The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[Deldem]

I support the Convention, both for consolidation and for the reboot.

My main reason? Since everything's already covered, all we can do is introduce minor bills/ideas- look at what we have to work with in the Legislature here. I'm glad that we passed all the laws that we did, and I think they're still interesting enough to work with, but I think having more material could make the Southeast, and Atlasia as a whole, more interesting.

[Deldem]

I know that the vote is not officially open yet, but just so you guys know, I vote Aye on the petition whenever comes up, since I don't know whether or not I'll be around when the vote officially opens up.

[Deldem]

I guess I am here.

Aye.

[Deldem]

I think I'm OK with the Accountable Military Bill.

I don't really see how it would come into play in practice though.

[Deldem]

Do you guys want to vote or still debate it?

     I am fine either way.

     It occurred to me though that the title of this bill might make it difficult for somebody to find it quickly in the regional statute. It would be helpful if it could be easily associated with extant law in regards to the regional militia. I would like to propose an amendment to change the title to the Southeast Militia Bill, & to accept that amendment as friendly.

I concur. I think we're ready to vote, provided there's no more amending to be done.

[Deldem]

Aye

[Deldem]

     Alright, before we move on to the next bill, we need to select a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Thoughts on selecting Senator Bacon King?

I think Senator Bacon King should describe what he intends to push for in his potential role as a delegate, what his goals are, etc.

[Deldem]

Thank you, Senator Bacon King. However, an additional question for you, as well as for Governor JBrase when he comes in.

Are there any specific reforms you would push for (beyond the condensing of the Constitution), or any that you assuredly oppose?

[Deldem]

First off, I'd like to thank both Senator Bacon King and Governor JBrase for their time. I felt that after these hearings, I'd be comfortable with both of you representing our region.

However, I feel that I must give my vote to Senator Bacon King.

[Deldem]

I'd like to add this as the next bill for consideration:

Southeastern Educational Incentive Act

1. The Southeast shall provide a $1,000 tax credit per student to all households who have a member enrolled in an institute of higher learning full-time, and a $500 tax credit to a member enrolled part-time.
2. The credit provided shall not exceed the total value of the income tax assessed. (i.e. taxation cannot be less than $0)
3. A full-time student shall be deemed any student who successfully completes a total of 24 credit hours per year, or completes 12 credit hours per semester.
4. A part-time student  shall be deemed any student who successfully completes at least 6, but no more than 23 credit hours per year, or who completes at least 3, but no more than 11, credit hours per semester.
5. This law shall take effect starting for students enrolled within institutes of higher learning during the semester starting in the Fall of 2010.

[Deldem]

     There were already things in the queue, but they are not terribly important matters, so I will put this in the front of the queue, allowing it to come to the floor now.

     Looks good, but I suggest that we specify how we are going to pay for it. I am also not sure how specific "institute of higher learning" is in legal terms.

I guess we could define institute of higher learning as any accredited trade school, college or university?

And we do have a small surplus at this point, so I don't know that we need to specify anything besides that it has to do with an income tax. I guess if we had to we could divert some of the funds from the lottery scholarships over to this bill. Any other suggestions?

[Deldem]

     There were already things in the queue, but they are not terribly important matters, so I will put this in the front of the queue, allowing it to come to the floor now.

     Looks good, but I suggest that we specify how we are going to pay for it. I am also not sure how specific "institute of higher learning" is in legal terms.

I guess we could define institute of higher learning as any accredited trade school, college or university?

And we do have a small surplus at this point, so I don't know that we need to specify anything besides that it has to do with an income tax. I guess if we had to we could divert some of the funds from the lottery scholarships over to this bill. Any other suggestions?

As much as I don't to discriminate based on income, how about it only apply to households making X amount or less every year? It would seem like a waste to give tax credits to people who can already afford college.

How about those earning less than $250,000 per year, indexed to inflation? That would cover most everybody who actually applies for financial aid anyway.

[Deldem]

Just add a bullet defining the term in the act its self.  For instance:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The issue of funding is very important, history has shown us that unfunded mandates in education can and will produce a head ache.  Of course, this isn't a problem if we have a budget surplus, as some of that surplus may be allocated towards this program.

     According to the last estimate, the region is running a surplus of about $2 million. Granted that estimate is a few months old, but I do not think we can count on our budget surplus to fund this.

     There were already things in the queue, but they are not terribly important matters, so I will put this in the front of the queue, allowing it to come to the floor now.

     Looks good, but I suggest that we specify how we are going to pay for it. I am also not sure how specific "institute of higher learning" is in legal terms.

I guess we could define institute of higher learning as any accredited trade school, college or university?

And we do have a small surplus at this point, so I don't know that we need to specify anything besides that it has to do with an income tax. I guess if we had to we could divert some of the funds from the lottery scholarships over to this bill. Any other suggestions?

As much as I don't to discriminate based on income, how about it only apply to households making X amount or less every year? It would seem like a waste to give tax credits to people who can already afford college.

How about those earning less than $250,000 per year, indexed to inflation? That would cover most everybody who actually applies for financial aid anyway.

     Or alternatively, we could require that the student receives at least some Pell grant money in order to receive the tax credit. Maybe allow them to receive a larger tax credit if the student also receives an academic competitiveness grant.

First off, the surplus was $2 billion, not million.

