Bud Shuster was born in Glassport, Pennsylvania, in Allegheny County, on January 23, 1932. He received a B.S. at the University of Pittsburgh in 1954, an M.B.A. at Duquesne University, also in Pittsburgh, in 1960, and finally a Ph.D. from American University in Washington, DC. in 1967. He served in the United States Army from 1954-1956. Shuster was elected as a Republican to the 93rd Congress on January 3, 1973, and re-elected for the next 14 Congresses thereafter until his resignation from the 106th Congress on February 3, 2001. He was also a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1976, 1980, 1984, and 1988.

Congressman Shuster received many accolades as a politician. During his career in the House of Representatives, he earned the unique distinction of receiving both the Republican and Democratic Congressional nominations nine times each. He served on the Committee on the Budget as well as its Defense Task Force, and the Committee on Education and the Workforce as well as its Subcommittee on Higher Education. He was a delegate to NATO's North Atlantic Assembly, and also Ranking Member of the Select Intelligence Committee, and thereby on the Subcommittees on Human Intelligence, Technical and Tactical Intelligence, and Analysis and Counterintelligence. Finally, Shuster served as Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

The Republican House member's most important legislative capacity, however, was his service as Chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure from the 104th to 106th Congress. In this position, Shuster was instrumental in the passage of the 1982 Surface Transportation Act, the 1987 Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act. More important acts passed by Shuster include the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the Twenty-First Century (TEA-21), and the 2000 Aviation Investment Reform Act of the Twenty-First Century (AIR-21). He was directly responsible for creating the major Pennsylvania road, Interstate 99, also known as "The Bud Shuster Highway."

Shuster was given a letter of reproval by Congress for various fundraising scandals in which he was allegedly involved, the pressure of which led to his resignation in 2001. His son, Bill, was chosen to fill his empty seat in the ninth Pennsylvania Congressional district through a special election.

Though he is best known as a politician, Bud Shuster is more than just that. He has written a children's book, Double Buckeyes: A Story of the Way America Used to Be (1999), a rather self-evidently conservative story about a young boy coming of age in World War II America. Shuster is the author of three novels--the first of which, Believing in America (1983), his memoir-esque history of his dealings in Congress and his opinions on the state and future of the country, is the only one to have received any degree of critical praise. Secret Harvest (2000) is his second novel, the story of a family in rural America. Finally, Chances (2002) rounds out the roster, the semi-autobiographical story of a self-made man.

Bud Shuster has retired from politics, but he serves as Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at St. Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania, from which he received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.