House Republicanleaders are negotiating a tax overhaul with their counterparts in the Senate and the White House, but another group of GOP lawmakersis signaling ittoo must be included in any deal.

House Freedom Caucus leaders are layingout their ideas for overhauling the tax code that, together witha related proposal for getting a budget deal,is likely to set them up for a fight with GOP leaders and tax writers.

Most of the four principles for a tax overhaul that Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows and three other caucus members unveiled at a Heritage Foundation event Friday are not major deviations from the House GOP leaders framework though there are some notable differences.

But perhaps more striking were the ideas the Freedom Caucus members made clear they were not pushing a revenue neutral bill and the inclusion of the border adjustment tax, both linchpins of leaderships plan.

The caucus members also offered a wildcard idea of adding a welfare overhaul to the yet-unwritten reconciliation instructions for a tax rewrite, something they argue would perhaps convince them to accept a larger topline spending figure in the fiscal 2018 budget resolution.

Amid all of those ideas is an urgency to move quickly. We should have a real proposal that we start debating before we leave at the end of July, Meadows said. But if not, weve already taken a formal position: We believe that we need to stay in through August until we get it done.

The North Carolina Republican suggested that lawmakers move the ball closer to that goal post by agreeing to four principles within the next four weeks.

The Freedom Caucuss four principles for a tax overhaul are:

House Republican leaders A Better Way plan does call for lowering the current 35 percent corporate tax rate to 20 percent but proposes a 25 percent rate for small business organized as passthrough companies, whichare taxedat individual rates that currently top out at 39.6 percent.

Leaderships plan would also allow businesses to write off the full cost of certain investments in the tax year that theyre incurred something the Freedom Caucus is open to with modifications to account for businesses that borrow money for investing rather than use cash and nearly double the standard deduction for individuals.

The biggest gapbetween the two proposalsis on repatriation of offshore earnings.

GOP leaders plan would institute a mandatory tax on existing offshore earnings of 8.75 percent for cash assets and 3.5 percent for nonliquid assets. Unlike the Freedom Caucus proposal, which seeks to incentivize companies to bring offshore earnings back to the U.S. in exchange for a lower tax rate, leaderships plan would require U.S.-based companies to pay the repatriationtax regardless of whether they bring their offshore money home.

While the differences between the Freedom Caucuss four principles and leaderships framework are not minor, they could be worked through. But the red line the caucus has drawnagainst the border adjustment tax is more problematic for House leadership.

There is not consensus for the border adjustment tax, Meadows said. The sooner we acknowledge that and get on with a plan that actually works and actually can build consensus, the better off well be.

The border adjustment tax, or BAT, is a proposal to tax imports instead of exports, reversing the way the United States taxes goods crossing its borders. House GOP leaders, namely Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady of Texas, have pushed for the tax as a way to discourage U.S. companies from moving operations overseas and to raise roughly $1 trillion in revenue to partially offset an ambitious corporate tax rate cut. But the idea has faced steep opposition from within their own party Meadows and others have argued, that its politically unfeasible to pass.

I think its lost a lot of momentum, said Rep.Warren Davidson, a Freedom Caucusmember. The Ohio Republicansaid he could actually live with the BAT as part of a larger tax overhaul but the problem is that leadership still has not offered a proposal on how to implement it.

Ryan and Brady have shown no interest in letting go of the BAT but say theyre open to better ideas for raising revenue and preventing tax base erosion, which could be triggered by a flood of U.S. taxpayers, primarily businesses, moving to lower tax jurisdictions.

Even if Congress could cut the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, as House GOP leaders have proposed, or 15 percent, as President Donald Trump has called for, the United States would still have a higher tax rate than some other developed nations.

The Freedom Caucus members did not specify an alternative to the BAT for preventing tax base erosion, but they saidthe revenue is not needed because they dont adhere to the principle that an overhaul needs to be revenue neutral, which would requirethe same amount of tax money tocontinue flowing into the Treasury as under current law.

What is not in those principles is this concept of revenue neutrality, said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a caucus member and former chairman of the group. Letting families keep more of their money is not a cost to government. It is a freedom.

