Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

Former President tack50
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	Atlasia needs to draft a new budget « on: September 25, 2020, 06:37:34 PM »
	« edited: September 25, 2020, 06:41:24 PM by Senator tack50 (Lab-Lincoln) »

Ok, basically making this post as a PSA that we need to make a new budget and we are well behind schedule in it. I am partially guilty of this as I should have been more proactive on the issue but whatever.

Yesterday I introduced a Continuing Resolution on behalf of the president, and I am calling on a House representative to sponsor it in that chamber so that it can be passed as soon as possible and we avoid a shutdown.

However, I do not want to do things like last year, where we basically passed the budget from 2018 with very minor modifications. Ideally I want a new budget, that adjusts for at the very least all the bills passed these last 2 years. Passing again a 2 year old budget at this point would not be a great idea.

Thankfully unlike in 2019 we have an active comptroller General, so that is a big plus; but I would not want to overwhelm Blairite so all Congresspeople should try to come up with at least some estimates for the last 2 years worth of bills. (so Blairite can just sign off on the estimates instead of having to actively calculate 1 by 1)

On that note, would some sort of commission help here? (made up of basically all Congresspeople plus the President, VP, Attorney general and Comptroller General I imagine). From what I've traditionally heard Atlasian commissions do not really have a good track record?

Fun fact: This situation is literally the same we are having in Spain irl with our own budget, also dating back to 2018 Tongue

Maybe I should do a poll on that.

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2020, 11:41:09 AM »

But your guys said you would be better at this then we were. Roll Eyes

Also helpful, none of the bills since the last budget are on the wiki practically: https://talkelections.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Federal_statute#23rd_Congress_.283.2F20-5.2F20.29

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2020, 11:52:09 AM »

Quote

AN ACT OF CONGRESS

To establish an organized process to compile all bills generating revenue and all bills mandating federal expenses, for the purpose of finally giving us a budget for the first time since the Atlasian reset.

Be it enacted in both Houses of Congress Assembled

Quote

The Budget Process & Control Act

Section 1: Budget Process Committee
1. The Budget Process Committee shall be a temporary entity to be convened within two weeks of final passage of this act, and shall exist until its mandate is fulfilled at which point it shall be dissolved.

2. The Budget Process Committee shall compile all legislation enacted since the effective date of the Atlasian Legislative Reset until the present, which either raises revenue, mandates expenses or both. The Committee shall then assemble a budget based on these and pre-existing statutes to be submitted to Congress as the Fiscal Year 2018 Budget proposal, now later than 30 days after the committee convened.

3. The final report must have a majority support of the Budget Process Committee and shall be authorized to establish all rules and procedures as is necessary for the efficient functioning of the committee and accomplishment of its mandate stated above.

4. The Budget Process Committee shall consist of two representatives of the Executive Branch, appointed by the President, One member each from the House and the Senate who shall be elected by said chambers. The Committee shall be chaired by the Game Moderator, or by public declaration, the Deputy Game Moderator.

Section 2: Budget Control
1. The President shall submit to Congress a budget proposal by April 30th of each year for the fiscal year commencing October 1st, of the same said year.

2. Failure of the President to submit said budget process, shall result in the reconvening of the budget Process Committee,

3. The committee shall be formed with the same membership selection as described in section 1, and the mandate of said committee shall be the composition and submission to congress of a budget proposal for the same said fiscal year commencing October 1st.

Atlasian People's House of Representatives
Passed 7-0 in the Atlasian House Assembled,

People's Regional Senate
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled
Be it resolved, X President pro tempore

President of Congress
Be it resolved, X Vice President PiT

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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	Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget « Reply #3 on: September 26, 2020, 12:03:54 PM »
	« Edited: September 26, 2020, 05:02:38 PM by Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee »

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2020, 01:30:58 PM »

Ok, so for now here go all the Adam Griffin presidency bills that have defined expenses. For those that are fines I will note that; for the ones with more abstract expenses I will also note that.

