MPP budget laws. Congress votes 'NO'.
Bernard Hoffington
This week has seen the abolishment of the Senate. Three separate voting topics and over 30 votes brought the end to the senate. In the end not a single vote was cast to oppose the abolishment.
I spoke to Daniel Parker, last elected member of Senate about whether he believed the eNL should have given the senate a second chance and what he thought his reform would have brought to the table:
I think the reform would've worked, it was a clear reform, making the senate's role finally clear.
Even a lot of people who said no to it, said it was a good proposal.
I think people just got fed up with the whole senate thing.
In the end, congress had spoken and the Senate is now officially gone.
Goodbye Senate.
This week has also seen a very heavily and heated debate about the change in law regarding Mutual Protection Pacts or Alliances with other countries which allows citizens to fight in battles for that country.
Which means if a country has no battles going on they can always help out with an allies battles.
The debate began discussing the governments change in legislation.
The change was to remove the current budget of 20,000NLG for MPP's to a system where percents would be handed out. Some to the Ministry of Defense to fund the armed forces and buy weapons and the rest would be distributed by the President as he saw fit.
It also added a structure for the President to inform the Minister of Finance where he spent the money so it could be added to the incomes and outcomes for the countries finances.
Voting began and after the 24 hours was up the vote had reached 9 votes. The quorum for the eNL is currently 10 votes, meaning another 12 hours had to be added onto the vote to allow for more congress members to vote.
At this time the vote stood at 5 to yes and 4 to no. Meaning the change in law was going to be denied by congress.
After the extra 12 hours was reached, two additional votes had been submitted and the final decision was 'Proposal denied'.
The vote finished with six for the change and five against.
Current eNL law states that a change in legislation requires at least 60% of the vote count for a change to happen, so this vote, having only 54% for was now over.
Meanwhile the debate continued and many people began asking why members of congress had voted 'No'.
Many expressed their opinion that people do not need to explain why they voted which way or the other while others demanded an explanation.
I spoke to Pierre Delvaux, member of the Centre-Left Netherlands political party and established member of congress.
I asked why he had voted in the way he had and to express his opinion on the matter.
I voted no as an obstructive protest. I'm sick of the never ending kleptocracy that blights the eNL, and I'm sick of having poor people's tax guilders being wasted on Antikoist boondoggles, when paramilitary MUs are denied any contribution.
When a government refuses to acknowledge the efforts of many of its citizens, and instead takes their money by legislative diktat and redistributes it to fellow travelers and cronies, action must be taken.
I will do everything I can to disrupt the rubber stamping of proposals which advance this agenda. In this way, I see myself as emulating the US government shutdown of 1995. I now realize that liberty isn't granted, it's taken, and that the same is true of politico-administrative equality. The stupid comments artemivanov about "occupy-congressmembers" only heighten my ardor. Direct money away from the government and into the pockets of the individual citizen, that's what I say.
So although congress has voted no for the change in budget laws for MPP's, is anything being done to help with the current situation?
The situation being that there are no active battles and many of the eNetherlands citizens are having to move to find battles to fight in.
Learn how your opinion can be heard by the government and find out more at the official eNetherlands forum:
http://www.enetherlands.nl
Comments
Nice article; good luck with the paper!
Thanks Pierre and thanks for the quote!
LOL, don't have to move because the same issues are in eBelgium.
nice article Markus
I'm for lower taxes, but also for more flexibilty of the government budget. We only have worked with a budget for a few months, and clearly it's too strict.
Indeed Daniel Parker. And then some un-informed congress people come with the argument that they are afraid to lose power....
Worst argument I ever heard.
And of course there are always those who vote NO, to make some kind of strange statement.
And to bad Pierre only comes with his explanation in this article and not on the congress forums. Besides that it is clearly explained why private MU's don't receive funding. Besides that it's everyone's free choice to join some sort of paramilitary tea-circle. They can instead join the official army and receive supplies.
I left an explanation on the forum Luuklag; if you'd a problem with it you could've asked for further details.
nice, maybe add links to the forum debates?
http://www.enetherlands.nl/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9076&start=30
oh I meant it as an idea for Markus 🙂 might help people get involved there
Couldn't agree with you more on this Pierre.
If you ask me; this is the worst government we ever had! It seems there only goal is to fill their own deep pockets... Instead of distributing it to all eNLers. Ans now the cp asked for a blanco cheque for 50 % of OUR taxincome; to use it as he sees fit.... and maybe for some mpp's. When his dictate, eh proposal clearly would have stated a fixed percentage of our taxincome goes to mpp's, it would have been voted yes. But no, this cp saw a chance to strengten his position, came with a wrong proposal, and instead of changing it, so we can vote yes on it and have our multiple mpp's, he's blaming congress!
Please, mr. president, get your head out of that place where the sun doesn't shine, and negotiate with congress, because that's what we do in a democracy! This is (still) no dictatorship...
Don't act if injustice is done, 4 years long the government had a 'blanque cheque', we only recently have a budget law, one that is flawed, and needs to be fixed.
Daniel, don't live in the past, look ahead, we can have a better future; for ALL citizens of eNL, not only for the small group of fat cats...
@Van spijck, if you think you can do a better job, please show me. Because the government isn't that bad.
@ChristiaanB94; Misschien moet je je eens afvragen waarom deze regering haar "prachtige" plannen niet kan uitvoeren? Zou het soms iets te maken kunnen hebben met de manier waarop?
Dus de manier waarop is voor verscheidene congressleden belangrijker dan een verbetering in landsbelang?
De manier waarop? Wat is er fout mee?