Since Republicans are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to advance their tax bill, the measure must be deficit neutral for the tax overhaul to be considered permanent. GOP leaders saytemporary tax cuts that would expire at the end of the 10-year budget window like the George W. Bush tax cuts whose expiration led to the 2012-2013 fiscal cliff is not an option, but the Freedom Caucus isntruling that out.

Some of the tax cuts could be temporary so you dont need to get full deficit neutral, but were hoping to get close to that, Jordan said.

An idea that Jordan proposed that could help achieve the needed savings is adding a welfare overhaul to the reconciliation instructions for the tax bill. The Freedom Caucus is looking at taking an official position, suggesting that as a possible trade-off to them supporting a budget deal with larger topline spending number for fiscal 2018, Jordan said.

Right now a budget cannot pass in the House of Representatives, he said.

Absent a budget deal along those lines, House Republicans will struggle like they did last year to pass a budget resolution, Jordan said. House Republicans need to pass and reconcile a budget resolution with the Senate to execute the GOPs procedural strategy for advancing a tax overhaul. An agreement on the topline spending number is also needed for appropriators to begin moving fiscal 2018 spending bills.

If someone can come up with a better idea than the one were putting forward were all ears, Jordan said. But no one can. So we think thats the key in the short term to do all the things we promised the American people.

Meadows said Jordans welfare overhaul plan would result in roughly $400 billion in savings, and with that and the tax ideas the Freedom Caucus is discussing, a deficit neutral reconciliation bill is possible. It should get us there, he said, noting, though,that temporary tax cuts represent afallback plan.

The divisions among House Republicans about how to approach a tax overhaul are complicated by the fact that GOP leaders are striving to come up with a single, unified plan that also has the support of the Senate and White House. The gaps amongthe Republican power structures are fairly wide.

Right now on tax reform theres disagreement in the House, theres disagreement in the Senate, theres disagreement between the House and the Senate and theres disagreement with the administration, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington on Thursday. Other than that, we are all on the same page.

Joe Williams contributed to this report.

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Freedom Caucus Sets Up Battle With Leadership Over Taxes - Roll Call

BHUBANESWAR: The NDA government believes in freedom of press as it wants a vibrant media for betterment of democracy, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said today.

"We will never compromise on press freedom. The government will never interfere except when the issue relates to national security, unity and integrity of the country and the established social order comes under threat," he said.

The Modi government has come under fire over the recent CBI raids on the homes and head offices of Delhi-based NDTV. Many journalists have termed the incident as muzzling the press freedom.

"You can see how much criticism the government faces from the media. Even the prime minister is criticised, but the government never meddles with it," Naidu said.

He said a Delhi-based national daily "never hesitates to write 'worst' on Narendra Modi."

"But we have not reacted," he said, adding giving a political colour to the NDTV case is "unfortunate".

Rejecting allegations of attack on freedom of press in the NDTV case, the BJP leader said, "The ongoing investigation against NDTV is in no way an attack on press freedom. It will be better if they (NDTV) cooperate with the ongoing probe."

The Union minister was here to attend a 'Sabka Saath Sabka Bikas' programme.

"Is it wrong if there is a probe on an allegation against management or owner of a media company? Shouldn't an allegation be probed?" he asked.

He said the allegations against the NDTV were made way back in 2011-12 when Narendra Modi was in Gujarat.

"The allegation was made when Manmohanji was the Prime Minister, Chidambaram a minister and Rahul Gandhi was managing the government," he said.

Meanwhile, a group of journalists here staged a demonstration during Naidu's visit.

Excerpt from:

No attack on freedom of press: Venkaiah Naidu - Economic Times

The Handmaids Tales season ender comes out this week, and it couldnt be timelier. Because as fictional as the Republic of Gilead is, the terror it presents feel realtoo real, in fact, that it got me reflecting on what independence truly means, today of all days.

I remember a passage from chapter five of the Margaret Atwood novel from which the Hulu TV series is based on: Theres more than one kind of freedom, the handmaid Offred reflected. Freedom to, and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now, you are being given freedom from. Dont underrate it. This is what she was told at Gileads re-education center, where the reformer Aunts try to convince Handmaids that their status as sex slaves/breeders who dont have their own money but are physically looked after by the state is a good one.

