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Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) speaks after Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 22, 2017. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

WASHINGTON (AP) Why are Republicans struggling mightily to reach a consensus on how to overhaul the nations tax system?

The GOP is supposed to be really good at cutting taxes. President George W. Bush cut taxes. So did President Ronald Reagan, though he also raised them.

Why is President Donald Trump, who has promised the largest tax cut ever, having so much trouble accomplishing one of his main initiatives?

Some questions and answers about why tax overhaul is hard and why Republicans have been unable to reach a consensus.

Whats the holdup?

After weeks of private negotiations, the White House and congressional Republicans still dont agree on exactly what they want to accomplish.

House Republican leaders are firm that they want to completely overhaul the tax system for businesses and individuals. They want to make the tax law simpler and more efficient, and they want the changes to endure beyond the next decade.

They want to cut tax rates, but they dont want the changes to add to the federal governments long-term debt. That means Congress would have to eliminate a lot of exemptions, deductions and credits, and probably come up with a new source of revenue.

The White House is all about tax cuts. Administration officials have talked about simplifying the tax system and getting rid of deductions, but have offered few specifics.

Why not just cut taxes?

A growing number of Republicans say they would rather cut taxes than tackle the difficult task of overhauling the tax system. House Speaker Paul Ryan vehemently opposes this approach.

Heres why:

Republicans are working to pass a tax plan under a procedure that requires only a simple majority in the Senate, preventing Democrats from blocking it. But to use this procedure, the package cannot add to the governments long-term debt.

That means simple tax cuts would have to be temporary, like the ones passed under Bush.

Every expert agrees that temporary reforms will only have a negligible impact on wages and economic growth, said Ryan, R-Wis. Businesses need to have confidence that we will not pull the rug out from under them.

Why is Ryan pushing for a tax on imports?

Ryan is pushing a plan that would increase taxes on imports and cut taxes on exports. Its called a border adjustment tax.

One reason Ryan likes it is because it would raise enough revenue about $1 trillion over the next decade to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent without adding to the governments debt.

The tax would provide strong incentives for U.S.-based companies to keep their operations in the United States and perhaps persuade companies to move overseas operations to the U.S.

The tax, however, has no support in the Senate because senators fear it would increase the cost of consumer goods.

How would Ryans tax work?

The border adjustment tax is a cash-flow tax in which corporations could deduct business expenses immediately instead of depreciating them over time. But interest on debt would no longer be deductible, though current debt would be grandfathered.

A U.S. company that makes a product and sells it domestically would pay a 20 percent tax on the profit. A U.S. company that makes a product and exports it would pay no taxes on the proceeds from the sale.

Both of these companies could deduct the cost of making their products as a business expense.

The tax is often described as a tax on imports because companies that import goods would also pay the tax, but they could not deduct the cost of imported goods as a business expense.

For example, if a U.S. retailer imports a product from China for $5 and sells it for $10, the retailer would have to pay tax on the entire $10.

If a U.S. retailer buys a domestically-produced good for $5 and sells it for $10, the retailer would only pay tax on the $5 profit.

Retailers that rely on imports hate the proposed tax. U.S. exporters love it.

Why not just cut loopholes?

A popular idea on Capitol Hill is to cut tax rates for everyone individuals and corporations and make up the lost revenue by eliminating special-interest loopholes.

The numbers, however, dont add up.

On the corporate side, if Congress eliminated just about every tax break enjoyed by corporations, it would raise only enough revenue to lower the corporate tax rate to 28.5 percent, according to an analysis by Scott Greenberg, a senior analyst at the conservative Tax Foundation.

Ryan wants to lower the tax rate to 20 percent; Trump wants to lower it to 15 percent.

Greenberg modeled the effects of eliminating 54 different tax breaks enjoyed by corporations, including the widely used domestic production credit and the popular credit for research and development.

If lawmakers are interested in paying for a large corporate rate cut solely by closing corporate loopholes or repealing special preferences, then they will be greatly disappointed, Greenberg wrote.

