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Citizens of Tennessee:


Today I come before you to ask that you trust me to represent you in Congress. I represented Maine for six months. During the past month, I reverted to the role of a common citizen. Now I ask the people of Tennessee to give me the honor of serving them in Congress. I have one goal of overriding importance: to increase governmental transparency. But I also know enough about Congress to realize that a Congressional representative must be knowledgeable enough to deal with many issues. So, before detailing my thoughts about reducing Congressional secrecy, I will quickly summarize my views about other major issues. If you have questions, please PM me. I always answer PMs related to Congressional matters.


Summary of Issues

Military action, both offensive and defensive, is essential to the survival of every enation in eRepublik. Without a strong military, supported by strategically chosen allies, no nation can continue to exist. I, therefore, strongly support adequate funding for our military consistent with a tax level that allows a strong economy and with a budget that supports such player retention programs as Meals on Wheels.


In relation to foreign policy, I strongly support our membership in EDEN, a group of strategically chosen allies. I also support the exercise of diplomacy as essential to every kind of interaction, peaceful or hostile, with other nations. Our eventual success in attaining passage through Japan, essential to the initiation of our military campaign in Asia, is just one example of the importance of maintaining active diplomatic contacts even with enations that may seem hostile.


I support the current fortress strategy as the framework for deciding where to place infrastructure. With the exception of unforeseen situations, such as the need to fortify Karnataka, I believe it will be some time before our population grows enough to placing new infrastructure in any region.


Domestic social programs help retain new players. I strongly support Meals on Wheels; the Welcoming Committee; the Department of Education and the New American University, and the mentoring program. I would like to see the creation of similar programs targeted at established players and focused on encouraging greater activity among them.


Current tax policy seems to be adequate. For now, I support keeping taxes as they are. However, Congress and the Executive have done very little to evaluate the economic effects of the various changes made to tax levels during the past several months. A system for such evaluation should be created and people selected to undertake the evaluation on a continuing basis. Depending on the results of these evaluations, my opinion may change.


Governmental Transparency

My first campaign eight months ago emphasized the need for less secrecy in Congressional deliberations. My month away from access to the eUSA forum boards where Congressional debates occur reinforced my concern about this issue. As a member of Congress for six terms, I had the impression that some, non-sensitive, discussions had been opened to public view during that time. To my great surprise on leaving Congress, I found I was wrong.


Citizens can only read Congresspeople's possibly self-serving reports on their Congressional activities. During my first term, I was one of the first Congress members to publish a regular accounting of my votes. I saw this as a means of helping citizens know what I was doing in Congress. I never believed such reports from Congresspeople could be an adequate substitute for the opportunity to view Congressional debates, except those relating to national security. But, unfortunately, the idea of "transparency" has been reduced to the choice by each Congressperson to publish and explain his votes. Citizens have no ability to see for themselves what opinions their representatives express in Congressional debate, when those opinions matter.


The excuse given for this almost total Congressional secrecy is the unsupported assertion that "national security" would suffer if any Congressional deliberations are made public in real time. As an example, consider the taxation and budgeting processes. Taxing the proceeds of every resident's work and distributing the revenue so derived are the government activities that most affect the daily life of every individual living in the eUS. Yet, few residents have more than a vague idea about why various taxes are set at the prevailing levels and how the tax receipts are spent. The explanation for this extreme secrecy is that knowledge of how the eUS collects and spends its money would allow an enemy to guess our military plans.


This explanation is no more than a pretext. Every bit of data the Budget and Finance Committee or Congress as a whole has access to is available to anyone who wants to make the effort to gather it. The total revenue of the eUS appears on the eRepublik information link. Our tax levels are found in the same place. The bi-monthly budget is posted in a public portion of the eUS forum. Movements of money from the eUS treasury to the Congressional Budget Office are announced on the eRepublik site when they are proposed for a Congressional vote and again when they are approved, or, unusually, defeated.


Even more to the point, anyone can go to the Congressional Budget Office Org.; follow the donations list there; follow the donations lists of each recipient, and find more information about the destination of revenues than Congress ever dreamed of knowing. I just spent a few minutes doing exactly that and was amazed at the information I found. (I do not feel I am endangering national security in saying this. The process would be obvious to anyone with a bit of knowledge of the game.)


Given the above, there seems to be no reason to keep tax and budget deliberations secret from the eUS people. This is not to say that all debates should be open. There may be good national security reasons to keep Military Committee and External (Foreign) Affairs sub-committee deliberations closed. It is to say that the default position ought to be to open debates to real-time public view.


There must be good, stated reasons to keep real time debate secret. Secret debate should not exist solely to allow Congress members to avoid controversy or embarrassment before the public.

This situation is unacceptable. If I again am given the privilege of sitting in Congress I will do my best to change it.


seeker1
Former Senator