And only allowing Pell Grant recipients effectively causes many of those in the middle class to be deprived of the tax credit. Consider also that the tax burden of those who are eligible for Pell Grants is almost negligible to begin with, meaning that this would barely help them anyway. I feel that if you're deemed eligible for financial aid from either the government or the institution that you need this tax credit, and the $250,000 threshold certainly covers those people.

[Deldem]

Here's the relevant link on the surplus. It'll be good to have it in here for reference later if we need it:

Regional News

Regional Budgets Released
Southeast: This region has revenue of $632 billion and expenses of $630 billion, resulting in a surplus of $2 billion. The surplus is mostly a result of increased taxation, in addition to crisis funds from the federal government. The Southeast has also had success curbing lavish expenditures that had been typical of the region before the creation of the Southeast Legislature. It is recommended that surplus revenue be used predominantly to help the continued troubled industries in the Southeast through a combination of tax cuts/credits and subsidies.

Previous budget report of the Mideast.

And I'll agree with you that income minus deductions is a fair deal.

[Deldem]

     I just realized how enormous the region's revenues & expenditures are. That's about 20x the size of the budget of California, yet it is composed of ten states, all of which are quite a bit smaller than California.

     So the question is, will $2 billion be enough to fund it? Google hasn't enabled me to find good numbers on the number of college students in the South. It also occurred to me that the wording is rather vague about the conditions of receiving a tax credit. Might the family of someone from out-of-region attending college here receive a tax credit?

I was thinking that since it's money from our taxpayers, they should be the only ones getting the credit. However, I do think that a family that pays taxes here should be eligible if their student is attending college out of region.

Though all the information I've found in Google is relatively vague, I do recall seeing a statistic that roughly 2.5-3 million enter into community college or a 4 year college as freshman each year, meaning probably 10-12 million are eligible in the United States as a whole. Divide that by 5, and the number ranges from 2 to 2.4 million students eligible each year. While I'm not sure exactly what the expense would be, or how many full versus part-time students that would entail, I'd calculate that at max, it'd cost 2.4 billion, assuming that every student is full time, and the high-end number is the actual number. However, due to there being I'm sure a large number of part-time students, it probably wouldn't take up the whole surplus.

[Deldem]

How's this? Any final amendments, or ones that I missed in the revised version?

Southeastern Educational Incentive Act
1. The Southeast shall provide a $1,000 tax credit per student, indexed to the Atlasian rate of inflation of currency, to all households who have a member enrolled in an institute of higher learning full-time, and a $500 tax credit, indexed to the Atlasian rate of inflation of currency, to a member enrolled part-time. An institute of higher learning shall be defined as any accredited trade school, community college, four-year college, or university.
2. The credit provided shall not exceed the total value of the income tax assessed. (i.e. taxation cannot be less than $0)
3. A full-time student shall be deemed any student who successfully completes a total of 24 credit hours per year, or completes 12 credit hours per semester.
4. A part-time student  shall be deemed any student who successfully completes at least 6, but no more than 23 credit hours per year, or who completes at least 3, but no more than 11, credit hours per semester.
5. This law shall take effect starting for students enrolled within institutes of higher learning during the semester starting in the Fall of 2010.
6. In order to be eligible for the credit, households must be based within the Southeast, though students may study elsewhere.
7. In addition, this credit shall only apply to those households whose annual income after charitable and other deductions is $250,000 or below. This value also shall be indexed to the Atlasian rate of inflation of currency.

[Deldem]

     What if we indexed the value of the tax credit to the rate of inflation as well?

Excellent idea, I've amended the bill in the above post to reflect it.

[Deldem]

Here's the relevant link on the surplus. It'll be good to have it in here for reference later if we need it:

Regional News

Regional Budgets Released
Southeast: This region has revenue of $632 billion and expenses of $630 billion, resulting in a surplus of $2 billion. The surplus is mostly a result of increased taxation, in addition to crisis funds from the federal government. The Southeast has also had success curbing lavish expenditures that had been typical of the region before the creation of the Southeast Legislature. It is recommended that surplus revenue be used predominantly to help the continued troubled industries in the Southeast through a combination of tax cuts/credits and subsidies.

Previous budget report of the Mideast.

And I'll agree with you that income minus deductions is a fair deal.

The era of lavish parties is over in the Southeast? Such a shame. I guess the time are a changing for real. I do remember those wild evenings at the Governor's Plantation back in the day. I know PiT does too.

Next up? BYOB to all regional functions.

[Deldem]

Aye.

[Deldem]

     Well it seems my motion was not terribly popular. Perhaps we should take care of the bills in their pre-existing order?

Eh, we could talk about evilness. Perhaps the speaker could be known as Emperor?

[Deldem]

PiT and I came up with this what do you guys think of this as an amendment to vote on in the regional voting booth?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

We should be the Southeastern Empire. Republics are for the non-evil.

[Deldem]

I'm ready to vote.

[Deldem]

The flag is nice and evil, but we need some sort of villainous motto for it.

[Deldem]

Pretty sure that's not actual Latin.

I found a few Latin translators online to check, and while they aren't necessarily 100% accurate they all give the translation "Abyssus est cassus quod totus diabolus es hic", so it's one missing word in there. If someone has a more accurate translation I'll put that on there, but in the mean time here's the updated runic one.



I'll do the plain English letters if someone wants me to, but I like these better.

That looks awesome.

     Agreed very much.

I like it.

[Deldem]

Aye