has been criticized as unrealistic since it includes spending on defense, which has never fallen below 3% of GDP.^[33] Congressman Justin Amash, a Republican from Michigan criticized Ryan's budget for insufficient cuts, its continuation of deficit spending through 2022 and beyond, and its exemption of military spending from reductions. ^[34] His budget has also been criticized because it would not balance the budget until 2035. Marc Goldwein, the policy directory for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget stated "We may never, as a country, have a balanced budget again, And you know what? We don't have to." Ryan saw this as evidence of the severity of the deficit crisis.^[35]

The 2012 Ryan budget also received criticism from elements of the Catholic Church, specifically from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and from faculty and administrators of Georgetown University. In its letter to Rep. Ryan, the group of Georgetown faculty and administrators criticized the Ryan budget as trying to "to dismantle government programs and abandon the poor to their own devices," going on to say that Catholic teaching "demands that higher levels of government provide help—"subsidium"—when communities and local governments face problems beyond their means to address such as economic crises, high unemployment, endemic poverty and hunger." The letter also criticizes Ryan for his attempts at "gutting government programs" and states that Ryan is "profoundly misreading Church teaching."^[36] A statement issued by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized the Ryan budget in similar terms.^[37] Ryan rejects the bishops' criticism that his budget plans would disproportionately cut programs that "serve poor and vulnerable people."^[38] Ryan's difficulties with the Catholic Church worsened when videos of Ryan praising and endorsing the "morality" of Ayn Rand's hyper-individualist philosophy were published on Youtube in 2012. ^[39]

In May of 2012, Ryan voted for H.R. 4310 which would increase spending on defense, Afghanistan and various weapon systems to the level of $642 billion - $8 billion more than what was agreed to by President Obama and the Congress in the summer of 2011. ^[40]

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on the Budget (Chairman)
• Committee on Ways and Means
  • Subcommittee on Health

Caucus memberships[link]

• Congressional Middle East Economic Partnership Caucus
• International Conservation Caucus
• Republican Study Committee
• Sportsmen's Caucus (Co-Chair)

Roadmap for America's Future[link]

Ryan speaking at CPAC in February 2011.

On May 21, 2008, Ryan introduced H.R. 6110, titled "Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2008."^[41] This proposed legislation outlined a plan to deal with entitlement spending.^[42] Its stated objectives were: to ensure universal access to health insurance; to strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; to lift debt from future generations; and to promote economic growth and job creation in America.^[43] Despite significant press coverage, it did not move past committee.^[44]

On April 1, 2009, Ryan introduced his alternative to the 2010 United States federal budget. This alternative budget would have eliminated the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, lowered the top tax rate to 25%, introduced an 8.5% value-added consumption tax, and imposed a five-year spending freeze on all discretionary spending.^[45] It would also have replaced Medicare.^[46] Instead, it proposed that starting in 2021, the federal government would pay part of the cost of private medical insurance for individuals turning 65.^[46] 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 flat 10 percent of adjusted gross income up to $100,000 and 25 percent on any remaining income.^[47] Ryan's proposed budget was heavily criticized by opponents for the lack of concrete numbers.^[48] It was ultimately rejected in the house by a vote of 293-137, with 38 Republicans in opposition.^[49]

In late January 2010, Ryan released a new version of his Roadmap.^[50] The modified plan would: give across the board tax cuts by reducing income tax rates; eliminate income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolish the corporate income tax, estate tax, and alternative minimum tax. The plan would privatize a portion of Social Security,^[51][52] eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance,^[52] and privatize Medicare.^[51][52]

On April 15, 2011, the House passed the Ryan Plan by a vote of 235-193. Four Republicans joined all House Democrats in voting against it.^[53] A month later, the bill died in the Senate by a vote of 57-40, with five Republicans and most Democrats in opposition.^[54]

Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman criticized the contention that Ryan's plan would reduce the deficit, alleging that it only considered proposed spending cuts and failed to take into account tax changes. According to Krugman, Ryan's plan "would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population" and produce a $4 trillion revenue loss over ten years from tax cuts for the rich. Krugman went on to label the proposed spending cuts a "sham" because they depended on making a severe cut in domestic discretionary spending without specifying the programs to be cut, and on "dismantling Medicare as we know it," which is politically unrealistic.^[55]

