Southern Senate Debate Debating Thread

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November 2018 Southern Senate Debate

Hello and welcome to the Southern Senate Debate for the upcoming elections starting on the 14th of December! This debate will consist of 3 rounds: Opening statements, questions and then rebuttals and closing statements.

Please welcome the candidates:
HomestarSB9
Senator North Carolina Yankee

Candidates, you have 24 hours to make your opening statements!

(Voters, please don't forget to send me any questions you have for the candidates)

Note: Only the candidates can write here. If you want to comment, the commentary thread is here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=307654.0

[HomestarSB9]

Greetings to all! I am HomestarSB9! I hope to be your next Senator! I'm running with a promise of new leadership that will hopefully serve the South and the Senate well. I'm taking a common-sense approach on gun control, a supportive approach towards same-sex marriage, decreasing taxes on the hardworking members of our industry, and above all else, make sure our public can live a safe, and happy, life.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Good Afternoon, to begin with I would like to thank my opponent for attending this debate along with me and thank Thumb for moderating this debate. This cycle will be the first test of the Make Atlasia Debate Again Act since its implementation and seeing as we have both a crisis in terms of officeholders going inactive, we also have a crisis of candidates running for office and not campaigning. I happen to think that the two problems are related. If a candidate is too inactive to tell you what they are going to do and why, it stands to reason that they will likely not participate and engage in constructive debate during their time in office.

Yes, I am North Carolina Yankee and yes as of December 13, 2018, I will have been in this game ten years. I don't think it relevant to the topic to state what offices one has held or how long, especially in this day in age where we see many officeholders not actively engaged, it is easy to "hold office" it is much harder to "lead, represent, and serve" constructively while in office. It is far more important to talk about what one has done in office and how that will translate into office today in terms of results.

I am a Federalist and a Burkean Conservative. For the past decade I have led fights to protect regional powers and responsibilities, led fights to preserve the independent judiciary, opposed concentrations of powers that have proven throughout history to be a threat to liberty and constantly fought to protect the rights and dignity of the minority from the whims of the majority. I believe firmly in equality and equal justice before the law, as being the foundational principle upon which our country and our constitution is founded and dependent upon.

As a Burkean, I am very much open to reform when proven necessary, when it respects the principles in the above paragraph and when it is pursued through the legal and appropriate means of doing so. I am also very much a fan of oversight, transparency and accountability. Whether it is corruption, whether it is abuse of power, whether it is concentration of authority in one of the branches, it is essential to combat and work against that for the good of the people.

I believe in fiscal responsibility and I believe in market competition. I think the government should avoid anything that harms market competition and should intervene only when doing so will preserve or restore competition in a monopolistic situation.

I am a realist and I don't believe in substituting wish lists of issues for ideology and then demanding religious adherence to such. I also don't believe in wishing away problems that are inconvenient for a given ideology. Instead problems such as they exist must be acknowledged, and then a set of realistic solutions proposed to actually try and address the problem. Problems such as poverty, climate change and the like come to mind and can and should be addressed in some fashion.

Since becoming Senator on Tuesday, I have posted statements on the pending bills and linked them in my public office thread; I have formulated, posted and then carried out a strategy to deal with the inactivity of my colleague Senator Lechasseur; I was the first Senator post actual questions in the Attorney General confirmation hearing; and I created a thread for the members of the Chamber of Delegates to interact with and discuss matters of importance for the region.

It is my desire that with a restoration of activity on the part of the Chamber of Delegates that we will be able to integrate more effectively the office of Senator into the workings of the southern Government and also the Southern political culture. It is vitally important for Senators to be different from the members of the house in that we should be engaged with and concerned about the direct implications of policy on our regions, we should be the guardians of the constitution (and I have already raised concerns in this regards on several bills and introduced an amendment to address one of these), Senators should be engaged in and concerned about matters of foreign policy as the Senate has sole consideration over treaties.

Over the course of this debate and over this campaign, I hope to earn your vote by demonstrating my engagement, my dedication to transforming the office of Senator into more than just a rubber stamp or a lap dog who is a PM away but never present in the best of circumstances. If you want a respectful disagreement instead of silence, if you want a voice and a messenger for the Southern region instead of the crickets we have heard so, I am running to bring that kind of change to the Senate.

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Thank you for your opening statements, candidates (and apologies for my lateness in posting this)! We will now move on to round two of the debate!

Candidates, you have 48 hours to answer the following questions!

Economic Policy:
> The Atlasian deficit is very large. What is your plan for reducing the deficit?
> What is your view regarding trade?
> Technological changes are constantly reshaping the economy. How should policy be adapted to deal with these changes?
> What policies proposals do you have to create more jobs and generate economic growth?
Foreign Policy:
> The Chinese and their allies have been pushed out of the Korean Peninsula by Atlasia and its allies. However, no peace treaty has been signed yet. What would you like the peace treaty to look like and are there any red lines that'd cause you to vote against a treaty?
> Would you see yourself as more hawkish or dovish? What criteria would you need before supporting military intervention and to what extent would you be willing to invest Atlasia in this intervention (air bombings? full on invasion? ect.)?
Social Issues:
> What is your view on the issue of abortion?
> What policies do you support regarding the environment?
> What is your view on immigration?
Game Issues:
> Many have accused the President of being too inactive. Would you agree with these accusations and what should be done about it?
> From KoopaDaQuick to all: What actions are you willing to take to end inactivity in the Senate?
> What is your view on how the relationship between regional and federal government should be?
Individual Questions:
> To HomestarSB9: In your opening statement, you said you want to decrease taxes on hardworking people. Could you go into more detail about the changes you want to see to the tax code?
> To North Carolina Yankee: In your opening statement you stated that you only support government intervention in the economy to preserve or restore competition. Could you expand on this?

