Second Week in Congress

Day 570, 18:39 • 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 second week in office:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rQ_t4LWL0qLVECfqVQnwZsg&output=html
(Please cut and paste this link into your browser.)

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, there were two controversial issues that I would like to discuss: the Brazilian peace proposal and the lowering of raw material (RM) and moving ticket import taxes from 30% to 1%. In regards to the Brazilian peace treaty, I want to thank all of my constituents and fellow citizens who provided me with their input on this matter. The Brazilian occupation of South Africa is indeed reprehensible, but unfortunately there is little we can do at the present time to free it militarily. Diplomatic negotiations are our best bet at this point. With access to Brazil’s market, we have another source of iron. In addition, now that we are an officially neutral nation, we need to consider peace with some old adversaries. While I am not receptive to proposals of peace from Hungary or Indonesia, peace with minor PEACE powers could be advantageous to both our economy and our national security. With this in mind, I approved of peace with Brazil.

The second controversial matter involved a series of votes lowering the import taxes on wood, oil, grain, and moving tickets. The debate on this matter has been lengthy and heated. If you check the proposals that are up for a vote in Congress today, you will notice that we are considering reversing the effects of the previous four votes. For your edification, here are the various links that pertain to this debate:

http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,5299.0.html (Initial proposal to drop RMs to 1😵
http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,5380.0.html (Initial proposal to drop moving tickets to 1😵
http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,5475.0.html (Public comment on the reduction)
http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,5740.0.html (Results of the SoH and One Eye’s trade negotiations with foreign governments)
http://eusforum.com/index.php/topic,5790.0.html (Proposal to raise moving ticket import taxes back to 30😵

Initially, I trusted the assessments of Publius and One Eye on the benefits of reducing import taxes unilaterally. At worst, I thought we could take a wait-and-see approach, assess the ramifications, and make corrections if necessary; unfortunately, many of friendly governments do not see the benefit of free trade. In fact, the widespread perception that such free-market concepts have no place within the game mechanics of eRepublik makes it hard to convince anyone to respond in kind. I will not apologize for these votes, but I fervently understand that I approved of these import tax reductions upon a trial basis. At present, success does not seem to be forthcoming in establishing durable and beneficial trade ties with other friendly nations. One Eye is currently pursuing last-ditch trade negotiations. I am inclined to give him the time he needs, but I also felt that the opposition to the import tax reduction need to be heard. Thus, I supported bringing to a vote the issue of raising the moving ticket import tax back to 30%.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Sincerely,
Seth Ford
Senator for New Mexico