Reformation of Our Budgets and Monetary Excellence

[Adam Griffin]

During my confirmation as GM, I made it clear that if confirmed, I had no intention of resuming the cost estimate system that was abandoned under GM Nix.

There are several reasons for this:

• It's a very time-consuming process
• It tapers the legislative prowess of elected officials
• Most people outside of the budget-making process don't pay attention to it
• There's a decade of roughly two dozen GMs each providing (or not) their own estimates in their own ways
• Very little independent verification of costs is possible

I've been brainstorming various ways in which a completely new budget and cost analysis system can be developed, but before I try to unilaterally institute changes, I think the advice of Riley was rather apt: we need to crowdsource some ideas and consensus on what needs to be done. That's where the concept of ROBME (Reformation of Our Budgets and Monetary Excellence) comes into the picture.

I think the mentions of a statute reboot comes at an opportune time for this discussion, and has reinvigorated the ability to have a conversation that pertains to a potential solution to this budgetary/financial situation. As a candidate for VP, this concept was also discussed in October to some degree by Dr. Cynic, Bacon King and myself. I'll paraphrase a quote from a comment I made earlier that ties the relevance of it to this:

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But it's the truth. All of the statutes on the books at the regional (and to a lesser extent, the federal) level make it very difficult to provide an up-to-date, accurate assessment of budgetary conditions. I'd rather fire myself than have to dig through the Wiki to find every single piece of legislation ever passed, and there is plenty that isn't even added to the Wiki. This was why (either Nix or myself, I can't remember which of us) made the proclamation at one point that if it's not on the Wiki, it doesn't exist as far as the office of GM is concerned.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if someone like Inks is the only person in this game who could actually determine or know already the real multi-year surplus of a region; it seems like annual surpluses or deficits just disappear into thin air and are not kept up with. We have to begin keeping track of this stuff, but first, we have to fix the multi-year messes that exist.

My ideas for budgetary reform include:

• utilizing some form of points system that would assess costs (rather than a nominal dollar measurement)
• pegging populations in-game to that of RL via Census numbers, adjusted every 3-6 months (if Mideast makes up 25% of the game's pop, then it's assessed as having ~77,000,000 people for budgetary calculations and the like)
• pushing for statute reboot, or at the very least, a significant elimination of older and/or unused legislation

Obviously this would require regions going along with such a premise, so it'd help to have people who are interested in advocating for significant and responsible reforms of our budgetary measures. I truly believe some form of statute reboot and a healthy, consistent and accurate cost analysis/budgetary system will have to go hand-in-hand, but that's where the rest of you come in.

Anyone who is interested in discussing this issue further is welcome to join this group and help flesh out some more ideas.

[Adam Griffin]

I'm glad to see that there is tentative interest in this from across the political spectrum. Once I get settled in for the evening, I'll comment a bit more on some ideas.

[Adam Griffin]

I have been talking limited legislative reboots for months, Adam.


The reason I say limited is because 1) it will have a better chance of getting done and no so much of wiping out all of our history/contributions critique and 2) if it succeeds it would be easier to then broaden out from such then to start big and fail big. The areas of budgeting and so forth is a perfect jumping off point.

We may disagree, but I think the focus on regional reform in this area is much more important than at the federal level. Some might view the whole federal/regional divide as equal parts problematic, but from my perspective, I view each separate budget as equally important, which means more of a 5:1 problem than a 1:1 problem.

Like I mentioned prior and how I assessed effects and costs the first go-around, I intend to peg regional populations to in-game figures and extrapolate them from the RL figures. So, as of now in that scenario:

U.S. Population: 317,845,487

Mideast: 91,062,732
Northeast: 78,062,851
Midwest: 55,750,098
Pacific: 53,906,595
IDS: 39,063,211

These numbers would be the basis for assessing any type of legislation where spending is not capped or defined as a explicit amount.

We should know how big is our debt as well!

There should be a figure on that at the federal level somewhere; I know I roughly calculated that at the national debt during my first stint as GM. I recall it being somewhere in between $10-12 trillion, but can't remember the exact figure.

[Adam Griffin]

Another concept that I've been considering (which would perhaps require the regions/feds to acquiesce) is the establishment of limits on how many pieces of legislation that involve spending can be passed within a specific time frame. The general idea is a bit like how some in-game legislative bodies have slots for legislation, but this would only apply to bills that involve explicit amounts of spending. I could see there being two types of "slots":

• Spending where estimates are required
• Spending where a defined dollar amount is stated by the legislative body

So after a region were to come to an agreement on the subject, it would be limited to (purely using an arbitrary number as an example here) three pieces of legislation where cost estimates are required and three pieces of legislation with specific dollar amounts stated by the legislators over a two-month period.