Note: Only the candidates can write here. If you want to comment, the commentary thread is here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=307654.0

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

To make things easier, I will split this up.

Individual Questions:
> To North Carolina Yankee: In your opening statement you stated that you only support government intervention in the economy to preserve or restore competition. Could you expand on this?

Well to begin with, I am not talking about the safety net and other supporting mechanism like the health care subsidy contained within the Reforming and Regionalizing Public Health Care Act. I had a paragraph about this but decided to cut it for length reasons so I realize that I should have revised section about monopolies to clarify this point and so I am doing so now. When it comes to that though, I would rather give people say food stamps and then let them go into a private enterprise grocery store, then to try and distribute government rations or some such mess, which some on the right have taken to as a means to cut gov't spending, in spite of it being a socialist type food distribution scheme that takes business away from private grocery stores. The idea that they would trust government to run a food distribution scheme while decrying the ability of the government to do almost anything, is rather contradictory.

I think the biggest threat to democracy and to stability and growth of the economy comes from monopolization of power. This also applies to corporations and when a single entity is so powerful that it can dominate a sector, it can dictate prices and then it can buy off even the government or push policies that work to entrench this monopoly. Those are instances where we should prioritize the good of the competitiveness of the market as opposed to the "free" aspect of the market, and by free I mean free of gov't intervention.

The benefits of the market comes from two things, one is the downward pressures on prices and two the upward pressure on quality of the productive and the quality of the customer service. The market also creates incentives to bring new ideas and new products and developments to the table that improve quality of life and general well being.

However when the market gets stifled by actors both public and private, it harms these beneficial aspects. The government could be the monopolistic force if you get into the business of nationalization. Likewise the private sector can be the monopolistic force itself. Government can also be complicit in private sector monopolies, a good example being the effect of complex and costly regulations, which stifle small business and put them at a disadvantage compared to the large corporations that can hire the fancy attorneys, lobbyists and consultants that can get them out of it. The same thing occurs in relation to the tax code as well. So the government has to be mindful of its own actions and on any given policy choice ask the question thus this ad unnecessary complexity and does it benefit large corporations at the expense of small ones. In those situations we should opt to aid the small business.

However when a situation arises where you have a severe threat to the economy, like say with too big to fail banks, I think their should be a system where the government to split up those entities while also making sure that taxpayers aren't left on the hook for the mistakes made by investment bankers. I have long supported the creation of a fund paid for by fees charged to the investment banks, that would then be used to guard against systemic collapse. I think we have become far too accepting of this culture of bigger and better and larger companies in the name of complete perfection on market efficiency and in the process we have lost sight of why we prefer the free market to anything else, because it gives the opportunity to say no and go to a competitor. There is power in that, and when you have monopolies, it shuts down that natural limiting factor.

To summarize, I think we should be more willing to break up monopolies to prevent their concentration of wealth and power and to preserve a choice on the market, as well as to carefully approach tax and regulatory policy so as to make sure we are not aiding in the concentration of wealth and power.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Game Issues:
> Many have accused the President of being too inactive. Would you agree with these accusations and what should be done about it?
> From KoopaDaQuick to all: What actions are you willing to take to end inactivity in the Senate?

Being President is a very hard job, and one of the biggest difficulties is finding people who can do these jobs and do so competently and actively. One of the biggest task I ended up doing myself was updating the Statute pages on the wiki simply because finding and keeping someone active as Archivist proved to be a very tall order when I was President.

I think that the administration made a mistake in not having a more visible and public transition process. I Think that set a lot of the tone and is a great deal of the criticism stems from that more than anything else. I would agree that there is a lot that does go on in private, and ongoing discussions about things like foreign policy on the NSC, and I struggled myself with striking a balance was criticized myself for not being public enough about where were at and so forth but when it comes to foreign policy a lot of stuff has to be confidential and then a lot more stuff is like not confidential but it is like poker and a big part of my concern was not to alienate or aggravate any side to keep us on course to a peace deal.  

In that case it is important to note that discussions are ongoing, that the meetings are being held and thus people can feel that progress is being made. Whether that is some kind of press briefing or just press releases in the White House thread, some form of public statement to the effect of here is what we did last week, and here is why.

However this gets to large point and it dove tails a lot with a Koopa's question. A lot of activity has been off-shored to discord and while discord can serve a role to broker a deal or hold a meeting, we need to get back to publicly discussing and explaining positions in public in the debate threads and in the campaigns. Historically, President like myself, Duke and others had no qualms about participating directly in debates, but it is hard to debate a cricket and there were many times particularly in my first term as President in 2017 where I was talking to myself. I didn't even have anyone to say "Please Clap" to.

When I left the White House in 2017, I felt compelled to join the House to try and fix the massive collapse of the House rules and rules for the congress as a whole. This time, it became clear that the Senate was the place that most demanded attention because while both chambers were effected equally both times, The Senate is suppose to be where we deliberate the most and right now that is what we are lacking in this game.

