FT 8-06: Commonwealth Budget for FY2019 (Passed)

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The floor is open.

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So right off the bat we should probably be looking at spending bills that have been passed over the last year.  I do not know which bill to begin with because I've only been a member of the Parliament since May.  For this, I will be needing assistance from the First Minister.

Until we determine how much of a surplus (or deficit, although this is highly unlikely) we have currently, I would rather hold off on changes to tax figures unless they are already mandated by previous legislation.

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My last message didn't send for some reason but yes, this was copied and pasted from last year's budget.

Now we have at out disposal Wiki libraries of Parliament term history and statutes.  Since Fremont is pretty organized as far as record-keeping, this should be a fairly easy process.

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So the total cost of these figures (not including the Working Retraining and Introduction Act) is $25,122,640,457.  Subtract that from the surplus and we are left with a total of $449,108,859,543 before new taxes.

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I object for the reason YE stated.

A vote on the amendment is open.

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Nay.

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Trumpsucks' amendment is rejected; YE's amendment is adopted.

Debate resumes.

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What's the current tax code at?

I oppose raises with a surplus, obviously, and I also don't want to throw it all at cuts, but depending on where it is right now we could do a slight cut coupled with increased spending.

Trumpsucks' amendment was rejected, so the tax code is the same as the last budget's.

It will change slightly if the drug legalization bill that's currently on the floor gets passed via new sin taxes.

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Fully on board with a negative income tax.

Will we need to call in the GM for the revenue projections on drugs?

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A vote on the amendment is open.

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Aye.  When sin taxes are set too high, people will do anything they can to avoid paying them, in effect creating another black market and causing more hostile confrontations between citizens and law enforcement.  This was the case for Eric Garner, who died during a police chokehold when he was under suspicion of selling "loose" cigarettes.

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With four votes in favor, the amendment is adopted.

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Is it bizarre to anyone else that we're getting so much money from the Carbon Tax with our low levels of spending?

I mean, I wasn't here when Fremont drafted its last budget or adopted the carbon tax.  That revenue figure is awfully large, though.

I'm not sure how we can find the other missing figures without the help of the GM.  Are we at least satisfied with the budget in its current framework?

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All righty.  YE's bills will take the next slots.

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What's the status of this?

Right now I'm looking through older budgets passed by other regions that we can use as a template.  This page provides some examples. 

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Thank you, Encke.

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Ok so here's the deal.

Once we get final numbers, I'll move to reappeal the carbon tax cut from 2018 (suspending the rules to allow the carbon tax bill that should be in the queue on the noticeboard to be moved to the floor for a quick up and down vote and then once that gets the votes to pass, we'll suspend the rules to have an up and down vote here.)

Is that good everyone?

Sounds good to me.  Glad to see we'll have a budget by the end of the session.

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Aye.