Paul Ryan, Global Thinker

Paul Ryan's inclusion has to be the editorial staff of Foreign Policy trolling its readership. There is no other explanation for why he is included in this list, other than Glenn Beck broke into their offices the night before printing. The man has accomplished little to nothing in his tenure. Granted its a high profile nothing, but still nothing. Lets look at FP's reasoning shall we.

Repeal Obamacare. Lower income tax rates and simplify the tax code. Cut Medicaid by a third and make it a state-controlled block-grant program. Overhaul Medicare by giving beneficiaries money to buy competing public and private health plans. Reduce non-entitlement spending to its lowest level since World War II. And save $5 trillion in the process

 Too bad that all of that is malarkey. Paul Ryan's budget actually would have cost money. He relied on magic pixie dust to actually achieve reductions. Additionally, I may have missed it, but I'm pretty sure that budget went precisely nowhere. That means Paul Ryan, much vaunted wonk of the Republican Party, has actually had no impact on United States Policy. Moving on.

The article then discusses Paul Ryan as the Vice presidential candidate, which allows me once again to be a snarky bastard. The Romney/Ryan ticket not only lost the popular vote by four percent, he also lost his home state, and his own HOME TOWN!! No one likes him or his ideas. His budget was so thoroughly rejected on election day that Paul Ryan probably should stay away from math for awhile.

Foreign Policy has put an obvious huckster, who no one likes, as their number 8 most influential person in the world. I weep for international affairs journalism.