Congressional Salary v. Assassination

   Quarterly Congressional Salary (QCS) is at an all-time high as of this writing, over $200,000 quarterly—that is a weekly in real-time. This massive influx of finances supposedly facilitated the funding of several recent high-profile assassinations, including that of the presiding Speaker of the House, Brannigans Law. While the Department of Justice allegedly has investigations underway to find the specific perpetrators of these murders, questions have arisen on both sides of the aisle regarding the record-high salaries. First, let us look at the numbers.

   Salary had only minor fluctuations with a mild upward trend overall from mid-August to early-September, before nearly doubling in a single day, on Friday, September 5th—The Great Congressional Payraise. While this timing may seem to correlate with the murders, the relationship is not quite so direct.
   According to The Clout Examiner, Speaker Of The House Brannigans Law and others were murdered on the morning of September 9th, mere hours after End-Of-Week—and a $188,500 Congressional Paycheck. However, assassination missions have a completion time of five days. Thus, the assassinations must have been launched on the morning of September 4th, before the salary increase.
   Indeed, if the salary increase took effect on the September 5th, then it must have passed on Thursday, September 4th—the same day that the assassinations were ordered. This correlation suggests that the assassinations were a response to the well-documented Brannigan-supported initiative to increase QCS on that same day.
   As to the question of who would want to suppress QCS enough to murder the Speaker Of The House, rumors abound. Was it militant Libercons? Did anti-green elements in the Left orchestrate this? Could it have been Communists? These questions are more continue to haunt Capitol Hill as partisan distrust increases. What is clear is that there are very well-funded and powerful individuals who do not want you to increase your Congressional Salary.

   Indeed, salaries have continued to rise at a similar rate as before the Great Congressional Payraise. As of this writing, QCS is over $200,000. It had previously been rumored that the Maximum Wage binary bill limits QCS, however The Clout Report has not recorded this occurrence. How high can the salary go? Will it ever go down? Only time will tell.

   The Clout Report updates graphs and statistics daily with new articles weekly or more. Questions, comments, trolling and flame-wars are welcome in the anonymous comments below.

 

 
   

Bill In Focus: Relax Suicide Restrictions

An associate recently asked me, "Why did those [Relax Assisted] Suicide bills help our debt that much?" He was referring to the Mass Suicide of August 2014, which took place just a day or two before The Clout Report started taking regular statistics. Let's take a look at what has happened with the population and its growth since then.

At the beginning, Population drops sharply, and the Population Growth Rate is decreasing by more than eight percent. Of note is that population is only updated by census on Tuesdays. Meanwhile, transpartisan efforts reigned in PGR and have since managed to keep it at a warm 2% or so. According to World Bank, the real-world United States of America's PGR is about 0.7%.

In mid-August, several heavily-multiplied Relax Assisted Suicide Restriction (RASR) bills were passed, including at least one 512x. As one might expect, this caused population growth to drop drastically. Indeed our statistics catch the end of this drop, with a population loss of thirteen million--more than the Holocaust--in one week. While this may be difficult to stomach for some, it did drastically reduce the debt as well, to the tune of nearly 100 trillion dollars. That is a one followed by fourteen zeros: $100,000,000,000,000. But, how?

According to Clout: The Game Wiki - Bills, RASR has the following effects:

Relax Assisted Suicide Restrictions
GDP Growth Rate: -0.0001
Population Growth Rate: -0.0002
Public Surplus: +$40000
Public Happiness: +1

These multi-conferred RASR bills, along with a number of heavily-conferred Pay Down National Debt bills, slashed the debt down over a few days just before our data begins. Indeed, it was this tumultuous economic time that prompted our initial collection of data.

Of special note is that RASR's economic benefits are not necessarily beneficial over the long-run. The $40K surplus is only added once, while the GDP--and thus revenue--decreases cumulatively. Nevertheless, the Great Suicide and its supporters--dubiously referred to as 'Team Suicide'--did manage to reign in the run-away debt. Now that debt is mostly in hand, and population and GDP are increasing, what will happen next? Find out first in The Clout Report, with all your statistics, charts and graphs updated daily, and new articles weekly.

