By David Brat People fed up with high-tax, slow-growth areas of the country migrate in large quantities to low-tax, high-growth areas of the country. Despite fleeing areas with less favorable economic conditions, when they get to the low-tax, high growth areas, they vote in favor of policies that undermine the economic environment they were attracted to in the first place! Simply put, flourishing red areas of the country are in danger of being distorted by failing blue-state economic theories. Liberal policy analysts ignore economic factors in migration. Paul Krugman attributes Americans' migration to the South to the fact that air conditioning has made the South more livable. The reality is people move from California to Texas not because of the weather -- they move for jobs, lower taxes, and opportunity. Recent Census data (2014) shows that the top seven states with the biggest percentage increases in in-migration -- those gaining in number of residents -- are North Dakota, Nevada, South Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, and Texas. All red states except Colorado, which is purple. The top states with the biggest percentage out-migration, which is to say the states losing the most residents, are Alaska, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Kansas. All these states are blue, except Alaska and Kansas. According to the American Community Survey in 2015, New York had 69,289 migrants to Florida. In total, the survey counted 1.5 million people living in Florida who were born in New York. In comparison, only 0.9 million people who were born in New York were living in New Jersey -- right next door. New York wasn't the only state hemorrhaging population. California had 65,546 migrants to Texas. While we're looking at California, you may know that Orange County is famous for being the only Republican stronghold along the Pacific Coast. Unsurprisingly, the American Community Survey also found that one of the largest county migration flows was folks moving from Los Angeles County to Orange County. As you can see, this is a nationwide trend. And yes, it's happening here in Virginia. In 2006, Virginia was 42nd in terms of net out-migration, bringing in 34,203 more residents than we lost. Number 51 was Texas, which brought 173,243 more than it lost. New York lost 228,444. In 2016, Virginia slipped to 11th in net out-migration, losing 11,507 residents. Why are folks beginning to leave Virginia? Because over the same time period Virginia has slipped in the business rankings due to blue-state policies creeping in, driven by an increasingly blue Northern Virginia. To put this in perspective, let's compare where the commonwealth ranks in various surveys on economic competitiveness and the general climate for business. Between 2010 and 2017, Virginia slipped from second to fifth in Forbes' "Best States for Business" ranking; from second to seventh in CNBC's "America's Top States for Business" ranking; from second to seventh in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "Enterprising States" ranking; fourth to 15th in Chief Executives' "Best and Worst States for Business" ranking; and from fourth to ninth in Site Selection Magazine's "Business Climate" ranking. *** New residents are lured by red-state perks, but unfortunately, they bring their blue-state values.Henrico -- an award-winning county with a pro-business climate, top-of-the-line infrastructure, and excellent schools -- has attracted out-of-state migrants in recent years. According to Census migration flow maps, the largest amount of inbound migrants over the past several years hail from the D.C. metro area, the Chicago area, Los Angeles County, San Diego County, the Boston metro area, the Miami metro area and the New York metro area -- all deep blue areas. Henrico County went to Hillary Clinton by more than 30,000 votes in 2016. Just over a decade ago, George W. Bush won the same county by 11,000 votes. That's a rapid demographic shift. But Democrats are still upset that Henrico isn't more blue. Courtney Lynch, Henrico's freshman supervisor, just said she plans to quit because the Board of Supervisors wasn't implementing her left-leaning agenda fast enough: "I realize this role on the Board of Supervisors isn't a fit for my strengths and leadership style." Perhaps what Lynch isn't recognizing is that Henrico County is affluent today because of core Republican pillars like limited government regulation, great education, low taxes, and commitment to American values. The Board of Supervisors is rejecting her push for a radical agenda because they know a dramatic shift would harm Henrico's prosperity and your family. We need to call out what's happening and, come this fall, Virginians will have to decide if they're going continue to let blue-state policies (like raising taxes -- something many Democrats have promised if they gain power in November) hurt our future economic prospects more than they already have.