Offred then recalls her life before Gilead, when she was still recognized as June Osbornemother, wife, friend, daughterand was free to practice her civil rights: the right to find employment, to own property, to have a family, and to have agency over her body and her life. That freedom came at a price, though: Women were not protected then. I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: Dont open your door to a stranger, even if he says hes the police; make him slide his ID under the door. Dont stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble; keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, dont turn to look. Dont go into a Laundromat by yourself at night. I think about Laundromats [and] what I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money. Money I had earned myself. I think about having such control.

Now, as she walks to and from her Commanders home and the marketplace, she notes the kind of quietness that the new world order has created: We walk along the same street and no man on the street shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles.

Freedom to, freedom from. Expressed in these terms, the concept of independence takes on more gravitas and becomes more binding even as it is freeing. Theres always a trade-off, a responsibility attached to every liberty, which is something that people conveniently forget. Like when it comes to freedom of speech: Were free to express incendiary opinions in public, but that doesnt mean were free from other people making use of the same freedom to criticize and counter what we say. Freedom to exercise ones civil rights doesnt mean freedom from consequences, especially when we overstep boundaries and impinge on the rights of others. And when we support ideologies and policies that propose doing away with certain rights in the name of pursuing peace and order, like suspending the writ of habeas corpus and other forms of freedom from following due process, we shouldnt be delusional and believe that wed be exempt from this erasure.

This is what Serena Joy, one of the Wives in The Republic of Gilead, got to learn the hard way: As one of the early and vocal proponents of Gileads policies to subjugate women and take away their rights, she had thought that her role in the establishment of the new order would make her the exemption rather than the rule. Sooner rather than later, though, she finds herself limited by the oppressive theocracy she had helped put in place. In the end, shes still just a Wife bearing the indignity of supporting a Handmaid in her home, a few rungs above the rest when it comes to power, but ultimately bound by the rules that keep all women down.

Serena Joy is a lot like Martial Law deniers and Marcos apologists, those who believe that an iron fist could run a country better. Freedom from is all they can focus on, even at the cost of freedom to, cherry-picking whatever fits their narrative from the stories of those who had lived under the Marcos dictatorship.

Among the younger deniers and apologists, the irony is real: their golden ideas about what Martial Law was like and what it did to the country skip over the fact that the avenues that allow them to spread their navet now wouldnt have been possible under a dictatorship. They dont seem to get that their freedom to log online and shut down anyone with an opinion contrary to theirs was made possible by those who had fought the governments insistence on enforcing freedom from any dissenting thought.

Freedom to, freedom fromdeciding which is better is not a matter of listing each columns pros and cons and tallying their sums. The latter operates by limitation disguised as protection, and its danger lies in determining who decides what and how much to limit because it hands over power to only a very few.

Freedom to, on the other hand, is an expansion, but must also be tempered with the responsibility of ensuring that everyone else receives sufficient elbow room to move and grow. Its responsible, self-actualizing liberty, not a free-for-all anarchy. We can all benefit from remembering this.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash

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Have We Ever Thought About the Cost of Today's Freedom? - Inquirer.net

KINGSLEY, Iowa | Artist Ray "Bubba" Sorensen II has begun work on the Plymouth County Freedom Rock in Kingsley.

Sorensen's artwork on the nine-ton boulder, set near the Kingsley Community Center, will pay tribute to all Plymouth County veterans. Its four faces will include depictions of the American flag, an eagle with the words "Plymouth County" and tributes to local veterans and men who died in service.

On the east face, Sorensen is creating likenesses to Pvt. Isaac Gripp and Spc. Chad Groepper, the first and last Plymouth County servicemen who have died.

"I'm not just paying tribute to these two, but rather I'm using them kind of as bookends in which we can include everyone else between these two men," Sorensen said.

The west face will include patches from the National Guard in Le Mars from the Civil War through the War on Terror.

The north face will pay tribute to Jim and John Nicholson, two highly decorated veterans from Struble, Iowa.

Preparation for the painting included acquiring a large rock and transporting it to its spot near the Community Center. In May, new concrete was poured around the rock and will include plaques for each branch of service, as well as benches, flag poles and the Nash Post Veterans Memorial.

