Will the BAT be the tax that changes everything?

THERE ARE LOTS OF REASONS FOR California Representative Devin Nunes to be excited about his job these days. As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he is leading a classified investigation into Russian interference in U.S. elections, and as a member of President Trump’s transition team, he played a key role in staffing the new Administration. But if you talk to the 43-year-old Congressman, it soon becomes clear that nothing gets him going quite like a wonky hunk of tax policy that means nothing to most Americans: the destination-based cash-flow tax with border adjustment—or BAT, for short.

“It changes absolutely everything,” Nunes told TIME recently, from his ground-floor office across the street from Capitol Hill. “It moves us to a fundamentally new system.”

Nunes is one of the most vocal champions of the central, mind-bending provision of the House