>Privacy Restorarion Act of 2019: Fines on breaches of privacy
>Appalachia Reinvestment Act: Fixed cost of 10$ Billion
>Transactions Fairness Act: Fines on breaches of banking regulations
>Insulin Price Cap Act: I can't find anything here that would cost money?
>POSTAL REFORM IS NEEDED ACT: Cost of a commemorative stamps program
>Supporting Atlasian Entrepreneurs Act: Fixed cost of $200 billion

After 2020 budget:
>The ACE Act: Fixed cost of $1 Billion
>Comprehensive Opioid Response Act: Fixed cost of $300 million. Has fines included as well on illegal opioids

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #5 on: October 02, 2020, 12:04:57 PM »

Ok, more bills; didn't notice Yankee had added more to the list Tongue

If you have time, it would be great if you could write down the names of the bills in question as this would mean things go faster. If not that is ok though.

Anyways, here is what I think would be the remainder of the Griffin presidency (starting from the thread ending in 0649):

>Space Exploration, Development, and Settlement Act: Fixed cost of $154 billion
>Red Meat Labeling Act: Fines on unlabled meat
>Youth Financial Learning Act: The bill appropiates money, but does not say how much?
>No Child Should Be Allowed To Live In Poverty In Atlasia Act: Changes tax rates, needs a proper analysis by Blairite
>Wealth Tax Act: Creates a new wealth tax, requires proper analysis by Blairite
>Real Free Filing Act of 2019: Some fees are abolished, which impacts revenue?
>The Black Hills Reclamation Act: Transfers certain lands to Native American tribes and gives them a tax exemption.
>Responsible Estate Tax Act: Creates a new Estate Tax, requires a proper analysis by Blairite
> Unnamed free trade agreement with Kenya: Does Free trade between Atlasia and Kenya, which means a loss of revenue through tariffs?
>Food and Agricultural Merger Act of 2019: Fixed cost of 2.5$ million
>Buffett Rule Act of 2019: Changes taxes on high earners, requires a "proper analysis" by Blairite

List of bills in need of a "proper analysis":

No Child Should Be Allowed To Live In Poverty In Atlasia Act
Wealth Tax Act
Responsible Estate Tax Act
Buffett Rule Act of 2019

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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2020, 01:35:23 PM »

I said I would be adding more on discord. Tongue

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #7 on: October 14, 2020, 06:49:12 AM »

Ok, here go some extra bills; up until the thread ending in 3499

Basically up until the end of the Pericles presidency, minus his COVID bills

>Leip Act: Fines
>To encourage the growth of worker-owned enterprises: Fixed cost of 1 billion
>Comprehensive Opioid Response Act: Fixed cost of 300 million

(end of Griffin presidency)

>The Internet Rights Act of 2019: Fines
>Let People Travel Act: Fixed cost of $400 million
>Women's Health Protection Act: Fixed cost of $800 million?
>Federal Assault Weapon and Automatic Weapon Ban Act: Fines
>MORE FAIRNESS TO WORKERS ACT: Tariffs. Needs some analysis
>PROTECT AND EXPAND SOCIAL SECURITY ACT: Big Social Security overhaul. Need analysis
>Wildfire Relief Act of 2020.: Fixed cost of 5 million
>Coin Composition Revision Act: Savings from changing the nickel so that it falls below nominal value. Needs analysis

List of bills in need of a "proper analysis"

No Child Should Be Allowed To Live In Poverty In Atlasia Act
Wealth Tax Act
Responsible Estate Tax Act
Buffett Rule Act of 2019
MORE FAIRNESS TO WORKERS ACT
PROTECT AND EXPAND SOCIAL SECURITY ACT
Coin Composition Revision Act

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #8 on: October 18, 2020, 06:10:45 AM »

Ok, finally here go the remaining Pericles bills, which are basically his COVID stuff.

>Coronavirus Containment and Emergency Response Act.: No less than a fixed sum of 9.226$ billion. It might be more if the paid leave is paid by the government and not businesses, so I need a clarification on that.
>Emergency Economic Stimulus Act of 2020.: Needs a proper analysis
>More Money for Hurting Small Businesses Act.: $350 billion must be made available in loans. However loans are meant to be returned so this has 0 impact?
>SUPPORT FOR FRONTLINE WORKERS OF THE 2019-2020 CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC RESOLUTION: Adequate provision of PPE, so I don't think this has any direct costs? Or does it need analysis?
>JOBS AND PAY DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC ACT: 20% more salaries for frontline medical workers (needs analysis). Also some loans become grants so needs more analysis.

