The House and Senate are working to send a sweeping tax reform and tax cut plan to President Trump’s desk by Christmas.
Congress has a real chance to cuts taxes for American families and reform our outdated tax code. Lawmakers also have an opportunity to include a repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate.
This is crucial to helping deliver on conservative promises to both provide tax relief to the American people and will position conservatives on a stronger footing for the renewal of the Obamacare repeal-and-replace fight next year.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) began championing the idea to eliminate Obamacare’s tax penalty as part of the Republican’s tax reform effort in October. With support from the Trump administration and conservatives like you, the idea is gaining traction.
Repealing the individual mandate would save taxpayers $338 billion over 10 years, and allow congressional tax writers to cut taxes even more!
Eliminating Obamacare’s individual mandate tax penalty would help hardworking Americans forced to buy excessively high costs of health care and set the stage for dismantling Obamacare’s regulatory infrastructure.
Repealing the individual mandate will help Congress make Tax Reform even better AND it guts a core part of Obamacare.
We must continue to push for tax reform that unleashes economic growth and puts more money in the pockets of individuals and families. Including elimination of the individual mandate would be a huge conservative win.
====================
The Suffers
Premiere New Single "I Think I Love You"
With Billboard, Here: goo.gl/KzgKWD
*Spring 2018 North American Tour Announced*
Watch The Suffers' Music Video for "Midtown" on Saint Heron & "Peanuts" on Afropunk
Watch The Suffers Perform "Gwan" on Late Show With David Letterman
Check Out The Suffers' NPR Tiny Desk Concert & Interview on All Things Considered
"If you can't do this, get out of the business!"
"They're the sort of neo-retro group you never knew music was so badly missing"
"'Make Some Room,' opens with a blast of classic-sounding R&B horns
and spends the next four and a half minutes subtly shifting from slinky to soaring and back again."
Houston, TX - November 14, 2017 - Houston's award-winning 8-piece ensemble, The Suffers, have teamed up with Billboard to exclusively premiere their new single "I Think I Love You" today! "I Think I Love You" is the first single to release since The Suffers' debut self-titled album dropped in 2016. The band is currently putting the final touches on a 2018 full-length release, and will kick off their newly announced North American tour in the Spring (dates listed below). Listen to "I Think I Love You" via Billboard, here: goo.gl/KzgKWD.
Established in 2011, The Suffers' lineup was curated by bassist Adam Castaneda and vocalist/keyboardist Pat Kelly, who brought on trumpet player Jon Durbin, trombonist Michael Razo, guitarist Kevin Bernier, percussionist Jose "Chapy" Luna, and drummer/vocalist Nick Zamora, while frontwoman Kam Franklin topped off the group with soaring vocals.
The last two years have brought the band to new heights, as they played 300+ shows across North America, Europe, Japan and Australia, visited NPR in Washington, DC for a Tiny Desk Concert, made their national television debut on Late Show With David Letterman, and released their highly anticipated self-titled album alongside performances on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and Jimmy Kimmel Live!
In a short time, the band has progressed from packing Houston venues to accepting invitations for featured performances at Hangout Music Festival, Forecastle Festival, Electric Forest Festival, Afropunk, Pemberton Music Festival, Austin City Limits, Newport Folk Festival, High Water Festival, XPoNential Festival, High Sierra Music Festival, Landmark Music Festival, Voodoo Music + Arts Experience, LouFest, AmericanaFest, UTOPiAfest, SXSW, Free Press Summer Festival, Untapped Festival, CMJ Music Marathon, and more. The Suffers have remained a local favorite, accepting 23 Houston Press Music Awards in the last four years. For further information on The Suffers, please visit: www.thesuffers.com.
###
Check out more on The Suffers, here:
Website: www.thesuffers.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thesuffers
Twitter: www.twitter.com/thesuffers
Instagram: www.instagram.com/thesuffers
Youtube: www.youtube.com/TheSuffersTX
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/thesuffers
Upcoming Shows:
** = w/ Turkuaz
Nov 29 - Minneapolis, MN @ The Cabooze**
Nov 30 - Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon**
Dec 1 - Chicago, IL @ Concord Music Hall**
Dec 2 - Covington, KY @ Madison Theater**
Dec 3 - Morgantown, WV @ 123 Pleasant Street**
Dec 6 - Charleston, SC @ Charleston Pour House**
Dec 7 - Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West**
Dec 8 - Nashville, TN @ Exit/In**
Dec 9 - Indianapolis, IN @ The Vogue**
Dec 22 - Houston, TX @ House of Blues | Newport Folk Presents "With A Little Help From Our Friends" a benefit for the victims of Hurricane Harvey
Dec 28 - San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
Dec 29 - Dallas, TX @ Curtain Club
Dec 30 - Austin, TX @ 3Ten ACL
Jan 13 - St Petersburg, FL @ Sunshine Music Festival
Jan 14 - Boca Raton, FL @ Sunshine Music Festival
Jan 24 - Medellin, Colombia @ MAAM
Jan 25 - Cartagena de Indias, Colombia @ Convention Center
Spring 2018 North American Tour
Mar 7 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
Mar 9 - Santa Cruz, CA @ Kuumbwa Jazz Center
Mar 11 - San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
Mar 14 - Crystal Bay, NV @ Crystal Bay Club Casino Crown Room
Mar 16 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Mar 17 - Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
Mar 18 - Vancouver, BC @ The Imperial
Mar 25 - Denver, CO @ Globe Hall
Apr 18 - Vienna, VA @ The Barns At Wolf Trap
Apr 19 - Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live Downstairs
Apr 20 - Asbury Park, NJ @ House Of Independents
Apr 21 - Brooklyn, NY @ Baby's All Right
Apr 24 - Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
Apr 26 - Portland, ME @ Port City Music Hall
Apr 27 - Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground - Showroom Lounge
Apr 28 - Montreal, QC @ Bar Ritz
Apr 29 - Toronto, ON @ The Horseshoe Tavern
May 1 - Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
=========================
EPA Blows $1.5 Million on Parking, Some Spaces Never Used
NOVEMBER 14, 2017
A government agency with a sordid history paid $1.5 million for subsidized and unoccupied parking spaces in violation of executive orders designed to save taxpayer dollars and the environment by cracking down on parking subsidies in the federal workforce. The waste occurred over a two-year period at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington D.C. and a regional office in Atlanta Georgia. The two locations doled out more than $840,000 to subsidize employee parking and around $690,000 for unoccupied spaces, according to a federal audit released this week.
