WASHINGTON ? Representative Paul D. Ryan strolls the halls of Capitol Hill with the anarchist band Rage Against the Machine pounding through his earbuds.

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At 6:30 every morning, he leads an adoring cast of young, conservative members of Congress through exercise sessions in front of a televised trainer barking out orders. For fun, Mr. Ryan noodles catfish, catching them barehanded with a fist down their throats.

He may be, as a friend described him, ?a hunting-obsessed gym rat,? but Mr. Ryan, 42, of Wisconsin, has become perhaps the most influential policy maker in the Republican Party, its de facto head of economic policy, intent on a fundamental transformation of the federal government.

His prescriptions in the Republican budget plan he devised have become his party?s marching orders: cut income tax rates and simplify the code, privatize Medicare, shrink the food-stamp and Medicaid programs and turn almost all control over to the states, and reduce domestic federal spending to its smallest share of the economy since World War II.

Outside of Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, Mr. Ryan may be the party?s most important figure, said William Bennett, the conservative luminary and a mentor of Mr. Ryan?s going back to the congressman?s early 20s.

Some conservatives say Mr. Bennett might have the reality reversed. ?Paul Ryan effectively captured the Republican presidential candidates,? Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a member of the House Republican leadership, said admiringly.

Having gained such influence, Mr. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, now faces some big questions, about his ideas and his future.

So far, he has offered major parts of his budget only in broad brush strokes, without specifying all the spending cuts he would make or which popular tax breaks he would eliminate. He has proposed collapsing today?s six personal income tax rates into two, 10 percent and 25 percent, and lowering the corporate rate to 25 percent from 35 percent, all while maintaining the same flow of revenue by closing loopholes.

He also strongly favors a repeal of President Obama?s health care law, even though his own prescriptions for Medicare ? a menu of federally subsidized, private health plans ? are similar to the Obama plan?s for insurance expansion. But he has not offered a plan that would provide coverage to nearly as many people.

The White House and Congressional Democrats have seized on Mr. Ryan?s outline as the distillation of everything they say is wrong with the Republican agenda heading toward the November election.

Mr. Ryan has not yet made clear whether he has an interest in compromising or whether his sole goal is a Republican victory that is sweeping enough to enact his own vision.

Regardless, he is likely to remain near the center of the political tussle. He is among the handful of people most often mentioned as both a 2012 vice-presidential nominee and a future presidential candidate.

Grover Norquist, the Republican strategist who heads Americans for Tax Reform, said in an interview that he did not expect Mr. Romney to lead as president. He just wants him to sign the bills that put Mr. Ryan?s vision into practice.

That is not bad for a man who was once just another minion on Capitol Hill, working for a research group, then for a member of Congress, and moonlighting as a waiter at the Hill hangout Tortilla Coast and as a personal trainer at a gym. Co-workers at the conservative policy group Empower America admonished him for hanging his workout clothes out to dry at work rather than laundering them.

?It?s amazing to all of us because Paul was just an ordinary guy,? said A. Mark Neuman, an old friend.

Mr. Ryan admits it took some ego to run for Congress at age 27, a race he would win in 1998; he asked Mr. Bennett if it passed the laugh test. But he said he was still the same kid from Janesville, Wis., where he returns almost every weekend and Congressional recess to be with his wife, his three children, and a tight cluster of uncles, aunts, cousins and brothers.

He is not so modest about his budget plan, the Path to Prosperity.

?It?s very important, and we meant it to be,? Mr. Ryan said.

He does not drive stakes into the ground, he said, but he also made clear that compromise should come on his terms.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/us/politics/paul-ryans-kinetic-rise-in-gop.html?hp