SR 104-08: Finish the Damn Audit Resolution (Tabled)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

A RESOLUTION
To call for the audit to finally be finished

Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled,

Section I. Title

1. This bill may be known as the Finish the Damn Audit Resolution.

Section II. Background

1. The Congress of Atlasia, on July 28, 2018, passed HB 1283, the Audit the Federal Government Act. The federal audit described in HB 1283 has still yet to conclude.

Section III. Content
1. The Senate of Atlasia calls for the federal audit described in HB 1283 to be completed as soon as reasonably possible, and for the completion of the audit to be a priority of the current administration.

Sponsor: Weatherboy

The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized.

[Senator-elect Spark]

I support

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

This is a pretty simple resolution. I voted on HB 1283 all the way back when I was Representative. My administration completed a small portion of the audit, and the last news we had of it was in May of 2019, during tmth's SOTU address.

The GM team continues to work on the audit of the federal government as we eliminate excess waste.

Since then, we've had no word of it. The GM worked with my admin (specifically the DPC) when we completed the bit that we did. At the very least we need to remind the GM and this administration that part of what we can do to help folks is to make sure we aren't spending money where it isn't needed at all. That's what an audit would help do.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Relevant law

Sounds fairly uncontroversial to me.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I was about to author a bill abolishing Selective Service only to realize we already did that, so I'm offering this amendment:

Section III. Content

1. The Senate of Atlasia calls for the federal audit described in HB 1283 to be completed as soon as reasonably possible, and for the completion of the audit to be a priority of the current administration.

2. This audit must include federal savings incurred from the dissolution of the Selective Service System.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I was about to author a bill abolishing Selective Service only to realize we already did that, so I'm offering this amendment:

Section III. Content

1. The Senate of Atlasia calls for the federal audit described in HB 1283 to be completed as soon as reasonably possible, and for the completion of the audit to be a priority of the current administration.

2. This audit must include federal savings incurred from the dissolution of the Selective Service System.

Is the Selective Service even in the budget? I would assume not considering that was passed 5 years ago but perhaps I am wrong.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I was about to author a bill abolishing Selective Service only to realize we already did that, so I'm offering this amendment:

Section III. Content

1. The Senate of Atlasia calls for the federal audit described in HB 1283 to be completed as soon as reasonably possible, and for the completion of the audit to be a priority of the current administration.

2. This audit must include federal savings incurred from the dissolution of the Selective Service System.

Is the Selective Service even in the budget? I would assume not considering that was passed 5 years ago but perhaps I am wrong.

It's not specifically mentioned in budget, but unless we accounted for that law in the subsequent budget, we are still funding it.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Alright, amendment is friendly. If we find out that it's not needed since it's already accounted for, then we can always strike it out with another amendment.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Senators have 24 hours to object to the amendment.

[Continential]

The vacant Comptroller General does the financial stuff, not the GM.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

The vacant Comptroller General does the financial stuff, not the GM.

Crap.

This resolution will have to go on hold until we figure out what's going to happen to the CG office.

[Sestak]

This was always the problem with audit. Congress took a massive amount of work, most of which will never be used for anything, and dumped it on an already overburdened GM office (now separated into the CG's office or whatever). Even active GM teams that tried to work on the audit made extremely slow progress. At this point, it's a pipe dream that is never going to happen and these continuous resolutions are essentially Congress whining at the game engine to do their job for them.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

If lfromnj doesn't update us soon on his program for the CG, it might be best to just table this.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

In part I do actually agree with Sestak's comment. Perhaps we should do our own audit? I'm not entirely sure how we could do it but if the results were supposed to be publicly released anyway it would make sense to not keep it to only the executive and GM.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Officially withdrawing my amendment. It took two seconds for me to discover the cost and I'd rather just cut it from the current budget at this point.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This was always the problem with audit. Congress took a massive amount of work, most of which will never be used for anything, and dumped it on an already overburdened GM office (now separated into the CG's office or whatever). Even active GM teams that tried to work on the audit made extremely slow progress. At this point, it's a pipe dream that is never going to happen and these continuous resolutions are essentially Congress whining at the game engine to do their job for them.

This happened twelve years ago and has continued since, so it is not like this is something new. There is this thinking that the GM office isn't working, lets fix it legislatively usually in the form of dictating what the GM must do. However, none of these actually make anything happen and unless and until you have someone who can get things done, nothing will change by passing a resolution or a bill dictating to the officers.

It is the literal definition of pushing on a string.

[SevenEleven]

I'm not in favor of making the game even more tedious. It is supposed to be a fun way to pass time and have debates.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I'm not in favor of making the game even more tedious. It is supposed to be a fun way to pass time and have debates.

Still makes sense to not spend money that we could spend elsewhere without making any actual issues occur. Sometimes there's bureaucracy that isn't needed. We are supposed to have some sense of realism here. No rules makes things fun for a while but trying to do things with constraints can be, in my opinion, even more fun.

Hell even Peanut said we needed this to happen regularly waaaay back when we were talking about the audit in my admin

Peanut — 01/06/2019
That's what I mean, we should have an audit biannually, in June and December, maybe

[Continential]

I motion to table this resolution.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I'm willing to restructure the resolution to instead have a new audit conducted by the CG. I just think we seriously need to make sure that money isn't wasted.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I motion to table this resolution.

I would like to table this too for now. I don’t think we have the resources to do an extensive audit as of right now.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

With two senators having motioned to table, a vote is now open.

Senators, on the motion to table please vote Aye, Nay, or Abstain.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I'm going to reluctantly vote aye on tabling for now but I would like to take this back up once we have the resources.

[Continential]

aye

[Senator-elect Spark]

Nay. We've kicked the can down the road far too long on this audit and the government needs to be more fiscally responsible.