Don’t plan on adding another 10 years to Paul Ryan’s 16 years in Congress.
At 44 years old, the representative for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District since 1999 has already been both a major committee chairman and a vice presidential candidate, and many think there is still much left in his political tank.
Everyone except him.
“I’m not going be in Congress 10 years from now,” Ryan told National Journal. “I can be definitive about that.”
“I’ve already been there 16 years. I don’t want to be a career guy. Even though I’ve been there a long time, where you could already say that,” he said. “It’s just, I don’t want to spend my adult life in Congress.”
Considered a top 2016 candidate for the Republican ticket, Ryan may be prepping to leave politics altogether sooner rather than later.
“I have this sense of urgency about me,” Ryan explained when asked about his father, who died at 55. “Life is short. You’d better make the most of it.”
Ryan also revealed he has never wanted to be speaker of the House.
His next step in politics may be a simple move to chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which could allow him to work on reforming the American tax code — a top priority of his for years — and then leave Congress by the age of 50.
“His obsession is tax reform and entitlement reform; as chairman of Ways and Means, he’ll have the pen in designing the exact parameters of what that looks like,” a Ryan ally who asked to remain anonymous told National Journal. “So if he can thread the needle and get the nominee to adopt his policies—and then, if we get a Republican president, have the pen to write those policies—that’s the best of both worlds. He doesn’t have to be president to get done what he wants to get done.”
If Ryan does get the itch to run for president in two years, he’ll be part of a crowded GOP field.
A RealClearPolitics average of polls places him fifth among 11 potential candidates, but he is behind the leader, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, by less than two points.
