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

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Unless someone volunteers to be CG, I don't know what we can do with this.

honestly unless someone volunteers to be CG I don't know what we can do with pretty much any legislation that's meaningful.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

since this is just a resolution I ask that this be put up for a vote. I think we can agree it needs to be done, when a new CG is in office. After all, the resolution calls for the audit to be completed "as soon as reasonably possible", and as soon as reasonably possible will be after a CG is appointed. As much as I hate knowing this isn't gonna happen for a while I believe having it on our minds will help.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Note the following is about all the "bills on hold" not just or even this one in particular:

At some point a choice has to be made here.

1. What is the process and outreach for finding replacements for CG and SoS? Are people being actively sought out, are efforts and outreach being made? Or are we just waiting for the phone to ring. I know this doesn't ensure success, and could lead to 100 nos, but you also may just find a yes.

2. What is that we need these people to do? We are "waiting for the SoS" on a particular other bill, but what is it that we need the SoS to do? The SoS advises the President along with the NSC (if it is constituted in a given administration) and then executes the administration's and thereby the country's foreign policy. However, in the absence of the SoS, the administration still exist and the administration theoretically would have an opinion or strategy for a given situation. This is not to dump the load on Sev, I know very painfully well what it is like to have your people resign midstream (glances at some people around the room. ), and in a rather painful example I did the work of the Archivist myself and spent much of early August 2018 putting bills on the Wiki.

3. The Comptroller doesn't work the same way because the GM team is independent from the executive branch. However, at some point we may have to consider sacrificing accuracy for functionality. Make some reasonable calculations based off previous data and then go from there.

4. While I would never consent to agree to Oakvale's opinion that the GM team should be abolished. To some extent we have unintentionally, fallen into a place where he has something of a point. We cannot just pause everything for months on end waiting for the phone to ring, and some white knight to ride in on shiny steed to save us, we have to save ourselves. At the very least we need to be discussing how we can work around these problems because something has to give to break the log jam for the sake of the game.

[Continential]

Unless someone volunteers to be CG, I don't know what we can do with this.

honestly unless someone volunteers to be CG I don't know what we can do with pretty much any legislation that's meaningful.

Why would anyone volunteer to be CG now when the game is considered to be dying or dead by most people and the position has been vacant for 6 months?

[Fmr. Representative Encke]

Nothing is stopping anyone from finishing the audit on their own in the absence of a CG. The entire audit process was based around looking at the the RL budget detail and identifying areas of potential waste from programs that had been transferred over from RL with the reset and were therefore 'hidden' in the rather broad outline that we use in-game. Specifically, Mr. R and I were using the budget appendices (see: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BUDGET-2018-APP). Anyone who wants to contribute to the audit can just look through that pdf and identify areas of redundant spending. It's a measly 1300 pages, should be a piece of cake.

Really, though, the entire premise of giving the audit to the GM department was/is stupid, because the numbers in the RL budget, absent any major changes, should be in-game canon, as the original post-reset budget was transferred from RL and that template has been used ever since. Therefore, the Game Engine's authority really shouldn't be needed at all. IIRC the only reason why we went through with a GM-controlled audit in the first place was because Mr. R agreed to do it (naturally he was very excited about the opportunity to recommend massive spending cuts in an official capacity).

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Withdrawing the request for a final vote. I’m gonna try to make this into a bill creating a task force to complete the audit. Idea off the top of my head is 6 members chosen to be proportionally similar to the Senate (so probably 3 lab, 2 fed, 1 DA/Ind for this next senate) and needing 4/6 votes to make cuts or to try and reverse previous cuts.

I’m somewhat sleep deprived so that idea might not be the best, I want to see how you all think first before making those changes.

[Continential]

Withdrawing the request for a final vote. I’m gonna try to make this into a bill creating a task force to complete the audit. Idea off the top of my head is 6 members chosen to be proportionally similar to the Senate (so probably 3 lab, 2 fed, 1 DA/Ind for this next senate) and needing 4/6 votes to make cuts or to try and reverse previous cuts.

Why would the commission do any cuts aside from cuts to the military seeing as nobody likes cuts.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Withdrawing the request for a final vote. I’m gonna try to make this into a bill creating a task force to complete the audit. Idea off the top of my head is 6 members chosen to be proportionally similar to the Senate (so probably 3 lab, 2 fed, 1 DA/Ind for this next senate) and needing 4/6 votes to make cuts or to try and reverse previous cuts.

Why would the commission do any cuts aside from cuts to the military seeing as nobody likes cuts.

You’d be surprised how my admin was with Reactionary’s cuts in the audit we did. We watered most of them down but we agreed to a lot more than you’d think especially considering that it was pretty left wing.