List of bills in need of a "proper analysis"

No Child Should Be Allowed To Live In Poverty In Atlasia Act
Wealth Tax Act
Responsible Estate Tax Act
Buffett Rule Act of 2019
MORE FAIRNESS TO WORKERS ACT
PROTECT AND EXPAND SOCIAL SECURITY ACT
Coin Composition Revision Act
Emergency Economic Stimulus Act of 2020
JOBS AND PAY DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC ACT

For the people keeping the score at home, this "should" be the plan.

Step 2 is to analyse the bills in need of an analysis. Conventionally this would be done by the Comptroller General (Blairite), but if you want to do things faster you can do the analysis yourself and then tell Blairite to just sign off on it.

Step 3 is to add the bills to the budget, by editing the 2019 budget.

Step 4 is to debate the budget in Congress and (hopefully) pass it.

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Former President tack50
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	Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget « Reply #9 on: November 08, 2020, 07:59:06 AM »
	« Edited: November 17, 2020, 04:47:26 PM by Senator tack50 (Lab-Lincoln) »

Heh, you thought I forgot about this? No I haven't for now, though I've certainly slacked off by a lot Tongue

Anyways, I have sent Blairite a PM to ask if he is willing to help. In the mean time, I will do some "quick and dirty" analysis in case he does not reply, in order to have something we can put into the budget.

No Child Should be allowed to live in Poverty Act

This bill allegedly takes from the Revenue Enhancement Act, which means that it is revenue neutral. So I will not do an analysis for now, but it is one of the easier bills to cost.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=323591.msg6979334#msg6979334

Impact: No net change

Wealth Tax Act

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=323591.msg6990397#msg6990397

The US do not have a wealth tax as of now, however it seems to have been proposed during the RL presidential election by the campaigns of Sanders and Warren. The version passed by Griffin seems to closer resemble the Warren plan so let's look at it.

Warren's plan had a 2% tax on households above 50 million (like Griffin); and 6% tax on households above 1$ billion (Griffin's plan has 4%).

Griffin's plan further has a 5% tax on households above $5 billion and a 6% tax on households above $10 billion.

Warren's plan was slightly less taxing than Griffin's plan, and according to her campaign estimates, it would have raised $375 billion annually. However others put that at a lower figure of $264 billion annually. We will go with the average of $319 billion.

The US seem to have 75000 households above $50 million and 788 billionaires (up until $1 billion, both are the same); with a combined net worth of $3.4 trillion. Of these, 35 are above $10 billion (where both plans converge). A further 112 are between 4 and 10$ trillion in wealth.

So here is the distribution I will use:

$50 M-$1 B: 74212 households ( Huh

trillion total)
$1B - $5 B: 641 households
$5B - $10 B: 112 households
>$10 B: 35 households ($1.328 trillion)

Assuming the 1-5 and 5-10 household groups are equal in wealth (they probably aren't but whatever) that means each of them has a combined wealth of $1.036 trillion.

So here is the differences we will use to find exactly how much Griff's plan will raise:

1-5 B
Warren: $62.16 billion
Griffin: $41.44 billion

5-10B
Warren: 62.16$ billion
Griffin: 51.80$ billion

Difference: -31.08$ billion

Knowing that Warren's plan raises $319 billion and Griffin's plan raises 31 billion less, this bill will raise $288 billion annually

Impact: +288$ billion annually in income

Sources:
https://taxfoundation.org/wealth-tax/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax-explained-1.5333534
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/1/21308816/billionaires-record-america-world-wealthx

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2020, 04:53:58 PM »

Ok here is my attempt at costing yet more bills. With this, the Griffin presidency is 100% finished!

Responsible Estate Tax Act

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=323591.msg7049732#msg7049732

Thankfully, the sponsor of this bill (Devout Centrist) gave an estimate of the impact of the bill. Thank you very much!

Anyways, his estimate was that this would increase revenue from $19 billion/year to $35 billion/year; for a net change of +$16 billion

Impact: +$16 billion annually in income

Buffett Rule Act of 2019

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=323591.msg7087400#msg7087400

Per the sponsor of this bill (YE), this is taken from a real life Democratic proposal from 2012. So because I am lazy I will just take the estimate from the real life Joint Committee on Taxation verbatim (+46.7$ billion):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule

Impact: +46.7$ billion in income

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2020, 05:01:11 PM »

MORE FAIRNESS TO WORKERS Act

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=357808.msg7308618#msg7308618

It seems that the way this bill raises money is through tariffs on countries that aren't compliant with Atlasian trading standards and what not.

