Ryan Ellis
Washington Examiner
Arlington, VA, United States
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Past articles by Ryan:
Unemployment benefits are the worst kind of pandemic relief
The conventional wisdom machine in Washington is spinning up one of its “everybody knows” truisms as we face a long winter of COVID-19 lockdowns. This time, the machine tells the rest of us that “everybody knows” the government is going to have to put millions of people back on unemployment benefits after it runs out at the end of this year. → Read More
Why can't the government leave freelance customers alone?
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, people had shifted the way they purchased goods and services in radically transformative ways. Where we once hailed a cab, we learned to use a ride-sharing app. Groceries and other packages are delivered to our homes on a regular basis. We can hire people to mount televisions or put together bookshelves while we work. You used to have to live in Manhattan,… → Read More
Democrats try to sneak 'Green New Deal' through tax code
In recent weeks, House Democrats have begun to signal how they would govern if given unified control of the federal government. While they will take what they can get from COVID-19 relief bills and conventional extender-type legislation, they have also begun to introduce “shoot for the moon”… → Read More
Don't let private health insurance be a coronavirus victim
No one will know until final reports are in, but our best guess at the moment is that about 36 million people have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. For many of these newly unemployed, the transition not only means the loss of a paycheck, but it also means losing workplace health insurance benefits. → Read More
Pelosi bails out Post Office in name of coronavirus relief
Last week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6800, the “HEROES Act,” a giant 1,800-page Christmas tree of left-wing priorities at best tangentially related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The list of pork and giveaways is astounding — as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell points out, the legislation funds not one, but two, studies related to marijuana. But that’s nothing compared to what… → Read More
A chance to fix pensions once and for all
Federal legislation to help deal with the unexpected COVID-19 pandemic has, in large part, wisely taken the form of direct relief to employers. Paycheck Protection Program loans, Main Street lending, direct Treasury grants, Federal Reserve liquidity, etc., have all served to keep employers in business for the duration of the shutdown. The idea is that they will be there — damaged, but repairable… → Read More
Nancy Pelosi unveils 95% tax proposal on prescription medicines
Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday released a much-anticipated plan detailing House Democrats’ ideas to change the way people get prescription drugs. At the heart of the plan is a retroactive, 95% tax on up to 250 of the most common medicines. The only way out of paying this tax is if the drug… → Read More
The seamless garment comes to Wall Street
The rise of the Catholic Left is in many ways the overarching story of the Church Crisis Era. Despite his statement early on that the Church should not become a “pitiful NGO,” Pope Francis has reigned over an era where “Immanentize the Eschaton” (to quote the late William F. Buckley) might as well be on most episcopal crests. The desire to virtue-signal on issues like immigration is now often… → Read More
Don't listen to Kamala Harris about your tax refund
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., on Monday tweeted out that the middle class got their taxes raised under President Trump’s signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Her rationale? That preliminary reports from the IRS indicate that refunds are down very slightly on a very small sample of tax returns e-filed so far. → Read More
The big news of tax filing season: Middle-class tax cuts
What you won’t read about in the political or tax press beats is the biggest news of tax season this year: the big tax cut middle-class families will see from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. → Read More
Federal employees need to prepare for the next government shutdown
Federal government shutdowns are a lot like hurricanes on the east coast: They don’t happen every year, but they do happen from time to time and it’s best to plan for them. → Read More
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tucker Carlson have one thing in common: Flimsy tax arguments
The last few days on Twitter have been dominated by debates about the “Tucker Carlson manifesto,” a cri de coeur about how the conservative movement has failed the working class voters that put Donald Trump over the top in 2016. Almost simultaneously, freshly minted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., called for a top personal income tax rate of 70 percent, nearly double what it is today and… → Read More
Let millennial 401(k) plans pay off student loans
Republicans have a big problem when it comes to the issue of student loans, and almost no one is talking about it. Anxiety about student loans is rising, and unless they get ahead of public opinion, President Trump and GOP candidates for Congress will quickly find themselves playing catch-up to the likes of Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other irresponsible socialist demagogues. → Read More
Bah humbug: Congress should take electric cars off their Christmas list
Congress is finishing up its last scheduled week before the Christmas holiday sends staffers, lobbyists, and members (both naughty and nice) scurrying home. The smart money is counting on a brief government shutdown, as well as the tax writers punting on some must-pass “tax extenders” to early in the New Year. Some lobbyists, however, are hoping congressional Santa Clauses tuck a brand new tax… → Read More
On GM plant closures, Sherrod Brown is complaining about something that's already been fixed
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is making a lot of political hay over General Motors’ decision to close a plant in Lordstown, Ohio (they have also announced they are expanding operations in Mexico). The senator is dusting off the old “shipping jobs overseas” playbook that Democrats have used for the past decade, but he’s got a problem in doing so: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act already solved the very… → Read More
The Trump stock market needs a long-term boost
President Trump has two big problems. His first problem is that the stock market hasn’t been doing that great lately (Monday's opening gains notwithstanding, the markets have a lot of work to do to reach the record highs seen earlier this year). His second and related problem is that Nancy Pelosi… → Read More
Trump surrenders to the socialists on drug price controls
After spending most of this year rightly condemning governments in Europe and elsewhere for ripping off Americans by imposing below-market price controls on drugs, President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar basically surrendered to the price controls and announced we would be adopting them ourselves. → Read More
Trump is making Obamacare optional
Ever since efforts to legislatively repeal Obamacare ended ignominiously with a “thumbs down” from the late Sen. John McCain on the Senate floor, the Trump administration has been hard at work doing what they can to give families more and better healthcare choices than what Obamacare saddled them… → Read More
Blue states whined about tax reform, but they're actually being helped
As always in tax policy, context matters. → Read More
Here's everything wrong with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's delusional tax reform ideas
Over the weekend, a video made the rounds of “Democratic socialist” congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appearing on “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah. In the interview, Noah asked Ocasio-Cortez how she planned to pay for her big government agenda, most notably so-called “Medicare for All,” aka socialized medicine. → Read More