Congress Progress Reports
Day 1,949, 06:54
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Published in United Kingdom 
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by
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by Department for Education
Parliament Progress Report
What-ho eUK!
At this beginning of this presidential term, Blue and Evil backed the Ideal Government project and appointed me (Good King Wold) as interim Prime Minister and Speaker. As such, I am writing this article chiefly to uphold what I see as a vital role of the speaker;
“The Speaker exists primarily to hold people to account. They must be a ruthless individual who will not hesitate in naming and shaming those who do not pull their weight, and is key in generating that accountability which will rejuvenate Congress over time.”
And to let you know what topics Congress have been doing in the half-term that I have resided over. As it took a week or so to organise ideal government and get the ball rolling, not much ‘legislative’ has gone on, though there have been three main discussion points within the house. Those have been the Irish issue, altering taxes and legislating the speaker, the latter two are nearing culmination. This article will also serve to put these two points in the public eye and offer a standpoint for a wider discussion prior to voting on the issues.
The issue on taxes is a simple one, working with the ‘Congressional Budgeteers’ (more on what that is later) we developed the idea of further lowering taxes and proposed it to the house. The proposal is a simple one; lower VAT to %1-4 and lower Income tax to %3. This is to give our own citizens a tax break whilst making our markets more desirable for foreign businessmen to trade in. It is a continuation of a plan to lower taxes that some Congress members feel needs to be taken further to make the eUK truly competitive. The counter proposal is that taxes be raised back to their previous levels. The argument can be minimised to simple maxim: tax more on less or tax less on more. This issue has been discussed at length and will go to vote shortly.
A more recent proposal, is that of the Speaker act, a basic set of procedures pertaining to the monthly election of the Speaker of the House of Commons following the Congressional elections on the 25th. He or she shall manage legislative affairs and track Congress’ progress. This bill is now under public and parliamentary scrutiny and can be seen in it’s current state either via gdoc here or on the forums here.
This too shall be put to vote before the next elections.
Activity Checks
As part of maintaining accountability in the Commons, as stated above I see fit to include unscrupulous checks and balances within the house. This is largely based on two things; members participation in the in-game general discussion threads and their performance in their allocated ideal government tasks. The tasks, and how I have managed the Commons, can be viewed in this gdoc and explains who has been doing what when it comes to domestic/Congressional work.
The first activity check was easy to pass; all you had to do was participate in any form in any discussion. The second activity check was based more around their allocated tasks and how readily Congressmen/women applied themselves to actually participating in Government. A slight hurdle was hit as many of the ministries were full, hopefully next month should CP candidates put their weight behind ideal government, Congress will have more domestics to manage themselves and ministers will also recruit from Congress, subverting this problem.
As this was the first month of Ideal Government I was not expecting wonders, though I am quite pleased with the results and hope that the idea is used in the future. The point of this accountability schemes to show party presidents and the public what their Congress members have been doing, and should be taken into consideration when running/voting for potential Congressmen/women on the 25th. As such, I have no qualms in naming and shaming the lazy people who saw fit to do nought. We need an active participatory Parliament and this is the primary means to get one.
As such, in no particular order, the list of those who failed the activity check is as follows:
deepfryedmarsbar
Sir Winston S. Churchill
Mark Augersburgh
nathaner
*this takes into Consideration the different types and demands of work of the various groups within the breakdown doc.
Thanks for reading,
Mr Woldy - interim Speaker/PM
Vote and Sub!
What-ho eUK!
At this beginning of this presidential term, Blue and Evil backed the Ideal Government project and appointed me (Good King Wold) as interim Prime Minister and Speaker. As such, I am writing this article chiefly to uphold what I see as a vital role of the speaker;
“The Speaker exists primarily to hold people to account. They must be a ruthless individual who will not hesitate in naming and shaming those who do not pull their weight, and is key in generating that accountability which will rejuvenate Congress over time.”
And to let you know what topics Congress have been doing in the half-term that I have resided over. As it took a week or so to organise ideal government and get the ball rolling, not much ‘legislative’ has gone on, though there have been three main discussion points within the house. Those have been the Irish issue, altering taxes and legislating the speaker, the latter two are nearing culmination. This article will also serve to put these two points in the public eye and offer a standpoint for a wider discussion prior to voting on the issues.
The issue on taxes is a simple one, working with the ‘Congressional Budgeteers’ (more on what that is later) we developed the idea of further lowering taxes and proposed it to the house. The proposal is a simple one; lower VAT to %1-4 and lower Income tax to %3. This is to give our own citizens a tax break whilst making our markets more desirable for foreign businessmen to trade in. It is a continuation of a plan to lower taxes that some Congress members feel needs to be taken further to make the eUK truly competitive. The counter proposal is that taxes be raised back to their previous levels. The argument can be minimised to simple maxim: tax more on less or tax less on more. This issue has been discussed at length and will go to vote shortly.
