When Paul Ryan was in college, which he paid for in part with the Social Security survivor's benefits his family received after his father's death, he discovered the powerful scriptures of free-market economists and became an eager disciple. As he recently joked on stage with the editor of the National Review, "We've been dreaming of this" — this being scaling back the Medicaid program that provides health coverage to poor Americans — "since you and I were drinking out of kegs." While every last dream of that frat boy with his dog-eared copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged may not be coming true, Ryan may now finally be contemplating a life outside the federal government, from whom he has drawn a paycheck for nearly his entire adult life.