Tuesday morning, the Trump transition team announced that House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, M.D. (R-Ga.) had been selected as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services. After spending 12 years in Congress and more than 30 years in medicine, it would be difficult to find a candidate more qualified than this physician-statesman to overhaul the department and institute some serious reforms.

As his former press secretary, I can attest to his intellectual curiosity, complete competence, absolute commitment to conservatism and, most importantly, utter decency in all he does. Here are five reasons my former boss is going to make a great HHS Secretary:

He’s a third generation doctor – and a really good one, too.

Dr. Price, like his father and grandfather, is a physician. His wife, Betty, is an anesthesiologist. He specializes in orthopedic surgery, one of the most complex and competitive disciplines within medicine.

After finishing medical school, he helped to establish the country’s largest and most prestigious orthopedic surgery practice, Resurgens, which now has 21 locations across the Atlanta area. In addition to practicing medicine for nearly three decades, Dr. Price served as an assistant professor at Emory University, as well as the Director of the Orthopedic Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital, a teaching facility that often acts as a primary health care center for poor or low income Atlantans.

Dr. Price is known nationwide for his tremendous capabilities as a doctor. On more than one occasion, his medical intuition and expertise led him to dig further than typical diagnoses, saving the lives of patients who did not realize the severity of the conditions they had. There are countless people whose lives have been saved, extended or enhanced because Dr. Price cared for them.

For the Georgia congressman, health care is the fusion of two great passions: helping others and the science of medicine.

There is no one more versed on repealing Obamacare and replacing it with good policy.

When Congress first debated Obamacare, Dr. Price proposed his own legislation, the Empowering Patients First Act. Indeed, while the media scream that the GOP had no solutions to counter President Obama’s proposals, the reality was that he had offered his own alternative in 2009. He has offered tweaked versions of the initial bill in every Congress since.

The bill, which I’ve written about at-length here at Opportunity Lives, is full of things conservatives will love. It begins by repealing Obamacare and then proceeds to implement patient-centered reforms that keep families and doctors at the heart of health care, not government. It makes insurance more affordable, and thus, more accessible. It eliminates mandates and empowers patients to make choices for themselves. It improves the quality of care. And it shrinks the deficit.

He’s one of the most creative, reliable conservatives in Congress.

Dr. Price came to Washington in January 2005. Since then, he’s been pretty busy. He served as the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, House Policy Chairman, Vice Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget, and most recently, Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget.

He’s been proactive in developing creative legislation meant to address various policy challenges facing the country, from loosening the union stranglehold on job creators to budget bills that, while probably unsexy to the general public, would seriously reform our out-of-control fiscal processes in Washington. Instead of acting as a seat-filler, Dr. Price has spent his time in Congress trying to make a real difference.

He also consistently ranks as one of the most conservative Members of Congress, but he doesn’t use his principles as an excuse to draw attention to himself. He has held the GOP accountable on the causes of conservatism, but he hasn’t sought to embarrass colleagues or create unnecessary public drama when disagreements arose.

He has surrounded himself with strong conservatives, like House Committee on Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), Vice President-elect Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.). His friends and allies are the folks who fought spending before the Tea Party and who dared to offer bold reforms before it was politically popular to do so.

As the vice chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, he’s raised and given money to other good conservatives to boost GOP numbers in Washington. During the 2012 cycle, Politico called him one of the most “prolific” campaigners for the party, as he’d drive himself long distances to hold fundraisers for Republican recruits or valued conservative veterans.

As Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget, Dr. Price understands the grave fiscal danger if we don’t reform our entitlement programs.

The largest drivers to our national debt are programs like Medicare and Medicaid. As Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget, Dr. Price created and passed budgets that would pay off the national debt, eliminate deficits, reform and protect retirement programs, institute tax reform and get federal spending under control.

The Department of Health and Human Services has long ignored the looming fiscal crisis as it concerns public health programs. Dr. Price has the budgetary expertise, as well as the practical application skills of caring for patients as a physician, to solve this problem in a way that not only rescues our federal ledger, but also remains mindful of meeting the needs of patients at all stages of life.

He’s just a really good person, too.

After living a while in Washington, it’s hard to overstate just how much character counts. In a town full of people looking to step on top of each other just to get ahead, Dr. Price is the first to share credit with others or avoid it for himself all-together. He is endlessly cheerful, earnestly interested in others and the first to give of himself for the benefit of another person.

He is universally liked and respected by colleagues from both sides of the aisle for his decency, sincerity and positivity. When faced with disappointments, he was always gracious and never sulked. He is a peacemaker among warring factions of the House GOP Conference, and he’s a trusted ally and resource to many from across the GOP spectrum. I’ve been a witness on numerous occasions to his private charity and teamwork mentality, even as others around him would give in to their worst instincts.

Once, I asked him how he never gossiped about other people in D.C. He replied with a shrug, “Well, I guess if you don’t think bad things about people, you won’t say them.”

As in everything in his life, I remain unflinchingly convinced that he will conduct himself with the highest integrity and remain motivated by the oaths he’s taken as a physician and a public servant. The country will be truly lucky to have him serve in this way.

Ellen Carmichael is a senior writer for Opportunity Lives. Follow her on Twitter @ellencarmichael.

They are a study in contrasts, like two clashing characters in a sitcom – the odd couple, let’s call them.

But as the results of last November’s election came pouring in, these two men – one a traditional free-market, fiscal conservative; the other a brash and disruptive populist figure – came to represent the lines by which the Republican party will unfurl itself in the coming years.

First things first: the respective victories of U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and President-elect Donald Trump seemed like a long shot. As Jon Lerner of the National Review outlines in a recent op-ed, Toomey managed to come out on top despite having more money spent against him than any Senate candidate in U.S. history, and his unlikely win helped secure a Republican majority in the Senate for at least another two years. Trump, meanwhile, somehow managed to win in a state where Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney all failed – a “remarkable” feat, according to Lerner.

Still, both races were close, and Lerner admits it can be easy to write-off these wins as a simple result of voters favoring Republicans this time around.

“That conclusion would be wrong,” Lerner writes. “Trump and Toomey took distinctly different paths to victory and never appeared together in the state. The differences between their paths present significant implications for the future of the Republican party in an increasingly polarized nation.”

Lerner’s conclusion, from looking at various demographics and individual counties across the state, is that the best path toward success for the Republican Party is to combine the tactics of Trump and Toomey into one solidified push.

Look at it this way: Toomey’s success in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs bolstered his victory. Trump overcame a poor showing in those same suburbs by faring better in the rural areas than any Republican presidential candidate since 1988.

“But what would happen if, rather than choosing between the two paths, you merged them?” Lerner posits.

If that happened – if Republicans managed to secure the suburbs through fiscally-conservative principles, while also utilizing a populist and anti-establishment message like that which Trump pushed – neither of these two races would have ended as nail-biters.

Instead, Lerner writes, they would have been landslides.

“This election showed that it’s possible for Republicans to narrowly win tough states like Pennsylvania with either the Toomey approach or the Trump approach,” Lerner concludes. “If the party can determine how to combine the two methods, then Pennsylvania and several other states could become reliably red.”

Head over to the National Review for Lerner’s original op-ed.

Opportunity Lives senior writer Ellen Carmichael joined the Jack Riccardi show on KTSA to talk about Donald Trump’s pick for HHS Secretary, U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), and the experience that readied him for the spot.

I love buying goods made in the USA. It’s a tradition taught by my father, who tries his best to avoid purchasing goods made in China if an American alternative is available.

Traveling the presidential campaign trail in 2011 and 2012, I heard from Iowa farmers that they regretted how the corn they grew was feeding Americans less and less frequently. My own home state of Louisiana faced a similar identity crisis as sugar cane—a legacy crop that provided steady income for generation after generation—became cheaper to purchase from Caribbean nations than from American farmers.

