WASHINGTON (WTAQ) - Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan says if you want to be good at the job he has, you have to be willing to lose it.

If you just worry about reelection, you’re not going to be effective.

Time Magazine has called the Janesville Republican the most influential American politician. He wasn’t named Person of the Year, losing out to a composite person the magazine calls “the protester.”

Ryan won election in the 1st Congressional District 13 years ago.

The magazine gives him credit for, “hard work, good timing,” and what it calls possibly suicidal guts.

His tribute was based on his work on a dramatic budget plan the magazine says it necessary to, “defuse the American debt time bomb.”