The Fleecing of America
![USA](http://www.erepublik.net/images/flags_png/S/USA.png)
Joe DaSmoe
Many of you are aware of the Romanian-Indonesian conflict. As a member of the Marines, I obviously have a vested interest in foreign conflicts, especially one that involves our foreign allies. We Marines are often sent to aid our allies in times of need, yesterday the President sent us to fight for Romania. Our Marines are comprised of the higher strength and rank players, and we serve our country without question.
However, my tenure as Vice President allowed me to see the inner workings of such operations. I sat in countless Joint Chiefs discussions, most of which ended up with one outcome. Uncle Sam prefers to fund his personal allies instead of America's fighting men and women.
Normally, Marines receive at least Q3 weapons, and we can deal considerable damage as a unit. Yesterday, however, we received Q1 weapons. Which is fine, but when I asked why we were not being funded as usual, I was told that the Marines had received minimal funding for this mission.
So I thought I would take a peak at our country's finances, see where the money was going. With taxes so high and the lack of battle as of late, we should have sufficient funds I thought. In the process of doing this, I found this.
432 gold to Big Brother
A 432 gold donation to Big Brother, an Atlantis tank. At first, I figured Sam was funding tanks for the battle. When I began to question the donation no one would respond with a clear answer. I was under the impression that Romania would be funding American tanks for the conflict. The President had said this was the case, so did Secretary Dover. In fact, Uncle Sam used 432 of our country's gold to fund them, donating through the Marine org instead of using Fort Knox. The Marines who were present in the IRC chat were outraged. I was thinkin, heh, business as usual.
First of all, I believed higher taxes for funding our military were needed. War costs a ton of money after-all, so I went along with it, writing several articles on the matter. While I was Vice President I often wondered where all of our money was going. We raise taxes to fund our soldiers, and as you all know, it rarely happens. In fact in the Mexico conflict we were hardly funded at all, especially in the latter battles. If we aren't going to fund OUR OWN MILITARY give us our damn money back.
As VP, I sat in discussions on funding, and almost all of us were in agreement that we needed to get some guns into the hands of our military. Nearly every-time, the President would suddenly burst into the discussion, after missing almost all of it, and trump the members of the JCS with his own wishes. Time after time, our country's tax money went into the hands of Sam's allies for tanking. Some of whom are not even in our military command structure. These hasty, last minute decisions made by Sam often resulted in the mismanaged and/or misuse of funds. As a result, we blew our money for the Mexican war with no clear understanding of the outcome. After witnessing this take place several times, I resigned.
As an American, I wish to see our military become more powerful, so we can carry more weight in this game. I believed Uncle Sam felt the same way. Apparently this is not the case. You tell me how spending 432 gold of our tax dollars on three tanks strengthens our military as a whole. It doesn't. Uncle Sam has engaged in numerous misuses of America's tax dollars, on one occasion during the Mexico conflict, he somehow "lost" 300 gold. The details of that missing gold were never figured out and the gold was most likely transferred to someone via the Monetary Market, which is untraceable.
America, I am disgusted by the uses of our money for the personal gains of a few. If we aren't going to benefit from these higher taxes, what is the effin point? Uncle Sam continues to pull the wool over the eyes of country. He appoints Benn Dover, one of the wealthiest players in the game, as Secretary of the Treasury. Since that time Benn has tanked in almost every battle we have taken part in, often winning the Hero medals. I understand that the President and Benn are eRich, but you can't tell me all that money came out of their own pockets. We have no business allowing this continue, there is no way to track MM exchanges. As a result no one is sure where the money actually goes.
That's all I will write for now, I may rant some more later lol.
Joe DaSmoe
Former VP
Disappointed American
Comments
outrageous!
awesome article, voted + subscribed.
I definitely agree with you there. I am surprised this is the first time I have heard about it.
Tell me it ain't so Joe!
This illustrates one of the big flaws of erep, it is hard to have fiscal accountability here.
Personally, I am not a big fan of financing fights that are not directly related to our National Security, for it is too expensive, or can be. To me the ONLY reason to finance a fight is to increase the rank of as many people as possible. Thus financing a tank for an ally's fight seems foolish and wasteful.
Either way, the question remains...how can the gov/congress achieve better oversight/control over the purse strings. Seems to me, Congress should quit funding FT Knox and put it into an org that THEY control until every cent that goes into Ft Knox is accounted for.