President-elect Donald Trump spent a lot of time telling voters he was going to bring jobs back to the United States. He didn’t really explain how, other than saying companies would be sorry for leaving.

Since he’s been elected, we’ve gotten a better idea of how he’d achieve that. With the recent Carrier deal, Trump showed he is willing to use the presidential bully pulpit to shame companies from leaving our shores. Some free marketeers sounded the alarm that such politicking, even in its most rudimentary form, was just another example of crony capitalism.

But a lot of voters loved it. They loved the idea of a strongman standing up for the American people and putting a big company in what they believe is its rightful place.

While the bluster about American companies sinisterly sending jobs overseas might appeal to voters’ frustration and economic isolation, there’s a simple reality that President-elect Trump has not articulated: American goods are extremely expensive to produce. It has made us uncompetitive in world markets we should otherwise dominate with our abundance of natural resources, intellectual gifts and work ethic.

But, explaining why this is the case is a little more difficult than just promising you will — through coercion and humiliation, in the case of Trump — prevent companies from expanding overseas. The policy catalysts for corporations fleeing the United States can be complex, and, sometimes, Americans are in denial they even exist.

Source: Mercatus Center

First, the U.S. corporate income tax rate is the highest in the industrialized world. At 39.6 percent, it is higher than the worldwide average of 29.8 percent — a figure derived by including the rates of countries largely uncompetitive in international commerce.

Among our commercial peers, Ireland has a corporate income tax rate at 12.5 percent, while Brazil’s is a combined 25 percent. Germany typically levies about a 15 percent tax on companies, and South Korea’s corporate income tax ranges from 10 percent to 20 percent. With rates as uncompetitive as ours, our ability to remain the world’s largest and most important economy speaks to our innovation, size and commercial diversity, even in spite of the unnatural barriers to commerce created by an aggressive federal government.

Another key factor in counterproductive corporate tax policy is our practice of discouraging repatriation. Most nations impose a territorial tax system, which allows domestic companies to earn profits overseas, pay taxes to those other nations and bring their money home without penalty. The U.S. taxes all monies returned to the country through repatriation, even though corporations have already paid taxes abroad. Even though companies can write off the taxes paid to other nations on their federal income taxes in the U.S., our exorbitant corporate income tax rate means that companies are still paying double tax if they try to return profits to America to invest at home.

This is something Republicans have considered to be a crucial part of tax reform for some time. They believe that ending taxes on repatriated profits would allow American companies to accelerate hiring at home, bolster pensions for employees, invest in new equipment and so on.

The Left, on the other hand, has seen taxing repatriated profits as a way to punish companies for taking jobs overseas. But, part of the reason companies have done so in the first place is because America’s tax system makes it enormously challenging to invest in people, products and production here at home.

Unfortunately, taxation isn’t the only anti-business policy created by the federal government that has stunted economic growth, and thus, the creation of jobs and wealth. Burdensome regulations, especially compared to other nations with a much smaller regulatory regime, mean companies spend a great deal of time and money complying with rules created by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, many of whom have very little knowledge of the industry they’re regulating.

According to the National Association of Manufacturers, American businesses spent $2.028 trillion in 2014 to comply with government regulations of their industries. On average, companies spent 21 percent of their annual payroll on regulatory compliance, or about $233,182 per organization. Eighty-eight percent of manufacturing leaders surveyed said “federal regulations are a top challenge for their firm.”

Additionally, increased dominance of labor unions in the workplace, even as union membership has plummeted to historic lows nationwide, have made doing business far more expensive for job creators. Democrat proposals such as “card check” would result in compulsory union membership, exacerbating the costs of maintaining and recruiting new employees. From expensive lawyers spending hundreds of thousands of hours on collective bargaining dramas to the administration of political activity, the union stranglehold has put the interest of those in charge of unions ahead of their actual members.

To be clear, I’m not advocating the elimination of private sector unions (public sector unions, on the other hand, have far fewer merits). They have been powerful advocates on behalf of working people on matters such as safety and fair pay.

But it’s important that workers who support robust, ever-expanding unions understand that in doing so, they’re undercutting their own opportunities at job stability and industry growth that would employ more people. Fact is, unions no longer represent what they once did. They are political agents within workplaces, within industries and within the greater political system.

As in any economic scenario, these costs all get passed to consumers in the form of higher prices for goods. If American products are more expensive, it means the United States is less competitive in the international marketplace and even at home.

If American-made goods aren’t competitively priced as a result of these unnecessary market factors, it means a lot fewer of them will be bought. Lower demand for American products equates with fewer jobs to make them. If there are fewer jobs to be had, fewer people will be working.

So when President-elect Trump talks about mandating that government contractors use American goods to keep with a particular campaign promise, he’s actually only putting a bandage on a systemic illness that undercuts the country’s ability to achieve meaningful, lasting economic growth.

In the case of infrastructure spending, it will either mean that the government will be able to complete fewer projects or it will cost much more to finish them. In the first scenario, that means fewer American workers will have the opportunity to get good-paying jobs during a time of widespread underemployment. In the second, it means that taxpayers will be stuck paying for a bigger price tag at a time when the country is in $20 trillion in debt and can’t really afford it.

When Trump brags about keeping Carrier in the United States, thereby saving 1,000 jobs, he fails to recognize that hundreds of thousands of jobs won’t be created unless major federal policy reforms — such as reforms to our regulatory system, labor relations and tax schemes — follow. And you can’t reverse decades of anti-growth economic policies by pressuring every individual business in America.

To make matters worse, he supports a departure from longstanding Republican policy on things like repatriation tax reform that would lure companies back to the United States that had been chased away by a punitive tax system. While it may seem satisfying to some of his core voters to exact revenge upon major corporations, they’re actually undercutting the possibility of bringing capital back home to create jobs here. It may feel good today, but having jobs feels better in the long run.

Republicans want to build things at home. We long for a return to astronomical economic growth of decades past, where Americans of all skill levels and educational background can achieve financial stability and mobility for their families. But, we understand that can only be accomplished by making real policy adjustments that reflect economic truths proven time and time again by our own history.

Tackling these challenges takes a bit of intellectual curiosity and political bravery. Congressional Republicans have proposed bold reforms like these for a while. With luck, Trump will listen to their expertise and consider their proposals earnestly.

If he’s serious about flooding the international markets with American goods made by American workers, then he needs to be serious about making major changes to how this country does business. For every Carrier he saves, there are thousands of American businesses that haven’t been and won’t be so lucky.

They’d surely benefit from a president working with a Congress that understands what it would take to help them all.

Ellen Carmichael is a senior writer for Opportunity Lives. Follow her on Twitter @ellencarmichael.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats in Congress last week came together to pass the 21st Century Cures Act, and President Obama has now signed it into law. It is legislation worthy of support from the American people.

Amounting to $6.3 billion, the act is relatively small in terms of total expenditures by federal standards. But by offsetting much of that figure with cuts to Obamacare’s wasteful Prevention and Public Health fund, the act avoids billions in new government debt.

The act has a number of key components that will help Americans lead healthier lives.

First and most important, the 21st Century Cures Act will speed up the approval process for new drugs. This development is crucial. Too many Americans either suffer or die because they cannot access drugs or medical devices that would otherwise help them. As one of the key sponsors of the legislation, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), explained, “Of the 10,000 known diseases — 7,000 of which are rare — there are treatments for only 500.’’

Today, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) takes too long to approve new medicines. That needs to change. And now it will. While the bill’s reforms are complicated, their cumulative impact should expedite approval for the most promising drugs and devices.