This would require me to do a ton of research into what countreis are doing poorly and which aren't, how much Atlasia imports from them, how much is raised from tariffs already, etc. But that would be a ton of work.

So instead I will pretend that the world has magically upgraded its living conditions to Atlasian standards. (or more realistically, that foreign countries do the bare minimum for tariffs not to increase)

Impact: No net change

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #12 on: December 17, 2020, 05:29:35 PM »

Yes I haven't forgotten about this, I just haven't had the time Tongue

Coin Composition Revision Act

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=357808.msg7575597#msg7575597

This one is easy. According to this website the US government loses $33.5 million from nickel production each year. I will just take this figure and reduce it to 0, which means a net revenue of $33.5 million.

Impact: +$0.0335 billion

Economic Stimulus Act of 2020

Oh boy, this is a big one. I am not sure how many extensions got signed, but for now I will take the original version (which just ran until October). Anyways, let's break it down into sections:

Section 2.1 (2000$ UBI for all adult citizens): This one is simple. I will assume here that citizen refers to actually everyone living in Atlasia and includes permanent residents too. There are basically 11.5 months (after January it decreases gradually) worth of stimulus. There are 209 million people in the country above the age of 18.

With all of this, the expense is (and I am not kidding): 209 000 000 x 2000 x 11.5 = 4 807 000 000 000

Total: - $4807 billion

Section 2.2 (1000$ UBI for households with kids): There are 9.2 million households with kids in Atlasia. Extra 1000$, and again 11.5 months:

1000 x 9200000 x 11.5 = $105 800 000 000

Total: -$105.8 billion

Section 3.1 (Tax cuts): I will handle these when we get to the budget, as after all the budget bill can overwrite this easily

Sections 4 and 5: I don't think these appropiate money so the impact is neutral

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #13 on: December 17, 2020, 05:39:41 PM »

JOBS AND PAY DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC ACT

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=357808.msg7579493#msg7579493

The only section that I think has impact is Section IV I think, where the Atlasian government pays out of pocket a further 20% to workers in their salaries.

According to this report there are "more than 30 million frontline workers, so we will pretend the number is exactly 30 000 001 people Tongue

And according to this other report the US on average paid "frontline workers" $79829 in salaries.

So the calculation should be something like this:

79829 * 0.2 * 30 000 001 = -$478.97 billion

Impact: -$478.97 billion

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #14 on: December 17, 2020, 05:41:02 PM »

By the way, I have given up on the big social security bill. It is just too big of an overhaul and I can't see it based on any RL proposal. So I will just leave it alone and hope Congress increases pension spending or something.

Also with this final bill and giving up; the costing is done!!!!! Cheesy

Now we just need to package all this information into a neat budget and pass it.

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Former President tack50
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Re: Atlasia needs to draft a new budget

« Reply #15 on: December 19, 2020, 10:42:56 AM »

OK, so I have finally packaged up the budget and introduced in Congress so that we can debate it, as well as any further tax increases or decreases that we see fit to do; or if we want to repeal certain laws to cut costs.

Worth noting that Atlasia already had a Wealth Tax in the past, so we now have 2 wealth taxes Huh

(reminds me of when because of regional + federal income taxes some regions were taxing the rich at over 100% lol)

Revenue in Atlasia has interestingly increased by $300 Billion, though a big part of that is caused due to having 2 Wealth taxes now.

In terms of "normal" spending, the only real big increase is an increase to the NASA budget (essencially doubling it) thanks to Kingpoleon. I remember it was a bill where basically Griffin bribed Kingpoleon to get his vote lol. Anyways I guess it did its job of putting Griffin in the White House, so I will be looking forward to reverting the budget increase.

There was a roughly 8 billion discrepancy in "Non ANH Healthcare spending that I was unable to solve between 2019 and 2020.

However, by far the biggest increase to the deficit comes from the COVID stimulus. I have actually only taken the versions of the bills without the extensions passed by Congress since I am not sure at this point how long the stimulus is supposed to be running for. Thankfully Covid spending is one time spending and we should be back in track to eventually balancing the budget in 2021 but we've still increased the deficit by 5 trillion overnight.

To get an idea of how big the stimulus is; it is 1 trillion larger than the entire spending of the federal government in everything else!

In the version I've introduced in Congress I've taken the liberty to put the new parts of the budget in blue; so that we can better know what we will be adding to the budget.

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