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Why Republicans are struggling mightily to overhaul tax code - PBS NewsHour

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., threw himself off a political cliff last week when he declared full-throated opposition to the Senate version of the Obamacare repeal bill and it remains to be seen if Heller is hanging by a limb out of sight and can climb back to electoral sanity or has hit rock bottom in his public career.

Individual Senate Republicans face different political realities but the caucus must somehow get the votes necessary to return the revised Obamacare repeal and replace bill to the House. To fail to do so is to condemn not only Heller and Arizonas Sen. Jeff Flake to certain doom but probably others among the eight GOP senators up for reelection. The grass roots disgust with this betrayal will be so deep as to endanger every senator, even in deep red states such as Mississippi, Texas and Utah.

To fail this week almost certainly forfeits the House majority in next years midterm elections but perhaps also the Senates, and with the latter, the ability to confirm Supreme Court justices and lower court judges, pass budgets under reconciliation, have any chance at serious tax reform and of course approve the crucial repeal of the Defense Department sequestration.

This is of course an imperative vote on saving American health care. Next year, for example, there potentially will be at least 18 counties in Ohio without even a single option for individuals seeking coverage. The swaths of America where there is only one provider are large and growing. Choice for consumers is a delusion and soaring deductibles have made health care an illusion to millions more.

Obamacare is a catastrophe on its own terms but the consequences of not passing its repeal are worse even beyond those awful health-care outcomes. It will forfeit every other Republican goal because failing to deliver on the central promise of eight years of debates and campaigns will shatter the credibility every Republican, not just those who block the bill. The party as a whole will be gravely wounded, perhaps beyond healing for a generation or more.

I dont have to guess about this. I have been talking to the center-right of the country for three hours a day Monday through Friday for the past 17 years. I know the central argument of the conservative activists everywhere in the United States is that Beltway Republicans cannot be trusted to do anything hard. That argument was dented by the discipline with which the GOP put up with the mainstream media and Democrats slings and arrows in the fight over replacing Justice Antonin Scalia. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) rightly calculated that to surrender that hill would be to lose not just a political battle but the political war stretching long into the future. It was that big of a deal to the base.

The same is true of Obamacare. To vote no on whatever compromise arrives is to express contempt for the Republican Party as a whole and its grass-roots activists and base voters and for those ideas it stands for on all major matters, from a strong defense to low taxes to an originalist Supreme Court.

Thus Heller seemed to declare himself a hollow man when he said he could not vote for it, a man without any core beliefs because with his rambling statement he endangered all alleged core GOP beliefs, and thus the GOP will not support him. It isnt about primaries; primary opponents need not materialize. It is about millions of conservatives who will simply give up on politics.

This is a make-or-break moment for Senate Republicans and the party itself. Sadly, for this conservative, the tone-deafness of Heller may not be unique. It may not even turn out to be particularly rare. We will know in a week. And not one GOP senator will be able to say he or she wasnt warned.

Hugh Hewitt is a radio talk-show host. He wrote this for the Washington Post.

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A make-or-break moment for Republicans - The Mercury News

WASHINGTON Young Republicans hold significantly more liberal views of immigrants and immigration than their older counterparts, reflecting a difference consistent with white Americans regardless of which political party they identify with, according to the latest American Values Atlas, a survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute survey.

While 41 percent of Republicans of all ages believe immigrants face a lot of discrimination in the United States, the percentage increases to 60 percent among Republicans between 18 and 29 years old, the survey found. That's a stark contrast to GOP voters 65 and older only a third of that group says immigrants experience discrimination.

Researchers also found that 74 percent of young whites believe that immigrants are targeted for discrimination a lot, compared to 57 percent of white Americans of all ages. However, among Republicans, only for the youngest group, between 18 and 29, is that view in the majority. Even 30-to-39-year-old Republicans are evenly split, 48 percent to 48 percent, on whether immigrants undergo a lot of discrimination.

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Poll: Younger Republicans more liberal on immigration - Minneapolis Star Tribune

INDIANA A new study from the Associated Press shows that Republicans won a greater share of seats than they did votes in many 2016 congressional and state races, a possible result of gerrymandering.