The legislation gives special attention to treatments that could help children. But the act would also increase scrutiny of existing treatments so as to guide the approval process for future treatment. Going forward, the FDA would put the best drugs on the fast track for approval. The FDA’s own statistics show that its decision timeline has slowed over the last two years. That has a direct correlation with lives.

Second, the legislation provides around $500 million in new funding to combat opioid drug abuse, which has grown into a national emergency. Again, while the sums involved are not massive, they would help rural areas lacking treatment options.

The law also provides three targeted investments for medical research.

The first is Vice President Joe Biden’s “cancer moonshot,” which encourages collaboration among researchers and investing in hopeful new cancer treatment areas. We all know someone who has suffered from cancer, but with time, lives that would once have been lost early may be lived fully. Writing in a home-state paper, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) praised his Democratic co-sponsor, Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Working together, he said, Republicans and Democrats had delivered “a Christmas miracle.”

Heartfelt respect prospered in the course of drafting the bill. In one poignant moment, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) introduced an amendment to name the bill’s cancer section after Beau Biden, the vice president’s son who died from cancer in 2015. McConnell’s words and the vice president reaction are worth watching.

The other investments involve $1.5 billion each for the BRAIN and precision medicine initiatives.

The BRAIN initiative will fund new mapping techniques to help us better understand how the brain works. The idea is that this research will bring new treatments to those with brain-related injuries. It is also likely to help veterans who suffered traumatic brain wounds in combat.

The precision medical initiative would involve 1 million volunteers providing their genetic data to researchers. The research teams will then use that database to seek new treatments for everyone.

Still, there are other elements to the legislation. It would expand access to — and encourage best practices in — mental health treatment options. It also reforms the criminal justice system’s approach to mental health. These developments are good news for many in the nation. As I’ve noted, the U.S. health care system has been far too slow here.

Ultimately, however, the best thing about the 21st Century Cures Act is what it shows about the possibilities of governance. When politicians put the national interest first, they can accomplish great things together. In the coming years, Republicans should preach this mantra with vigor. If they do, better days are ahead.

Tom Rogan is a foreign policy columnist for National Review, a domestic policy columnist for Opportunity Lives, a former panelist on The McLaughlin Group and a senior fellow at the Steamboat Institute. Follow him on Twitter @TomRtweets.

The Democratic Party entered 2016 confident that they would retain the White House, retake the Senate, and be competitive to take back the House. Not only did they fail on all three of three of those goals, but the numbers paint an even bleaker picture for the Democrats as President Obama prepares to leave office.

10 — State Legislatures

After the 2016 election, Democrats have control of just 10 state legislatures. Six states have split control — New York, Maine, Connecticut, Delaware, Colorado and Washington. If only one of those were to switch to Republican majorities in both chambers, it would be enough to call a constitutional convention.

Source: RSLC

16 — Governors

Democrats lost another two governorships this cycle, continuing a trend of hemorrhaging executive seats since President Obama took office in 2008. Most remarkably, Republicans took control of Vermont’s governorship, as Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott defeated his Democratic opponent by nearly 9 points.

14 — Lieutenant Governors

As if things for Democrats weren’t bad enough with such a small contingent of governorships, the numbers are even worse for them among lieutenant governors. Currently, there are only 14 Democratic lieutenant governors — a figure that includes states where the governor and lieutenant governor run on the same ticket. After the 2008 election, Democrats controlled 23 lieutenant governorships, nine more than they do today.

Source: RSLC

19 — Secretaries of State

Democrats fare better among secretaries of state, but they’re still a pretty small minority here, too. With only 19 secretaries of state compared to the GOP’s 31, Democrats continue to shrink their ranks throughout executive branches across the country. The year President Obama took office, 27 secretaries of state were Democrats. Over the course of his administration, Democrats have lost a net eight seats for this position.

Source: RSLC

6 — Number of New Congressional Seats Won by Democrats

Despite making emphatic promises they would be competitive in the races for U.S. House of Representatives this year, congressional Democrats picked up only six seats for the 115th Congress. This means they succeeded at winning only 2.4 percent of offices held by Republicans this cycle, an exceptionally terrible failure considering they floated numerous stories in the media (here, here and here, for example) indicating they believed the House to be in play due to Donald Trump’s negative effect on down-ballot GOP candidates.

2 – Number of Senate Seat Pickups by Democrats

Days leading up to the 2016 election, prognosticators still saw Democrats as favored to win back control of the U.S. Senate. Trump, they said, was simply too terrible of a candidate not to hurt Republicans up for re-election in a year when the map of open seats was unfavorable for them. They were wrong. By nominating spectacularly inept candidates at every turn, Democrats lost states they were sure they’d win six months ago — including Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio. Their failure to capitalize upon this year’s opportunities means they’re awhile off from retaking the majority, as electoral maps for the next two Senate elections in 2018 and 2020 are far less friendly to Democrats.

63 — Margin of House Seats Lost by Obama Era Democrats

When President Obama took the oath of office in 2009, Democrats enjoyed a 257-seat majority in Congress. In January 2017, they will be a distant electoral minority with just 194 seats. Obama will leave office having been at least partly responsible for Congressional Democrats losing, on the whole, 63 seats.

12 — Margin of Senate Seats Lost by Obama-Era Democrats

During most of the 111th Congress, Senate Democrats took advantage of a filibuster-proof majority (before Republican Scott Brown’s election in 2010), helping to shepherd Obama’s agenda through his first two years of office. Today, Democrats hold just 48 seats in the Senate, and they remain a five-vote minority when accounting for Vice President-elect Pence’s tiebreaking vote. Obama will exit the White House with 12 fewer Democratic allies in the upper chamber than he had during his first two years as president.

41 — Percentage of Americans Who Still Support Obamacare

Nearly seven years after it passed without a single Republican vote, Obamacare is incredibly unpopular among American voters. According to a RealClearPolitics average, 40.7 percent of Americans support the law, compared to 48 percent who oppose it. With 4-in-10 Americans disapproving of Obama’s signature legislation, it will go down in history as one of the great political miscalculations of our time.

22 – Number of Guilty Verdicts for Chaka Fattah

Longtime Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) was convicted on all 22 counts brought against him for a variety of crimes ranging from money laundering and bribery to election fraud. Fattah has held public office since 1983, and he’s been in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1995, where he was regarded as a “rising star,” according to the Washington Post. This week, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

24 – Number of Charges Against Corrine Brown

Another prominent Democratic Congresswoman, Corrine Brown of Florida, received 24 federal indictments this year for alleged conspiracies to profit from a non-profit educational organization. Prosecutors claim that Brown took more than $800,000 from the charity for her own benefit, including depositing much of the money in her own bank account and using the rest for perks. Although she is free on a $50,000 bond, Brown lost the Democratic primary to maintain her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ellen Carmichael is a senior writer for Opportunity Lives. Follow her on Twitter @ellencarmichael.

Yesterday, we recounted how terrible the year’s been for Democrats. They were dealt a terrible blow in Donald Trump’s election to the White House, and despite guarantees to the contrary, they failed abysmally at retaking the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.

2016 brought some tremendous successes for Republicans across the country. Here they are, by the numbers:

241 –Republicans in the 115th Congress

Democrats spent a lot of time trying to convince the media and their donors that they stood a chance to reclaim their majority from Republicans. They believed Donald Trump would be a disaster for down ballot conservatives unable to shake his controversial reputation. They were wrong.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives will ring in the 115th Congress with a 241 Members – a 47-seat majority. Despite the tumultuous year, the GOP lost only 6 seats in total, sparing many Members experts considered long gone, such as Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) and Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.).

52 – Senate Republicans as of 2017

With a slew of terrible candidates across the country, Democrats vastly overestimated their chances at winning back the U.S. Senate. With failed challenges in swing states from politicians like former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) to Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.), they failed to capitalize on the promises they made to take the upper chamber.

