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Time magazine calls Janesville's Paul Ryan a man to watch

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Paul Ryan

Who made the biggest impact on the planet Earth this year? Time magazine says Janesville's Paul Ryan is right up there with the heavy hitters.

Time named Ryan one of four runners-up for its annual person of the year, along with Kate Middleton, who married a prince; Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei; and Adm. William McRaven, who helped plan the assault that led to Osama bin Laden's death.

Time's person of the year is a composite person: "the protester."

Time calls Ryan "the most influential American politician" in a year when Congress was in gridlock and its approval ratings were rock bottom.

Rep. Ryan is the brains behind the Republican focus on the nation's debt this year, although he's been working on economic policy since before voters in Wisconsin's 1st District elected him to Congress in 1998.

But this was the year that the Janesvillian's ideas of fiscal restraint and tax reform merged into his party's mainstream.

"What Ryan had this year was the courage to look the future in the eye. It is a seer's work to glimpse around the corner and sound an alarm," according to Time's story, titled "The Prophet."

Longtime political observer and UW-Whitewater professor emeritus John Kozlowicz had not read the Time piece when contacted Wednesday, but he said Ryan wouldn't be his choice for a global person of the year.

Maybe No. 10 in a top-10 list, Kozlowicz said, and certainly Ryan has earned his place in the national news.

"But person of year? I just don't see it."

There's no denying Ryan has been all over the TV news this year, but his ideas for major changes in Social Security and Medicare go back to the Bush administration.

Ryan continues to criticize both major parties for their inability to stop finding new things on which to lavish millions or billions of dollars.

Ryan's ideas caught fire this year, in part because he became chairman of the House Budget Committee. Part of it was his message: Make fiscal sacrifices now to ward of much worse sacrifice later. This struck a note with conservatives, including those of the Tea Party variety.

Time says Ryan's ideas will define the upcoming presidential election.

Calls to run for president were never so loud as this year, but Ryan steadfastly brushed that thought aside, telling Time he has fire in his belly for economic policy, not the presidency.

While Ryan was a runner-up, it's worth mentioning that a tiny slice of Time's actual person of the year—the protester—also lives in Janesville.

Remember Wisconsin's Capitol last February? Wisconsin was home to some of the first protests of the year, and many of those making noise on the Capitol Square were from Janesville and Edgerton and Delavan and Elkhorn—all across southern Wisconsin.

"All over the world, the protesters of 2011 share a belief that their countries' political systems and economies have grown dysfunctional and corrupt—sham democracies rigged to favor the rich and powerful and prevent significant change," according to Time.

Whether the protesters or the counter-protesters at the Capitol could be described in this way is, like so much these days, a question that continues to be debated.