q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 1-2001: "The Overseas American Community, Its Size and Importance - 4 Million Overseas U.S. Citizens in a National and World Perspective", The Demographics of the Overseas American Community - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 2-2001: "American Citizens Abroad - ACA- An Organization Representing Overseas Americans 1978-2001", The Origin, History and Vocation of ACA - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 3-2001: "U.S. Laws and Regulations that Affect the Lives of Americans Living and Working Abroad", A Tabular Summary of Issues for Discussion Between the Overseas American Community and the U.S. Government - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 4-2001: "The Citizenship Rights of Overseas Americans and their Children", A Proposal for More Equitable Treatment of the Human Rights of U.S. Citizens Living Abroad - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 5-2001: "U.S. Taxation of Overseas Americans and the Trade Deficit", A Proposal for Better Management of the Overseas American Community as a National Trade Asset - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 6-2001: "Social Security and the Overseas American", Recommended Changes to U.S. Social Security Laws and Regulations as they Apply to Overseas Americans - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 7-2001: "Education and the Overseas American", Recommended Changes to U.S. Federal Education Programs as the Apply to Overseas Americans - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 8-2001: "Federal Tort Claims and the Overseas American", Recommended Changes to the U.S. Federal Tort Claims Act as it Applies to Overseas Americans - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 9-2001: "Federal Civil Rights Legislation and the Overseas American", Recommended Changes to the U.S. Civil Rights Act as it Applies to Overseas Americans - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 10-2001: "Congressional Representation for Overseas Americans", A Proposal to Enable the Overseas American Community to Elect a Delegate to the U.S. Congress - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 11-2001: "Medicare and the Overseas American", A Proposal to Deliver Medicare Benefits to Eligible Americans Living Overseas - January 2001.
 

q ACA OCCASIONAL PAPER 12-2001: "Voting Reform for Overseas Americans", A Proposal to Improve the Ability of Overseas American Civilians to Register and Vote in U.S. Federal Elections - Revised December 2007.
 

This compendium of issue papers has been prepared by American Citizens Abroad (ACA) as a contribution to a better understanding at home of how these other contests are viewed and fought by Americans living abroad. Optimum national competition strategy in these myriad contests will have a major impact on the lives and fortunes of all Americans. Overseas Americans have a vital role to play in the elaboration of these strategies, but in order to make their contributions, they must be invited to the policy table and enabled to play their deserved part. These papers explain why.
 

A PREFATORY METAPHOR: An important international game is being played. It is the end of the first quarter and the score is tied. The excitement is palpable in the stadium as spectators, coaches and players from many countries watch the two teams come back onto the field. As the referee talks to the line judges, the coach for the visiting team from Country A approaches and takes him aside. We need to talk, says the coach. Our new President and our legislators won't accept the way this game is played internationally. I am going to have to insist on some changes before play can continue.
 

The referee listens dumbfounded. What the coach is proposing is revolutionary. He calls to the other officials and then together they go to the sidelines to invite the coaches from all of the other international teams to confer. The proposal is that the game itself should be played in a different way. Shoes and other equipment that the teams wear in international matches should be those used in their home countries. That way their compatriots at home will see games abroad as simply extensions of their home contests. The host country will no longer set an independent national standard.
 

The other coaches are incredulous. The game has never been played this way before and they see no reason to change now. It would make international contests impossibly complicated with each team wearing different equipment. The Country A coach is adamant. He has no choice and his team, at least, will have to play by these new rules. The other coaches dig in their heels. They formally adopt an agreement that their teams will all compete according to the host country's rules. This is the only way to ensure a level playing field for everyone.
 

The Country A coach is exasperated. He has no choice. The legislators in his country have been under pressure because their voters are unfamiliar with international games and can't understand why their teams, when they play overseas games, don't wear the same equipment as they do when they play at home.
 

An impasse. What to do? And so, finally, a compromise is worked out. All teams will respect the equipment standards of the host country. But, Country A's team will simultaneously play by two different sets of rules. Like everyone else, they will wear the equipment required by the host country, but unlike everyone else, they will also wear their home country equipment at the same time. And, when international matches are played at home, the local folks will see everyone wearing the same equipment in Country A. A most clever solution.
 

