Office of butafly [update]

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

OFFICE OF BUTAFLY
~
Now made with 100% recyclable materials!
butafly does not take (and never has taken) contributions from corporations, special interest groups, or anyone else, for that matter

Campaign office on Forest & Falmouth, Portland, Northeast	Campaign office on Division & Clybourn, Chicago, Mideast

This office is always open for questions, comments, &c.

• Platform UPDATED 15-AUG-13
• Campaigns run:
  • January 2013: Mideast Assembly X (debate)
  • May 2013: Mideast Assembly ✓ (debate)
  • June 2013: Northeast Assembly ✓
  • August 2013: Northeast Assembly (debate)
• Positions held:
  • May - June 2013: Mideast Assembly
  • June - November 2013: Northeast Assembly

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

PLATFORM
Changes will be noted in the OP

• TRANSPORTATION · Freedom of movement is a fundamental human right. I support expanding our mass-transit systems to cover every Northeasterner at no cost.
• ENVIRONMENT · Our shrinking levels of biodiversity are truly frightening. I support any effort to help us recover.
• WORKERS' RIGHTS · The fundamental duty of government is to protect the weak from the strong. Northeast workers' comparatively safe position must be carefully maintained.
• BUDGET · I support a balanced budget and the constitutional requirement thereof.
• GAME REFORM · I will support any proposal for game reform that I sincerely believe would make the game better.
• ENERGY · It cannot be refuted that oil and coal consumption are one of the weightiest issues in this world. I support a massive increase in wind and solar (and, if need be, nuclear) energy production.
• EDUCATION · I support radical busing to make our schools income-integrated.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Campaign announcement · 11 April 2013 · Chicago IL

Hello, citisens of the Mideast! I'm here in the largest city of our great region to announce what may not be much of a surprise to some people: I'm running as a Lightist for Assembly in the May elections.

Why? The first reason is our mass-transit systems. (Or lack thereof, more properly) Commuter-rail networks are severely underdeveloped -- compare, for example, the Metra+El here in Chicago to the systems of Karlsruhe or Heidelberg/Mannheim or Nürnberg (etc.), Germany, which all serve cities fractions the size of Chicago. Many Mideast cities of comparable population to those listed have no commuter rail at all.

The point is, we need to expand these systems. I will propose a bill to promote the construction of commuter-rail systems based on the Kansas City model.

The other reason I am running should be obvious -- you have probably voted on some or all of the recent budget law proposals. And while our Assembly has done excellent work on pretty much everything else, they have spectacularly failed on this issue. Below, you'll find a more detailed explanation, but the gist is: "We've been trying to pass balanced-budget amendments that don't actually balance the budget. Let's not do that."

Anyways, those are my two main goals; I hope you agree with them and will help me accomplish them by voting for me next month.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

ON THE MIDEAST BUDGET AMENDMENTS

What a nightmaredamned mess.

Let me start this off by saying that while I wouldn't support a mandatory balanced budget in "real life", I do believe it is a good idea in Atlasia. This is because the Federalists are, for the most part, not raving anti-tax wingnuts. It wouldn't, of course, be my top priority here either, but, well, some of us are dead set on it.

And if we're going to do it, we may as well do it right.

Which we haven't managed to do, thus far. Here are the amendments we got (or will get) to vote on:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[/quote]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[/quote]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[/quote]

Fix to the Mideast Emergency Budget Amendment

Article VII of the Mideast Constitution shall be established and shall read:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The Much Better Mideast Emergency Budget Amendment

Article VII of the Mideast Constitution shall be established and shall read:

Article VII: Miscellaneous

Section 1: Budget

1. The Mideast Government shall be responsible for passing an annual budget. This budget must be on the Governor's desk by July 1st of each year.
2. The Mideast Budget may not exceed 115% of total revenue brought in per fiscal year. Any surplus that is accumulated shall be entered into the "Mideast Emergency Fund."
3. In case of emergency in which the Mideast Government must pass a budget greater than 115% of total revenue, the Assembly may approve such a budget with a two-thirds vote and/or cover some or all of the deficit with money from the "Mideast Emergency Fund."
4. The total debt of the Mideast Region may not exceed $125 billion.
5. If the Mideast Assembly fails to pass an annual budget by July 1, the Assembly shall be required to suspend all other legislation in debate until appropriate measures are taken.

