Wamp was born in Fort Benning, Georgia, and grew up in East Ridge, Tennessee, a community adjacent to Chattanooga, where his father worked as an architect.

[1] After leaving college, Wamp became a national sales supervisor for Olan Mills, a photography company based in Chattanooga that primarily produces church directories, and later became a successful commercial and industrial real estate broker.

[citation needed] He began his career in politics as a precinct vice chairman and Youth Coordinator for the 1983 Chattanooga mayoral campaign of Gene Roberts.

Battling through a hotly contested primary, he easily defeated his childhood friend and sitting State Representative Kenneth J. Meyer by nearly two to one.

He proposed a plan to pay congressmen the same as Lieutenant Colonels and linked his Democratic opponent, Randy Button, to Bill Clinton.

He likely got coattails from Bill Frist's and Fred Thompson's strong 1994 statewide elections, and was helped by Lloyd crossing party lines to endorse him.

Wamp explored seeking a seat in the United States Senate to succeed Bill Frist, who had promised to serve no more than two terms.

However, shortly after winning reelection to a sixth term in 2004, Wamp announced he would run again in 2006 after all, citing his status as Tennessee's only member of the powerful Appropriations Committee.

Wamp was a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, a post he has used to champion what he called his highest legislative priority—funding for his district's decaying lock at the Chickamauga Dam.

He also secured in the 2006 budget a $4 million appropriation for a methamphetamine task force[citation needed], which was started in 1999 and has since expanded to all regions of Tennessee.

On July 23, 2010, Hotline OnCall published statements made by Wamp in an interview, in which he said that the health care reforms proposed during the Obama administration had placed state governments in "an untenable position".

[16] Wamp was unsuccessful in his bid to be the Republican candidate for Tennessee's Governor, losing to Bill Haslam in the August 5, 2010 open primary.