State of the Union X

Written By: Nathan Maine, Major Executive

Released: June 1, 2013

Honorable dignitaries of the Executive Branch, mindful representatives of the Administrative Branch, formidable friends of the Union, and righteous citizens of the Triumvirate, where are we now? What have the last 44 months meant? What will tomorrow allow? The four most productive months of the year have begun, and this trimester, building on the incredible foundation Major Executive Neil laid in her months in office, may be the greatest the Triumvirate has ever yet had. The first Major Executive created the Union, the second built it, the third set the tone for it, the fourth polished it, and now the Union has its fifth. The work of creating, building, culturing, and polishing the Union is done. Now we enter a new stage, and instead of focusing on establishing the Union, we now have a completely clean slate. We no longer are forced to structure and define the Union, instead we may now go about our lives, choosing paths for wherever we may go in the future. Truly, for the first time in our history, we are closer bound and tied to the future than we are to the past. The past has passed and the future has come.

With the clean slate we have, what should we do? Should we pursue methods to incentivize business creation? Should we make a final heave for a fairer, graduated tax system? Must we expand our defense and intelligence forces or must we increase support to individuals so as to give a fair wage and decent opportunities? Could we print more currency to accompany our growing population or intensify infrastructure and public resources? I say that it’s not too much to strive for all, for we are not bound to just one goal and every dream we have is within our reach.

One of my first actions as Major Executive has been the nomination of several figures to the newly established Joint Command Council. Currently chaired by General Ehtya and with Head of Intelligence Ascencia serving on it as well, I nominated Jackson Mearl and Edward Stenbach to the council both of whom were approved by the Executive Branch. On taking office I also immediately made a Major Order which enforces a new stance we’ll be taking in how we deal with foreign powers by decreeing that this Union shall not commit or aide in any attack on a foreign power for any political reason. Though I can respect the views from both isolationists and interventionists, I believe it is fair and justified to say that it is wrong for us to attack or hinder any foreign force for purely political reasons as it is not our place to, unless there is oppression, give our say or influence in the political dealings of another, just as it would be appalling and offensive for them to attempt to challenge our political system and effect our government. To further improvise on our foreign policy the PEACE Act will be revised to make our stances much clearer, to deny appeasement, and to assert what our flag will mean in the international domain. So keeping these preliminary steps and plans in mind, this State of the Union is where I will announce how we will handle foreign policy, something I believe this Union has neglected, in the coming trimester and in the trimesters to come. It’s time to take diplomacy and the outside world seriously, and instead of ignoring it, we need to thrust the Triumvirate and the ideas of our people into the outside world. We will use diplomacy and alliances to propel our agenda for peace, for order, for intelligence, and for justice forward. So, as we seek out new alliances from every corner, we expand our cause, we gain attention, and we develop our stances abroad. It is time to put more government attention into diplomacy, just as it’s time to put more attention into every aspect of this Union that must be improved. The government is a force for great good everywhere, it’s not something to fear or neglect, and it’s time to be grand and extravagant with the government we have.

The day I took office I realized there was one thing the public demanded I do something about, which was membership. The first major law I proposed was the Membership Retainment Act, which has been the talk of the Union recently, and has pitted two sides that are similar in their goal against each other. The entire Triumvirate wants membership to improve, there is no one saying it shouldn’t be worked on, but the contention that has come with the proposals to alleviate the membership issues has struck a line through our government and has made us a joke to the people of the Triumvirate and to outsiders. In the year prior both sides came together to attempt a way of alleviating the membership problem by incentivizing the recruitment of new members. It did not reach far enough however and it did not dramatically improve our membership situation, so it’s time to look at new options. The Membership Retainment Act I proposed is one of these new options, instead of incentivizing recruiting it seeks to actively encourage the government (not the people) to recruit, and should they fail, something called the Membership Minimum kicks in and causes a dramatic reduction in spending and a massive output of recruiting abilities. The goal of this is to enforce that it is the government’s duty, not the people’s, to handle the situation and to find the best solution, and it gets the ball rolling on addressing this issue that, for months, many have been afraid to seriously look at. Unfortunately the bill has been stalled and halted in the Administrative Branch after it was passed by the Executive Branch and political squabbling has prevented it from even reaching a vote. I’ve sent several letters to the Speaker, as have many of you, asking simply for a vote. I’m not asking the Speaker to support it, and he is welcome to vote against it if he’d like, but to deny the bill a vote at all is petty and simply irresponsible. Along with this law, and whatever future it will have in the coming weeks in the Administrative Branch, I intend to approach membership by incentivizing recruitment even more and putting hundreds of more tri into the incentives for recruiting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am comfortable paying 100 tri for each successful and active recruit, even if the government runs out of money after only ten members, it will have been worth it because with new members comes new economic and political opportunities. Many in my close circle have also been asking me to take a closer look at the Triumvirate forums and to improve on the infrastructure there so that it truly does become the center of the Triumvirate instead of just a side project. The Executive Branch recently began discussing this and in the coming days perhaps we will have legislation written to legitimize the forum’s place and to integrate them better.

I believe the economy will be thrust back into the spotlight this trimester, and signs of this are showing as the readiness for a system of monetary policy and for dropping the backing of our currency has become much louder. The first economic measure we must consider is monetary policy, which has taken far too long and was supposed to appear sometime last trimester but that never happened. Though Head of the Treasury Andrew Hester and Speaker of the Administration Andrew Mearl are the two most involved, if action is not seen quickly, I too will get involved to make sure we see a bill before the Executive Branch before the end of June. Along with that and the ability of the government to coin more tri for itself to fund more massive spending which shall go along with it, I intend to propose a massive stimulus for the economy sometime in June or July which shall consist of, among other things, massive increases to recruiting incentives, unprecedented funding to artwork by all so that none have a monopsony over it as has largely been the case in the past, massive investment in infrastructure projects, and the transfer of massive funds to Departments and offices under the government so that they are free to spend without the politicization of the release of funds.

There’s a lot of work ahead of us this trimester, and it’s the government’s job to do it. No member of the government should be slacking, and we all need to live up to the demand and desire of the people. We’ll pass sweeping overhauls, we’ll oversee incredible creation, we’ll usher in a new era of expansion, and we’ll build a greater Union.

-*Nathan Maine, Fifth Major Executive of the Universal Triumvirate*