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I will be running for Congress again this month. Big surprise, right?

Before anyone mentions it I do know that I can’t run directly as a CNC candidate because of the five party rule. I don’t know which party I will be running for at the moment and consequently I don’t know where I will be running (except that it almost certainly won’t be Alberta), but I feel that it is more important to get a policy statement out now than it is to deal with what I regard as the “minutiae” of running for Congress. The issues are what counts and what should count for the voters.

My biggest issue is the absolute need for active members of Congress. By active I mean members who read and post in the Congressional forums, who vote in the forum votes and who aren’t only fixated on the Experience to be gained by voting in-game. I don’t want a “two clicker” Congress. The issues that Congress is facing right now are going to have a real impact on players in the game and now more than ever it is going to be important for members of Congress to get into the debate. How do we deal with the current recession? Will cutting the minimum wage to $1 for the duration of the recession help? And how will we define when the recession “ends?” Right now the price of Q1 food is $0.27, roughly 1/6 th the amount of the current minimum wage, and a quarter of a $1 minimum wage. When I started in this game the then current price for food was around $0.75 or a bit more, so it was half the minimum wage of $1.50. So maybe it is time for us to consider a temporary reduction of the minimum wage

Another big issue is the effort to “kill” the Grain industry for being “inefficient”. This would entail raising the Income tax for workers in the Grain industry to 50% forcing existing Grain companies to shut down. This was done in the Iron industry because we only have a medium level Iron region (although just as a matter of information I have lately been working in the Land sector in order to diversify my skill set; my first employer was a Quebec Iron company... after the tax increase had take effect). In the case of the Iron industry this could be justified by the quality of the Iron region that we have. The problem with the Grain industry is exactly the opposite; we have numerous high quality grain regions which assures, at least while we hold one of these regions, a permanent supply of affordable food that isn’t dependent on foreign imports. The Grain sector is not the same as the Iron sector and I oppose treating it that way.

Of course the elephant in the room is V2. I am convinced that the recession is a direct result of the coming Economy Module in V2. We aren’t fighting wars of the same intensity that we did, which in turn has reduced demand for commodities like moving tickets and weapons. Inevitably a climate like this drives prices down, particularly when you are aware that the value of existing inventories could be significantly changed by the changes in the nature of commodities in V2. And there are so many other issues that government will have to deal with before during and after the launch of V2.

After the launch of V2 we will apparently have two high Titanium regions. There is currently a debate raging in Congress about the advisability of “renting” one of these regions to one of our Eden allies (the amount of money being discussed is 2000 Gold per month). The alternative is, as much as possible, to encourage for our allies to start Titanium companies in Canada, import labour here and send the Titanium to their own countries. Advocates of this policy cite an increased defensive capability and increased tax revenues from an increased and active population. I am generally opposed to “renting” regions under these conditions – I was livid when I discovered that there had been a proposal to rent Saskatchewan to Finland that only ended when Finland discovered that they couldn’t afford the price – because we fought so hard last summer and fall to regain ALL of our original regions. But right now we are starting to learn about the implications of the military changes in V2, and because it abandons fighting against the wall for a more complex (but realistic) turn based PVP concept it may well be that having a large regional population alone might not be enough to fight battles. These are considerations that need to be factored into the mix when discussing an issue like this, but it is something that requires active Members of Congress to deal with.

There are so many other considerations. Industrial planning will be a big one. There is going to be a shake-up as the new industries develop. It’s not just Stone and Titanium replacing Wood and Diamonds, it is the four different types of weapons that will now be available. Which ones should our private weapons industries convert to? I think that Congress has a part in making these decisions or else we might end up with all of our private weapons companies producing Helicopters (because presumably they’ll bring a higher price and might even be exportable), and none producing Tanks, Artillery or Rifles. Government shouldn’t tell industries what to convert to but there has to be a role for government in helping private industry in making a choice. Indeed Government will have to make its own choices related to crown corporations under the Ministry of Industries and other organizations. Do we need to have companies in the various quality levels producing all four types of weaponry?

A side issue of this is military planning. Do we assign our platoons to specific arms, with one platoon being a tank outfit and another using helicopters etc? And how do we supply them in the most efficient manner. Maybe best way to do it is to set up companies either for each Platoon or for each Branch (one type of military unit), or maybe we should adopt the “One Big Factory” approach to supply everyone? Don’t even get me started on the changes to Hospitals and Defense Systems. Will our existing Q5 hospitals be grandfathered in? Will we have to make decisions about what those hospitals will contain? Will we have to build more new hospitals? Then ask all of those questions again about defensive systems because the need and composition of those is going to change as well.

I don’t have the answers to most of those questions, but I will tell you one thing, whatever we do is going to involve Government money which in reality is your money because most of it it is paid from your – and my – taxes. And that isn’t money that is allocated on the Country Administration screen, it is money that is spent by Congress and the Executive in the Forums. The issues that are discussed in the Congressional forums may seem like role-playing, and sometimes they are, but in a very real way they are issues that affect the shape of the game. If Congress gets it wrong, well a lot of us remember last summer. Part of the blame for the occupation and the responsibility for our liberation must be laid on the decisions made by Congress in the Forums. The absolute worst thing that could happen is to elect members to Congress who are not willing to be active in the Forums. During my time in Congress I have always been active in the forums, and when I have been out of Congress I have always paid attention to what has been going on in the parts of Congress I’ve been able to see. I am asking for your vote because this is not the time to elect a “two clicker” Congress.