One solution to the situation with Senate activity is the accountability and the standards you apply. I don't think it is an accident that since declaring for the Senate there has been a sea change in expectations and we have seen two Senators resign.

Another is the engagement of each individual Senator and there are things each Senator can do. I post links to all of my substantive floor statements in my office thread for instance.

Finally, I think the ultimate power rests with the voters to determine who is best at discussing and engaging on the issues individually and then voting for the one that you think is likely to be present, to engage in debates and contribute.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Game Issues:
> What is your view on how the relationship between regional and federal government should be?

You are going to so glad I split these answers up into different posts.

I think there should be a respectful balance where the regions have the primary responsibility for many aspects, issues and problems with exclusive or original authority to handle those issues, while when it comes to those issues the Federal Government should merely present itself in a supportive capacity. The Regional Senators should then act as the representatives of the regions in vouching for what each region needs and what its priorities are and what kind of level of support is desired and so forth. I think the regions should take the lead in education and in large areas of health care policy, with once again the government providing a supporting agent.

At the same time, in order to make sure that the Federal government is not starved of attention and activity, it has its own areas of primary or exclusive responsibility. The first among these would of course be defense, national security and foreign policy. The other should be protecting the rights of the citizens and liberties of the citizens enshrined in Article One (Our Bill of Rights).

Sometimes of course there is a desire for the regions to handle issues related to social policy and those issues then sometimes conflict with the responsibility of the federal government to protect and preserve natural rights. However, I don't think this is cause for dismay at regions doing their job, I think it is cause for the Supreme Court to then get in on the action.

From a game perspective, this balance ensures that all organs of government have areas of responsibility and thus reasons to seek out and hold offices that are charged with executing those responsibilities. From a philosophical perspective, this balance also helps to avert concentration of power and as I described with monopolies, concentrated power is a danger to any free society.

One of the great urges on the part of many on mostly the left, but also the right in some cases, is to turn to the federal government into sort of a Mr. Fix It, to rush in, fix a problem and then strip the regions of that responsibility. I think this sort sighted approach, which I refer to as "Centralism" is short sighted and only sets in motion a snowball effect, which over time weakens the regions fundamentally and then as activity drains away so to does the pipeline for new talent into the game as many of our best players have started at the regional level.

While fewer in number there most certainly have been instances of regional extremism as well, and this also its own detrimental impact, especially when it comes to talk and efforts to have a region secede from Atlasia.

I think the best approach is to stake out a balance of responsibilities and to work to maintain that against attempts to centralize more authority in the hands of the Nyman government. Again getting back to that same theme, that concentrated authority is dangerous.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Social Issues:
> What is your view on the issue of abortion?
> What policies do you support regarding the environment?
> What is your view on immigration?

Abortion. I am pro-life and I believe abortion to be an issue where, even while moving towards banning it would probably not be achievable in he near future, it is something that we can find ways to reduce the number of abortions from happening in the first place. These include access to contraceptives, expanded adoption and safe surrender laws. I am most certainly against late term and partial birth abortion and most regions have banned abortion or have had efforts to do so around the 20 week mark. I am very much supportive of the regions staking out their own approaches in this regard and it has historically been one that has generated a large amount of activity at the regional level and therefore I would oppose attempts to push forward with a constitutional amendment for game activity reasons, be it to ban it or to allow it for that matter.


Environment: Like I said in my opening statement I think climate change is real and that there is likely a human component. However, I think there is a smart way to go about this and then there is a dumb way to go about it. I think that ultimately, this problem will be addressed via technological advancements and that government policy should be aimed at incentives towards finding ways to make what we do more environmentally friendly and to conserve more as opposed to being geared towards measures that are harmful towards the whole economy and our national security.

I would point out that I am very much of the opinion that energy is directly tied to our foreign policy situation and that when the price of oil is high it damages our economy while giving boatloads of money to Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. With all of the things that Russia is doing and then you have the brewing cold war and on-going proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran, it is very clear to me that raising the price of oil arbitrarily as some environmental solution will just put more guns into the hands of the bad actors on the world stage. At the same time energy diversification should be a priority so that Arab countries cannot extort us and we stop funding both sides of a brewing Middle Eastern conflict.

Immigration: I am for immigration but it has to be legal immigration. I am also of the opinion that we have not taken into consideration economic metrics when it comes to the impact of the immigration into sectors that are already under pressure. Since at the same time we have not done enough to address economic dislocation from trade, we have unintentionally engineered a powder keg and ensured tension between communities. Now that being said, we have not been as bad about this Atlasia. In the come out of the Shadows Act of 2017, I worked with then Senator Siren to ensure that economic metrics are a part of the consideration in terms of how many people immigrate in a given field or economic sector.

In terms of how to do deal with illegal immigration, I think this is an area where we have had special interests corrupt the system and intentionally create a constant pool of illegal immigrants to serve as slave labor. This serves various sectors rather well financially but it harms and exploits the immigrants and subverts rule of law for profit. To end this cycle you have to actually enforce our immigration laws, you have to enforce both at the border and the interior and you have to enforce both the workplace with e-verify and the entry points via a visa entry-exit system since half of illegal immigrants come in legally and then overstay the visa's. Come out of the Shadows fully funded the entry-exit system. Once you have done that stuff I am certainly open to working to indeed bring people out of the shadows.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Since I fully expect the remaining questions to be of some length in answering, especially trade, technology, FP and the budget I will hold off answering them until the morning or afternoon.