A more recent proposal, is that of the Speaker act, a basic set of procedures pertaining to the monthly election of the Speaker of the House of Commons following the Congressional elections on the 25th. He or she shall manage legislative affairs and track Congress’ progress. This bill is now under public and parliamentary scrutiny and can be seen in it’s current state either via gdoc here or on the forums here.
This too shall be put to vote before the next elections.
Activity Checks
As part of maintaining accountability in the Commons, as stated above I see fit to include unscrupulous checks and balances within the house. This is largely based on two things; members participation in the in-game general discussion threads and their performance in their allocated ideal government tasks. The tasks, and how I have managed the Commons, can be viewed in this gdoc and explains who has been doing what when it comes to domestic/Congressional work.
The first activity check was easy to pass; all you had to do was participate in any form in any discussion. The second activity check was based more around their allocated tasks and how readily Congressmen/women applied themselves to actually participating in Government. A slight hurdle was hit as many of the ministries were full, hopefully next month should CP candidates put their weight behind ideal government, Congress will have more domestics to manage themselves and ministers will also recruit from Congress, subverting this problem.
As this was the first month of Ideal Government I was not expecting wonders, though I am quite pleased with the results and hope that the idea is used in the future. The point of this accountability schemes to show party presidents and the public what their Congress members have been doing, and should be taken into consideration when running/voting for potential Congressmen/women on the 25th. As such, I have no qualms in naming and shaming the lazy people who saw fit to do nought. We need an active participatory Parliament and this is the primary means to get one.
As such, in no particular order, the list of those who failed the activity check is as follows:
deepfryedmarsbar
Sir Winston S. Churchill
Mark Augersburgh
nathaner
*this takes into Consideration the different types and demands of work of the various groups within the breakdown doc.
Thanks for reading,
Mr Woldy - interim Speaker/PM
Vote and Sub!
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Comments
All bow down to brother woldy~
o/
Isn't this basically the MoLA role that Goku created a few months back?
It's essentially the same 'MoLA' or 'Speaker' we've always used, except they're elected by Congress and putting it down on paper actually adds structure to the idea to make sure it has a working longevity
All the MoLA needs to do is open up avenues of communication for congress to use and relay information to and fro. It looks to me like the Government is trying to force structure on a legislative body it has no business in. Congress are there to hold Government to account, not the other way around. That's why pretty much every button a CP presses requires a Congressional vote...
You'll never sort Congress out using a top down approach. You need to start from the grass roots. Otherwise every couple of months we'll be going through the same motions.
They mostly have 5 things to worry about, MPP's, Citizenship, NE's, Taxes and informing the public. What other hoops would you require them to jump in order to be classed as a active participant?
I think that depends entirely on how you conceive Congress, though I don't see how this approach does anything but facilitate a grassroots notion to Congress, seeing as it acts solely to empower them.
Perhaps you may benefit from going voer this: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-ideal-government-2221426/1/20 if you want to contextualise why this has been seen as a popular approach as of late. 🙂
Congress saying they want more of a workload and Congress actually taking on more of a workload is two different things, you know that as well as I do Woldy. Plus it's not Congress duty to be involved in Government, if they wanted Government roles they would have applied for one.
Your approach only works as long as you have willing Congressman and willing Congressman will only come from willing PP's, who themselves come from the public. More information and education of what and why is needed more then someone to 'hold, people to account'. Some articles on the importance of congress and there role in the leadership of eUK would be better then more 'legislation' of Congress by the Government.
ignore the top half of the article
STEP 1: Nothing to do with Congress...
STEP 2: Congress are are a separate legislation body to the CP/Government. Your trying to blur the lines between the two.
STEP 3: Basically the MoLA role...
actually, I'm redefining the role. Anyone who is content with how Congress has operated over the past year, as a bunch of guys to rubber stamps decisions and walk off with 5g, is mad!