Republicans now have 52 seats in the U.S. Senate (53, if you include tie-breaking Vice President-elect Mike Pence) and, to make things even more satisfying, a favorable electoral map in 2018. The GOP is well positioned to expand their majority in the next Senate elections two years from now, especially if they deliver policies the American people like and need.

25 – Republican State Trifectas

A “state trifecta” occurs when both bodies of a bicameral legislature (or, more inclusively, one in a unicameral legislature) and that state’s governor belong to the same party. Republicans enter 2017 with executive and legislative control of half of all states. By comparison, Democrats have just six. Republicans now control four additional state governments: Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and New Hampshire. These trifectas are critical to passing conservative policy priorities, ranging from lowering taxes to easing union control.

This is a dramatic departure from when President Obama first took office. In early 2009, Democrats had 17 state trifectas. They have nearly cut this number in half in just eight years.

33 – Republican Governors

As of January 2017, Republicans will have 33 governorships, tying a 94-year record for the party.. These GOP governors span the country, from conservative strongholds like Texas and North Dakota to swing states like Florida and Ohio to blue states like New Mexico and even Vermont, Republican gubernatorial candidates have thrived in the Obama Era.

In fact, when President Obama took office in 2009, Democrats controlled 28 governors’ mansions. Today, they have just 18.

69 – State Legislative Chambers with Republican Majorities

2016 brought more legislative seat swapping that benefitted the GOP. Republicans now control the vast majority of state legislative chambers, many of them with massive margins. Two states have a tied chamber – including, remarkably, Connecticut – and show signs of improving outlooks for Republicans.

33 – States with Both Legislative Chambers Controlled by GOP

In 2009, Republicans had total control of just 15 state legislatures. As of January 2017, Republicans will control both legislative chambers in 33 states. That means that the Republican Party has a total legislative majority in two-thirds of all states – a 55 percent increase in representation at that level since President Obama was inaugurated.

45 – States Led Entirely or Partially by the Republican Party

When combining all the aforementioned accounting, this means the GOP leads 45 states, either entirely or partially. This statistics is nothing short of incredible, especially given how far behind Republicans were when President Obama took office. According to Americans for Tax Reform, this means that roughly 80 percent of America’s population lives in a state either all or partially controlled by the GOP.

31 – GOP Lieutenant Governors

Republicans enter 2017 with 31 lieutenant governors from every part of the U.S., compared to just 14 Democrats. In a few states, the governor and lieutenant governor run as a ticket (e.g., Virginia), so a Democratic governor would automatically mean a Democratic lieutenant governor.

2018 poses an optimistic outlook for Republicans, with lieutenant governors in red states like Montana, Alaska and Wyoming up for re-election.

31 – Republican Secretaries of State

After the 2008 general election, Democrats held 27 of the Secretary of State positions across America. As of 2017, Republicans will control 31 and Democrats will maintain just 17. This position is yet another astonishing down ballot catastrophe for Democrats in the Obama Era, as they’ve lost 10 important executives in this position in swing states like Ohio and Missouri, as well as their deep blue strongholds of Delaware, Oregon and Maryland.

Ellen Carmichael is a senior writer for Opportunity Lives. Follow her on Twitter @ellencarmichael.

Solving the caustic problem of poverty across America should not be a partisan issue.

That’s according to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who took to the stage early Thursday morning at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., to kick off a day-long summit focused on eliminating poverty and boosting economic mobility.

Co-sponsored by Opportunity Lives, the “This Way Up” summit aimed to prove that solutions-based, free-market principles can uplift struggling citizens across the country.

“Simply put, we are coming to a consensus on how to fight poverty and restore upward mobility in America,” Ryan said. “And we’re all here because we agree this is a fight that needs to be fought.”

But reaching that goal — to finally discern the best course of action for fighting poverty — is no easy task. Ryan outlined the myriad challenges policymakers and other leaders will face during the next four years of the Trump administration.

“Far too many people are slipping through the cracks in this country,” Ryan said. “And that beautiful notion of the American ideal — that the condition of your birth doesn’t determine the outcome of your life — is an idea that a lot of people don’t believe in anymore.”

“Even if there are just some people who don’t believe in it,” he added, “it means that great American ideal is no longer universally true for all. So it’s our job to restore this.”

Featuring panel discussions and in-depth commentary from journalists, thought leaders, policymakers and poverty-fighters, each session of the summit targeted a specific aspect of American society. Whether that was workforce engagement or education, entitlement programs or mending family structures, the aim was to look at poverty from a holistic and human viewpoint, rather than from a strictly budgetary standpoint.

“Fighting poverty isn’t about solving budgetary concerns,” Ryan said. “It’s about saving lives. So we need to come at it from that approach.”

That fight begins with empowering local anti-poverty activists, while simultaneously ending the paternalistic view that Washington has all the answers.

The reality, Ryan said, is that Washington elites can no longer parachute into communities and push local leaders out of the fray. Such tactics only serve to alienate those allies on the ground whom Washington leaders need most of all, he added.

“So that’s what today is all about,” the speaker said. “It’s about learning. Because when you actually go into these communities, there are people doing tremendous work fighting poverty eye to eye, soul to soul, person to person, who we need to learn from. And they need our support.”

Evan Smith is a Staff Writer for Opportunity Lives. You can follow him on Twitter @Evansmithreport.

As the brilliant economist Art Laffer notes, subsidizing something increases supply and taxing something reduces supply. What’s true of goods is also true of services — including people’s labor. By taxing labor (through hikes like the minimum wage) we see less employment. Subsidizing labor through policies such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, by contrast, leads to greater employment.

It’s a rule that the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico has learned the hard way. The current minimum wage is more than 77 percent of the median wage, compared to 47 percent on the U.S. mainland. Applying the U.S. federal minimum wage to Puerto Rico stunts its labor market by removing incentives to create jobs that offer many people their first rung on the employment ladder or their ticket out of poverty.

To mitigate this problem, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has offered the Economic Mobility for Productive Livelihoods and Expanding Opportunity (“EMPLEO”) Act, which would reduce the minimum wage to be closer to the mainland’s ratio and implement a wage subsidy that both holds workers harmless, and in many cases, increases the size of their paychecks.

“With Puerto Rico’s economy suffering from high unemployment and low wages, it’s hard for many Americans on the island to make ends meet,” Rubio said after introducing the bill last week. “My legislation would help these workers and their families by immediately boosting their pay and reducing the cost of hiring so it’s easier to find a job. By expanding the workforce, increasing opportunity and making work pay more, we can help Puerto Rico get back on the path to growth and prosperity.”

EMPLEO would extend to Puerto Rico Rubio’s nationwide proposal to enact a federal wage enhancement. Under the optional program, employers would essentially redirect the money they would be sending to the government in the form of payroll taxes into their employees’ paychecks. The bill provides for general revenue to close the resulting payroll tax revenue gap in the Social Security Trust Fund. Rubio hopes to enact this proposal so that it is fully offset.

Under EMPLEO, any worker earning less than $10 an hour would receive a raise, up to a maximum of $2.50 an hour. Employers choosing to participate could reduce their share of a worker’s wage to a minimum of $5 an hour, effectively reducing the cost of hiring new workers.

“The proposal is a creative, compassionate, and market-based tool for addressing Puerto Rico’s challenges,” wrote Oren Cass, a scholar with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. “Reducing the minimum wage should create many more entry-level job openings and make hiring more attractive to employers.”

The Congressional Task Force on Economic Growth in Puerto Rico was established by the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). Rubio was placed on the task force in July, and his office reports they have held at least 55 meetings with various stakeholders. In addition to the task force, PROMESA also established a separate Puerto Rico Financial Oversight and Management Board, which Rubio is not a member of, and whose work to resolve the island’s debt crisis is expected to continue for several years.

