Dan Horn

Cincinnati Enquirer

Many of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s small-government political beliefs were already in place 20-plus years ago, when he was an eager student of economics and political science at Miami University in Oxford.

At an age when many college students are focused on their social lives, the man announced Saturday as the Republican vice presidential candidate, was seeking out his Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory professor for long talks on political philosophy.

“He would come in, and it was never to discuss the theoretical material that I was presenting, because he didn’t have any trouble with that – he was smart as a whip,” Miami Professor Rich Hart said of Ryan, now 42. “We talked about Milton Friedman’s view of free markets and capitalism, and this belief that the role of government should be a very small role, and we should emphasize individual freedom and liberty.”

Ryan, whose views on government and the economy will likely become a centerpiece of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, graduated from Miami in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science.

“I think what he was doing at Miami was reinforcing those fundamental political beliefs that he came to Miami with – beliefs that you get from your parents,” Hart said.

Ryan grew up in Janesville, Wis., where his well-established family founded a construction business more than 100 years ago. At age 16, Ryan found his father dead of a heart attack, an event that he has said forced him to grow up fast. He was voted both prom king and “biggest brown-noser” in high school.

Ryan seemed quietly ambitious at Miami, although Hart and others said they didn’t know whether that ambition would take him into business, politics or some other arena.

“I had a feeling he was going to go places,” said Tom Hall, another economics professor who had Ryan in class during his senior year. “There was something exceptional about him. He had a self-confidence about him.”

One of Ryan’s Delta Tau Delta fraternity brothers said the future vice presidential candidate had a reputation for seriousness even among his friends. Michael Loisel, a fraternity brother who was two years behind Ryan at Miami, described him as “a very inquisitive guy, very intelligent.”

He said Ryan had fun, went to parties and was popular with his fellow students. But he said he doesn’t recall Ryan talking much about “the usual, mundane frat boy stuff.”

“The conversation was usually a little more in-depth than how many beers you had last night,” Loisel said.

Ryan was a commencement speaker at Miami’s 2009 graduation, and called his own time at Miami “a transformative experience.”

“It is here at Miami where I was able to find myself; I found a sense of direction and a sense of identity,” Ryan told graduates. “It was here where I fell in love with economics and public policy.”

Ryan said Hart created “a vision quest in my mind to improve the economics of our nation,” and Hart said he wrote a letter of recommendation that helped Ryan get his first position in politics – as an aide to U.S. Sen. Bob Kasten, R-Wis.

After graduation, Ryan also worked in Washington at Jack Kemp’s Empower America think tank, and served on the staff of Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. At age 28, he moved briefly back to Wisconsin, and won his first election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

By his 30s, he was a rising congressman thanks to his push-the-edge budget proposals. Now, he is chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Ryan’s interest in libertarian author Ayn Rand has stirred some controversy over the years because of her ‘objectivist’ philosophy, which praised the pursuit of individual interests over all others.

Some say the ideas that sprang from those early studies showed up years later in his controversial budget plan, ‘The Path to Prosperity,’ which tea party activists and others have embraced as a way to cut entitlement programs and reduce the size of government.

Democrats and other political opponents have described the plan as radical and say Ryan’s approach to deficit reduction would benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class.

Ryan’s opponents charge that his call to open Medicare to more private competition is too risky even if implementation would be a ways off; he counters that the latest version was fashioned in consultation with prominent Democrats in hopes of heading off an all-out program collapse that would devastate the financial security of future retirees.

Foes say his plans to scale back food stamps and housing assistance are mean-spirited; Ryan describes the moves, which would allow states to further customize their welfare programs while imposing tougher time limits and work requirements, as empowerment for the downtrodden who he argues are being lulled into lives of complacency and dependency.

Critics question Ryan’s own consistency. They note that he backed a costly prescription drug benefit during Republican George W. Bush’s presidency that added strain to the Medicare budget, which Ryan touted at the time as “one of the most critical pieces of legislation” enacted since he joined Congress.

“One of the first lessons I learned was, even if you come to Congress believing in limited government and fiscal prudence, once you get here you are bombarded with pressure to violate your conscience and your commitment to help secure the people’s natural right to equal opportunity,” Ryan wrote in a 2010 book.

Ryan, a Catholic, is known as a ardent fitness enthusiast, outdoorsman and hunter. His wife, Janna, is a tax attorney, and they have a daughter and two sons, ages 10, 8 and 7.

Miami University was celebrating Romney’s selection of Ryan on Saturday, with university President David Hodge Tweeting that Ryan would be Miami’s second vice presidential candidate. The first was Greene County native Whitelaw Reid, who ran unsuccessfully in 1892 on the ticket of incumbent President Benjamin Harrison, another Miami graduate.