Do you notice something? None of these bills actually require that our budget be balanced. Some of them restrict our budget to an arbitrary level of imbalance, and some of them require, in practice, that our budget be balanced after we have had some arbitrary number of imbalanced budgets. But none of them actually addresses the issue directly.

A debt limit that won't be reached in one year is an utterly awful idea, as well – an Assembly can pass a horrendously imbalanced budget (and yes, a 9% deficit as in the first bill counts as 'horrendously imbalanced') and leave the difficult task of cleaning it up to the Assembly of the next year. And one year is an eternity in Atlasian politics. One year ago (ok, slightly more than a year, but whatever) big bad fab was an Assemblyman. By now, he has completely vanished from Atlasia. So none of these amendments actually ensure accountability, which is, unless I'm mistaken, the whole point.

However, we cannot bind our hands in the case of a natural or unnatural disaster, as Inks's plans do. Placing a balanced budget (or, in this case, a “not-too-imbalanced budget”) over the needs of the victims is, plain and simple, wrong.

I'm not sure why this is so difficult… It seems self-evident that the only way to ensure fiscal responsibility is to mandate that each individual budget is balanced. Not to dance around the issue like we have been doing. This is why I have proposed an initiative to properly settle the issue, hopefully once and for all.

[tmthforu94]

You make many strong points, a Person. A balanced budget was essentially pointless for the Assembly to pass, though, because many on the left vowed to vote against it (not that it mattered, as they found new reasons to vote against every "compromise" proposal).

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

A proper balanced budget amendment was never presented to The People to vote on.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

A proper balanced budget amendment was never presented to The People to vote on.

It was never able to pass the Assembly.  Any amendments close to it were shot down.  If such a proposal was to happen, it would've had to have been introduced by the Governor or the people.  But, yes, I absolutely 100% support a true balanced budget amendment over anything we've passed so far.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Your budget isn't really a "balanced budget" amendment either though.  All it takes is 2/3 majority, and the expenditures could be 9,999% times the revenue raised.  That's not a balanced budget amendment.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Your budget isn't really a "balanced budget" amendment either though.  All it takes is 2/3 majority, and the expenditures could be 9,999% times the revenue raised.  That's not a balanced budget amendment.

Putting a limit on emergency spending is an incredibly bad idea, obviously. And like I've said before, the campaign ads write themselves. "Assemblyman wxyz voted to declare an 'emergency' because he wanted to spend more than we could afford. The only 'emergency' here is voting him out of office."

A proper balanced budget amendment was never presented to The People to vote on.

It was never able to pass the Assembly.  Any amendments close to it were shot down.  If such a proposal was to happen, it would've had to have been introduced by the Governor or the people.  But, yes, I absolutely 100% support a true balanced budget amendment over anything we've passed so far.

Which "amendments close to it" are you talking about? I don't see any.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Endorsed

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=166974.0

We couldn't even get it at simply 110%.  Many wanted at least 125%.  There's no way 100% would have passed.

But 100% with a 2/3 ability to override that is not a balanced budget amendment.  At the point that you can override it, what difference does it make if it's 100%, 110%, or 125%?

[Napoleon]

Why not use the same budget procedure that the Northeast has?

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=166974.0

We couldn't even get it at simply 110%.  Many wanted at least 125%.  There's no way 100% would have passed.

That's not a difference in degree, it's a completely different concept.
Regardless, now you know why you need to elect me, Miles, Ody, &c.

But 100% with a 2/3 ability to override that is not a balanced budget amendment.  At the point that you can override it, what difference does it make if it's 100%, 110%, or 125%?

Like I said:

Your budget isn't really a "balanced budget" amendment either though.  All it takes is 2/3 majority, and the expenditures could be 9,999% times the revenue raised.  That's not a balanced budget amendment.

Putting a limit on emergency spending is an incredibly bad idea, obviously. And like I've said before, the campaign ads write themselves. "Assemblyman wxyz voted to declare an 'emergency' because he wanted to spend more than we could afford. The only 'emergency' here is voting him out of office."

