BIOPOLITICS with FOUCAULF - Future Plans

[Foucaulf]

Citizens, Atlasians,

My listeners may already know me as a polemicist and orator, but I also have a side job as a lawyer on the bar in several regions (since, apparently, there is no restriction to doing so). As a student of the law, I am further appalled by the federal Senate's very unconstitutional trampling of regional powers, none of which seems dictated in our Constitution.

That is why I want to direct you to a case I am fighting on behalf of Atlasia's women in the Supreme Court, and where in due time I will release an argument that will change the power structure of Atlasia forever.

But there's more - our region is also a bastion of lawlessness. Charged with fraud and intimidation, our governor refuses to admit himself to the rule of law and stands defiant. He risks turning the Midwest into a rogue region, unaccountable to any authority in this country. If you care the slightest bit for the region's future, you will join me and condemn his behaviour.

For Order, For the Midwest.

[Foucaulf]

Citizens, Atlasians,

I am recording this message from Boise, Idaho, where I am uncovering one more crisis in the Midwest's disastrous economy. I'll give it to you straight - it involves lots of rotting, once-subsidised potatoes!

Though I have been busy with my muckraking journey across this Region, I've been aware of the Regional government's problems. The Governor, accused of extortion and graft, has fled. The legislature is in disarray and passing legislation just as bad as before. Vacancies across the board in government. And I can't stand it!

This trip of mine has gave me a chance to talk to Midwesterners, hear their stories and understand their hopes in life. I've taken this chance to change. I'm not the same radical you first heard on the radio, using stodgy language and threatening a military coup. I've mellowed out. I'm more in tune.

But I still have a passion to fight for what's right: for free markets, for the right to choose and for a Region we can call our own. I've taken this trip to think about my future, and I think I have it. Hear me out on this, and support me if you can:

I will be running for Midwest Governor for the elections on February 19-23.

More to come.

[Flake]

Obviously endorsed!

[tmthforu94]

Endorsed!

[rpryor03]

Endorsed!

[GAworth]

Glad to see you leave the sidelines and enter the rough and tumble of Politics in the MW.

[Foucaulf]

Citizens, Atlasians,

I'm in the great state of Nebraska, roaming grounds of the Cornhuskers. If you walked these fields years ago, you would see fields of grain owned by independent farmers. Now you see very little. The farmers have left or closed shop; their fields lay empty. They can no longer support their businesses on government-mandated food price controls.

I'm rallying for my campaign as Governor today, but, more importantly, I'm fighting for the farmers. I'm fighting for the average Midwesterner, the business owner, the teacher, those who have been flayed by this region's disastrous government.

Because of the government's nonsensical price controls, farmers have been shut out of business. Due to the government's anti-business red tape, small business owners were driven out in madness. Due to the government's mandated wage levels, teachers are paid pittances while prices explode around them.

This is not the sign of a healthy economy. Hell, what is the Midwest's primary industry, according to past annual budgets? Oil and coal. And what does that mean? - the Midwest is a petro-state, like communist Venezuela or Islamist Iran.

Over many, many terms, the government has fibbed the books, producing royalties for oil and coal that are literally impossible given world prices, even if every open field in this region was ripped up and injected with a rig. That hasn't stopped them from trying, though, and look what it has done! Our region's natural beauty, ruined. Our region's health, ruined.

So here's my first campaign promise: I will restore equitable growth to the Midwest. No more exploitation of excessive resource royalties. No more fibbing the books. No more price controls. This region deserves a sound economic policy, and from me it will get one. We will begin a moratorium on resource extraction throughout parts of the region, and eliminate the white elephant projects this fibbing has produced.

But this is just the start. The Midwest is broken. And my entire campaign will be dedicated to flipping over a government, filled with closet communists, that have made it one of the most unfree, unequal and stymied regions in Atlasia. No one is safe; the Althing elites will pay.

Stay tuned for my next speech, about being a normal Governor.

[Maxwell]

The Midwest needs sanity restored. You have my enthusiastic backing.

[Simfan34]

The Midwest needs sanity restored. You have my enthusiastic backing.

Hysterically endorsed.

[GAworth]

Interesting spin Mr. Foucaulf. I'm not sure it's all necessarily true, but interesting spin.

[ZuWo]

You have my cross-regional endorsement as well!

[Cranberry]

You have my cross-regional endorsement as well!

[windjammer]

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I don't like being involved in other campaigns. But could you explain why you believe teachers are suffering from the region's disastrous government?
Last year, a law was voted raising their pay (Midwest teacher pay raise).
Best of luck by the way.

[Foucaulf]

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I don't like being involved in other campaigns. But could you explain why you believe teachers are suffering from the region's disastrous government?
Last year, a law was voted raising their pay (Midwest teacher pay raise).
Best of luck by the way.

Laws are meaningless if the government lack the funds to pay them. Who will believe that the Midwest, with a 15% regional income tax rate and 13% corporate tax, will keep any companies who can easily migrate to the more urban Pacific or Mideast? I'll take $30 billion from these figures.