Puerto Rico’s debt crisis has been an underreported story this tumultuous election year on the mainland. As a former municipal bond analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, which, along with other financial firms, has sharply downgraded Puerto Rico’s credit ratings, I am pleased to see that Rubio is proposing a plan that would expand opportunities to an island where too many are struggling to make ends meet. Proposals like this could help turn the island’s economy around by boosting the innovation and job creation to strengthen workers and families.

Carrie Sheffield is a senior contributor for Opportunity Lives. You can follow her on Twitter @carriesheffield and on Facebook.

Five-year-old Kaheem is like any other young boy in Owensville, Maryland. He loves superheroes and hopes to become one. Last week, his dream came true.

“Super Kaheem,” who is battling Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, told Make-a-Wish Mid-Atlantic that he wanted to “help people, save people and to be a superhero.” So, he spent a frigid Washington winter day doing just that, zipping across town to challenges created by local organizations inspired by Super Kaheem’s heroism.

His day began with a special mission from the Superhero Council to protect the nation’s capital from bad guys, and Kaheem heroically accepted. From rescuing Santa atop the ferris wheel at National Harbor to safeguarding Christmas from that mean old Mr. Grinch, Super Kaheem rallied the city of D.C. as he protected the community from all types of bad guys.

Perhaps most exciting was Super Kaheem’s visit to the U.S. Capitol. He was welcomed by the entire staff of The Office of the Speaker of the House, and he promptly learned he was officially a part of the Capitol Hill police team. Then, in a special video message from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) himself, Super Kaheem discovered a clue was waiting for him to guide him on a hunt to retrieve a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in his honor.

Check out the video:

Make-a-Wish Mid-Atlantic reminds Washingtonians that more than 600 children just like Kaheem are waiting for their dreams to come true. An angel donor will match any funds raised up to $300,000 in hopes of making those dreams realities for area children suffering with chronic or life-threatening illnesses.

The 2016 election was full of surprises. But no surprise was more unexpected — and more significant — than the sudden collapse of the Left’s compassion advantage.

In the two presidential elections before 2016, Democrats enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in the “caring” column. In 2008, voters who said they wanted a president who “cares about people like them” favored Barack Obama over John McCain by a margin of 74 to 24. The empathy gap widened in 2012 when Obama trounced Mitt Romney by a margin of 81 to 18 among those voters.

Heading into election night, many conservatives assumed Hillary Clinton would win not just because of the polls but because experience had taught us the power of the empathy gap. Democrats tended to win battles — even when evidence and results were not on their side — because voters gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they cared more than Republicans. This persistent pessimism on the right reinforced the conventional wisdom that assumed a Clinton victory.

Yet, in 2016, Trump unexpectedly narrowed this gap significantly. Clinton still won among these voters 58 to 35 percent, but Trump was found to be twice as “caring” as Romney.

Trump deserves credit for closing this gap with a message that appealed to disaffected rural and Rust Belt voters. Still, the startling outcome wasn’t a Trump revolution as much as a Clinton collapse. According to the final vote tally, Clinton received 3.7 million fewer votes than Obama received in 2008. Trump, on the other hand, received almost 3 million more votes than McCain. Trump’s increase isn’t stunning given population growth. (There were 21 million more Americans of voting age in 2016 than in 2008). But the change in population makes Clinton’s collapse all the more staggering.

As Republicans look to 2017, the numbers suggest they shouldn’t assume a mandate. Instead, they should seize an historic opportunity to earn a mandate and the trust and confidence of voters who took a chance on Trump. That’s precisely what Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), intend to do.

Trump’s closing of the empathy gap comes at a fortuitous time for the Right. Just as Republicans have a chance to chart a new course, conservatives are prepared with a thoughtful agenda that has been refined over many years.

Last week, Opportunity Lives co-hosted a summit on upward mobility called “This Way Up” that began with a speech from Ryan and a discussion between the House Speaker and the Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib.

Ryan spoke about the “ferment” on the center-right around issues of upward mobility. He joked it’s a dialogue that no longer includes just “six people around [his mentor’s] Jack Kemp’s table.”

“We are coming to a consensus on how to fight poverty and restore upward mobility in America,” Ryan said. He promised a “multi-front policy war” and a “battle of ideas” in 2017 that will he believes will remedy domestic policies that have kept so many American’s from reaching their full potential.

Ryan’s key insight isn’t a top-down Washington solution from the Republican side of the aisle. Instead, he spoke about the need to empower local leaders on the front lines. Ryan described the process of learning from his other mentor, Bob Woodson, who showed Ryan examples of effective poverty fighters across the country (as captured in our “Comeback” series). Ryan’s experience with Woodson has inspired other House members to do the same thing in their districts and discover and listen to the people on the ground who are making a difference.

“So that’s what today is all about,” Ryan said. “It’s about learning. Because when you actually go into these communities, there are people doing tremendous work fighting poverty eye to eye, soul to soul, person to person, who we need to learn from. And they need our support.”

On election night Republicans who thought they were destined to spend another four years or more in the wilderness suddenly found themselves in the throne room. Thanks to the willingness of voters to take a chance on the notion that Republicans just might care, conservatives have a chance to deliver the results millions desperately want.

John Hart is the Editor-in-Chief of Opportunity Lives. You can follow him on Twitter @johnhart333.

Now that a Republican-controlled Congress is finally on the brink of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, it can be easy for conservatives to get lost in the celebratory noise. After all, the GOP’s longstanding rallying cry to toss out Obama’s signature policy comes at the end of years of legal and rhetorical struggle.

But as James Capretta of the American Enterprise Institute argues, this should not be a moment for cheers and jeers. Rather, conservative policy leaders should take a moment to pause and reflect on what the end goal of this struggle was all about in the first place.

“The starting point for this effort ought to be that everyone in the United States should have health insurance, protecting them against major medical expenses,” he writes.

And in a marketplace where “only the very rich can pay for [certain treatments] without health insurance,” Capretta argues that providing citizens with cheap access to such insurance is vital, even if certain politically unsavory measures must be utilized.

But Capretta makes plain the need for a comprehensive viewpoint when dealing with such a massive challenge.

“Conservatives have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance a market-driven approach to health insurance reform that provides secure and affordable insurance to all Americans,” he writes. “They should embrace the challenge.”

“They must also understand that voters and history will judge them to have failed if the end result is millions of people becoming uninsured again,” he adds.

So with that in mind, Capretta lays out four major steps the GOP should take in its replacement plan to increase the numbers of Americans enrolled in health insurance.

Grandfather Coverage Provided by the ACA. This will give people a natural transition between the ACA and its replacement plan, Capretta argues, which would also ensure the market remains stable during said transition.

Accept and Clarify Medicaid’s Role as the Safety Net Health Insurance Program. With 61 million non-disabled low-income adults and children currently enrolled in the Medicaid program, Capretta writes that states need more flexibility to run the program efficiently and to integrate Medicaid insurance more carefully with the private insurance market. As such, the “GOP should seek to establish a new, uniform eligibility level for Medicaid nationwide that is somewhere between the ACA expansion limit and the levels prevailing in the 19 states that did not expand the program.”

Impose Cost-Discipline and Generate Revenue with an Upper Limit on the Tax Preference for Employer-Paid Premiums. This will be politically tricky, but Capretta writes that the GOP must press forward with it anyway, “as the policy is critical for establishing more cost discipline in the employer-provided market and for the revenue that it will generate to finance an adequate tax credit” for everyone else who’s not in the employer system.

Build an Effective Auto-Enrollment Program to Achieve Higher Levels of Coverage. In other words, make is so easy to sign up that people don’t even have to do anything (and make sure the websites work, something the Obama administration seemed to forget about back when the ACA rolled out).