To ensure this would actually be the case, we could pass a law afterwards (I don't think it requires another Constitutional Amendment):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

(draft)
The PM might look something like "The Government of the Mideast is obligated to inform you that it has exercised its emergency powers under Clause VII.1.3 of the Mideast Constitution in order to pass a budget (this would be a link to the passed budget) containing a deficit of (#) for the following reasons: […]"

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Yet we've already determined that passing an unbalanced budget would have little to no effect on elections.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

And I've already explained multiple times that voters will see a huge difference between "passing a budget-deficit" and "declaring a fake emergency".

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

And I've already explained multiple times that voters will see a huge difference between "passing a budget-deficit" and "declaring a fake emergency".

Proof?

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

And I've already explained multiple times that voters will see a huge difference between "passing a budget-deficit" and "declaring a fake emergency".

Proof?

We don't have proof in either direction, besides myself. I'll put a poll up.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

And I've already explained multiple times that voters will see a huge difference between "passing a budget-deficit" and "declaring a fake emergency".

Proof?

We don't have proof in either direction, besides myself. I'll put a poll up.

Of course we do... at least I do.  I had a poll.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

And I've already explained multiple times that voters will see a huge difference between "passing a budget-deficit" and "declaring a fake emergency".

Proof?

We don't have proof in either direction, besides myself. I'll put a poll up.

Of course we do... at least I do.  I had a poll.

Your poll proved that voters saw no difference between the two?

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

And I've already explained multiple times that voters will see a huge difference between "passing a budget-deficit" and "declaring a fake emergency".

Proof?

We don't have proof in either direction, besides myself. I'll put a poll up.

Of course we do... at least I do.  I had a poll.

Your poll proved that voters saw no difference between the two?

Calm down... When you said "in either direction", I thought you were referring to the arguments made by each of us with "Yet we've already determined that passing an unbalanced budget would have little to no effect on elections" being one direction and "And I've already explained multiple times that voters will see a huge difference between "passing a budget-deficit" and "declaring a fake emergency"." being the other.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Let me illustrate what I meant about the commuter-rail systems:

Chicago, IL (2,695,598)	Paris, France (2,234,105)
Indianapolis, IN (820,445)	Marseille, France (839,043)
Columbus, OH (787,033) ⟨none⟩	Amsterdam, Netherlands (798,164)
Detroit, MI (713,777)	Seville, Spain (703,206)
Baltimore, MD (620,961)	Rotterdam, Netherlands (615,752)
Nyman, DC (601,723)	Oslo, Norway (613,285)
Louisville, KY (597,337) ⟨none⟩	Stuttgart, Germany (606,588)
Milwaukee, WI (594,833) ⟨none⟩	Düsseldorf, Germany (588,735)
Kansas City, MO (459,787) ⟨none⟩	Antwerp, Belgium (466,203)
Virginia Beach, VA (437,994) ⟨none⟩	Toulouse, France (437,715)
Cleveland, OH (396,815)	Brno, Czech Republic (378,965)
St Louis, MO (319,294)	Mannheim, Germany (313,174)*
Cincinnati, OH (296,943) ⟨none⟩	Karlsruhe, Germany (294,761)
Lexington, KY (295,803) ⟨none⟩	Catania, Italy (293,458)
Toledo, OH (286,038) ⟨none⟩	Nantes, France (282,853)

*bit misleading, Mannheim is only the red half.

[tmthforu94]

I haven't decided how/if I'll preference, but let me go on the record to say that the Mideast Region needs you in the Assembly.

[Zanas]

A fellow user of urbanrail.net, a fellow brony, and the only one to have ever voted for me in federal elections : Applejack-ly endorsed !

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

And I've already explained multiple times that voters will see a huge difference between "passing a budget-deficit" and "declaring a fake emergency".

Proof?

I suppose we have our answer now.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Today, after months of back and forth over various budget amendment proposals, the people of the Mideast ratified the Balanced Budget Amendment, which finally provides us with a comprehensive and meaningful law.

Thank you to JCL, Siren, Gass, Tmthforu, and everyone else who helped!