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Now this vote should be interesting. Will the Govt vote Yes and thus admit that higher taxes have hurt the economy? Or will they vote No and continue to make the public suffer to achieve their Utopian goals?

As much as it needs to pass it won't. It seems that congress would rather tax its own citizens then tax foreign companies who are putting American companies out of work.

You hit the nail on the head DF...

alby and desertfalcon.... FTW!

Hey what with me lol?

Desert, exactly what i think, we should tax outsiders way more harder, same time make it easier for us.

...and I want a pony...

DF and Alby are right. As for taxing foreign companies I will again voice my opposition to the low import taxes. The Q1 food industry is already tough to profit in. Undercutting by foreigners and the strain of the VAT are damaging our ability to compete, thus lowering salaries for common Joe's and drastically lowering profits for AMERICAN businessmen. It seem Congress will continue to disagree with this. I understand the need for a free market but these taxes are detrimental to everyone.

http://www.erepublik.com/en/USA/law/2755

voting page

This proposal won't help the price of food, because it will eliminate competition from foreign countries.

Proper country can handle itself.

Yeah!

Proggy@

How about lowering domestic taxes, raising import taxes, and letting the domestic competition force prices lower? Better to have my brother strangle me to death than a foreigner. At least that way, somebody in Red,White, and Blue will still remain victorious.

I still do not understand Congress being so supportive of foreign competition, especially in food. We have abundant grain resources and plenty of American Competition! RAISE the import tax let AMERICAN companies compete with each other.


Or would you rather Americans just go out of business?

I can see the need for foreign comp in iron and diamonds, we have no High productivity regions. But food? come on WAKE up! Opening our market can bring allies yes, but I am really beginning to wonder if there are hidden agendas at play here. Our market is huge, allow our Companies and Citizens to prosper in it. NOT ROMANIA'S. See here.

http://www.erepublik.com/en/company/r-e-food-company-178243

This nationalist sentiment is ignorant and misguided. By applying a prohibitive import tax you assure that the lowest possible prices are not available to eMerican citizens. Yes, you lower income and sales tax on citizens, and I would seek to make them much lower than that, but the import tax makes this a more negative economic reality than even the current ridiculous, "emergency" taxes. By artificially enhancing the ability of eUS companies to compete you are not only raising prices for citizens, but you are also disabling one of the key mechanics of maintaining a healthy economy: losses and bankruptcy. If eMerican companies cannot streamline and compete in the marketplace, they need to die such that more efficient allocation of scarce resources can be done by other companies. Protectionism gets a lot of political support, and its a great rallying-cry for the economically uneducated, but all it will do is weaken our economy, and thus our nation.

Joe, the free market is not some necessary evil. It is simply the most efficient way ever devised to allocate limited resources in society, and the more you allow it to run unfettered, the better things will be for everyone. Most negative things associated with capitalism have been a direct result of government meddling in the economy, or the use of force/fraud by some other entity (i.e Franco). We are in agreement that these taxes are detrimental, and I am one of The Nine, but import taxes are almost never a positive thing for eMerican workers.

"I still do not understand Congress being so supportive of foreign competition, especially in food. We have abundant grain resources..."

If we have abundant resources, and absolutely no import tax selling domestically, then why are eMerican companies not competing well? Other countries are playing the same game we are, and there is no magic here. If they are selling at lower prices and taking a loss, it is not they that are benefiting, but the eUS population that is getting a steal. Workers pay less for sustaining life, and can invest more, growing the economy. If they are able to compete profitably, then I suggest you revisit the policies of eUS companies and fix the problem, rather than using government force so that eMerican producers don't have to innovate.

it doesnt matter if i get a slightly better deal on food if i dont have a job.

""This nationalist sentiment is ignorant and misguided. By applying a prohibitive import tax you assure that the lowest possible prices are not available to eMerican citizens. Yes, you lower income and sales tax on citizens, and I would seek to make them much lower than that, but the import tax makes this a more negative economic reality than even the current ridiculous, "emergency" taxes"

"We are in agreement that these taxes are detrimental, and I am one of The Nine, but import taxes are almost never a positive thing for eMerican workers"

@Jack
I respect your positions in Congress but I disagree that helping American companies is ignorant. Call me a Nationalist all you want, but even your argument is contradictory to itself. read above.

Its simple if our companies are given the opportunity to prosper, they WILL streamline and become more efficient, thus being able to lower prices. These bigger foreign companies are already able to do this. GIVE Americans a chance!

The next congressional elections should be entertaining.. Who's keeping a tally on the voting records on Congressional Members?

Sadeh,

While I agree with your suggested tax changes (and voted yes), this vote will not pass because you did not follow congressional procedure for making a proposal. You need to bring up your proposal in the congressional forums, get five congressional endorsements, and then make the proposal in game.

Unfortunately, since you did not, many congressmen will vote "no" simply because you ignored protocol, regardless of whether or not they agree with your proposal.

American businesses are also harmed if we increase import taxes and other countries do the same. We're already having export disputes with a few countries around the world.

The IRL argument against free trade is the race to the bottom as a result of lower workers rights in third world countries. In the EWorld, there's a level playing field in this respect so it's not a concern at all. I want to maintain an even balance between our imports and our exports. We need to keep imports flowing in diamonds and gold while I'd like to see more exports of grain and wood.

The thing is that the import tax is a difficult discussion regardless of the income/VAT tax. When you group all three together, you doom your proposal.

As Speaker, I'd like to help you be an effective Congressional rep. Sadeh, please PM me and we can talk about the best way to get a chance in food prices passed. As Ansen mentioned, your failure to follow procedure will probably doom your proposal regardless of the benefits.

