Confirmation Hearing: Ninja for Secretary of the Office of Internal Affairs (Voting - 8hrs)

[Sirius_]

Greetings Senators,

Today I am happy to be accepting our new president's nomination to the position of Secretary of Internal Affairs. Now, this is a position that has not existed since 2019. I realize that at the time there were many who believed that the position should be abolished, and administrations have been hesitant to restore the office since then. In fact, I'm not sure if every senator today was even around when the position last existed, so to briefly explain the Department of Internal Affairs handles all departments of government relating to domestic policy such as healthcare, education, energy, transportation, etc. I believe that recent events in Atlasia display the value of reestablishing this position as a means of separation of powers; we saw Truman become overly powerful and one of the reasons for this was that his role as Attorney General granted him completely unrelated powers in domestic affairs. By reestablishing this position and passing reforms to the cabinet system, we can prevent this from happening again.

I was the second to last person to hold this position before it was abolished, and really the last person to execute it in any substantial manner. My previous tenure in the role was one of the longest, serving under presidents Weatherboy and Tmth amicably despite being opposite party administrations. During this time I helped to bring an end to a budgetary crisis by writing and publishing the long overdue budget for fiscal year 2018. So I have experience in this position and a willingness to do the job even if not many Atlasians care for it. In my 2nd tenure I plan to take an active role in assisting the administration, the senate, and the people with regards to domestic policy. I will assist the president in crafting her domestic policy agenda, I will provide my insights to the senate and carry out duties delegated to the various federal agencies under my department by the senate, and be available to anyone in the public for requests as needed. Re-stabilizing Kansas and the nation will also be a top priority of mine when I take office.

I expect to be able to serve in this position at least for the remainder of the current term and for the next term should the next administration choose to retain my services. As I stated previously I am capable of carrying out this role within administrations of various parties and leanings. For the last few months mainly for irl related reasons I was not able to be that active, but recent events have brought me back to Atlasia and starting this weekend I'm not going to have anything better to do. I'd like to thank the senate for their time, and I hope that I have gained your confidence to carry out this role.

[Sirius_]

This office has amounted to little more than patronage in the past and with little real function, I fail to see the need to bring it back. It is just another example of the offices surplus that drove the current situation. So many have warned of the danger of excess offices, not just elected ones, but bureaucratic ones like these that serve no function.

This is a talking point I've seen plenty of times before but I don't know how to respond if you can't say what the negative consequences of the SoIA office actually are, nor how it drove the "current situation" given that the office has not existed for 3 years. So until you do it's just empty words.

[Sirius_]

This office has amounted to little more than patronage in the past and with little real function, I fail to see the need to bring it back. It is just another example of the offices surplus that drove the current situation. So many have warned of the danger of excess offices, not just elected ones, but bureaucratic ones like these that serve no function.

This is a talking point I've seen plenty of times before but I don't know how to respond if you can't say what the negative consequences of the SoIA office actually are, nor how it drove the "current situation" given that the office has not existed for 3 years. So until you do it's just empty words.

It contributes to excess offices, more offices exist than should, nearly all active players are in an office and then some. My point is merely that we have too many offices right now and should be downsizing how many we have, not having more. In fact, you see literal random zombies having to fill office spots since enough active people can't be found. So, in that sense, we absolutely have too many offices, ideally there would be more active people than offices so that there is actually competition for those offices, at the moment, this last election aside, that clearly does not really exist.

Well I hope that I'm not considered a zombie around here. I was an active secretary last time and I fully intend on doing that again. We also had 16 candidates for 9 at large senate seats last weekend so it doesn't really feel like there's more offices than players. So that still doesn't establish how my appointment would do harm to Atlasia.

[Sirius_]

This office has amounted to little more than patronage in the past and with little real function, I fail to see the need to bring it back. It is just another example of the offices surplus that drove the current situation. So many have warned of the danger of excess offices, not just elected ones, but bureaucratic ones like these that serve no function.

This is a talking point I've seen plenty of times before but I don't know how to respond if you can't say what the negative consequences of the SoIA office actually are, nor how it drove the "current situation" given that the office has not existed for 3 years. So until you do it's just empty words.