The study, which used a version of a mathematical formula created by University of Chicago law professor Nick Stephanopoulos and Eric McGhee, a researcher at the nonpartisan Public Policy, also showed that Indiana Republicans enjoyed a partisan advantage in their races, although that isnt necessarily an indication of gerrymandering, McGhee said.

Gerrymandering is the drawing of electoral boundaries to give a particular political party an unfair advantage in elections.

Stephanopoulos and McGhee devised a score, called the efficiency gap, to measure how much of an advantage political parties are receiving in their races. The farther away the efficiency gap is from zero, the more of an advantage a political party enjoys.

The APs study, which McGhee said was conducted with his help, found that the efficiency gap for the 2016 Congressional races was 10.6 percent in favor of Republicans, while the efficiency gap for the state senate races was 4.76 percent.

While seemingly high, McGhee said that he prefers using an excess seat number, or the additional number of seats a party would win even if all parties were on equal vote footing, for Congressional races. McGhee and Stephanopoulos have settled on two or fewer excess seats as an acceptable advantage for a political party to hold in an election.

In Indianas case, less than one excess Republican seat, .95 of a seat, was possible in the 2016 Congressional election.

In the state races, however, McGhee cautioned against the 4.76 percent efficiency gap that the AP reported. While 8 percent is considered a worrisomely high efficiency gap by the researcher, McGhee has calculate Indianas state race efficiency gaps before and has found them to be much higher than what the AP found.

At the request of the state legislature, McGhee determined that Indiana had an efficiency gap of 13 percent in favor of house Republicans and 17 percent for senate ones in 2012. In 2014, he found that the efficiency gap was 7 percent in favor of house Republicans and 13 percent in favor of senate ones.

To make any claims about whether thats a problem requires more evidence, McGhee said.

States need to show that they cant redraw their district lines to ensure a fairer advantage for all political parties before their efficiency gap can be used as proof of gerrymandering, he said.

McGhee has not evaluated that side of Indianas districting situation.

Tom Sugar, a member of the special interim study committee on redistricting in Indiana is hopeful that using the efficiency gap as a marker could affect the future of partisan districts The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal in October following a federal appeals court verdict that found Wisconsin Republicans were unconstitutional in their partisan gerrymandering.

The efficiency gap mechanism provides the test to show that the district, territories, land are being sliced and diced to ensure a particular partisan outcome, he said.

He said population and geography, not voter registration and political participation from areas should be used.

As a side project, Sugar has created a series of maps that show how the districts would look in Indiana compared to the districts drawn in 2011. They can be found on his website http://www.leadorleave.org.

Is this state more Republican than Democratic for the most part? Sure Indiana is a conservative state, he said. But it isnt 80 percent Republican.

He said the current districting system is not a fair picture of the people of Indiana.

It means that youre represented by a legislature that does not accurately affect the interest and needs of Hoosiers. It has become an out-of-whack, politically corrupt system.

He said the same is true in states where Democrats have drawn partisan districts.

The people dont pick their politicians now the politicians pick them, he said.

When you take the politics out and use population and geography and keep communities together you also enhance competitiveness. That means the people who represent those districts ... have to pay attention to something other than their primaries.

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Do Republicans in Indiana have an unfair advantage? - Newsandtribune

Younger Republicans have more liberal opinions on immigration than do older members of the GOP, according to a new poll.

Forty-one percent of all Republicans in a pollconductedby the Public Religion Research Institute says immigrants face a lot of discrimination in the United States, The Associated Press reported.

Sixty percent among Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29 answered the same way, however, compared to only about one-third of voters ages 65 and older.

A slight majority of Republicans of all ages, 55 percent, say immigrants in the U.S. illegally should have a path to citizenship "if certain conditions are met."

But among younger Republicans, 62 percent responded that immigrants in the U.S. should have a legal path to citizenship.

Republicans of different ages also have opposing views on gay rights, according to the poll.

Fifty-four percent of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29 say gay and lesbian couples should be able to marry, while just half that percentage of older Republicans responded the same way.

The poll was conducted with 40,509 interviews from May 18, 2016, to Jan. 10, 2017. The margin of error is 0.6 percentage points.

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Poll: Younger Republicans have more liberal opinions on immigration - The Hill