[HomestarSB9]

I'll get to my answers here after school is finished for me today.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Foreign Policy:
> The Chinese and their allies have been pushed out of the Korean Peninsula by Atlasia and its allies. However, no peace treaty has been signed yet. What would you like the peace treaty to look like and are there any red lines that'd cause you to vote against a treaty?
> Would you see yourself as more hawkish or dovish? What criteria would you need before supporting military intervention and to what extent would you be willing to invest Atlasia in this intervention (air bombings? full on invasion? ect.)?

The situation in Korea is very complex and because we have a number of allies involved, it takes some effort to get them all on the same page around a proposal that the Chinese can also accept. Adding to this is the concern over a game moderator transition and the fact that these issues are by definition really sensitive as to the game moderator situation. I am very confident in Mr. Reactionary as nominee for this position, as he served as Secretary of State during most of this conflict and would be very effective at continuing and developing this story line to its conclusion.

As for the contents of the treaty itself, I have long said that we must first and foremost ensure the protection of the security, sovereignty and self determination for the people of North Korea free of foreign interference. I think also important is that there be a demilitarized zone in along the border between North Korea and China. This would be essential to any deal to even be agreed to because China would never tolerate a military presence on their border and such would be an unnecessary provocation that would prevent and preclude the adoption of a peace deal by all parties. Finally, we should strive to obtain and maintain the Korean Peninsula as a nuclear free zone.

As for my general approach to foreign policy, I neither a hawk, nor a dove. I am a realist and I believe in foreign policy restraint. I think we need to approach the world through a lens of interests and manipulate those interests to the best of our advantage. As an example we know certain countries have long prioritized certain things and knowing this and using it to our advantage can yield results that preserve an protect our interests and our security. China for instance has as its interest the preservation of high rates of internal growth so as to maintain their economic and societal stability. Russia desires access to the seas, and protection from western invasion. We also have to be mindful of how things like the price of oil impact the playing field and give advantage to Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others while weakening our relative position.

Sometimes though conflict is unavoidable, and when the security and safety of Atlasians or our allies is in jeopardy, we should act. I think though that all options should be exhausted before resorting to armed conflict. Once we commit to a conflict we should commit the necessary resources to wage a decisive and quick campaign, with set objectives towards a defined mission and once the mission is over we bring our troops back home. In some instances this may only require air intervention, in some cases it requires land forces as well, we must provide the adequate commitment in both instances.

I do agree with the statement that peace comes through strength, but just as importantly, strength is accumulated through peace. We must have and possess the capabilities to defend and protect our interests and to wage quick and decisive wars, but we should never condone corruption, waste or abuse in the Pentagon and we should root out inefficiency, corruption and waste wherever possible. We must recognize that our financial resources are limited and the safety and security of our people is only as great as our ability to found our military to the level substantial enough to achieve that end. Therefore, whether it is no bid contracts, overcharging or failure to meet standards, wasted resources takes ammunition out of guns, food out of bellies and armor off of the backs of our brave men and women in uniform. For too long we have let national security and our troops be used as meat shields by profiteers and incompetent bureaucrats to justify looking the other direction at waste and mismanagement. It is time to flip the script and acknowledge full and well that such abuse harms no one more, than it harms our brave men and women in uniform. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Economic Policy:
> The Atlasian deficit is very large. What is your plan for reducing the deficit?

The approach to the deficit must be multi-faceted. When I was in the House I pushed through and adopted rules requiring that we pay as we go on all new legislation. This was rather unpopular in some quarters and it required people to actually put some effort into their bills, but it is essential that if we are taking on water, the first step is to plug the hole and by having rules requiring that all new projects have dedicated funding or redirect existing funding, we stop adding to the problem that we already have.

The main drivers of our debt though remain as always the high costs of health care and the assistance to our growing population of seniors. I am committed to maintaining our commitments to our seniors and to ensuring access to health care, but there are ways that we can introduce efficiency through reforms to how social security is administered. This will reduce mistakes, improve the quality of the service that our seniors receive and it will reduce errors and mistakes as well as to help cut down on fraud.

With health care, for a long time we were essentially funding health care inflation from the whole system and eating that cost via Medicare and Medicaid. Under our new health care law, which I am proud to have co-written with then Senator Scott with the help of several others, we finally corrected a number of our deficiencies that were driving up the cost of health care. For one thing we consolidated a number of health care related agencies. We also expanded access to preventative care and help to lower middle, working and poorer classes via the sliding scale subsidy, which also allowed for us to do away with CHIP, Medicaid and other similar programs. Expanded access to preventative care and help paying for coverage will move us away from the sick care universal emergency room system we have had and thus reduce costs over time. By ensuring access to medicaid expanded eligible populations via the subsidy, we reduce the pressures on rural hospitals, keeping supply on the market that would otherwise be withdrawn. We also allowed Atlascare to negotiate for lower prices for drugs and other medical related supplies.  We have also passed numerous bills to help lower the cost of prescription drugs, but there is still more that can be done both to keep costs under control and to bring new supply of services and new more effective techniques and medicines on the market.

Another big spending area is of course defense, and like I said in my previous post we need to aggressively pursue waste and inefficiency while at the same time preserving and expanding our capabilities as needed in order to meet emerging threats and the demands of preserving our security. There is no greater threat to our national security then the sheer volume of foreign held debt and the potential danger that it poses to our security and military strength if that were used to manipulate our economic situation.

