NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tapped Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate for the fall campaign on Saturday, turning to the architect of a conservative and intensely controversial long-term budget plan to remake Medicare and cut trillions in federal spending.
Romney made his announcement to supporters via a phone app.
At 42, Ryan is a generation younger than the 65-year-old Romney.
A seventh-term congressman, Ryan is chairman of the House Budget Committee, and primary author of conservative tax and spending blueprints that the tea party-infused Republican majority approved over vociferous Democratic opposition in 2011 and again in 2012.
It envisions transforming Medicare into a program in which future seniors would receive government checks that they could use to purchase health insurance. Under the current program, the government directly pays doctors, hospitals and other health care providers.
Ryan and other supporters say the change is needed to prevent the program from financial calamity. Critics argue it would impose ever-increasing costs on seniors.
Other elements of the budget plan would cut projected spending for Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, as well as food stamps, student loans and other social programs that Obama and Democrats have pledged to defend.
In all, it projected spending cuts of $5.3 trillion over a decade, and cut future projected deficits substantially.
It also envisions a far reaching overhaul of the tax code of the sort Romney has promised.