In the 42-page report, the EPA Inspector General points out the irony of an agency charged with promoting air quality disobeying various federal orders enacted to improve air quality and public health in the capital area. Among them is Executive Order 13150, Federal Workforce Transportation, which requires federal agencies in the capital region to implement a transit subsidy fringe benefit to discourage commuting by single occupancy vehicles, improve air quality and reduce traffic congestion. Another is Executive Order 13693, Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade, which establishes “a clear overarching objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions across Federal operations” and encourages agencies to “promote sustainable commuting and work-related travel practices for Federal employees … and reward carpooling and the use of public transportation, where consistent with agency authority and Federal appropriations law.”
Other EPA regional offices do not provide subsidized parking for employees and many federal agencies in D.C. don’t either, the watchdog reveals. Among them is the General Services Administration (GSA), the government’s central management agency that handles everything from office space for the feds to communication and purchasing. The agency is huge, with a staff of about 14,000 and an annual budget of nearly $20 billion. “Other federal agencies, such as the GSA, no longer provide subsidized parking to employees except those with disabilities, and nine of the 10 EPA regions also do not provide this fringe benefit,” the EPA IG report states. “The GSA’s Director of Operational Support Division and National Parking Manager observed that the GSA’s new, nonsubsidized parking policy reduced the number of employees driving to work by over 80 percent.”
While it certainly constitutes the squandering of taxpayer dollars, the EPA parking bruhaha is nothing compared to some of the agency’s scandals over the years. During the Obama administration the EPA gave leftist groups tens of millions of dollars to help poor, minority and indigenous communities attain “environmental justice.” Some of the agency funds went to groups that help illegal immigrants, among them a New Jersey nonprofit (Lazos America Unida) that advocates on behalf of the “Mexican immigrant community” and a Missouri farm workers’ group that aims to increase awareness about the dangers of sun and heat exposure in migrant populations. Judicial Watch sued the EPA earlier this year for records about the controversial environmental justice grants because the agency ignored a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that dates back to 2015.
Various probes have also uncovered an epidemic of EPA employees watching pornography on government computers during work hours. This is a government-wide problem, but the EPA appears to be in a class of its own. Watching porn at the agency is so widespread that a bill (Eliminating Pornography from Agencies Act) was introduced in Congress and the lawmaker behind it, North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows, said the EPA served as an inspiration for the measure. “One EPA employee was viewing as much as 6 hours of pornography a day in his office,” the congressman said. “The same federal employee was found to have downloaded as many as 7,000 pornographic files onto his government computer.”
The EPA also fails to punish corrupt employees and allows them to keep their government paychecks, according to a scathing federal audit that includes slews of examples in which the agency failed to take action against workers who committed wrongdoing. For instance, a senior executive simultaneously worked in a private-sector job while he was supposedly performing tasks at the EPA. Agency brass took no action for nearly a year and ultimately put the executive on “paid administrative leave,” allowing the worker to collect full pay for doing nothing. Other cases include eight employees accused by the EPA of misconduct who are also on paid leave and have accrued around 21,000 hours at a cost of more than $1 million and two employees who got busted watching porn during work hours. Each of the porn viewers has an annual salary of $120,000 and both were placed on administrative leave for a year before they were even reprimanded, according to the audit. One of them retired with full benefits without any punishment and the other is still collecting a full government paycheck. The cases go on and on. “Recent events and activities indicate a possible ‘culture of complacency’ among some supervisors at the EPA regarding time and attendance controls, employee computer usage, real property management, and taking prompt action against employees,” the report says.
Let’s not forget that under Obama’s first EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, the agency was investigated for dodging potential public scrutiny and possibly congressional oversight by using bogus electronic mail accounts to conduct official business. Judicial Watch is investigating the matter and has sued the EPA for using a private encryption software to thwart government oversight and transparency.
