The following article of Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website July 25, 2018:
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) made a name for himself as a deficit hawk, but backed a tax plan and a spending bill that are ballooning the national debt. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
One fun thing about the Nexis online news archive at Nexis is that you can search for how many times certain people have been described in certain ways in news reports. For example, one can learn that, since June 2008, Paul Ryan has been called a “deficit hawk” more than 400 times in English-language news reports. The first included in the index is an article from Roll Call titled, “Ryan Campaigns for Fiscal Fitness” — sadly written before Time magazine snapped some of the most iconic imagesof any legislator in history.
The House speaker is a deficit hawk, you see, because of his long-standing crusade for lower federal budget deficits. It has been the cause with which the Wisconsin Republican has been associated for most of his career since getting to Capitol Hill in 1999 — cutting spending and bringing the budget under control.
However, Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis made an interesting observation about Ryan’s tenure on Twitter.