It contributes to excess offices, more offices exist than should, nearly all active players are in an office and then some. My point is merely that we have too many offices right now and should be downsizing how many we have, not having more. In fact, you see literal random zombies having to fill office spots since enough active people can't be found. So, in that sense, we absolutely have too many offices, ideally there would be more active people than offices so that there is actually competition for those offices, at the moment, this last election aside, that clearly does not really exist.

Well I hope that I'm not considered a zombie around here. I was an active secretary last time and I fully intend on doing that again. We also had 16 candidates for 9 at large senate seats last weekend so it doesn't really feel like there's more offices than players. So that still doesn't establish how my appointment would do harm to Atlasia.

It's not so much about your appointment, it's that the office basically has very little tangible value and that it's been used as patronage in the past. All of the boring bureaucratic stuff is usually simulated by the GM anyways. The only real actual value of this position would be updating the Wiki, but I don't think people are particularly interested in that right now.

Well when I was first held this position I was appointed by Weatherboy, who I voted against in the October 2018 election. Maybe some people find that surprising, but I voted for Yankee. So hardly patronage. The position also gives me the ability to take actions which tangibly impact Atlasia, and I fully intend on doing so. The GM can simulate the actions of NPCs and the condition of the country, but they can't directly impact Atlasian policy. The SoIA can. Furthermore, part of my job is being an advisor to the president. With assistance from an experienced policymaker, we can expect our president to perform better in office.

[Sirius_]

This office has amounted to little more than patronage in the past and with little real function, I fail to see the need to bring it back. It is just another example of the offices surplus that drove the current situation. So many have warned of the danger of excess offices, not just elected ones, but bureaucratic ones like these that serve no function.

This is a talking point I've seen plenty of times before but I don't know how to respond if you can't say what the negative consequences of the SoIA office actually are, nor how it drove the "current situation" given that the office has not existed for 3 years. So until you do it's just empty words.

It contributes to excess offices, more offices exist than should, nearly all active players are in an office and then some. My point is merely that we have too many offices right now and should be downsizing how many we have, not having more. In fact, you see literal random zombies having to fill office spots since enough active people can't be found. So, in that sense, we absolutely have too many offices, ideally there would be more active people than offices so that there is actually competition for those offices, at the moment, this last election aside, that clearly does not really exist.

Well I hope that I'm not considered a zombie around here. I was an active secretary last time and I fully intend on doing that again. We also had 16 candidates for 9 at large senate seats last weekend so it doesn't really feel like there's more offices than players. So that still doesn't establish how my appointment would do harm to Atlasia.

It's not so much about your appointment, it's that the office basically has very little tangible value and that it's been used as patronage in the past. All of the boring bureaucratic stuff is usually simulated by the GM anyways. The only real actual value of this position would be updating the Wiki, but I don't think people are particularly interested in that right now.

Well when I was first held this position I was appointed by Weatherboy, who I voted against in the October 2018 election. Maybe some people find that surprising, but I voted for Yankee. So hardly patronage. The position also gives me the ability to take actions which tangibly impact Atlasia, and I fully intend on doing so. The GM can simulate the actions of NPCs and the condition of the country, but they can't directly impact Atlasian policy. The SoIA can. Furthermore, part of my job is being an advisor to the president. With assistance from an experienced policymaker, we can expect our president to perform better in office.

The thing is Congress just passes policy and I don't think the implementation of it is something worth simulating honestly. Like if a new healthcare reform is passed, after some time it just works. If anything this risks creating a situation where a SoIA who opposed a policy that passed could just intentionally make it not implement properly and thus rendering that policy useless. Again, I don't see the use to simulating this background delegation and it could actually make things worse. As for being an advisor to the president, that is fine, the president could create some appointed advisor role, I don't see why that warrants bringing back a Cabinet post that everyone agreed was useless.

I would have to disagree quite strongly with the notion that everyone agreed it was a useless position; I certainly never did. Now, I suppose if you on principle strongly oppose doing all that boring administrative stuff, I'll have hard time convincing you. But I do find it quite ironic that you seemed to be concerned about the level of activity earlier but don't want anybody to be able to take an active role in that.

[Sirius_]

It doesn't seem like the senate has any more questions. Shall we have the vote now?