SB 115-26 Windfall Tax Act (Final Vote)

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AN ACT
To tax excess oil company profits

Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled

Section 1. Title

1. This act may be cited as the Windfall Tax Act.

Section 2. Tax

1. There shall be a 50% tax on each barrel of crude oil extracted in the Republic of Atlasia, and brought into the Republic of Atlasia for consumption, use, or warehousing.

2. This tax shall only be applied if the average daily number of barrels of crude oil extracted or imported by a company for exceeds 250,000 barrels per year.

Sponsor: Scott, on behalf of WD

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Motioning for a final vote. 24 hours to object.

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A final vote is now open. Senators, please vote Aye, Nay, or Abstain.

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Aye

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Nay while the vote is still ongoing, but why was this motioned to a final vote without any debate?

because people had 4 days the time to comment or debate and no-one did.

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Nay while the vote is still ongoing, but why was this motioned to a final vote without any debate?

because people had 4 days the time to comment or debate and no-one did.

With all due respect, 4 days is peanuts and there have been bills on the floor for 4 weeks before anyone aside from the sponsor bothered to stick their nose in. Ideally the sponsor at least should get their advocacy out before anyone decides this can be voted on.

I don't think it's a good idea to leave a bill for 4 weeks on the floor.

There is a 72 hour mandatory period before one can motion to a final vote, which is what i've respected here.

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Nay while the vote is still ongoing, but why was this motioned to a final vote without any debate?

because people had 4 days the time to comment or debate and no-one did.

With all due respect, 4 days is peanuts and there have been bills on the floor for 4 weeks before anyone aside from the sponsor bothered to stick their nose in. Ideally the sponsor at least should get their advocacy out before anyone decides this can be voted on.

I don't think it's a good idea to leave a bill for 4 weeks on the floor.

There is a 72 hour mandatory period before one can motion to a final vote, which is what i've respected here.

Before the sponsor could tell us what the bill was actually about?

Yes, he came in to tell us. After the motion was made, not before.

People had the chance to object to the motion to a final vote, that never happened.

It's not my job to ensure that every bill is debated thoroughly and that the senate is active again. It's an individual responsability. I like to keep things moving, because i'm pretty sure if we wait till the sponsor advocates their bill that half of the bills would even never get to a final stage. Secondly we already have a decent backlog because of the issues/problems during the last senate session and it's important if we at least get through that. At the pace you propose, some of the bills introduced now wouldn't even get to the floor in 2023.

If senators refuse to debate, or take a look or participate, than i don't consider it my mistake. Even if threads where debate is ongoing, less than a quarter of the senators actually participate in a debate, because a quarter is boycotting the senate because of their ties to the secession crisis.

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Speaking of individual responsibility:

if we wait till the sponsor advocates their bill

You don't have to wait passively, thanks to the handy tool known as

PM:      Send this member a personal message.

Senators can handle an extra PM or two about the legislation they're bringing to the floor if it's really necessary. There is a basic minimum level of debate that should be had and the sponsor's input is part of that.

It's not the end of the world if the input comes late, Dave knows I've been late on some sponsor statements of my own because of that nasty mixup with administration that one weekend in 2021, but it should be made before anyone motions to vote on the bill!

It's already a lot of work or energy to send a lot of PM's when an actual vote is occuring. I'm not going to send PM's to trigger debate.

I'm also a co-deputy PPT, it's not my responsability to send a million PM's. Aside of that, people are elected senator, they've chosen to be a candidate. They're grown up enough to check the senate on a daily base. If they can't fullfill that, they should either 1. file a LOA or 2. resign and let someone else take their place.

I have a life outside Atlasia too. I'm already spending a lot of energy into this, but there are limits on that, even for me.

I'm not against debate but if people are simply not interested or too busy to have a debate, than it's not my mistake.

In this case, the sponsor suspended the vote (and if he wasn't the PPT) could simply request that and I would honour that. Communication is key. I'm open for feedback, but people need to take the effort to even give feedback (which you - yes - do).

Aside of that, criticism often varies. Pyro for instance complained last session that things weren't moving fast enough, now the complaints it is getting too fast.

I'm getting close at this point to voluntary withdraw my deputy PPT duties/powers. It's one of the most ungrateful and unrewarding jobs to do.

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The philosophy I had as PPT was that it was precisely because everyone, including myself, had lives outside of the game that an extra PM or two wouldn't go amiss to keep things running, especially now that the responsibility of keeping the chamber running is spread among – how many Deputies is it again? More than before, I know that. Three? May not be applicable to everyone as a philosophy but there are always ways to make this doable.

Anyway I'll leave the issue here but there should be more debate once Scott has his amendment up.

I don't share your philosophy because it isn't grounded in reality. Sure, i like an active game with debate, but i don't have a magical wand that would suddenly create debate out of nowhere, something that might be easy to say if you haven't been a senator for long.

The only ones who ran the senate were Scott, me and Sirius. UNL hasn't done anything. Reactionary is participating in the boycott. And I feel i did the most as deputy PPT. And if people cannot respect that, well than they must show that they can ran the senate better.

But it seems like people clearly rather don't have me as a PPT at all and have shown it very well in the past days, with now including you as well.