We have also got to reform the tax code, replacing the poorly written 2016 tax law. We also need to maximize the amount of revenue we get in and this includes reforming and modernizing in some areas and adjusting rates in others. We also have to be open to new activity and production, including of natural resources, so as to generate more revenue for the deficit yes, but also for things like alternative fuel research, environmental mitigation and cleanup and so forth. That being said we must be careful not to overburden our economy and especially not to overburden our small businesses, as that will harm job creation and therefore by extension it will harm the deficit situation.

There is no one quick and easy fix that will turn our situation around over night, but it is essential that we proceed forward on all areas and get back to a place where we can be near to be balance.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

> What policies proposals do you have to create more jobs and generate economic growth?

To create and keep good paying jobs it is essential to have a framework of taxes and regulations that doesn't harm small business. The numbers do not lie. Two-thirds of all new jobs are created by small and new start-up businesses, this is because of the fact that the tendency for large companies is to shed jobs over time to cut costs and boost profit margins as they improve productivity to maintain their advantage. So we have promote and improve small business and that begins first with making sure out taxes and regulations are as low as practical to still meet our needs, simple and easy to comply with. That being said I am not a fan of across the board deficit funded tax cuts to achieve growth.

The next most important thing to the expansion of jobs and the growth of business is making sure that there is the necessary educated workforce and this comes back to improvements of the quality of K-12 education and responsible policies that help people get higher education without paying for Bill Gate's kids to go to school and also without throwing gasoline on the fire of rising tuition costs.

The next thing that it requires is entrepreneurship and we need to work to encourage, promote and support the formation of small businesses, be it in the form of loans, be it in the form of consulting service and also we need to work to expand and support small business formation in the poor rural and urban communities so that we get revenue flowing back through these communities even if at a small scale.

Lastly, you need to have the good roads to ship stuff on, the good communication line to conduct business over the internet and the ability to receive resources and this requires responsible and funded infrastructure programs.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Economic Policy:
> What is your view regarding trade?
> Technological changes are constantly reshaping the economy. How should policy be adapted to deal with these changes?

In the abstract, trade and technology are both great things. We shave a mere 300 million people in this country, whereas the world has 7 billion. It goes without saying that the global market is superior in terms of being able to sell products than the narrowly constricted national one. As for trade, we can improve our quality of life, our medicine and save lots of money and time via the implementation of technology.

However, we have made a tremendous mistake in this country when it comes to both trade and technology. We presume that 1) A good thing is good in all situations and in any and all extents of implementation and 2) we have prioritized the abstract market perfectionism over the concrete and down to earth impacts and the resulting destabilization that has resulted from it in terms of societal, familial and spiritual cohesiveness of many communities across the country. It is no accident that we have seen with this a rise tensions, a rise in violence, a rise in divorce and decline in the quality of the society in many of these communities. Just like we cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend that climate change doesn't happen, neither can we afford to pretend this dislocation, this pain and this societal disruption is not occurring. It has effected both rural and urban, black as well as white and both men and women.

We also have to be mindful that there is both dignity and respect that comes from working to support a family and so we cannot just simply rely on wealth redistribution to correct for those left behind by these massive changes. We do need to revitalize these communities either through a combination of small business and the internet or something else and we need to help people get back on their feet that much is true.

I am not advocating we do the impossible, but I am saying that we should look very clearly at the impacts of dislocations from say driverless trucks and say do we really benefit substantially from this and can we afford the dislocation of the primary employer for many people working middle class families with just a high school education? When it comes to the societal cost we need to look at the whole picture and we need to make decisions that are good for the country as whole not just the abstract good of the market.

With trade, we have been naive in presuming that trade can be pursued through unilateral efforts meanwhile others continue to adhere to neo-mercantalist approaches. If we could achieve a situation where every country in the world traded freely that would be amazing but that is not the world we live in and therefore we need to be strategic working to expand markets for our goods while at the same time demanding accountability and adherence to standards.

[HomestarSB9]

Social Issues:
> What is your view on the issue of abortion?
> What policies do you support regarding the environment?
> What is your view on immigration?
Individual Questions:
> To HomestarSB9: In your opening statement, you said you want to decrease taxes on hardworking people. Could you go into more detail about the changes you want to see to the tax code?

I am personally pro-life, but I don't believe that the government should have any say in what women, or anybody for that matter, can and can't do with their bodies, I would vote in support of pro-choice causes, out of my value for the Constitution more than a personal value.

Yes, climate change is a very real thing, and humans are causing it, but I think it would be too hasty to ditch fossil fuels so soon without any sort of immediate replacement, which is why I support more research on alternative energy sources before we make any sort of big change.

I believe that immigrants that are trying to arrive for sanctuary from dangerous nations should be allowed entry, however, anyone else, goodbye, go home.

In my opening statement, I meant that we should give incentives to our workers, who have more of a right to keep what they make than the heir to a family fortune. Say that there's this Starbucks employee, who works a minimum wage job for fifteen or so years, then their uncle kicks the can and he gets the company, despite having no experience or background, somebody from the bottom climbs to the top automatically, what's fair about that? They didn't work hard, they didn't even want the company. The workers in the steel mills and coal mines on the other hand often risk their lives doing what they've been doing for years, and they get no compensation for it, they deserve to keep a large chunk of what they make.