There should be no reason to trust any of the other figures, either. Sin taxes up to 50% are borderline confiscatory, and we should not expect people to be buying them legally at that rate. So we'll take $10 billion from those figures.

The resource royalties have to be on oil alone (natural gas and oil royalties are about 80-100% of global prices!) but there is no feasible way the Midwest can produce enough oil to generate $46 billion from the production we have. I'll take $20 billion from those.

Property prices have to be depressed at this rate, due to all the confiscatory taxation and regulation around. The figures in the budget have to be inflated, given most of Midwestern land is not developed or urban. That's another $15 billion.

The result? The Midwest is actually $30 billion in the hole. With most expenditures already sunk in white-horse infrastructure projects, there is not enough funds left for the government to pay teachers, especially as the law as mandated dictates a yearly raise. It would have to be that local government pays exorbitant rates to some teachers while writing IOUs to others. Now tell me who's suffering.

[GAworth]

I didn't know that we were the GM now.

[Foucaulf]

I didn't know that we were the GM now.

You're passing through a budget that is the same as last years', which is subject to Labour's excesses and absurdities. You have the power to change this, and I'm more than willing to cooperate if you let me.

If you did check the budget with the GM, I'm sure he would agree with me.

[windjammer]

I didn't know that we were the GM now.

You're passing through a budget that is the same as last years', which is subject to Labour's excesses and absurdities. You have the power to change this, and I'm more than willing to cooperate if you let me.

If you did check the budget with the GM, I'm sure he would agree with me.

Foucaulf, that was the GM who gave us the "numbers" for the last budget.  And you know who was the GM last year? Averroes? And no need to explain that he's definitely not an idiot or "economically" illiterate.

Then, you accuse Labor of these high taxes on oil and royalties, you know who sponsored that? GAworth, not a member of the labor party. And who signed this law? Former Midwest Governor Lumine.

[Adam Griffin]

Is Foucaulf pulling a Simfan here?

[LeBron]

I love how you accuse me and the legislature of being in dysfunction and disarray when you were the only citizen in the region to vote against the Don't Miss 3 Consecutive Votes in the Althing Amendment. By doing so, you were supporting future inactivity in the Althing. Thought you should know that.

[Maxwell]

Or he's against ineffective amendments?

[LeBron]

There was nothing ineffective about that amendment. We've had Representatives in the past who have missed several votes and it led to temporary inactivity in the legislature. That amendment to our regional constitution clearly states now that if any Representative misses 3 in a row, they'll be taken out of office and replaced.

[Foucaulf]

Foucaulf, that was the GM who gave us the "numbers" for the last budget.  And you know who was the GM last year? Averroes? And no need to explain that he's definitely not an idiot or "economically" illiterate.

Then, you accuse Labor of these high taxes on oil and royalties, you know who sponsored that? GAworth, not a member of the labor party. And who signed this law? Former Midwest Governor Lumine.

Then, I'm sorry to say, he wasn't careful enough. And what I really meant was check again - after a year of these job-killing taxes and red tape, I can guarantee you that the revenues would decrease. It is not useful to compare the Midwest to a fantasy world where the region was deregulated, much more right wing and had low tax rates.

Never mind another problem: if the regional government is collecting property taxes, then how do municipal governments earn revenue? Are no firefighters or police being paid in the Midwest too?

Of course I am going to accuse Labour of supporting bad policy when you had the choice of shooting them down (and you should've: have you never heard of Dutch disease?) And Lumine, judging from his painful performance as President, was never serious about bringing real growth to Atlasia. He had the choice of sentencing legislation by TNF and communist Labourites to court, where they would have been struck down as unconstitutional. He couldn't even manage that.

I love how you accuse me and the legislature of being in dysfunction and disarray when you were the only citizen in the region to vote against the Don't Miss 3 Consecutive Votes in the Althing Amendment. By doing so, you were supporting future inactivity in the Althing. Thought you should know that.

I think it's undemocratic to replace members of the legislature by any means other than by fair elections. Of course, you know a thing or two about rule through undemocratic means.

[Flake]

There was nothing ineffective about that amendment. We've had Representatives in the past who have missed several votes and it led to temporary inactivity in the legislature. That amendment to our regional constitution clearly states now that if any Representative misses 3 in a row, they'll be taken out of office and replaced.

And look how much good it's done towards the Midwest, with two bills that were debated since early December (which didn't even have that much debate).

[Maxwell]

My guess is those tax rates have done significant damage to the economy of the Midwest, and as a result, taken a massive hit to revenues.

[windjammer]

Since my name has come up, I feel compelled to comment - and, I hope, clarify why doubts about revenue estimates are legitimate.

Budget projections are predictions, and the GM's predictions are not guaranteed to be more accurate than anyone else's. They are not the word of God, they do not account for events and policy changes that take place in and around the region over the following year, and they are not meant to be perfect. Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, the Midwest raised several tax rates in a revised budget last summer. In any case, I would expect fluctuations in global energy markets to have a marked effect on a region that collects a substantial share of its revenue from fuel taxes.

For the record the taxes had been lowered after this budget. Corporate tax cut by 20%