“Republicans have a rare opportunity in 2017 to make big changes in health policy, but they must understand that providing secure insurance for everyone in the country needs to be a central feature of what they do,” Capretta concludes. “That is not an unreasonable demand, nor is it an impossible task. What’s needed is determined leadership from those who are about to become responsible for governing the country.”

You can read Capretta’s full column at Real Clear Health.

Evan Smith is a Staff Writer for Opportunity Lives. You can follow him on Twitter @Evansmithreport.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell wants Americans to know that Obamacare has never been better. On a call with reporters last week, Burwell enthusiastically touted the record number of people enrolling in the government-run healthcare exchange as proof that Americans “don’t want to go backwards.”

But upon closer inspection, it’s clear that the rosy numbers the administration is touting only tell half the story and cannot mask the disappointment that is Obamacare.

For starters, the current enrollment numbers (approximately 20 million) fall well short of the 32 million the administration expected to have by this time. Instead, many Americans are staying away from the exchange even with threats looming of levying fines on individuals that go uninsured. Worse yet for supporters, the people staying away are those the exchanges needs to remain solvent: the young and the healthy.

Folks like Louis Lucero, a 40-year-old living in Tucson, Arizona, who is considering dropping out of the Obamacare exchange if healthcare premium costs don’t come down. The reality for many like Lucero is that even with generous government subsidies, paying for health insurance is incredibly expensive.

Beyond lackluster enrollment, there are also questions about the way the administration is determining the number of those signing up for the exchange. According to reports, the administration is relying on surveys, rather than data from insurers that could provide a more accurate picture. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, reckons that the actual numbers may look closer to just over 14 million people gaining coverage from the end of 2013 to the end of 2015. “Of those 14 million,” Heritage notes, “11.8 million gained their insurance through Medicaid and 2.2 million through private coverage.”

If correct, these numbers are stunning and would call into question the need to enact Obamacare in the first place. Why not expand Medicaid instead? Of course, this is already happening under Obamcare — and not without problems.

“The ACA’s Medicaid expansion was controversial for many reasons, including relatively poor health outcomes for enrollees, large crowd-out of private coverage, reduced incentives to work, and crowd-out of other state priorities such as education, infrastructure, and adequate funding of public sector pensions,” explained Brian Blase, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, a free-market think tank at George Mason University. As Brian Blase, a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, explains:

Still, supporters are determined to tout the 20 million plus number of Obamacare beneficiaries as proof of the legislation’s success, even if most of those people enrolled through Medicaid.

Republicans know this, which is why many of them have been working on ways to not only repeal Obamacare in the coming year, but also replace the flawed legislation with an alternative that will provide consumers with greater choice of quality health insurance at half the cost using market forces instead of government coercion. One Republican to watch is Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee that has jurisdiction over health care and tax policy.

In a recent op-ed to explain the contours of an Obamacare alternative, Brady described it this way:

“Think of our plan like a health care backpack. One filled with the tools you need to control your health care in the 21st century. One that goes with you from job to job, state to state, home to raise a family or start a businesses, and into your retirement years if you like it.

You decide what to put in the backpack. You control it. And you take it with you throughout your life.”

Obamacare supporters would like us to believe that the president’s signature legislative achievement is going swimmingly and Republicans have no ideas when it comes to providing health insurance to Americans that need it. Look past the spin and the reality is much different.

Israel Ortega is a Senior Writer for Opportunity Lives. You can follow him on Twitter: @IzzyOrtega.

Two prominent Democratic Party leaders have strongly criticized the Obama administration for its refusal to veto a United Nations Security Council measure condemning the United States’ most important ally in the Middle East, Israel. The measure, which Israel says was orchestrated secretly by U.S. representatives, is believed to be part of a larger effort by hostile nations to further isolate the Jewish state from the international community.

Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) excoriated the Obama administration, arguing that their complicity in the U.N. vote against Israel “will move us further from peace in the Middle East.”

He followed up with a tweet on Thursday, December 23, 2016, saying: “Extremely frustrating, disappointing & confounding that the Administration ahs failed to veto the UN resolution.”

To Schumer, “an abstention isn’t good enough.” Instead, he said, “anyone who cares about the future of Israel and peace in the region” should oppose a “one-sided” resolution meant to put undue pressure upon the country at the United Nations.

House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) echoed Schumer’s sentiments, explaining that the Obama administration’s cowardice sent mixed signals to friends and foes about America’s commitment to Israel. Instead, he said, the White House must “signal unequivocally to the entire world that we will continue to stand by our ally Israel as it seeks to build a future of peace and safety as a Jewish state and an equal member of the family of nations.”

Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry disagrees with Hoyer’s view, claiming in a televised speech Wednesday that Israel could not be simultaneously an inherently Jewish nation and a democratic society.

“If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic. It cannot be both, and it won’t ever really be at peace,” Kerry said, before proclaiming that the Palestinians could not “realize” their own aspirations as a people without their own state.

Schumer also issued a scathing statement following Kerry’s speech, lamenting that the Secretary of State “has emboldened extremists on both sides” with his words and refusal to defend Israel at the United Nations.

“While Secretary Kerry mentioned Gaza in his speech, he seems to have forgotten the history of the settlements of Gaza, where the Israeli government forced settlers to withdraw from all settlements and the Palestinians responded by sending rockets from Gaza into Israel,” he explained. “This is something that people of all political stripes in Israel vividly remember. While he may not have intended it, I fear Secretary Kerry, in his speech and action at the UN, has emboldened extremists on both sides.”

This latest public conflict is yet another rift in a Democratic Party that moves ever leftward, even as the American people have roundly rejected their policies and politicians throughout all levels of government since President Obama took office in 2009. With prominent progressives outwardly demonstrating antagonism toward America’s most reliable Middle East ally, pro-Israel Democrats will continue to remain at odds with those steering the policy course of their party.

Ellen Carmichael is a senior writer for Opportunity Lives. Follow her on Twitter @ellencarmichael.

When it comes to public expectations and legislative accomplishments, the last eight years have been disappointing. President Obama dispensed with whatever knowledge he may have possessed as a professor of constitutional law and governed in effect as a monarch with “a pen and a phone.” His legislative program, with Obamacare as the centerpiece, has been generally unpopular.

Come January 3, the 115th Congress will begin. And while President-elect Trump won’t enter the White House until January 20, members of Congress should waste no time in getting to work. Congress has the chance to usher in an opportunity revolution in America.

Here are three ways it can do so.

1. The House and Senate Leadership Must Empower Committee Chairs

For too long, Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress have dominated the policymaking process. Absorbed by their own confidence and dedicated to their own power, too many have forgotten their obligation to the people.

Fortunately however, current Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has offered a better example. Since taking the speaker’s gavel, Ryan has pushed power downwards. Specifically, he’s gotten out of the way and allowed House committees to work on good ideas. Ryan’s approach is producing good results. Take the recently enacted 21st Century Cures law. Formulated by Republican and Democratic committee leaders, the bipartisan law will fuel cutting edge research and enable Americans to access cutting edge treatments more quickly.

But the Cures Act proves that where committees are empowered to find consensus, they will do so. What we’ve seen here is the antidote to partisan anger. Come January, Ryan should ensure that Committee Chairs retain the initiative. If he does, we’ll see new progress on the horizon.

2. Pursue Immigration Reform

I recognize that this idea might shock you. After all, most people seem to think that Trump’s election means immigration reform is dead and buried until 2020. I believe the opposite is true.

Consider the immigration state of play come January. Trump says he supports legal immigration alongside border security. Republicans say the same. And while Democrats prioritize citizenship for illegal-immigrants before border security, they no longer hold the cards. President Trump, Speaker Ryan, and Republican Senate Majority Leader McConnell should take advantage of this moment to get immigration reform passed.