If there is a tax code that doesn't state that the hardworking middle-class get tax cuts, I'm not going to sponsor it.

[HomestarSB9]

Game Issues:
> Many have accused the President of being too inactive. Would you agree with these accusations and what should be done about it?
> From KoopaDaQuick to all: What actions are you willing to take to end inactivity in the Senate?
> What is your view on how the relationship between regional and federal government should be?

To be frank, I do not believe that to be the case. I believe as President, they can choose to be private, given its nothing major, however, that leads me to the next point. I believe that it is not the fault of the President's activity, I believe that it is the fault that the President just isn't getting as much done as he plans to do. I believe that it is the will of the people to make the decision of what must be done because it is none of my business.

To end activity in the Senate, I will introduce articles of expulsion of any inactive Senator, regardless if they are a Torie or a Laborite. I believe that being elected to the Senate is not just an office to sit on while playing Xbox and say "Yeah I'm an Atlasian Senator." Do you have any idea of how that hurts our image to the world? That we allow such behavior in our highest offices?

I think that state governments have the right to enact whatever laws they want as long as it is not constitutionally barred. I believe that supporting regional laws while serving in federal office is inappropriate, and I will not do such things if I am elected to the Senate.

[HomestarSB9]

Economic Policy:
> The Atlasian deficit is very large. What is your plan for reducing the deficit?
> What is your view regarding trade?
> Technological changes are constantly reshaping the economy. How should policy be adapted to deal with these changes?
> What policies proposals do you have to create more jobs and generate economic growth?
Foreign Policy:
> The Chinese and their allies have been pushed out of the Korean Peninsula by Atlasia and its allies. However, no peace treaty has been signed yet. What would you like the peace treaty to look like and are there any red lines that'd cause you to vote against a treaty?
> Would you see yourself as more hawkish or dovish? What criteria would you need before supporting military intervention and to what extent would you be willing to invest Atlasia in this intervention (air bombings? full on invasion? ect.)?

I believe that increasing the taxes on the upper class is our best bet to balance the deficit. Think back to the example I gave when talking about my tax reduction plan, we've got a minimum wage Starbucks employee who's uncle gave them their company once they've hit the bucket, the siblings are the ones running the company because they don't want to bother running it, yet they still take their paychecks and spend their days playing Xbox. Is that fair to you? That he gets paid more than the coal miners just because they have a stake in a large company?

Trade is one of the most important assets. It always has been, but the problem is that we're not exporting enough. My solution is to introduce legislation that would create a Federal  Business Administration, part of this organization would help companies with exporting their products among other things.

I believe that technological changes are helping our economy flourish. I'd sponsor any legislation that would increase productivity and development of technologies that help produce the changes that we're seeing positively affect our economy.

The peace treaty that I would sign should say that the Peninsula will be occupied by the Atlasian government for a period of five years, and that the Chinese are not to do business in the Peninsula, save for the northernmost providence of Rason, and the six northernmost counties in North Hamgyong. I won't support any treaty that divides the peninsula between China and Atlasia.

I'd consider myself somewhat hawkish. I believe that any sort of military threat to us should be taken seriously, and that we should do anything possible to defend ourselves.

[thumb21]

Thank you for your responses, candidates! We will now move on to round three of the debate!

Candidates, you have 48 hours to carry out the following tasks!

Task 1 - Follow-up questions:
The candidates are encouraged to answer their follow-up question:
> To HomestarSB9: In response to the question on foreign policy, you said you would do anything possible to defend Atlasia from threats. How would this influence your thinking on the various geopolitical issues facing countries like Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and North Korea?
> From Tmthforu94 to Homestar SB9: Why did you decline my offer to gain legislative experience in the Chamber of Delegates?
> To North Carolina Yankee: In response to the question on the deficit, you said you want to reform the tax code. Could you expand on what proposals you have?

Task 2 - Rebuttals:
The candidates can respond to their opponent's arguments and are encouraged to discuss back and forth as much as they want.

Task 3 - Closing statements:
The candidates are encouraged to make their closing statements.

Note: Only the candidates can write here. If you want to comment, the commentary thread is here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=307654.0

[HomestarSB9]

> To HomestarSB9: In response to the question on foreign policy, you said you would do anything possible to defend Atlasia from threats. How would this influence your thinking on the various geopolitical issues facing countries like Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and North Korea?
> From Tmthforu94 to Homestar SB9: Why did you decline my offer to gain legislative experience in the Chamber of Delegates?

My thinking when it comes to those countries, if they are engaging in civil wars, then it shouldn't be anything we involve ourselves in, when they threaten to take it to Atlasian soil, however, that's when we should get involved.

The reason I declined the offer to serve in the Chamber of Delegates is due to my total focus on my Senate campaign. I may choose to seek the Chamber of Delegates some day, but currently, I am focused on my campaign for this office.

[HomestarSB9]

A lot of activity has been off-shored to discord and while discord can serve a role to broker a deal or hold a meeting, we need to get back to publicly discussing and explaining positions in public in the debate threads and in the campaigns.

It is true that a lot of activity has gone to Discord, I don't think it's a particularly bad thing. I think it allows discussions and debate to go faster, as it is an instant-messaging client. I believe that we should use Discord in some sort of way alongside our campaigns and debates held publicly.

