OLD: Comprehensive Social Security Reform Act (See new thread: Reference Only)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Damn I forgot, I can't update the OP topic line on this one.

[Napoleon]

Aye, we can always move forward at a later date. 6 months is a bit too long and most of the Senate has no interest in actually debating or contributing to this bill for reasons unknown to me.

[CatoMinor]

Aye

Sorry Antonio, for similar reasons Napoleon brought up, but mainly becuase I just see this as becoming a huge hole that money would be thrown into with no end.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Aye

Antonio,  I'm willing to help simplify this and re-introduce it fairly quickly.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Nay

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Time is up.

Aye (3): Jbrase, Napoleon, and Snowguy
Nay (1): NC Yankee
Abstain (1): Antonio V

Didn't Vote (5): AHDuke99, bgwah, fuzzybigfoot, officepark and shua


WHERE THE HELL IS THE OTHER FIVE?!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know how to tally this really. It says "of those voting" and there are five people who voted unless an abstention does count as such. Three people voted Aye. The problem is with Antonio's abstention. Is that considered as "having voted"? I think it is, in which case this vote has only 3/5th's (60%) voting in favor which is inferior to the 2/3rds (66.67%) required. I would like to see what BK says about this though.

See, the laziness of those other five creates an issue, which in turn causes delay and distraction. I PMed everyone, and Snowguy even updated the damn heading. I don't see how five people failed to do their job here.

[bgwah]

I was deeply considering my vote. I'll copy the sponsor and "abstain."

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Thats nice, but Motions to table only have 48 hour votes and time is up.

[Bacon King]

Yes, this issue has actually been raised before. Given the wording of the OSPR, existing precedent holds that a declared abstention for a table motion essentially has the same effect as voting nay.

Therefore, motion to table has failed.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This Senate fails forever. Since it is clear nobody gives a damn about this bill (and about the amount of work some people, me among others, have put in it), let's call a final vote and kill this finally. My fellow colleagues certainly have better things to do than doing their damn jobs, let's make their life easier.

[Napoleon]

Will the included taxes fully fund this bill?

[Junkie]

This is too bad.  For those that spent so much work on this, good job.  It is a pity.

[Frodo]

This Senate fails forever. Since it is clear nobody gives a damn about this bill (and about the amount of work some people, me among others, have put in it), let's call a final vote and kill this finally. My fellow colleagues certainly have better things to do than doing their damn jobs, let's make their life easier.

I don't see why you can't simply reintroduce this bill in its present form in the next Senate, and start over where you left off.  Better yet, it would be a brand new thread and easier for newer senators to follow.   

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I have a procedural question for the President of the Senate.

These two clauses seem to me to prohibit a final vote from occuring unless a cloture motion has passed or 14 days have passed. Is it your interpretation also that no cloture vote is required if a final vote is requested after the 14th day? Section 8 has always seemed rather inefficient in it's language, in my opinion. It could also mean that cloture could pass with a simple majority if requested after 14 days, but that would be ridiculous and unnecessary.

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[Bacon King]

Note clauses 3 and 4 of the same section of the OSPR, though:

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Debate on a bill is considered to be ceased once the bill has been on the floor for 72 hours and nobody has debated for at least 24 hours. In practice, when I was PPT, I always operated under the assumption that in such circumstances I was implicitly "calling for the vote" by actually starting the vote itself. Whenever I've been running things as VP, however, I've always requested a Senator to actually call for the vote.

Given the wording of the sections I quoted, I've always operated under the assumption that once debate has stopped for 24 hours, any Senator can call for a vote without any further waiting period even if debate renews after the lull (and note that this bill went an entire week without any debate at all, so you're definitely in the clear to start a final vote now)

Cloture is only required for bills where debate hasn't ceased; i.e., where people haven't stopped posting for a 24 hour period.

Also, I've never been entirely sure what Clause 8 there means, as it's kind of awkwardly worded. I do believe though that it means what you think it does, that a cloture vote isn't needed if debate has continued nonstop for two weeks. (However, I could also understand an interpretation that it just means a cloture motion doesn't need a supermajority after two weeks. Guess it wouldn't really matter in most situations anyway.)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Perhaps whoever put in clause 8 was confused about 3, 4, and 5. I put in 7 simply because I thought all this time I had been illegally ending votes prematurely by not going through the cloture process which I figured was required, especially considering what 8 said. Or maybe I just didn't think to consider 3 and 8 in my mind at the same time.


I should have just rewrote the whole damn Section when I had the amendment on the floor, rather than put in two bandaids. Food for thought I guess.


Anyway, a final vote is now open on this bill, please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

[Napoleon]

Can anyone answer my question?

[Bacon King]

Can anyone answer my question?