Wow, Sam's failures just keep adding up. I kept trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but the bad news just kept coming. It's becoming pretty clear that our government needs reform in a major way. If I get elected to Congress I hope we can all work together and end this kind of corruption.
Is this why he's printing so much money? So he can sneak a few hidden transactions in too?
Is there no way to stop such abuse of presidential powers?
As the NG i am used to not receiving weapons, however i did not realize the marines where getting shafted too.
This is bad.
The only way to stop this is to impeach.
outrageous!
I'm paying a 25% income tax and fighting bare-handed so a bunch of rich guys can tank?
Great deal.
I'll remember this next election.
I have to disagree with you on a few of these points, but because all it will do is cause the two of us to argue, and the article will still be voted up, still cause UNNEEDED animosity and outrage, and not solve anything.
I will not point out which parts I disagree with.
I will say that Big Brother has never been a eUS citizen except for when he moves here during times of war.
I will say that I had already established a way to keep track of every penny, but people didn't see the wisdom in keeping those establishments running. We now see why it would have been better to keep those in place.
The Corruption!
It goes all the way to the top!
One last thing. Yes, the majority of taxes exist for future military endevours, but they are not the only reason we have them. They stabilize our economy and allow us to grow stronger as time goes on. I do frown upon such reckless waste of funds though as that 400G could have been used elsewhere.
Extraordinary article Joe. Were it not for my commitment to provide only a positive message for progress and unity during this campaign, I would certainly be screaming bloody murder to whomever was in ear shot.
Voted twice (wish I could have 10 times)and subscribed(thought I already was).
@Joe. Thanks for speaking up. I wish you had done so when impeachment was on the table last week.
Uncle Sam: arrogant, incompetent, noncommunicative, and now corrupt. Great.
Thanks for letting us know Joe.
Good crap.
Uncle Sam should be burned at the stake!
Even do i still stand by uncle sam (for now) i am angry that all the rich eGiants whant to save thier own money and make there selves all pwoerful by tanking an using the funds for us in the milltary.
like Knoejerakk im also NG and we never get anything but the presdint taking funds from the marines so his personal allies can tank is just the same as insulting somebody.
Uncle sam is using his own positon to foward all of his and his allies agendas
Thank you Justin, I was told he used to live in the US, I editted it.
As a congressman I voted against impeachment because as far as I could tell, Sam was being accused of making mistakes, not doing anything improper.
This accusation, by his former VP, if proven to be true and accurate, to me is misappropriations of funds and maybe out and out corruption and would constitute an impeachable offense.
Secondly, I think it reflects on how poorly Congress controls spending. We doubled taxes, without any fiscal restraint, and thus all we end up doing is increased spending without any stockpiling. I think Congress should quit funding Ft Knox...create an org which the Speaker and several other (Finance Committee?) control, and until expenditures from Ft Knox are accounted for, cease all unapproved expenditures.
Why does Uncle Sam even bother having a cabinet? They just seem to get in his way.
Spain is looking better and better. High wages, low taxes. But I'll probably wait to see what happens in the elections here first.
@Joe
Its not a problem at all. I am fairly certain the confusion comes from the fact that he is (probably) a US citizen IRL, but has lived abroad my entire eLife (which is over a year lol)
Great article Joe, thanks for doing your part to keep America honest.
Great article!
If we had lower taxes we citizens could afford to stockpile our own weapons during peace time and be prepared for war. As it is, we don't know where our money is going, but it's sure as heck not coming back.
@Donovanator: I followed that exact same train of thought. Really, it was nothing impeachable before, but after this, I find it hard not to.
Thank you for the article. Voted.
It disappoints that such a high position would steal from his people. Very sad. It is for reasons like this that the President should have to write a detailed budget and document every transfer, something that I have fought for since I started this game.
Once again, thanks for the truth...it looks like we are a need for some.
Thanks Joe, that is appalling. I would like to see how much tax revenue has been collected this month, and where it went.
We don't need another impeachment. Just wait till the next election, then vote your conscience.
I cant say that whats happening is stealing but it is misapropriations of funds. This is why congress needs to shut the president out of all monitary policy. Its not one of his powers. Congress do what your there for manage the dang money. 😛 Its not all the fault of the pres though Im am a little disappointed that nearly everything Uncle Sam has done has been behind everyones back. ON the upside his term is nearly complete and I cant forsee him getting elected again so if congress steps up and does there job managing the money we can avoid this problem in the future.