In terms of how to do deal with illegal immigration, I think this is an area where we have had special interests corrupt the system and intentionally create a constant pool of illegal immigrants to serve as slave labor. This serves various sectors rather well financially but it harms and exploits the immigrants and subverts rule of law for profit. To end this cycle you have to actually enforce our immigration laws, you have to enforce both at the border and the interior and you have to enforce both the workplace with e-verify and the entry points via a visa entry-exit system since half of illegal immigrants come in legally and then overstay the visa's. Come out of the Shadows fully funded the entry-exit system. Once you have done that stuff I am certainly open to working to indeed bring people out of the shadows.

What about the people who come here illegally from nations like Syria, where they're using chemical weapons on civilians?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

> To North Carolina Yankee: In response to the question on the deficit, you said you want to reform the tax code. Could you expand on what proposals you have?

In line with what I said previously about small business and simplification, I think there is a cost a hidden tax if you will when it comes to complexity and therefore if we have a simpler tax code it will benefit the small and new start up businesses because they will have less of a burden at the time when they can least afford to foot that expense. At the same time I think we gain more revenue overall from having more new business and new small business because not only are you creating more tax paying employees but you also have to consider that just like corporations like to game regulations, big corporations love to game the tax code and minimize their tax bills in the process. Since big corporations tend towards fewer employees, there are also less tax paying workers employed in those entities.

So simplicity and shifting the balance towards small business would be a priority in tax considerations.

Beyond that I would argue that you have textual complexity inherent in bills such as the 2016 Corporate Tax Code, which is written like a campaign flier and not a bill. This kind of complexity renders it difficult to figure what and when rates are being applied or changed and therefore one of the first elements of any bill needs to be replacing that with a more solid text and structure.

Finally when it comes to more specific changes that would raise revenue, some of which are in that bill or at least were intended to be in that bill mentioned above but because of the way it is written you cannot really be sure about what is and what is not effective, but I would support eliminating the carried-interest deduction, I would also favor a balance of lower rates for fewer deductions. However, as I said previously, I think that any such combination should not add to the deficit.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A lot of activity has been off-shored to discord and while discord can serve a role to broker a deal or hold a meeting, we need to get back to publicly discussing and explaining positions in public in the debate threads and in the campaigns.

It is true that a lot of activity has gone to Discord, I don't think it's a particularly bad thing. I think it allows discussions and debate to go faster, as it is an instant-messaging client. I believe that we should use Discord in some sort of way alongside our campaigns and debates held publicly.

The problem with that approach is that it siphons off activity from the main boards and thus leaves the debate threads and the campaign threads empty. I am not against discussing things on discord but we have to remember that activity tends to impact others in a snowball effect and when you see threads with nothing going on and maybe it is occurring on some discord channel or not, but you presume nothing is happening so the incentive is to do likewise because no one will respond.

I also don't think Discord lends itself well to having debates on the issues very well. In a campaign or Senate bill thread, you can have a public back and forth and someone else can jump in and they can contribute and the discussion remains focused on the issue 100%. In discord you are maybe talking with two other people and then someone comes in and posts a meme and that dominates the discussion for the next two hours. Yes you can scroll back to a previous post but in the more active channels you could spend an hour scrolling back to yesterday's stuff. In a public bill thread, it is all there, it is all on topic and most important of all it is public and open to outside input, therefore you can progress faster in my opinion than the disjointed conversations that come and go on discord.

I Think Discord is great for things like working out a compromise after a long and heated public debate in the bill threads, but substituting discord for the debating and campaigning aspect in the public AFE and AFG boards is in my opinion the wrong path to take and will lead to a ever growing sense structurally inactivity.

I also think Discord, just like IRC before it, sets an exclusive tone for the game by making it occur in real time. It basically says unless you are a college student who has the same hours and free time as everyone else, you might as well not participate. I am working class, I have to earn the time I have on the internet via a job and I work second shift, so I often miss the hot hours for discussion on discord. The same thing happened on IRC.

Atlas is stronger in my opinion when it is open to all regardless of such limitations and the public bill threads allow for that openness, and that transparency in a way that Discord and its predecessor could not. When I was in between my Senate terms, there was an effort to ban outsiders from debating in the Senate and we defeated this effort with the help of good people on both sides because of the importance of having strong and vibrant discussions.

If you take any bill that is being discussed on a given topic like the recent bill that failed on I think welfare and food stamps, which had just handful of posts spread over two pages and that took three months to produce. Take that same bill and go back to 2014, and you would have had six or seven pages, active discussion by five or six Senators, the President and outside experts all posting in the debate, with a progression of amendments and more often than not such a bill would pass. IRC existed at that time, but we still understood and had a concept of how to balance and how the bill debates and such should function and that is what we have lost and we lost it not too long after that and never really regained it even with the reset. I think part of the reason for that is because first IRC and then Discord became so mainstreamed that it sucked the oxygen out of our discourse.

In terms of how to do deal with illegal immigration, I think this is an area where we have had special interests corrupt the system and intentionally create a constant pool of illegal immigrants to serve as slave labor. This serves various sectors rather well financially but it harms and exploits the immigrants and subverts rule of law for profit. To end this cycle you have to actually enforce our immigration laws, you have to enforce both at the border and the interior and you have to enforce both the workplace with e-verify and the entry points via a visa entry-exit system since half of illegal immigrants come in legally and then overstay the visa's. Come out of the Shadows fully funded the entry-exit system. Once you have done that stuff I am certainly open to working to indeed bring people out of the shadows.