@ Alby- I'm keeping track of the records on the major proposals (i.e. proposals that follow procedure and give me the ability to track them). We have a Google Doc on that subject. Voting records will be transparent and published through my Congressional Corner newspaper.

Do you realize you actually RAISED taxes from what we were intending on lowering them to? We will be lowering the taxes down to the CTPA levels probably starting next week, and this proposal just shows your constituents your ignorance of the congressional tax plans.

So you want to raise the import tax and low the VAT on food (the income will come down soon enough)? I agree with a slight rise in the tariff, as before the CTPA's levels foreign competition was a minimum, VAT was around 3%, and income was around 5% or so (if memory serves right). We still had complaints that the Q1 food industry was unable to operate. If it cannot operate without foreign competition and without even slight taxation, do we really want them in our economy? Are they worth it? Should we subsidize to support them? When will this "woe is me" scenario finally play out?

Also, as Kyle has already mentioned, you are lowering them, yes, but you are not lowering them to the levels we have said we would; you are doing it by 5%, we were going to by 10%. What else do you expect from a congressman that does not even recognize congressional procedure?

Alright, this might be media hijacking but whatever, its somewhat related.

If there are any newbies that need desperately need a Q1 food donation because they cant afford food just pm me.

Sadeh and Joe, while I respect you both personally, I think the eUS citizens have a right to know where you came up with the import tax rate of 40%? Why not 99%? Or 41% or 39%?

Since no data was furnished to support how that particular amount was developed, I think the majority of consumers (including myself) can assume that it was an arbitrary figure meant to illicit anger at existing import tax policy rather than a thoughtful attempt at supporting eMerican Companies.

The current import tax of 15% was derived by determining (anecdotally) that 20% was tantamount to an embargo of wood several months ago. International competitors simply could not offer wood at a low enough price to establish a profitable presence in the market. Therefore, any import taxes established at or above the 20% mark generally provided a strong enough barrier to the market for foreign competition to actually become isolationist in a given industry.

The determination of 15% (which is likely to be adjusted when we have the industry specific data necessary to make informed decisions) was made to provide a high enough level to protect eUS companies and a low enough level to compel international companies, which run efficiently enough to overcome the price point increase in the import tax, to offer consumers competitive pricing.

So, no offense intended, but the lack of publication for how you determined sound import tax levels, in conjunction with the very name of this newspaper would lead me to believe that this is a populist stunt prior to an election rather than the sound and informed policies that the citizen, and companies, of the eUS deserve.

And one more question regarding this statement: "Its simple if our companies are given the opportunity to prosper, they WILL streamline and become more efficient..."

And what exactly would be their incentive to do so if they are already prospering? Goodwill?

Respectfully

We have more then enough q1 food to supply ourselves now. The reasons why we could not support ourselves a few months ago without foreign competition is because of V1 and raw mat companies. All the new employees were going to work for raw mat companies since the wages there ridiculously high and we had to import food due to the loss of food workers.

Now things have balanced out and we have more then enough employees to sustain our food industries. Sure getting rid of the imports will raise the prices by maybe 5 or 10% but it will lessen our reliance on imports and strengthen our economy.

There is no contradiction there Joe, I simply recognized the positive aspects, and then assessed that the negative aspects outweigh those. A 40% import tax, as with any import tax, will harm the economy. Our companies have just as much opportunity to prosper as any others, and if eMerican companies did not organize as well as foreign ones, then where is the justification for giving them an artificial boost? You disrupt the entire mechanic of the free market that keeps prices low and raises quality/efficiency. A vital part of that mechanic is failure. Helping eMerican companies isn't ignorant, the methods you are using are.

Also your whole idea of isolationism and then domestic competition might have some validity, but then you are confining the market to this little microcosm where being the fittest is a much easier achievement, settling in higher prices and less efficiency than they would have otherwise been required to survive. It is bad for the people via higher prices, and bad for companies in that it allows them to get complacent in their little fish-bowl. If you ever remove the taxes, then they will be totally rolled by foreign competitors.

Jack

You seem to be a well informed guy. I am not going to split hairs with you over this. Imho the positives outweigh the negatives. Look at our competitors, they seem to be fine with high import taxes. That's all I'm saying. They have provided an environment for their companies that allows them to grow. Their countries have the strongest currency. We are falling behind. Our companies need to be given time to grow so they can export just as competition does.

@Ananais I had nothing to do with Sadeh's proposal. I just agree that change is needed. 15% is too low. 40 may be to high. I only wish Sadeh would have followed protocol in Congress before proposing. This could have possibly been negotiated in Congress. Unfortunately for Sadeh Congress will turn their back on his proposal.

40% is too high-none of you have come to talk about international relationships need to be considered in all of this as well! 20% is scraping the ceiling, which is where more or less it should be(perhaps). We need to be friendly to other countries for more reasons than their goods themselves. I agree that strengthening our own economy is better DF, but along with the cost of food is the factor of international relations for me.

Raise it, maybe? 40%? no.

Sadeh, you should have used proper methods to bring the bill into action-I know people who voted no just because of this.

I like the lower taxes, the 15% income and 10% VAT is what i wanted to raise the taxes to to begin with, somethign smaller than the 20% we have now. I don't like the import and the fact you did not use the correct means of bringing the bill to pass.

Foreign competition is not all bad and should not be totally eliminated like a 40% tax would do.

I have not decided how I am going to vote: disregardless it will fail.

Joe: "strongest currency" does not necessarily mean best currency. Though I don't intend to split hairs any further than that with you 🙂.

I personally think that 40% import tax is not a good rate. But with that said, I support lowering the other rates, especially income tax for the purpose of increasing productivity. Congress disagrees though unfortunately. Companies will just have to suffer until we get a responsible congress.