First, they should propose major improvements to border security. The priority here should be a part-physical, part-digital security wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. Concerned about the prospective trade threats Trump has issued, if pressed politely, Mexico would likely bolster its own preventive security measures along the border. This would placate Trump’s demands for a wall. Next, Republicans should cut funding for so-called “sanctuary cities” that refuse to support lawfully authorized federal deportations of criminals and other undesirables.

But once the border is effectively secured, congressional Republicans should be bold. They should push Trump to provide a pathway to lawful residency for some of the roughly 11 million illegal-immigrants in the United States. There should, of course, be prerequisites for this approach: a record of academic accomplishment, a record of non-reliance on welfare and government support, and the payment of back taxes.

Yet American small businesses, government agencies and immigrants deserve confidence about their future. Presented correctly, that confidence will consolidate the economy against current doubts over immigration law. America’s population is aging and we need workers to fill jobs that are empty. If we neglect that responsibility, my generation is doomed to a future of high taxes and pathetic services.

But this is the crunch: Trump is likely to agree to such a proposal. Although he doesn’t openly admit it, Trump knows that detaining 10 million illegal-immigrants would split families and communities, stain the moral conscience of a nation that de-facto welcomed illegal-immigrants, pummel the Federal budget, and harm the U.S. economy. Given an alternative that puts security and immigration control first, Trump will get on board.

3. Cut Federal Grants to States that Obstruct Private Opportunity

Just as welfare should always go hand-in-hand with work, Federal grants should always support greater opportunity. And if congressional Republicans are serious about building an opportunity-centric economy, they need to get tough on its opponents—namely, big government Democrats.

One way to do so is by barring federal grants from state governors who obstruct the sharing economy. Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York offers a good example. In recent weeks, Cuomo has sought to restrict the rights of New Yorkers to rent out their homes for a little extra cash. He is doing so under pressure from the hotel-lobby (which is losing customers to Airbnb hosts). Another example is Uber and Lyft. Empowering Americans to make a bit of extra cash, and allowing riders to keep more money in their pockets, ride sharing firms like Uber and Lyft are a boon to our economy. Unfortunately, they’re opposed by Democrats who are beholden to special interests such as regulators and taxi unions. If Republicans show they are a voice for those in the sharing economy they’ll become the voice of Americans who are just trying to get by.

Still, this is not to say that federal grants should be dependent on pure-conservative governance. To embrace that approach would be impractical and would politicize federal grants over the long term. If California liberals want to pass minimum wage laws, for example, that’s their prerogative. Congress should only restrict grants where governors introduce laws that hurt American opportunity. Recognizing their balance of national power, congressional leaders should be bold in agenda, unconventional in approach, and dedicated to new American opportunities.

Tom Rogan is a foreign policy columnist for National Review, a domestic policy columnist for Opportunity Lives, a panelist on The McLaughlin Group and a senior fellow at the Steamboat Institute. Follow him on Twitter @TomRtweets.

Every two years, a new year brings about a new Congress. And on Tuesday, the 115th Congress will convene for the first time. Members’ tenure spans the last two weeks of the Obama administration, as well as the first-half of President-elect Donald Trump’s term, which will begin on January 20.

For the first time in more than a decade, Republicans will lead the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and there will be a Republican president in the White House. This means that conservative legislative priorities, such as reversing the harm caused by Obamacare and getting the nation’s fiscal house in order, are finally on the table.

Opportunity Lives would like to introduce just five of the 241 Republican members of Congress who — along with the U.S. Senate — will shape policy for at least the next two years.

Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas)

Brady represents Texas’s 8th Congressional District and serves as the chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means. Regarded as the most powerful committee in the House, Ways and Means sets fiscal policy for the entire country — specifically taxation and funding designation for federal programs. As a result, this committee oversees the administration of all government functions, ranging from Medicare to unemployment benefits.

Brady will be a key player in the new Congress, as President-elect Trump and Republicans iron out the details of a comprehensive tax reform package — a longstanding priority of congressional Republicans who have worked for years to lower rates, broaden the tax base and eliminate loopholes. Meanwhile, Trump hopes to raise tariffs on imported goods in efforts to force the purchase of American-made goods, but there is little appetite among Republicans for these punitive measures without an overhaul of the entire system that ultimately reduces the tax burden. Nearly all of the negotiations on all fiscal policy will take place between the White House and House Ways and Means Committee in cooperation with congressional leadership.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (North Carolina)

Foxx represents North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District and will serve as the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. This committee is responsible for all lawmaking concerning every level of the educational process, from pre-school through continuing education, as well as labor relations in the United States.

Foxx will be an important voice in Republican efforts to institute meaningful reforms to improve educational opportunities for all children. School choice initiatives enjoy vast bipartisan support, with holdouts remaining among Democratic lawmakers loyal to their teachers’ union backers. Trump and Betsy DeVos, his nominee to head the Department of Education, advocate sweeping public education reforms. Foxx and her colleagues would be wise to spend the first half of 2017 pushing aspirational agenda items like school choice as Republicans work to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Rep. Phil Roe, M.D. (Tennessee)

Roe is a medical doctor, U.S. Army veteran and, since 2009, the representative for Tennessee’s 1st Congressional District. This year, he takes over as chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

The Department of Veterans’ Affairs has been mired in scandals throughout much of the Obama Administration. Veterans have been left to die without adequate care, while others face senseless bureaucracy and long lines to receive the treatment they need. Republicans support major reforms of the entire department, especially as it concerns the quality of medical care veterans receive. With Trump in the White House, Republicans are optimistic they’ll achieve their goals.

Roe, whose own professional experience includes serving as an army physician, will be the foremost leader in exposing abuses and fixing a broken system that has left too many American heroes behind.

Rep. Martha McSally (Arizona)

McSally returns to Congress after a landslide victory for a seat she was supposed to lose. She now represents one of the country’s most volatile swing congressional districts, Arizona’s 2nd, after more than two decades of distinguished service in the U.S. Air Force.

Security and foreign policy are top policy priorities for McSally, and she’s known for her legislative enthusiasm. Even as a freshman during the 114th Congress, she had several bills signed into law. But perhaps her most important role will be as the voice of a border district during a Trump Administration. She chairs the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, covering issues that have made up the cornerstone of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Rep.-elect Liz Cheney (Wyoming)

Congresswoman-elect Liz Cheney is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. In November, she won the Wyoming at-large congressional seat her father once held. Cheney, a lawyer who has served in various defense and foreign policy-related positions over her three-decade career, is regarded as a foreign relations and security expert.

Cheney is expected to be an important voice on protecting Americans, as well as dismantling terrorist groups worldwide. She has already expressed disagreement with President-elect Trump on a variety of foreign policy matters, and her expertise could prove essential as congressional GOP leadership prepare to cope with Trump’s warmth toward Russia and the consequences of his friendliness with its president, Vladimir Putin.

Ellen Carmichael is a senior writer for Opportunity Lives. Follow her on Twitter @ellencarmichael.

The 115th Congress convened on Tuesday with a lot of familiar faces and some new ones, too. Yesterday, Opportunity Lives brought you “Five House Republicans to Watch in 2017” to better acquaint you with some of the rising stars of the Right in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Today, we want to introduce you to five members of the U.S. Senate who will shape Republican politics — and more importantly, the country — over at least the next two years.

Ben Sasse, Nebraska

This university-president-turned-legislator has quickly become a conservative favorite since he entered the Senate in 2015. His respectful but steadfast opposition to President-elect Donald Trump, even as his colleagues grudgingly accepted him as the 2016 GOP nominee, earned him a loyal fan base, especially among young activists who appreciate his Twitter engagement and commitment to conservative principles.