The other coaches whisper among themselves and smile as they watch the players of the Country A team struggle into their second pair of shoes and hang heavy extra lead weights on their belts. This is going to be interesting.
 

And so, the game resumes. The Country A team has strong and well conditioned athletes, but the second pair of shoes and leaded belts take their toll. The game goes badly. The team members complain. Some quit. The coach sends some of them home. Their replacements complain. The Country A legislature, increasingly peeved by these complaints, reluctantly agrees to tinker with the size of the second pair of shoes and the amount of extra weight on their belts. But the policy of two pairs of shoes and extra belt weights for all away games is untouchable. It has matured from an experiment into hallowed competitive dogma.
 

New games are played and lost. Unwilling to accept that the problem might be due to a self-inflicted wound, Country A struggles to give itself offsetting competitive advantages, but these too violate the competitive neutrality of the playing field, and are unacceptable breaches of other international agreements. Country A could, of course, unilaterally solve the problem the same way it started, but back home memories fade, legislators retire, and few remember the old days when everyone, everywhere, wore the same equipment and competed on a level playing field. As international games represent a growing proportion of each playing season, Country A's scores just keep getting worse. This is where we are today.
 

DECONSTRUCTING THE METAPHOR: One American constituency has no trouble seeing through this strange tale. It is the 4 million U.S. citizens living and working abroad, manning the front lines of myriad contests in the major marketplaces of the world, and living with the competitive infirmities of this policy on a daily basis.
 

The United States of America has the world's largest and most persistent trade deficit. In 1999 this deficit reached $ 280 billion, and in 2000 it will exceed $ 350 billion. There are also other competitions for laurels in human rights, and social security protection, foreign education support for children and a number of other challenges. In each of these confrontations, overseas Americans live with U.S. policies gone awry. The aggregation of unfortunate and unfair unilateral actions taken by the U.S. Government during the last several decades has badly distorted the neutrality of world markets and prejudiced the competitive ability of the private sector overseas U.S. team. So, what is the answer?
 

GIVE OVERSEAS AMERICANS COMPETITIVE PARITY ONCE AGAIN: What overseas Americans want is competitive parity with citizens of other countries in all of the major marketplaces of the world. Since the U.S. government has unilaterally imposed most of the current competitive infirmities, it can just as easily unilaterally make things right once again. It is as simple as that.
 

HOW TO DO THIS: ACA has prepared this compendium of Occasional Papers to explain how competitive parity has been compromised and how it can be regained again.
 

THE DOUBLE DIMENSION OF COMPETITIVE PARITY: These papers explain the need to not only compare the treatment of Americans at home with Americans abroad, but equally importantly, to also compare U.S. policies toward overseas Americans with the policies of other countries toward their own overseas citizens. For it is in the aggregation of all of these national policies of all of the countries competing in the same overseas markets that the economic reality of the competitive environment is defined today.
 

DEFINING RESPONSIBILITY FOR OVERSEAS AMERICAN POLICIES: A realistic reassessment of the multiple dimensions of international competitive parity, and how the interplay of all of the current U.S. laws and regulations affect life overseas, would be significantly enriched by policy-makers at home acquiring a better understanding of the reality of life on the front lines abroad. Such a broad analysis of policy would be much easier to realize and keep current if a specific U.S. Government agency, as well as a committee in both houses of the Congress, were assigned, or were willing to assume, responsibility for the full range of issues that determine the competitive situation of Americans overseas. Unlike many other countries, no such entities exist in either the legislative or executive branches of the U.S. Government today.
 

AND CONTINUING WITH REGULAR CONSULTATIONS: Another improvement would be for the U.S. Government to start a regular process of consultations with Americans living and working abroad. Overseas Americans have issued a standing invitation to all of the branches of the U.S. Government, directly and/or via U.S. embassies and consulates, to enter into such a direct give-and-take relationship.
 

When such a dialog process finally does commence, it will be of great and enduring benefit to all Americans, at home and abroad. And now, back to the specific issues discussed below.