What about the people who come here illegally from nations like Syria, where they're using chemical weapons on civilians?

There is a difference between someone who is coming here illegally for whatever reason and someone who is trying to escape such extreme conditions. We have provisions allowing for numbers of refugees per year and you should vet and keep track of who is coming in to make sure they do not pose a threat, but I have no problem with those being utilized. I do think you have to strike a balance though and we simply cannot take in the whole population of another country.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Game Issues:
> Many have accused the President of being too inactive. Would you agree with these accusations and what should be done about it?
> From KoopaDaQuick to all: What actions are you willing to take to end inactivity in the Senate?
> What is your view on how the relationship between regional and federal government should be?

To be frank, I do not believe that to be the case. I believe as President, they can choose to be private, given its nothing major, however, that leads me to the next point. I believe that it is not the fault of the President's activity, I believe that it is the fault that the President just isn't getting as much done as he plans to do. I believe that it is the will of the people to make the decision of what must be done because it is none of my business.

I must disagree here. The President has an obligation to be transparent about what he is doing and why. Yes there are some things that have to confidential, especially in terms of foreign policy, but the more the President does in public, the more the public can react to it and make statements/take positions/advance legislation based on what the President is doing/asking/saying. The President might not cause inactivity, but the President himself can create activity himself by being more engaged with the public and his administration can if it has an active SoIA who is in regular contact with the GM, Congress and the Regions discussing policy and driving the ball on domestic issues. Likewise with regards to the Secretary of State and we have seen Lumine do great work in that regard making public statements in his office, engaging in important interactions and so forth. I think that should be a model for how to balance it well and all officials should be maintaining a public office saying what they are doing and why.

Lastly, when it comes to the phrase "its none of my business", I am not 100% sure what that refers to but if it refers to the Presidency, accountability of the administration is very much constitutionally the job of a Senator. Furthermore, if it is the will of the people that something must be done or must none, that is also the job of a Senator to be concerned with and even more so for members of the People's House, because as Senator the vetting and review of House originated bills is constitutionally part of the job.

To end activity in the Senate, I will introduce articles of expulsion of any inactive Senator, regardless if they are a Torie or a Laborite. I believe that being elected to the Senate is not just an office to sit on while playing Xbox and say "Yeah I'm an Atlasian Senator." Do you have any idea of how that hurts our image to the world? That we allow such behavior in our highest offices?

This is important no doubt and along with Sestak, being one of the two to have actually introduced expulsion motions this session I can certainly acknowledge the point. However activity is not something you can punish into existence. It is something you have to lead people into being through own example, through novel creativity such as those I have proposed, getting engaged more directly with the opinions of regional government officials, maintaining an office thread, posting in every new thread/confirmation hearing these are things that help to build back up the exchanges that are fundamental to the nature of the Senate as the most deliberative body. We need accountability for those who don't meet expectations yes, but beyond that we need to also build upwards and inspire and generate activity through our actions and things like Discord based debate, things like it being okay for the President to be completely private if he wants, do not move us in that direction.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The reason I declined the offer to serve in the Chamber of Delegates is due to my total focus on my Senate campaign. I may choose to seek the Chamber of Delegates some day, but currently, I am focused on my campaign for this office.

With all do respect, and while I appreciate the importance of being focused, I think right now giving the voters confidence by placing ones money where one's mouth is, would speak volumes in terms of the situation in which we find ourselves and the confidence that the voters can have as to one's ability to markedly improve the situation. Even more so considering there is a month long gap in Atlasian related posting between the declaration for this office and my entering the race. You also voted abstain on every single recall in the recent recall election, staying "you did not know whether they were active or not" so getting more involved in the CoD situation would certainly improve some things in this department. 

Upon returning from being gone for a month, you noted my 10 year history in this game, but ironically in doing so you acknowledged the fact that I have been the longest consistently active player in this game. I have held various offices since July 2009, but I was active in each one, I have never deregistered and the only time I resigned was to become a Supreme Court Justice. My record gives people confidence that barring some extreme circumstances (and I have had a lot of them, computer failures, economic hardship and near homelessness, separation and death of parents, natural disasters etc), I will more than likely serve out the term and do so with a level of engagement beyond that which we have seen by many in the Senate over the past few months.

By contrast over the last two weeks since becoming Senator, I have introduced an expulsion motion, a continuing resolution, posted general statements on floor bills and even some that had already failed, as well as asked questions in the confirmation hearings, I created a thread in which these were linked to for public review and I have PMed the Governor and CoD Speaker to create a dialogue on amending the constitution to allow for recall of Senators and to give them a briefing on the bills sitting on the floor that were of consequence to the region.

[HomestarSB9]

Abortion. I am pro-life and I believe abortion to be an issue where, even while moving towards banning it would probably not be achievable in he near future, it is something that we can find ways to reduce the number of abortions from happening in the first place. These include access to contraceptives, expanded adoption and safe surrender laws. I am most certainly against late term and partial birth abortion and most regions have banned abortion or have had efforts to do so around the 20 week mark. I am very much supportive of the regions staking out their own approaches in this regard and it has historically been one that has generated a large amount of activity at the regional level and therefore I would oppose attempts to push forward with a constitutional amendment for game activity reasons, be it to ban it or to allow it for that matter.

I disagree, while I am against late-term and partial birth abortions, I wouldn't oppose a constitutional amendment to allow it. I don't believe any government should tell anyone how to live their lives.