Candidate: kiran

Two contending Speaker of the House hopefuls--Liberal BobbyBreaker and Libertarian Emiyu Kiritsugu remain deeply entrenched in a Massively Mud-slinging Orator Representative Poll Gridlock; as of this writing the Liberal candidate has a slight lead.

But there is a third candidate rising in the polls, and he shouldn't be counted out for a possible late upset of the election. The Clout Report managed to catch up with the rising-star Socialist candidate, Representative kiran [sic].

The Clout Report: What will you do as speaker? kiran: Avoid conflict between parties.

TCR: how does a speaker accomplish this?

kiran: The speaker doesn't really have much power; I would just avoid saying anything biased.

TCR: What are the core Socialist ideals, versus Liberals and Libertarians?

kiran: With Socialism you are payed by how much work you do instead of what your status is. If you are asking what i think needs to be done for the country, I think it is fine as it is.

TCR: What is your opinion on the current state of foreign relations?

kiran: I believe they are fine as is.

TCR: is there anything you would like to say to the voters?

kiran: Vote BarryBreaker.

~

kiran's do-nothing agenda does seem to have a certain appeal. Congressman Kiritsuyu's offer to reach across the aisle for bipartisan unity has ironically only resulted in hostility between the Liberal and Libertarian parties who had previously been rumored to share a PAC. Keep on eye on The Clout Report for the latest election and financial news from Clout: The Game.

Candidate: Emiya Kiritsugu

While it is still early in the election season, the campaign for Speaker of the House is already starting to heat up. So far, the two primary contenders and BarryBreaker, a lower-profile liberal, and Emiya Kiritsugu, a libertarian. The Clout Report managed to get an interview with Kiritsugu earlier this week, and asked him about his approach if he becomes Speaker of the House.

The Clout Report: You have said that you will be an active speaker; what does that entail?

Emiya Kiritsugu: An active speaker is one that actually plays the game. Aside from [current Speaker] Brannigans Law, most speakers have been woefully inactive.

TCR: So what are the powers and duties of the Speaker?

EK: The Speaker is the only one who can post stickies to the global post. The can also prematurely end committees for the cost of 5000 clout. An active speaker actually uses this power, hopefully for good.
TCR: What will your goals as Speaker be?
EK: I plan to stabilize the economy, defeat the deficit, and to bring us into a surplus and foster a new age of American Glory. We have a rapidly changing nation, but I'd like to use my power to bring us all together and coordinate efforts to better the country. In the short-term, that means increasing GDP while maintaining a decent tax rate, but over time, with disasters on the way, we will face greater challenges, and I hope to do my part to address those and protect the effort of others to do so.
TCR: Who do you consider your main competition in the election?
EK: I'm sure that Barry Breaker will give me one heck of a fight, even though I haven't seen him campaigning. The Left leadership expects all of their little sheep to follow their orders, even if that means voting for some unknown who hardly speaks out at all.
TCR: Do you have anything else you would to say to the voters?
EK: Ultimately, the choice lies in their hands. I hope that they can all join me in bettering our great nation, but their votes are only mine if they choose to give them. I hope that they all would appreciate a speaker who is not only active, but excited to be running for the position, rather than tossing their vote in for another figurehead of the totalitarian leftist regime. I will not and cannot demand your votes; I may only humbly request that you offer your support in my fight to create a world where we can all live together without fear.
TCR: Thank you, I am sure we will be catching back up with you again before the election.
~

The Clout Report will keep following this election and try to get in touch with the other candidates as things develop. We wish the best of luck to all candidates, regardless of party or PAC affiliation!

Taxes

One of the main issues of contention in politics is Tax. What happens when taxes are too high? Can they ever be too low? How does tax affect the economy as a whole?  Let us take a look at the numbers.

Here we see a clear trend of lowering taxes and rising GDP growth. During the last week of August, the tax rate fell by 10% or so, while GDP growth shot up by a whopping 17%. While this may seem to correlate, further scrutiny will reveal that only two days show correlating drastic changes--August 20th and 25th, most likely due to heavily-conferred bills.

Stay tuned for more financial news from the Cloutiverse.