Rep. Paul Ryan: Liberty's New Hope in Congress?

Ron Paul isn't the only Paul in the House of Representatives on the lookout for liberty.  Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has made a good name for himself fighting for liberty over the past year.  In July, Reason.com asked "Why Can't Paul Ryan Be the 'Future of the Republican Party'?"  Last month, Rep. Ryan wrote a scathing piece on "crony capitalism" in Forbes about the collusion between big government and big business. 

For what it's worth, Rep. Ryan was a keynote speaker at CPAC 2009 and called for "sound money."  In a June 2009 speech at the Hudson Institute, he called for the replacement of the corporate income tax with a globally competitive consumption tax and a reform of our monetary policy in order to restore sound money.  He continued, "It is imperative that we get off of the Fed-induced boom-and bust, inflationary-deflationary roller coaster, such as the one we are living through now, and restore sound money."

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel had a piece on Ryan titled the "Ryan Shines as GOP seeks Vision" with the subhead "Ayn Rand Economics."

From the article:

To that task, Ryan brings an admittedly geeky head for numbers and detail. He also brings a deep philosophical attachment to market capitalism and "supply-side" economics - a world view shaped by such icons of individualism and free enterprise as Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.

"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," Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." [emphasis mine]