This post garnered 149 replies from citizens of Ductopia (a CM Country from Queen Elizabeth Secondary School in Surrey, BC) and other CM Countries. In it, Tom, one of the most successful and controversial citizens of Ductopia, analyzes his government’s proposed bill. I learned lots from this discussion, and I hope you do too!
Tom’s Post:
Just for fun lets analyze this Bill. Lets also bring up the discussion of communism in our country.
“The Consumer Protection Bill: Effective immediately, income tax is to be raised to 20%. The following parties are applicable to a 50% refund: Persons not possessing ownership of a unit-producing hex, and persons possessing ownership of a unit-producing hex at the discretion of the government. The government will refund taxes to business owners based on the ethical pricing and sale of any produced units.“
I guess I will divide this into my main points on what I see wrong with this bill.
1. Lets start with the name. Looking at the name we assume that this bill is aimed to protect consumers. Wrong! As a business owner I would look at a 20% income tax and say to myself: “my government doesn’t like me and probably won’t give me a 50% refund no matter what I charge (unless it’s too little to even survive). I think I will just charge a sales tax on top of the purchase price so that I am not being swindled by the government.”
That means that anybody purchasing units from me will be paying whatever my price is (lets say 1,000$ a unit) and then be paying 20% on top of that (totalling 1,200$ a unit). This is just a personal solution but I’m sure most business owners would follow suit since a 20% income tax is unreasonable and unjustified.
2. “The following parties are applicable to a 50% refund: Persons not possessing ownership of a unit-producing hex” This tells me that because I’m doing well (of my own accord) and I’m breaking equality, I am discriminated against. Communism!
3. “…and persons possessing ownership of a unit-producing hex at the discretion of the government.” This reminds me of Joseph Stalin, the communist leader in the Soviet Union who decided to create equality through controlling every aspect of citizens lives. He did so “at the discretion of the government.” This means that the government is not only going to force equality on you but they will decide when and how. At the discretion of the Government
4. “The government will refund taxes to business owners based on the ethical pricing and sale of any produced units.” Alright, here I just have to point out the fact that “ethical pricing” has not been defined. As much as this sounds nice, the government has left it up in the air so that ultimately, they can decide (whether ethical or not) who will get a tax refund. Just gotta love the open loopholes.
Remember, that your lives in Ductopia are being decided at the discretion of the Government.
Kurtis replies (he is a Ductopian Member of Parliament):
So i will just say this. I can see the loopholes as well, and it should be revised. I will also say there are many things wrong with what has been said on this forum …
The money currently in our government isn’t doing all it should be. I have been getting things running and making it go somewhere with the latest events. I want to circulate it more though. Everyone who has posted had said that 20% is ridiculous. Thats socialism. Plain and simple. Thats what were doing. So if you, the people, do not like this, why is socialism running the country? With that tax, we could use that money to be able to nationalize more and do with those, what we do to E/I units, making less law being broken and less of a price, preventing tragic events like homelessness or starvation …
Also, my opinin is that Tom has had quite a good amount of hexes. Now I realy hope he isnt planning on making thoses hexes as part of the government, or we will be heading to CorruptTown for sure.
Alex replies (a citizen from Republic of September):
Communism in this game is for the lazy persons with little to no innitiative who want the government to control everything. They’re ensuring that they don’t do poorly, but they’re also ensuring no one does well. There’s no point in doing anything, good or bad, if the government is just going to make everyone equal again.
Alyssa replies (a citizen of Ductopia):
RYAN! GO WAKE UP MATTY! 
We be needing our PM right now.
Matt replies (Prime Minister of Ductopia):
I think what people are failing to realise, is that the government does not try to control the entire economy. Instead we try to esure everyone is able to afford the essentials needed to survive. Notice that I said afford, meaning we are not simply handing out free food and shelter, but merely trying to ensure everyone can afford both.
Now, lots of people have complained about the income taxes and related bills without understanding the reasons they were proposed in the first place. In the past year, owners of several business, namely some of the apartment hexes began to charge ridiculous amount of money for residence (at one point rent was somewhere around $3000). The people couldn’t really refuse to use these apartments unless they were willing to allow their family members to die. Similar incidents have occured in other areas of the market, with corrupt business owners charging customers so much that the majority of the class is left drained of money.
Therefore, in an attempt to narrow the economic chasm that has formed between the corrupt business owners and the poor, bills were proposed to discourage overpricing. Never mind the fact that many of the people complaining do not even make any money (and therefore pay $0 in income tax).
Just my thoughts on the matter, I may have forgotten a few points.
Alyssa replies:
Matt, this is why you REALLY need to be here when we have these discussions. Because we sit here and make our own asumptions, and a bunch of things are being said, and Ductopia really needs you here to defend what you are doing because YOU are our Prime Minister!
– END –
(although in actuality it went on for 100 more posts).