As far as I can tell from skimming through the bill, the answer seems to be yes, because Section 9 here looks like it implies that the new taxes are adjustable:

Section 9: Limitation of the tax burden

1. In order to avoid an excessive raise of government taxes, it is the will of the legislator that the passage of this bill doesn't result in an augmentation of the total amount of money collected by the government and its agencies of more than 10%.
2. This goal shall in priority be pursued through the repeal of any legislation regarding Social Security prior to this bill, thus nullifying the taxes established under this legislation.
3. One year after the passage of this bill, an independent commission shall be nominated by the Department of Internal Affairs, in order to calculate the amount of money collected by the government and its agencies in the previous year and what it would have been without the passage of this bill. The conclusions of said commission shall be published by the Game Moderator.
4. If the commission determines that the raise in the tax burden due to the passage of this bill has exceeded 10%, the Senate shall implement legislation in order to reduce its amount so that the raise in the tax burden doesn't exceed 10%.

[Napoleon]

Am I mistaken in my interpretation of that section? It seems as if the tax burden is capped at a certain level but how can we be certain that enough revenues are established?

[Bacon King]

Am I mistaken in my interpretation of that section? It seems as if the tax burden is capped at a certain level but how can we be certain that enough revenues are established?

The intention of that section is to form a committee to address the problem if the bill ends up increasing Atlasians' tax burden by more than ten percent. There's no actual cap to the potential tax increase. 

[Napoleon]

I wasn't done debating this bill. I have concerns with some of the wording and workability still. I want to pass this bill but I think that more work is needed if we are to do it right.

I'm disappointed that the Senators who choose not to work on this bill also wont show up to vote on a motion to table.

The question for me, now, is whether or not it is better to pass and later amend this, or to vote it down and reintroduce it for further debate. I am leaning toward option two. It is truly a tough decision but I think a proper phase out/phase in system is undeveloped and the present form can cause systematic complications.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Perhaps whoever put in clause 8 was confused about 3, 4, and 5. I put in 7 simply because I thought all this time I had been illegally ending votes prematurely by not going through the cloture process which I figured was required, especially considering what 8 said. Or maybe I just didn't think to consider 3 and 8 in my mind at the same time.


I should have just rewrote the whole damn Section when I had the amendment on the floor, rather than put in two bandaids. Food for thought I guess.


Anyway, a final vote is now open on this bill, please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

It all has to do with the 24 hour debate clause.  If debate has ceased for 24+ hours, any senator can call for a vote.  Most of the time it'd be the PPT.

If debate has not ceased for 24 hours, but a senator wants to put it to a vote, he must call for a cloture motion which must pass with 2/3 majority.  Upon passing, the vote will open.

As PPT, I had to do cloture motions a few times on bills that were meant to be passed quickly.  The problem is, even in urgent bills, if someone chimes in to say "I think this is a good idea, I will vote yes"... that is considered debate.. so then you have to call for cloture (which is a giant pain in the ass).

Otherwise I don't think you've been breaking the rules.  If you have, it hasn't been noticed.  But now you know... so SHAPE UP OR SHIP OUT


Edit:  And your'e right... section 8 makes absolutely no sense at all.  If 14 days have passed, any motion to bring the bill to a vote must be approved by 2/3 majority only if 2 senators motioned for a vote prior to the 14 days?  What?  That should be completely stricken from the OSPR or reworded completely.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

What's the current status of this?
I think there's a lot of good in this bill. The funding for the health insurance is I think more reliable than the system under the Atlasian National Healthcare Act, and it's good to have the unemployment and elderly insurance spelled out better. Having contributed to this bill after being opposed intially, to the extent that it is a reorgainzation of existing programs rather than new ones I'm now inclined to support it. At least then with all the faults of this there will be a baseline for saying what our programs our, which now I think we just assume are vaguely as IRL but without spelling it out clearly.

[Antonio the Sixth]

My wish is that the Senate passes this bill, and subsequently amends it if this reveals badly-funded or too expensive. On this regard, we're still waiting for Barnes' report (I've PMed him to know when we could expect it, but he didn't answer).

I'd understand however if this bill were voted down and reintroduced later instead. I think it's a pity that we had 6 months to discuss all these issues and were unable to find clear answers.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

As I've said before, both publicly and privately in relation to this Bill - that it has a lot of good in it, but I have perhaps differing perspective on it to the Senator.

I think this particular Bill has been ... mucked about with and tortured too long - I think we need time to take the best parts of this present Bill and develop something that wouldn't necessitate the same long-term agony this Bill has.

My suggestion would be to bring this Bill to a vote ASAP and if it is voted down as it stands, then I hope there would be a plan to re-work it and re-introduce it later on - I think with the acceptance that there are a lot of changes that will need to happen - it will need to be a compromise.