ABC News Exclusive: Meet the Budget Boss, Rep. Paul Ryan

Jan. 26, 2011 -- He's the man with more power over the federal budget than anybody in Congress: Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican with the budget axe. He describes himself as a man on a mission -- determined, he says, to do what is fiscally prudent no matter the political consequences.

"I am the budget chairman. I am a Republican. I am a conservative. I have been pointing out the big flaws of all of the taxing and the spending that has been going on around here." Ryan said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.

Ryan, a 40-year-old father of three, worked as a Congressional staffer before being elected in his own right when he was just 28. He is a little like the guy in the movie "Dave," who accidently finds himself president and sets out to fix the budget.

But in the movie, Dave (Kevin Kline) only has to find $650 million in savings. Ryan wants to cut about $5 trillion over the next 10 years.

"The sooner you do this, the better off we are," Ryan said. "If you do it now it really is not that painful."

Fresh numbers out today from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predict that this year's federal budget deficit will come in at $1.5 trillion, a new record, adding fuel to the political firestorm on Capitol Hill over budget cuts, entitlement programs and tax policies.

"The deficit is really going off the charts. That is a big surprise. The deficit is actually higher than we expected," Ryan said. "The debt held by the public right now they are saying 69 percent of GDP. What economists tell us is you get over 60 percent and you are in the danger zone."

Ryan has earned a reputation as being something of a "numbers wonk." He majored in economics and political science at Miami University of Ohio. Since coming to Congress in 1998, he has made fiscal responsibility one of his pet issues.

"I have been reading these things since I was 22 years old," he said while thumbing through one of last year's budget books.