Sasse serves on the Senate banking committee, which oversees U.S. trade policy. As Trump pursues a protectionism agenda through punitive means like tariffs, it’s a safe bet that Sasse will be a vocal opponent to any legislation that would hinder activity of the free market. Given his popularity in his home state of Nebraska (he won his race by 34 points) and his growing support among Republicans across the country, Sasse will have a significant public platform to advance conservatism in the 115th Congress.

Marco Rubio, Florida

After a decisive re-election victory in November, Rubio returns to the Senate with a mandate from Floridians who appreciate his fiscal and foreign policy strengths, his eloquence and his commitment to local issues affecting their home. Rubio’s brand of conservatism focuses on inclusion and optimism, a useful counter to the political themes surrounding Trump’s ascendance to the White House.

The American-born son of Cuban refugees, Rubio has been an ardent opponent of President Obama’s normalization of relations with Cuba, arguing that the administration’s efforts undermine any chance of bringing reform to the island nation as it continues to oppress its own people under a Communist regime. Rubio is likely to push Trump to reverse these actions, citing the concerns of the nearly 2 million Cuban-Americans who were either victims of Castro’s tyranny or are recent descendants of those who escaped.

As a foreign policy expert, Rubio is expected to oppose vociferously any of the Trump Administration’s attempts to develop closer ties to Russia while also arguing for more offensive action against ISIS. And as someone with a passion for tax reform and shaking up higher education bureaucracy, Rubio will be an important voice for opportunity conservatism throughout his six-year entire term.

Lisa Murkowski, Alaska

This three-term Republican returns to Washington after yet another unconventional victory in her home state of Alaska, and she also resumes her post as the chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee. The responsible extraction of natural resources is the cornerstone of the Alaskan economy, and it provides the most jobs of any industry in the state, as well as 85 percent of their tax revenue.

President Obama’s ideologically motivated assault on domestic energy production kept Alaska in its crosshairs, especially as he used executive fiat to severely curtail the oil and natural gas sectors that drive their economy. Like those living along the Gulf Coast, Alaskans have faced real hardship as a result of his policies as the White House banned drilling in vast swaths of the Arctic Ocean, despite scant evidence of environmental irresponsibility or safety neglect by the Alaskan state government or private industry.

President-elect Donald Trump has already indicated that he will expand the country’s domestic energy industry by removing regulatory barriers to exploration, development and transportation of fuel. Chairwoman Murkowski will be a vital ally for Trump – and more importantly, her own constituents – as the Republican majorities in Congress aim to undo the damage inflicted by the Obama administration on the men and women of America’s energy sector. American consumers, businesses and the nation’s overall competitiveness will all surely benefit from cooperation from Mrs. Murkwoski and Mr. Trump.

Cory Gardner, Colorado

In 2014, this Colorado Republican was thought to be a long shot for the U.S. Senate. Within two years, he rose to the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Gardner defeated incumbent Democrat Mark Udall by calmly refuting false premises imposed by liberals and the media on Republican policies. His campaign was positive, issues-focused and unshaken by any Democrat attempts to push him off-message. It should serve as the model for Republicans nationwide.

As a result, there are high expectations for Gardner. The 2018 Senate map seems rather favorable for Republicans, offering real chances to expand the GOP majority in 2019 and beyond. Gardner’s leadership is vital to achieving these gains.

The challenge for Gardner will be to lead his colleagues and future Republican Senate candidates by example, even as Democrats lob every possible smear at them. As Republicans repeal and replace Obamacare, Democratic lawmakers and candidates will resort to the same playbook his Senate challenger once did: to claim Republicans want to “destroy” women’s health care in hopes of scaring female voters away from the GOP. Gardner has the most experience refuting such claims, and on this and many other Democratic attacks, his guidance will be key to keeping and growing a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

Mike Lee, Utah

Conservative activists lauded the junior senator from Utah for his opposition to Trump on the floor of the Republican National Convention last summer. But, prior to his demonstration in Cleveland, Lee was a happy warrior for constitutional conservatism — and not just with impassioned speeches on talk radio or on the Senate floor.

Lee has proposed a variety of reforms that would really help solve day-to-day problems of the American people. From improving the country’s inadequate infrastructure to allowing greater flexibility for families, Lee’s policy prescriptions address the real needs of Americans without growing government, raising taxes or limiting freedom. While a few of Lee’s colleagues are known for their fiery public displays opposing the latest “Establishment” plan or Democratic scheme, the senator is more interested in developing solutions that make people’s lives better, because, to him, conservatism is about what works.

As Republicans lead both chambers of Congress and control the White House, there are new opportunities to pass reforms rooted in opportunity conservatism, like Lee’s. His leadership proves that conservatism isn’t a restrictive ideology that seeks to limit what people can do, but instead, empowers them to lead the kind of lives they want to live.

Ellen Carmichael is a senior writer for Opportunity Lives. Follow her on Twitter @ellencarmichael.

Soldiers are duty-bound to protect the people who hate them most.

That’s the reality of life in the U.S. armed forces: facing protest and criticism upon deployment, protest while overseas and protest upon returning home.

But that’s also what makes American military men and women so extraordinary: Faced with such harsh criticism, they still put their lives on the line anyway.

“I myself can’t imagine a more frustrating feeling than trying to preserve and protect someone’s right to criticize you in the process of your service,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), speaking at a forum organized by Concerned Veterans for America. “But to the members of our armed services, I say that’s exactly why your elected officials must strive to be the best stewards of your own rights as Americans.”

For many veterans, though, that freedom has been corroded over the past eight years. Deliberate and calculated attempts by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under the Obama Administration have silenced veterans — or else punished them severely — all because they were trying to receive fair treatment for themselves and their fellow vets.

It’s a cruel kind of irony: Having put their lives on the line to protect our freedom of speech, these men and women return home only to find inadequate care, a dehumanizing bureaucracy and an institution that punishes those who speak out.

For Brandon Coleman, a veteran of the U.S. Marines and a former care-worker at the Phoenix VA hospital, the moment to speak out came after six veterans under his care committed suicide.

“Each one was a punch in the gut,” Coleman said. “I went to my supervisor about how these veterans had been ignored, and she told me that if I spoke out, that’s how people get fired.”

It turns out the damage was already done. Following that meeting, Coleman was instantly blackballed by the department. He was transferred from his position and forced to work with a social worker who combed through his medical records, hoping to find a past history of mental strain that would justify discrediting Coleman.

“That’s what they do every time,” Coleman said. “We’re veterans who witnessed extremely traumatic events, and they try to use that as a reason to discredit all of our concerns.”

He was called crazy, he was dismissed and he was shunned — all because he was looking out for the wellbeing of fellow veterans.

All for exercising his right to speak out.

And that was only the beginning.

The notice arrived on April 20, 2015: a gag order from the federal government, forbidding Coleman to speak to any VA employees, without any explanation.

“It would have been illegal, according to that order, for me to receive care as a disabled veteran of the United States,” Coleman said. “And I’m only one small guy who was able to fight this. Just think about how many gag orders they’ve placed on people without the means to fight back. That’s the scary part. Think how many veterans they’ve shut up.”

Coleman was luckier than most: He teamed up with Concerned Veterans for America and, with the help of a legal team, was able to prevail on a court that the gag order was an unconstitutional infringement of his freedom of speech.

But Coleman is aware that he is just one case, one man out of many who was denied his freedom of speech, and although groups like Concerned Veterans for America are fighting on, the problem of silenced veterans remains dire.

When 22 veterans a day commit suicide, the system is clearly broken. But if no one is able to speak up, nothing will ever change, and our veterans will continue to suffer long after they return home from battle.

Evan Smith is a Staff Writer for Opportunity Lives. You can follow him on Twitter @Evansmithreport.

On Thursday, Editor-in-Chief John Hart joined WIZM to talk about this week’s battle over the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).