The standard image of a cost-cutting Washington politician is a certain kind of dour old man — a

pinch-fisted Dickensian fussbudget who wags his finger and scolds Americans about living within their

means. But on April 5, the U.S. met the new face of federal frugality in the form of Republican

Congressman Paul Ryan.

Just 41 years old, with jet black hair and a touch of Eagle Scout to him, the House Budget Committee

chairman unveiled an ambitious package of huge budget cuts designed to dig the country out of its

crippling debt crisis. For Ryan, reining in spending is nothing less than an act of patriotic valor. "For too

long, Washington has not been honest with the American people," he said. "We owe it to the country to

give them an honest debate ... We're not just here so we can get this lapel pin that says we're a member

of Congress. We are here to try and fix this country's problems."

Plenty of Republicans fear that Ryan's ideas could cost them those pins. His vision of $6 trillion in budget

cuts over the next decade is certainly bold. But it would mean fundamental changes to Medicare and

Medicaid (though not Social Security — yet), which happen to be two of the U.S.'s favorite government

programs. About 4 in 5 Americans consider protecting Social Security from big cuts more important than mopping up our national red ink, according to a March Reuters/IPSOS poll, and about 70% feel that way

about Medicaid, which serves the poor and disabled, and Medicare. That's why so many politicians see

the deficit as a nuclear reactor in the middle of a meltdown: rush in to repair it and you may absorb a

lethal dose of radiation.

Ryan is taking that risk. His plan, says Republican political consultant Mark McKinnon, "will completely

transform the fiscal debate. It will either be a brilliant blaze that illuminates Republican courage or a

roaring fire that immolates the party in a spectacular political suicide." It shapes the debate over the

nation's fiscal future just as the next presidential campaign is getting under way. And it could become the

theme song of the 2012 Republican ticket, no matter which candidates are singing it. Already several

Republican hopefuls, including Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, have offered welcoming words, if not

quite full endorsements.

The Obama White House, on the other hand, had a cool response, and liberals are already portraying

Ryan as a heartless ideologue, noting that his approach would cut taxes for the wealthy. House minority

leader Nancy Pelosi called the plan "a path to poverty for America's seniors [and] children and a road to

riches for Big Oil."

Anticipating such attacks, some Republicans wish Ryan had waited for Democrats to offer their own plan.

Yet Ryan argues that he just couldn't hold off any longer. "The Democrats clearly aren't taking up this

challenge," Ryan told TIME. "They decided not to deal with this ... This debt is literally going to get out of

our control pretty soon."

Ryan sounds bold where others have been timid because he's spent years preparing for this moment.

Before his 1998 election from a swing district in southeastern Wisconsin, dotted with industrial plants and

lake resorts, he earned a degree in economics and political science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio,

then went on to work for a series of GOP luminaries, including the late policy innovator Jack Kemp and

think-tank founder William Bennett. Arriving in Congress when he was just 29, Ryan made a name for

himself fast, burrowing into health care policy and showing an appetite for politically risky budget fights. It

was enough to make even some of Ryan's colleagues question his political sense. (Some may just be

jealous of his fast-rising stock: Sarah Palin, among others, has singled him out for praise.)

He may be a modern political star, but there's still something a little old-fashioned about Ryan, right down

to his crow's-beak nose. Maybe it's the premature seriousness that comes from finding your father dead

of a heart attack when you were 16 and then helping to care for a grandmother with Alzheimer's disease.

Now a married father of three, Ryan is a PowerPoint fanatic with an almost unsettling fluency in the fine

print of massive budget documents. "I love the field of economics," Ryan says. "I have a knack for

numbers. And I've just delved into this issue for my adult life, basically."

Of course, the U.S.'s political battlefields are littered with brave warriors who once spoke hopefully of

taking on budgetary sacred cows. (Recall George W. Bush's dead-on-arrival push to overhaul Social

Security in 2005 or Newt Gingrich's politically toxic bid to cut Medicare spending in 1995.) But Ryan is

gambling that the climate is different today. Washington has talked ad nauseam about the need to shrink

our debt before world financial markets lose faith in America's solvency, leading to unimaginable economic chaos. But when a bipartisan fiscal commission created by President Obama — who has

repeatedly spoken of the need for deficit reduction — came up with a set of proposals in December,

partisans on both sides bashed its ideas and Obama kept a cautious distance. Nor did Obama offer

substantial deficit-reduction ideas in his State of the Union address. "When the President decided not to

do anything in his budget, that's when I made my mind up," Ryan says.