That's why Congress needs to work. They need to get stuck in and understand government/ministries - they need to be competent. Right now, where people show up and do absolutely nothing for a month, that ain't gonna happen. Which is why I began this project, that is however entirely besides the point. You see this as a MoLA role which you yourself has said was good. This is not a top down approach. If you have read my articles, this is all to ensure that Congress can and will hold the Government to account, which just hasn't been happening for months.
tl;dr we need to raise the expectations we have of our Congressmen, otherwise they will continue to do diddly and the executive will never get held to account again
Forcing em in Government roles and calling em out on there failings isn't the way to go about creating a competent Congress imo. More work with parties and on who they put forward is needed. Otherwise each month you'll be starting mostly from scratch again and after awhile the project will be abandoned.
well I guess we have hit a divulgence 😛 I feel that back in day Congress had to compete for regional spaces and wouldn't be voted in by the public if they did jack, ie they were accountable, so they made sure they were competent. We don't have that now, so we need to encourage competence by holding them to account, how can we do that? by encouraging them to help us in government - and that doesn't mean exclusively ministry stuff, and no one is 'forced' per sé, but as it stands, Congress isn't expected to do anything, so can't be held to account. This article points out who has done nothing - only very few MP's which I see as a positive - but then even without this approach we shouldn't really be content with a neutered house that does nought. 😁
Biggest problem I think is that Congress don't understand the power they wield as a collective group. Most will vote down a party line, which more often then not will lead to stalemate, due to no party having the majority. Less partisanship in Congress I feel would go about making them a more active, cohesive unit. People may actually feel like they do have the power to enact change and may be inclined to do more then just vote the occasional in game proposal.
Woldy tell the truth brother!
Gokus MoLA role was vague at best just how he wanted it,
Goku was actually one of the most active MoLA's I have experienced in my time as a congressman.
I never denied that he was the most active but all his ideas and processes were extremely vague and easily abused
I didn't feel that way, and I was in congress when he was MoLA. Set up PM, report to the public once a week or so and keep citizenship clean and tidy, that was all he did, pretty much all a MoLA needs to do
Keep Citizenship clean and tidy we didn't have any citzenship control when he was MOLA if someone he liked let in someone with permission he just looked the other way and said i will go talk to them.The same people kept doing it for weeks on end and he kept saying he would deal with it while he totally ignored it.But i guess some people would find it hypocrisy if he told people to not let random people in.
*out
Tell the truth and watch people not answer the question
Hope it works. Good work everyone involved
A lot of the Speaker Act has absolutely nothing to do with defining the role of Speaker/MoLA but has a lot more to do with legislating for legislation. e.g. 2(b) and 2(c) are exclusively legislating about how votes are decided and run. This is legislation for legislation's sake - something that Congress did away with some time ago. I will actively be campaigning against this proposal and I urge other Congressmen to look at the detail here. Is this just another Congressional Procedure Act by another name??
They're there to tell the speaker how to process legislation really, otherwise any individual is a whim as to how it happens; if you want to propose the bill without clauses 2b&c then you are welcome to.
Plus there's nought wrong with some simple legislation, doing away with it all a few weeks back was an error, imo. After all, whose to even say whether this bill can't simply be enacted by a CP.
It's good that people are discussing it though, as this is what this article is for. I'll try to butt-out and let other Congressmen have their say, as everyone should be contacted with this article tonight.
'After all, whose to even say whether this bill can't simply be enacted by a CP.'
This was pretty much why it was done away with. Anybody can do anything, as long as they gather enough support. Which is how it should be imo
@Wayne Basically I see this as congress getting together and saying, this is the way we want to bring things about, with one of our own. It reinforces the exact part you want of any congressman bringing about a desired change, but makes it structured, and easier to bring about a majority (i.e. get what you came for.) I agree that every congressman (and citizen (gotta go through congress ofc) has the power to change stuff or get debate going on a topic. I don't think we should disavow the idea of doing that.
Have Congress agreed to this or has it been pushed onto them by those in Government? Also just because something has been deemed to get 'majority' doesn't mean it will be followed.
What is it your asking Congress to do with this project, take over roles typical of Government, release more articles, debate publicly more?
Government has had no say, I'm all about a self-determined Congress. The bill and the project ought not be confused though.
I don't understand either why this is the only Ministerial position that "needs" legislating for. We don't have a law defining what the MoD, the MoHA, the MoFA does or what his/her remit is for example. Further, in essence, this is the Government attempting to put extra "rules" on Congress in order to control it better. Personally, I feel that it should be the other way round. Congress' primary job should be holding the Government to account and try to stop it from doing stuff like this.
[removed]
^ that was me.
I was saying this isn't ministerial, it has nothing to do with the government. It is purely Congressional. Congress needs leadership Sven, to do exactly what you have outlined here. The pst few months have proven that.
Mister Speaker! Mister Speaker!
Strength and honour
Im not active as I don't support this government or some of the ideas you put though , I with Sven here Mr Woldy just giving himself more titles , its seems you are just trying to rail road congress into putting some more silly ideas though
vote NO
*grabs popcorn*
Fail, Goku was best MoLA, now this government has no clue
Taxes were rejected, speaker Act was passed