Third Week in Congress

Day 580, 17:19 Published in USA USA by Seth Ford

To my New Mexican constituents and my fellow citizens of the USA,

In the interests of full, public disclosure, I present to you my voting record for my third week in office:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rQ_t4LWL0qLVECfqVQnwZsg&output=html
(Please cut and paste this link into your browser. As for the life of me, I cannot get it to hyperlink despite all of Senator lightreb's advice. Curse technology!)

Per usual, if I neglected to discuss a vote you consider particularly important, please kindly informing by PM or in the comments section of the Town Crier.

This week, Congress considered a ton of new MPPs and MPP renewals under the supervision of the newly created Foreign Affairs committee chaired by Senator Lex Luthor1. This committee works with the Secretary of State and Senator from Texas, Richard Harrison to consolidate all non-classified information on international relations into one central location on the Congress board of the eUSA forums. This gives senators ready access to critical information so that they can make an informed vote on MPPs that senators sometimes have little time to debate (especially if the MPP was proposed by a country that we were not expecting a proposal from). Thanks to the committee members for their hard work during this committee’s first term! Also, I would like to congratulate Senator Ssomo for pushing forward the creation of this much-needed committee. Based on this committee’s informed recommendations, I have voted yes on all the MPPs that were proposed.

You may notice that the list includes an MPP with Sweden and Poland. This may seem illogical given my stance regarding these two nations in the past; however, the simple fact is we need MPPs with strong nations. I did not support Sweden’s war with Germany. It was a sad, wasteful folly, but I will not allow my sentiments on this issue to interfere with our nation’s security. I may look askance at Sweden as a full military ally as we were in ATLANTIS, but we both benefit from the defensive nature of an MPP. Both Sweden and Poland have suffered enough for this debacle and for my small part I refuse to prolong their pain. It is time to look forward not backward in regards to relations with these two nations.

The second matter that I would like to discuss is the proposal to raise the import taxes on moving tickets from 1% to 30%. For essential background on this vote, please see my second voter report in the Town Crier. Harrison Richardson had not been as successful as he had hoped in negotiating a reciprocal lowering of import taxes with other friendly nations. Given that many senators, myself included, voted for the import tax decrease on trial basis with the hopes of creating the foundation of an economic alliance, we debated raising at least the moving ticket tax back to its original 30% level. OneEye, a member of the Economic Council, stepped up and asked for more time to pursue trade negotiations. Out of consideration for his expertise and to give the negotiation process a chance, I voted down the increase in the moving ticket import tax.

Please read the following thread started by OneEye for further debate on this issue and to hear a status report about the trade negotiations: eusforum.com/index.php/topic,5956.0.htmly friendly transparency rival Senator Thomas. Anderson of California. Good luck to all the congressional candidates this election season!


Sincerely,
Seth Ford
Senator for New Mexico