Here's what Ryan came up with:

Health Care for Seniors. Ryan estimates he'd save more than $2 trillion over the next decade by

transforming the government's two major health care programs and repealing Obama's 2010 health care

law. Medicare, which provides health care for more than 45 million American seniors, already consumes

about an eighth of federal spending, and its costs are set to explode as the baby boomers start retiring.

Ryan would phase out Medicare's current mechanism, which reimburses health care providers without

payout limits for patients, and begin federal payments to private health plans chosen by future seniors.

Republicans say that competition would lower prices — and that seniors who can't count on automatic

coverage will be more judicious about their health care consumption, which would also lower costs.

Critics worry that Ryan won't give seniors enough money to take care of themselves. His plan would cap

Medicare payments at a rate slightly above inflation, far less than the rate health care costs are projected

to grow — meaning that seniors would pay much more of the health care burden out of their own pockets

(although Ryan's plan would provide extra assistance to some low-income seniors).

Ryan has partly insulated his vision from electoral blowback by exempting Americans 55 and over from

any changes to their Medicare coverage, although GOP operatives worry that Democratic attacks will

lead current seniors — who have the highest voter turnout — to believe otherwise.

Health Care for the Poor. Ryan would also blow up the Medicaid program, which gives health care to

more than 50 million Americans, mostly poor and disabled. He would save $771 million over the next 10

years by cutting Medicaid and sending it as a block grant to states, which would be given new flexibility

on how to spend the money. Some may find creative savings, but many — especially those under GOP

control — are likely to cut benefits.

Taxes and Other Spending. Ryan proposes a scrubbing of the tax code that would wipe out hundreds of

complex loopholes and apply the savings to lower income tax rates for everyone. (He would lower the top

tax bracket from 35% to 25%.) But he wouldn't raise any new tax revenue — in part because new taxes

are anathema to the GOP faithful. Ryan does not ask the wealthy or Big Business to help with the budget

rescue; such a move, he says, would smother job growth. To the contrary, Ryan's plan would extend the

Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans, now set to expire in 2013, which would forgo $700 billion in

revenue over 10 years.

Ryan also wants deep budget reductions in nearly every category, saving up to $925 billion by cutting

spending back to 2008 levels and freezing it there for five years. That's quite a dramatic sum when you

consider how much Congress has been fighting over a few tens of billions of dollars in this year's budget.

The White House has been quick to point out that those cuts would hit popular programs, including Pell

Grants to make college more affordable. A big exception is defense spending: Ryan endorses only the cuts already planned by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, amounting to $78 billion over five years. Many

defense experts believe the Pentagon could safely slash many times that amount.

And although Ryan is being called courageous for taking on Medicare and Medicaid, his plan punts on

perhaps the most electrified political rail of all: Social Security. That program is still solvent, but as

millions of baby boomers retire, it's going to start running big deficits. Ryan has talked before about

reforming Social Security, but his latest plan simply calls for bipartisan action down the road. (He's also

been criticized for peddling fuzzy math and rosy projections. A Washington Post fact check deemed his

budget full of "dubious assertions, questionable assumptions and fishy figures.")

Even if lawmakers find the courage to act, Ryan's plan won't become law in anything like its current form.

As long as Democrats control the Senate — at least through next year — no budget deal will be adopted

without an O.K. from the Obama White House. (The 2010 health care law, for instance, won't be repealed

so long as Obama holds a veto pen.) After that, it is harder to predict, but even some of Ryan's GOP

colleagues are nervous about taking on entitlement programs. Ryan's backers say they have to start

somewhere, however. "When you win an election, you have a responsibility to lead," says Republican

Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio. Says Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma: "If we

don't do something on deficit reduction, [we] won't be here in a couple of years."

That's why Ryan's vision could provide a blueprint in the coming months for a grand budget deal between

the parties later. The U.S. will reach its federal borrowing limit in early July and will default on its debt

without a congressional vote authorizing more borrowing. Some Republican leaders want to tie major

spending reductions to any such vote, although Obama officials discourage such talk.

The great unknown is whether the two parties are prepared for the kind of honest debate Ryan says

Americans deserve. Can Democrats accept any significant cuts to entitlement programs? Will

Republicans ever tolerate tax hikes? Obama said on April 5 that he's "looking forward to having that

conversation." But in the shadow of the 2012 presidential campaign, in which both sides will be elbowing

for any political advantage, that's not going to be easy.