By: Dave Brat Members of the media are pushing the narrative that tax cuts are unpopular with voters. The truth is that they aren't unpopular. American families like--and need--tax cuts. Taxes are unpopular because voters know they can spend their money better than Washington can. They can invest it, they can save it, and they can donate it to the causes they care deeply about. Taxes are also unpopular because Washington is bloated. It's no secret that it wastes taxpayer money all the time. Last year, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., pointed out that the federal government was spending $1.7 million for a comedy club starring holograms of dead comedians; $1.5 million to test the endurance of fish on a treadmill; $3.5 million to learn why people are afraid of going to the dentist; $300,000 to study whether girls or boys spend more time playing with Barbie dolls; and $450,000 to determine if dinosaurs could sing, among many other examples. In December, Republicans passed tax reform. However, a curious thing occurred. Public approval for the tax cuts was at a mere 37 percent. If tax cuts are inherently popular, why would the approval numbers be so low? I would like to suggest that it is because the American people have been intentionally misled by Democratic leaders. Democrats have perpetuated the myth that only the rich received tax cuts in January--and that's simply not true. In fact, the Wall Street Journal editorial board actually complained throughout the process that Republicans were cutting taxes for everyone except the rich. One Democratic candidate in Wisconsin even said that 99.8 percent of Americans will get "not one nickel" in tax cuts--a statement that even the left-leaning Politifact admitted was "Pants on Fire" false. The truth is that the average household will get a tax cut of $1,610 in 2018. For a great illustration of how folks have been misled by Democratic leaders, take a look at the segment that CBS aired on Dec. 22 about three diverse American families that met with an accountant to estimate their 2018 taxes. In each case, the family was skeptical that they'd see their taxes lowered in 2018, but the accountant revealed that they would all be saving money. The single mother in North Carolina making less than $40,000 will save $1,300 in 2018. The married homeowning couple with no children in Rhode Island making $150,000 will save about $650. The business-owning couple with three children in California is set to save more than $13,000. And those are just three out of the millions of examples of Americans who will benefit from tax reform. But people are beginning to learn about the lies. In February, after just two months of implementing the tax cuts, the New York Times reported that the new tax law had boomed in popularity, with the majority now approving tax reform. That change came about in large part because Americans saw more money in their paychecks because federal withholdings have gone down. Here's more good news: Tax cuts in 2018 were only one half of the benefits Americans are receiving from Republican tax reform. The other half is that tax reform is incentivizing businesses to grow and expand, hire more people and raise workers' wages. In my own 7th Congressional District, the owners of Landscape Supply, a small, family-owned business, told me that they were able to hire five more full-time employees and also offer their workers bonuses. Patrick, the CEO, credits this expansion and added compensation to the Republican tax reform bill. This same story is repeated throughout the 7th District--and across the country. More than 500 companies across the country are reportedly using their tax cut savings to give their employees higher pay, including some of Virginia's biggest employers such as CarMax, Altria, Walmart, Lowe's, Home Depot and AT&T. Yet Democrats like Nancy Pelosi--who called the higher compensation "crumbs"--continue to push a narrative that these tax cuts won't help businesses and individuals. Let's not forget that Pelosi herself praised an Obama-era bill that gave workers a $40 tax cut. From the earliest days of the American Revolution, our nation has been founded upon resistance to exorbitant taxation. Americans were opposed to high taxes at the Boston Tea Party, and they are opposed to high taxes across the country today.

By: Dave Brat Very soon, Mexican and Canadian officials are going to push the Trump administration to approve and finalize a "NAFTA 2.0," which is supposedly a renegotiation of the original 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. The administration's primary representative in this effort is the U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Robert Lighthizer. While we are being told by Ambassador Lighthizer and others that this will be a good deal for Americans, I encourage President Trump to take a hard look at one provision in particular: the special visas that are buried in the original NAFTA, and to reach out to Congress about this important subject. This visa provision must be a part of the national discussion and the congressional debate about renewing NAFTA to ensure it really will be a good deal for Americans. The 1993 NAFTA created a brand new visa, dubbed the Treaty National (or TN) visa. The TN visa was designed to permit the nationals of the three treaty signatories to flow freely across each others' borders for business purposes. This open borders provision has never been rationally vetted by the American people. Twenty-five years after their inception, TN visas raise important sovereignty, economic, and, perhaps most importantly, homeland security issues that must be addressed. Since TN visas are part of a congressionally approved treaty, they are undeniably legal, and are technically only available to Mexican and Canadian nationals. That said, it is unclear if Congress can do anything to change TN visas or their requirements, given that it is a product of the treaty instead of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Depending on who you believe, Congress may actually not be able to modify TN visas in any way, or strengthen screening and vetting requirements. In addition, because TN visas are issued pursuant to NAFTA treaty authorities, the Department of Homeland Security does not have oversight or control over these visas. This means people other than our own homeland security experts are authorizing foreign nationals into our country. This is both an affront to sovereignty and a significant national security blind spot. Economically speaking, TN visas raise basic questions about the value of a NAFTA 2.0 that does not take a hard look at these visas. TN visas permit an unlimited number of high-skilled individuals from Mexico and Canada to enter and work in the United States, which means TN visas allow Mexican and Canadian nationals to come here for lucrative, high-paying jobs. These are certainly not "jobs Americans won't do." In conjunction with H-1B visas and other questionable visa programs, TN visas are arguably boxing Americans out of the current economic boom. Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who has spent his Senate career protecting American jobs, raised these and other important concerns about TN visas in a letter to Ambassador Lighthizer last October. In addition to noting that estimates of the overall number of TN visa holders (since the federal government does not have consistent data regarding the number of TN visa holders in the country at any given moment) is in the vicinity of 100,000, Grassley also raised questions about whether TN visa holders are subject to fair wage and other labor laws. To the extent TN visa holders are not subject to American laws designed to protect American workers and domestic labor markets, they undercut our economy and the ability of Americans to compete for jobs that should result from companies that move from Mexico and Canada to the United States. After all, if businesses are relocating facilities from Mexico and Canada but bringing their foreign national workers with them, American workers are not being hired for these jobs. This, to some degree, undermines the basic justification for maintaining NAFTA, and raises questions about the net gain of NAFTA 2.0. Those of us who support President Trump's priorities on immigration understand that he made clear commitments to rebuild our economy, protect American workers, and end immigration abuses. To truly stick to that commitment, he needs to take a hard look at the continued viability and potential risks of TN visas. Not doing so puts all of the good we have seen to date at risk.