Join the new world

Hello citizens of Maine.

Today I, seeker1, announce my candidacy to be your representative in Congress. My affiliation is with America's Advancement Party, where I have been active for two months, having been appointed Director of Public Relations last month. I am also a proud Lieutenant in the US Homeguard.


So, why am I running? I could run through the usual litany of issues: I do support wargames. I believe we must develop and maintain a powerful military. Except for the recent abolition of import taxes, addressed below, I support current taxation levels. I support Meals on Wheels and M.A.S.H. I oppose increases in the minimum wage because we have Meals on Wheels to support new citizens and because those citizens contribute little to their employers, who would hire many fewer new players than they do now. And I could continue.


These are common positions. They say only what most candidates, past or present, have said. They tell you little about what the candidate will try to do once he takes office. I will describe the two issues that will be my focus during the next month, if you elect me.


Transparency

Currently, Congress conducts much of its business in secret. That is true not only of sensitive military operations and foreign affairs matters, when secrecy is to be expected. As all can see by scanning the topics included in the "Public Disclosure" section of the Congress portion the eUSA forum, these "classified" discussions mostly concern taxation and budgeting policy. (It may be that most foreign affairs and military discussions are still secret.) This is unacceptable.


I believe that the eUS can be successful only if all citizens are aware of and participate in the political debates that lead to decisions that affect us all. This participation might take the form of voting for the Congressional or Presidential candidate who seems knowledgeable, experienced and compatible with your beliefs. It might take the form of joining a party and participating in its activities to make it strong enough to win election contests. It might even take the form of running for Congress or the Presidency in the hope of having a direct part in making the decisions that affect us all. Such participation requires that citizens be able to know what their government is doing.


It is insufficient to have to rely primarily on what the President, members of his administration, various Congressional representatives or little-known newspaper publishers choose to say about governmental activities. Citizens must be able to keep those purveyers of "information" honest by having the ability to verify that information independently. As long as Congress operates under secrecy, such verification is impossible. In his most recent report to Maine citizens, your current Senator even provided a link to a thread not open to the public.


Proposed solutions:


Congress should establish a rule that all deliberations are public unless they fall into pre- established categories where secrecy is required to protect national security.


It is not at all clear that Congress has a policy stating the criteria to be applied when deciding to make a deliberation secret. It is possible for topics to be introduced on closed sections of the forum and nobody considers the implications for transparency. At the very least, there ought to be a presumption that deliberations are public unless the topic falls under specific pre-established and publicized criteria. There could be a requirement that some portion of Congress (perhaps 1/3 of members) approve going into secret session.


Some may suggest that it is simply unwieldy for Congress to deliberate in public because the general public also posts on those threads. I would have no objection to limiting posts to Senators, invited members of the administration, invited members of the military and anyone else invited by a majority of Congress.


Senators are divided into committees. I propose that those committees that do not deal with national security matters also deliberate in public, under the above conditions.


I have no specialized knowledge of these matters--a consequence of Congressional secrecy. It may be that there are good reasons why these proposals could not be adopted. It may be that there would be insufficient support among other Senators to allow their enactment. We do not know because so much is kept secret. What I do commit myself to is to work toward the formation of a multi-party coalition to increase the transparency of Congressional deliberations.


Import Taxes/Tariffs

The current Congress has reduced the import taxes on raw materials to 1%--effectively eliminating all RM tariffs. They did the same to tariffs on moving tickets. This is a dangerous policy. Although proponents of "free trade" cite Spain and Romania as nations that have eliminated their tariffs, this is not true. Romania's only high production raw material is grain, on which they maintain a 99% tariff. Spain's high production raw materials are grain and iron. Spain eliminated its tariff on grain, the most abundant resource in the new world, and therefore not a highly competitive commodity. Spain has a tariff of 65% on iron, precisely to prevent or limit competition from the relatively few other nations that have high iron. The eUS is the only country in eRepublik that does not impose tariffs to protect its high production regions from competition.


The primary danger of this failure is the possibility, even probability, that companies based in other nations may decide to sell RMs in the eUS market at prices domestic companies could not compete with. Domestic companies would then be forced to lower prices and wages to compete, with the effect of decreasing wage levels. If such undermining of prices continued, business will fail, reducing the number of jobs in the US and encouraging eUS citizens to move to other nations to find good-paying jobs.


Such a development would also endanger us militarily. We would lose population, thus reducing the level of our defenses. We might find ourselves dependent on companies based in other countries to provide us with essential raw materials. In an unstable world dominated by war and PTOs, no nation can be counted on to remain an ally. The next election might suddenly turn an ally into an enemy. If the eUS is heavily dependent on raw materials imported from that market, we would suddenly lose our access to it. This possibility raises the prospect of Economic warfare.


"Free trade", in the context of eRepublik is a national security concern. In the eRepublik world, gold is the resource that can buy anything. It can buy the wellness increases that, along with Q5 weapons also purchased by converting gold into a national currency, allow tanking in war. It can be converted into any manufactured good or raw material by the same means. But a regime lacking tariffs will increase sales of goods into the eUS market. The foreign companies making such sales receive dollars that can be exchanged for gold. Thus eUS gold is transferred to other nations. To the extent that this continues, the eUS becomes a weaker war-fighting nation, and the nations that export to the eUS become stronger.


On June 12, Congress began to reconsider its no-tariff policy. This is an issue I pledge to watch carefully. I pledge to do my utmost to oppose any Congressional action that threatens to weaken our domestic companies, to lower eUS wages, or endanger our national security.


Thank you for your attention to this long platform. If you entrust me to represent you, I promise to use this newspaper to keep you informed of my voting record. As important, I will give you information of the developments in Congress not necessarily reflected in voting records.

seeker1 for Maine