The dedication for the Plymouth County Freedom Rock will take place at 5 p.m. June 24 at the community center. The city, which is currently accepting donations, will hold a freewill offering during a street dance that evening. On July 31, proceeds from performances of the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus will go toward the Freedom Rock. The circus will perform at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Sorensen, of Greenfield, Iowa, has been painting the original Freedom Rock near Greenfield for 19 years. This is his fifth year traveling across Iowa on his Freedom Rock Tour.This is the 60th Freedom Rock Sorensen has painted in an Iowa county. He has commitments for 95 of the state's 99 counties.

Upon completion of the Freedom Rock in Kingsley, Sorensen will commence work on the Woodbury County Freedom Rock in Anthon, located at the Anthon Community Center, where officials set the boulder on Thursday. Sorensen's work in Anthon will likely begin at the end of next week and will last seven to 10 days while he stays in Anthon. He will then move on to the Ida County Freedom Rock at Holstein, Iowa.

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Work begins on Plymouth County Freedom Rock - Sioux City Journal

Starter Zach Wendorf battled command issues in his 2017 debut as the Florence Freedom, presented by Titan Mechanical Solutions, came up short of a series sweep in a 9-4 loss to the Washington Wild Thingson Sundayat UC Health Stadium.

The Wild Things (14-13) got the scoring started in the second inning against Wendorf (0-1) when a ground-rule double by John Fidanza plated Mike Hill, who had walked. Hill later put Washington ahead 2-0in the third inning when his single off Wendorf scratched across an unearned run, as Alexander Fernandez benefited from an error by Freedom (18-9) third baseman Conner Tekyl.

The game proved became a back-and-forth affair early, as Florence tied the score at 2-2 in the bottom of the third on a two-run bloop single to left field by Collins Cuthrell off Wild Things starter Chase Cunningham (3-0). The Freedom would take their only lead of the game two batters later, when Tekyl legged out an infield single, scoring Jose Brizuela from third with two out.

Alexander Fernandez delivered the decisive blow in the fourth inning, however, taking Wendorf deep for a three-run homer that gave Washington a 5-3 lead. Following Wendorfs departure after three and two-thirds innings, a total of seven relievers would pitch the rest of the way for Florence, with Eli Garcia yielding an additional three runs in the seventh inning and Kyle Doerr allowing one final Wild Things run in the eighth.

Cunningham earned the win, tossing six innings and holding the Freedom to three runs on five hits. Relievers Davis Adkins and Zach Strecker pitched two and one inning, respectively, with the latter allowing a Cuthrell RBI-single in the ninth.

The Freedom will travel to Crestwood, Ill. on Tuesday to open a three-game series against the Windy City ThunderBolts. Tony Vocca (3-2) will pitch for Florence against Windy Citys Kyle Von Ruden (1-2), with first pitch scheduled for 7:05 p.m. Central Time at Standard Bank Stadium.

The Florence Freedom are members of the independent Frontier League and play all home games at UC Health Stadium located at 7950 Freedom Way in Florence, KY.The Freedom can be found online at FlorenceFreedom.com, or by phone at 859-594-4487.Freedom

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Freedom fall 9-4 in series finale Sunday; take two of three from Wild Things before heading on the road - User-generated content (press release)...

COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. -- More than 150 people attended the first Equality March in Naples on Sunday. The event was organized by Collier Freedom, the same group that held the Women's March and Tax March earlier this year.

"I never thought that so many people in the community were living in the closest. We have heard that not just LGBT community, but democrats and progressives you know they didn't think they had a supportive community," said Collier Freedom organizer Karynn Cavero.

Cavero is one of the founders of Collier Freedom. The nonprofit was created after President Trump was elected into officer earlier this year.

"You know things have to happen in order for action to happen so here it is. I don't want say anything negative unfortunately, but it's brought a lot of positively to the county," said Cavero.

On Sunday, the organization held its first equality march in Naples.

"We think those who want to use the bible to hit people upside the head should focus on the verse in Matthew that says love one another, period, no exceptions," said Ft. Myers resident Wes Wright.

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Collier Freedom hosts first Equality March in Cambier Park - Fox 4