Paul Ryan has his sights on the Way and Means Chairman Post

Rep. Paul Ryan, last year's GOP vice-presidential nominee, is setting his sights on a new challenge: He plans to be the next chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee starting in 2015, a move that would give him a high-profile platform for advancing conservative policy ideas. 

Fresh off a bipartisan budget deal that restores some certainty to the way Congress spends money, Mr. Ryan is making a push to help the current Ways and Means chairman, Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, rewrite the tax code, an ambitious undertaking that presents major political hurdles.

"We will make the case to the country that lower tax rates across the country for families and businesses are the key" to growth and jobs, Mr. Ryan said in an interview on Tuesday. While Democrats can be expected to criticize GOP tax-cutting as a boon to the rich—as they successfully did in the 2012 presidential campaign—Mr. Ryan said he expects Republicans to win the debate this time around. "Do we want class warfare or growth? I think we want growth," Mr. Ryan said. 

"The issue isn't class warfare, it is tax equity," said Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on Ways and Means. He said the GOP plan would cost the government around $4 trillion, and Republicans have not yet offered a plan for offsetting that cost.

Mr. Ryan, 43 years old, now heads the House Budget Committee. He said he aims to succeed Mr. Camp, whose tenure on the Ways and Means panel will end after 2014 under the Republicans' term limits on chairmen. "That is my plan," said Mr. Ryan. He said the next Ways and Means chairman likely will have to focus on the knotty political problems of trying to revamp entitlement programs and replace President Barack Obama's health-care law.

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