Constitutional Amendment to Remove the Balanced Budget Requirement

[Gabu]

I haven't actually checked up on this, but would this also remove the necessity to pass a budget at all?  If so, I urge the Senate to oppose the amendment in its current form.

No, it just chops off the clauses saying that the budget must be balanced (or reasonably close to balanced).  Clause 8 is the pertinent clause and clauses 9 and 10 have no reason to exist without clause 8.

It should be noted that there is a typo in clause 9; it should say "clause 8", not "clause 5".

[Gabu]

Don't we need to have a vote before we can just send this to the front of the legislation? If we do I'll still vote aye on that.

Article 3, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Official Senate Procedural Resolution says the following:

"The PPT will designate each piece of legislation debate time on the Senate Floor in the order of which it is posted in the Legislation Introduction thread."

Article 7, Section 1 of the same resolution gives the PPT the authorization, acting publicly with the VP's consent, to go against the above clause, which means he can bump up any piece of legislation.

Technically speaking, however, Defarge should post here to confirm that he approved of this move before a vote is called.  If he doesn't, this move goes against procedure.

[Gabu]

He PM'ed me earlier today:

The Senate Rules require your permission to bump legislation to the top of the agenda.

Given that it is absolutely urgent that we pass a budget before the end of the year, I request your permission to bump Gabu's constitutional amendment to the front of the agenda.

The OSPR says that they must "[act] in unison publicly"; a private message is not exactly public.

I doubt anyone will care, really, I'm just stating the technical letter of the law so no one can say I didn't in case some idiot decides to make a display.

[Gabu]

*yells from rooftops*

I CALL FOR BUMPING THE LEGISLATION TO THE FRONT OF THE AGENDA

Thank you, Mr. Vice President; now we can proceed.

[Gabu]

While I think the clause should be loosened, I don't agree with doing away with it for several reasons but the two main ones are:

1) It keeps the budget and the economy a vital part of the game.  Without it, we would just ignore these very important asspects altogether or at least, only a few people would really care about them.

2) It is beneficial for any country to have some sort of reasonably balanced budget.  We can loosen the requirment without totally disposing of it.

There is absolutely nothing in removing the requirement that makes it so we can't bring our budget closer to balanced.  It just makes it so that we can make what we feel is the best decision possible instead of being forced to make decisions we think will ultimately hurt the country purely because we have no choice.

Removing this requirement will not make it so that we can just ignore the budget, as we will still need to make an annual budget, and if we make a very sloppy job of it, the GM will hold our feet to the fire by having the economy respond negatively as a result.

[Gabu]

What I am saying is that the requirement forces the Senate to consider the budget and the economy, where as no requirement means that they would do alomost as well to simply ignore it, since they aren't bound to action.

Given that a badly formed budget will make people mad and will hurt things, I don't see why it would make us just simply ignore the budget.  If the status quo turns out to be the best budget, then I see nothing wrong with just staying the course.  It's not like the purpose of the budget is to shake things up as radically as possible every single year.

The requirement forces the Senate to consider the budget and the economy, but it also forces it to make some very bad decisions if completely balancing the budget is not the best option.

[Gabu]

How about something that says the budget defecit must have a net decrease over a three-budget period?

I could live with something along those lines; however, the one problem I can see with that exact wording is that it would mean that it would have to continually get smaller ad infinitum, which would mean that we would have to just keep cutting things every single budget forever unless the economy improved.

[Gabu]

Nay.  After thinking about it more, I'm becoming more uncomfortable about this idea.

[Gabu]

24 hours has gone without debate on this amendment.

[Gabu]

Aye.

[Gabu]

Aye.

[Gabu]

5 Aye
1 Nay
0 Abstain

One more Aye vote and this will have passed.

No, we now have ten senators, so we need seven ayes.