Either way doesn’t really matter, I forgot today was the last day of my term.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Nothing is stopping anyone from finishing the audit on their own in the absence of a CG. The entire audit process was based around looking at the the RL budget detail and identifying areas of potential waste from programs that had been transferred over from RL with the reset and were therefore 'hidden' in the rather broad outline that we use in-game. Specifically, Mr. R and I were using the budget appendices (see: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BUDGET-2018-APP). Anyone who wants to contribute to the audit can just look through that pdf and identify areas of redundant spending. It's a measly 1300 pages, should be a piece of cake.

Really, though, the entire premise of giving the audit to the GM department was/is stupid, because the numbers in the RL budget, absent any major changes, should be in-game canon, as the original post-reset budget was transferred from RL and that template has been used ever since. Therefore, the Game Engine's authority really shouldn't be needed at all. IIRC the only reason why we went through with a GM-controlled audit in the first place was because Mr. R agreed to do it (naturally he was very excited about the opportunity to recommend massive spending cuts in an official capacity).

Even beyond that, the idea of having the GM team audit the budget makes no sense in terms of game structure. It is kind of like asking God to audit the real life budget. It is the right idea (possibly), but it is really the work of Congress itself under its constitutional provisions as guardians of the purse strings (insert gratuitous lengthy remarks on the origination of the power of the purse, Glorious Revolution and such forth and such like 2013 style). Alternatively, it could be the work of an "independent organization" like a public watch dog group or think tank, a congressional committee (if we had those, not saying we should just throwing it out there), or even the DPC, BPC or similar such entity constituted legislatively or by executive order.

[S019]

I am not exactly sure why an audit is needed, and in many cases, things identified as wasteful spending by an audit can actually be useful. In any case, I don't think spending cuts are a good thing with the pandemic still going on.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am not exactly sure why an audit is needed, and in many cases, things identified as wasteful spending by an audit can actually be useful. In any case, I don't think spending cuts are a good thing with the pandemic still going on.

The main purpose and benefit would be to consolidate efforts. There is the ribbon cutting effect whereby politicians benefit from creating a new program rather than expanding or improving an existing one. Consolidating those duplicated efforts is of benefit from reducing expense on administrative cuts and also from utility of money spent standpoint.

[WD]

Personally, I see nothing controversial or objectionable about the concept behind the underlying audit bill. My main gripe with it is delegating the responsibility of implementation to the GM’s office. However, I do very strongly support the proposal to establish a commission/task force to undertake this.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Withdrawing the request for a final vote. I’m gonna try to make this into a bill creating a task force to complete the audit. Idea off the top of my head is 6 members chosen to be proportionally similar to the Senate (so probably 3 lab, 2 fed, 1 DA/Ind for this next senate) and needing 4/6 votes to make cuts or to try and reverse previous cuts.

I’m somewhat sleep deprived so that idea might not be the best, I want to see how you all think first before making those changes.

I suppose I should work on this since I'm back hopefully I'll have that change done tonight.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Introducing this amendment:

A RESOLUTION
To create a Congressional task force to finish the audit

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.
1. The Senate of Atlasia shall create a 6-member task force to conduct the audit described in HB 1283, including releasing all findings of the audit publicly.
2. The 6 members of the task force shall be members of the Senate, selected by the Senate by majority vote. The composition of the task force shall be politically similar to the composition of the Senate.
a. Should a member of the task force leave the Senate by any means, they shall be replaced by someone of the same party. Should no one from their party be available, or if they are an independent, the Senate shall select a replacement.
3. The Senate asks for any relevant documents that are necessary for the audit to be completed to be given to the Task Force as soon as possible.

Hopefully I covered all the bases here but I get the feeling I didn't. But hey that's what amendments are for, right?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Senators have 24 hours to object to the amendment.

[Joseph Cao]

Guessing this amendment is adopted? I have no particular objections to it.

[S019]

I'm going to be honest, I don't think you can find 6 people willing to do this, and honestly if you can, just let one of them be Comptroller General and clear the obviously large scoring backlog/revise previously poorly done scores.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'm going to be honest, I don't think you can find 6 people willing to do this, and honestly if you can, just let one of them be Comptroller General and clear the obviously large scoring backlog/revise previously poorly done scores.

This was always a terrible idea practically, and it is entirely unsurprising that this law has been on the books for three years without any action taken to implement it.

[Joseph Cao]

I'm going to be honest, I don't think you can find 6 people willing to do this, and honestly if you can, just let one of them be Comptroller General and clear the obviously large scoring backlog/revise previously poorly done scores.

There are not 6 people willing to do this, I think that is obvious. But asking one person to shoulder the burden of revising who knows how many years' worth of imperfect scoring is just as unworkable, if not more so.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

I'd be willing to scale it down to 3 and making the appointment process different.

[S019]

You know what, I don't see this going anywhere, motion to table

[WD]

I second the motion.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Two motions having been raised, a vote is now open on the motion to table. Senators, please vote Aye, Nay, or Abstain.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Aye. When we get our house in order we can take this up again.

[WD]

Aye