Total waste of money!
It just add more to Sam's failure -.-
Good job with this article, Joe, this is excellent information and you've absolutely done the right thing by bringing it to everyone's attention. One person SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED WITH AN ENTIRE NATION'S FUNDS.
There is absolutely positively no excuse what-so-ever for donating 400 GOLD to a foreigner from an official eUSA Military Org. Funds that were explicitly provided for the purpose of funding the AMERICAN MILITARY. Where are the Army Guns? Where are the NG Guns?
I don't care what slimy excuse Sam has for this. It should have been made public knowledge. Congress should know about it. Everyone should know about it.
Congress:
Take absolute control of our funds! There are 51 of you, all elected by American citizens. You are the ones taxing America, so you need to be responsible for every single dime.
Oh BTW: Impeach Sam.
Things just keep going from bad to worse.
That was super sweet of us to buy Big Brother's Field Marshall rank for him.
An Impeachment would just split the country up and cause confusion. Uncle Sam will most likely step down at the end of this month and we can then elect a new president. I have been vocal in my criticizing of sam however changing presidents this close to the presidential elections would be unwise.
Why? The runner up immediately becomes president. How could it possibly make any difference?
we might be about to change presidents. like in a matter of hours.
Clown-Time is over. If elected to congress next week, I'm in favor of ending all appropriations to Ft. Knox as it is. There's an important reason that congress (IRL and in-game) is tasked with managing and approving the national budget — namely, to prevent this kind of nonsense. If congress has authorized a fund to provide the Commander-in-Chief with mercenary tank pocket money, that would be one thing. Blank-check piecemeal appropriations have to be put to an end, and oversight over every link in the chain of Federal Reserve and military funding.
But is anybody really surprised? My prior arguments for impeachment were not based on a single specific failure on Sam's part, but on a repeated pattern of behaviors and lapses that brought his ability to govern the nation into serious question. To the 50% of congress who voted "No" on impeachment, and then continued to relinquish all accountability to the President who has demonstrated prior lapses of judgment and character — you had the power to prevent this and you did not.
😁 What Df said. Just wait guys, Sam won't win in April, I do not think he intended to run again anyway.
What we need to do is stand together and encourage lively, civil and educated debate about the path we are on here. The way to do that is here in the media.
A lot of you all have newspapers. I think everyone needs to sit back, really think about stuff and start writing articles. An informed and vocal public is what drives this country and keeps us interested. However Ananias is right, we have to be civil and positive about it so speak. I was a little pissed when I wrote this article yeah, but 200 "mad" writers will only divide us more.
Huh... I never knew that. That is very outrageous. If money continues to be wasted like that then there will be serious consequences.
This report is a startling illustration of what many have been fearing since Uncle Sam's actions at the close of our last invasion. Joe is an American hero for making this known to the public. My feelings are, that for this one account of misuse of public funds, there are probably another ten that have gone undetected.
As a Marine (Bravo 1), I'm damn pissed. Tanks can get their money somewhere else. >_<
Voted.
The other day I had hopped on and there were significant amounts of USD for sale for gold at rediculously low prices. What is going on? Before, I believed in Uncle Sam, but he keeps proving me wrong.
Why do the tries to impeach him keep failing?
Fiscal accountability, is a MUST.
That's why you should vote John Jay for president🙂
I truly wish you published this article at a time when it truly mattered, Joe. Speaking out is one thing, but true bravery is speaking out when the spotlight shines brightest. This article during the time of impeachment would have made a big difference in the course of our nation.
I vote against every donation to Fort Knox and I will continue to do so. Congress must take back its oversight role. I appreciate Joe's contribution to a growing understanding about our democracy. We need a leader we can trust and a Congress that oversees the Presidency.
Somethings definetely up. Surely someone will force Uncle Sam to account for his spending, and the "missing" gold?
Joe, why dont you run for President. All I have seen from this president has been bad decisions and I was OK with many, simply because bad luck can happen, and come on, its a game and things dont always go according to plan. But now, because of this, this is outrageous! You did a damn well good job on your own, and being a good marine, you did your job perfect, prompt, and the right way. I can't really think of many people who have done their job the way you have and who could.
wow, I lose faith in my government more every day. I retract my previous statement in your apology where even with your mistakes I was still proud of you for leading inspite of setbacks. This is just low.