21st Congress Mid-Term Report

Day 663, 19:01 • Published in USA USA • by eUSA Congress
-Official Mid-Term Report for the 21st Congress-

As the former Deputy Speaker of the House (DSoH), I became the new Speaker of the House (SoH) when http://www.erepublik.com/en/citizen/profile/1245965> Gaius Julius ascended to the Presidency with the departure of http://www.erepublik.com/en/citizen/profile/77851> Emerick. I'd like to first state how grateful I am to both Gaius and Emerick for their friendship over these last months and wish them both the best in both eRep and their RL.

My first point of business was appointing http://www.erepublik.com/en/citizen/profile/1309691> ligtreb to be the new DSoH. I have full faith in ligtreb to perform the duties of DSoH, and in the event of my absence, I know that he would make a fine Speaker. For the record, I'm avoiding public libraries, having learned that valuable lesson from Emerick. I also appointed http://www.erepublik.com/en/citizen/profile/1683502> Astra Kat G to be the new Congressional Whip. Astra Kat G has proven to be one of the most active members of Congress and I am certain that she will do a great job in her new role.

The voting record for the first half of this Congressional term can be found in a Google doc, http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqhCP273kwcndE5TQXZqb010Uko5MUVMVTU1TjBHZ1E&hl=en> here. It will be updated throughout the rest of the term so bookmark it if you'd like. This hasn't been done over the last few months, but I always thought it was a good faith effort at public disclosure, so the practice has been revived.

The biggest changes voted on this term have been the tax changes. These lowered the income tax across the board to the pre-war levels of 20%, while increasing the VAT slightly to 8% on food, gifts, weapons and moving tickets. There have been several MPPs (alliances) that have been up for a vote and more to come over the next several days.

A quick word on citizenship requests. I realize that we have a backlog of those at the moment. It's a clumsy interface without a search feature, that will hopefully be improved in the future. Please be patient while we work through the almost 100 pages of requests.

I encourage all citizens to register at http://eusforum.com/> http://eusforum.com/ Here you'll be able to be informed about the public conversations taking place in the government and lend your voice to the debate. If you've ever wanted to be part of the government this is a great first step in that journey.

-Jasper Ferguson
Speaker of the House
Secretary of Education

Update: Serendipitous just informed me that the CTF has finished working through the backlog of Citizenship requests and is currently up to date with background checks for approvals. Great work, Serendipitous!