In response to Krugman, economist and former American Enterprise Institute scholar Ted Gayer wrote a more positive assessment of the Ryan plan. Gayer agreed that, as written, the plan would cause a $4 trillion revenue shortfall over 10 years. He noted, however, that Ryan had expressed a willingness to consider raising rates in his tax plan.^{[clarification needed]} Gayer concluded 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."^[56]

Journalist Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in National Review, argued that the revenue loss to which Krugman refers is based on a comparison between Ryan's plan and current law, which "includes middle-class tax increases... cuts in payment to Medicare providers... [and] the expansion of the Alternative Minimum Tax."^[57] He added that "current law automatically raises the tax rates to pre-Bush levels in 2013... so if you're comparing the tax level with current law, Ryan's plan represents a tax cut" and "the CBO's actual projections for the Ryan plan show a debt level in 2021 that is $4.7 trillion lower than its projections for Obama's budgets."^[57]

Rick Foster, the chief actuary of Medicare, endorsed Ryan's plan for reducing Medicare costs: "If you can put that pressure on the research and development community, you might have a fighting chance of changing the nature of new medical technology in a way that makes lower costs like this possible and more sustainable. I would say that the Roadmap has that potential. There is some potential for the Affordable Care Act price reductions, although I’m a little less confident about that."^[58]

In December 2011, it was revealed that Ryan would begin a new push for changes in Medicare in 2012 by working with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon to modify Ryan's previous Medicare proposal. His most recent approach for semi-privatization of Medicare would keep traditional Medicare as an option for senior citizens, but would also introduce private insurance into an exchange market to compete with traditional Medicare. Seniors would still be given a voucher to purchase care if they so desired, as in his previous proposal. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has supported a similar plan in his campaign.^[59]

Opposition to SOPA[link]

On January 9, 2012, four months after the introduction of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Ryan pledged his opposition to the bill, saying, "The internet is one of the most magnificent expressions of freedom and free enterprise in history. It should stay that way. While H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, attempts to address legitimate problems, I believe it creates the precedent and possibility for undue regulation, censorship and legal abuse. I do not support H.R. 3261 in its current form and will oppose the legislation should it come before the full House."^[60]

Political campaigns[link]

Ryan was first elected to the House in 1998, when two-term incumbent Mark Neumann retired from his seat in order to make an unsuccessful bid for the Senate. Ryan won both a Republican primary over 29-year-old pianist Michael J. Logan of Twin Lakes and the general election against Democratic opponent Lydia Spottswood.^[61] Ryan successfully defended his seat against Democratic challenger Jeffrey C. Thomas in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.^[62] In 2002, Ryan had also faced Libertarian candidate George Meyers.

2008[link]

Ryan defeated Democratic nominee Marge Krupp by a wide margin in the 2008 general election.^[62]

2010[link]

Ryan defeated both Democratic nominee John Heckenlively and Libertarian nominee Joseph Kexel by a wide margin in the 2010 general election.

Electoral history[link]

Personal life[link]

Ryan married Janna Little, a tax attorney,^[1] in December 2000.^[8] The Ryans live in Janesville with their three children Elizabeth Anne, Charles Wilson, and Samuel Lowery.^[63]

Ryan is a Catholic and is a member of St. John Vianney's Church.^[64]

Ryan is a fitness enthusiast and promotes fitness as a daily routine for young people. In 2009, his exercise program was based on the P90x fitness program.^[22]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan

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• Congressman Paul Ryan official U.S. House site
• Paul Ryan for U.S. Congress official campaign site
• A Roadmap for America's Future Paul Ryan's alternative to the United States federal budget
• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Appearances on Charlie Rose
• Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Paul Ryan in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Health Care Reform: The Long-Term Perspective at Cato Institute, June 2009
• Monitor Breakfast conversation on medicare voucher reform at Christian Science Monitor, December 2010