SB 117-58: Atlasian Steel Act - Withdrawn

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Atlasian Steel Act

1. All steel manufacturers are brought into public ownership immediately upon passage of this act and shall be placed under the control of an Atlasian Steel Authority.

2. To complete the undertaking as outlined above, the Republic of Atlasia shall establish an Atlasian Steel Authority (hereafter ASA) which shall be comprised of all former privately-held steel companies and shall hold a legal monopoly in these sectors.

3. The purpose of the aforementioned ASA shall be the economization of operations and the modernization of production methods to raise safety and efficiency standards across the country, as well as provide steel at a low cost, prevent competitive waste, and co-ordinate research and development in those sectors.

4. The government of the ASA shall be federal and cooperative. In each region will be established a regional steel authority under a board of directors composed of representatives of labor, the consumers, security, and the environment. The number of labor directors shall be four, and the number of directors for all other constituencies shall be two. Each regional authority will elect five representatives to the national board of directors. Two of the national directors elected by each regional authority shall represent labor, and one each shall represent the consumers, security, and the environment.
 
5. The labor directors shall be chosen by a vote of the steel workers; the consumer directors by a vote of the regional legislature, the security and environment directors by the regional executive at the regional level and by the president at the federal level.

6. The term of a Board director shall be four years.

7. The President shall appoint a Chair of the ASA Board of Directors who shall have no vote unless they are equally divided. The Chair shall serve a four year term.

8. All persons owning any of the aforementioned industry brought into public ownership shall be fairly compensated for the sale of said industries to the Republic of Atlasia.

Sponsor: Dwarven Dragon
Occupying: Slot 5

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The tradition of holding a vote every session on this commonsense bill shall continue.

[DKrol]

Support.

[Joseph Cao]

You didn't even bother to debate it last time and withdrew it from the floor voluntarily, from which I can only assume you don't actually care about this.

Anyway…

Since the sponsor was so kind as to bring it up without linking to all the previous times this bill was shot down and reanimated again…

Here is attempt number one.

I still do not see an argument for nationalizing steel. Nationalizing a dying industry like Yankee says will just shift the burden into the government's hands and become a literal sink hole.

We could make a better use of that money by simply giving the workers money directly if it came to it lol.

I am fine with a rescue plan for steel but this seems like it would do nothing other than light money on fire

Here is attempt number two, which WD successfully rushed to a vote.

As was pointed out in the last Senate it is circular and self-serving logic to say that the steel industry, which declined because of a combination of poorly applied government policy that failed to respond properly to a myriad of factors, is now going to be saved by palming the entire thing off onto the government whose poorly conceived policies were in part responsible for this mess. WD pointed out last time we debated this that other countries have nationalized their steel industries as well but he also conflated not nationalizing with giving up entirely, and that is a false dichotomy – the Senate, if not WD himself, has in the past voted on policies that fall into neither bucket. The difference between a more protectionist trade policy in specific areas, renegotiation with developing markets etc. and full-on nationalization is that the first option doesn't leave the government and by extension the taxpayer with a massive steel bomb in their lap if things go south.

Here is attempt number three.

I opposed this last time and I'll oppose it this time. All steel nationalization does is force the government to undertake a bad investment.

Once the issue with the South is resolved, I'm just going to submit my NAFTA fix-it bill. That and a more aggressive approach to China on the trade issue will help domestic steel. This won't.

The problem with that argument is that, it never ends. Food is essential for survival, so we are going to nationalize the supermarkets too? The farms? Clothing is essential, are we going to nationalize Nike, Wrangler and Polo?

The whole "it is essential" argument for nationalization is a load of crap. Many things are essential. What it comes down to it, is a lack of faith in the ability of people to make decisions for themselves and instead the view that "people must be protected from themselves" by having everything done by the government.

I am all for a public education system sure, but at the same time in many locations, the government has a horrible track record, hence the demand for school choice in those areas. I guess we just force everyone back into that system and "maybe we will fix it later", because it is the gov't and it can be trusted.

When it comes to food, we have established many times over that the most efficient way, to feed the most people is by giving people food stamps (a voucher) to go into a private supermarket and buy groceries often made on a privately owned farm. Sometimes maybe the farm is a cooperative, in which case that is fine also. The point is the system works, and the only ones IRL in recent times to assail that system are people on the right who want to distribute Soviet Union style bags of rice and beans.

On healthcare, we have a market competing public option with all of the enabled powers to negotiate prices and leverage down costs through its vast size and reach. People receive assistance to pay the premiums on this plan on the basis of a sliding scale subsidy. We trust people to make decisions and still managed to shift the incentives to push in all the right directions. A system built thanks to the collaborative efforts of not only myself, but also AHDuke99, Shua, and Lumine pre-reset, and resumed and continued post reset by Scott, DFW, PiT, Goldwater, most recently Mongoose and many others as well.

Our steel industry was once the world leader and it achieve that while being privately owned and operated. Our gov't through a combination of regulations, lack of pro-industrial policies on taxes, trade and infrastructure investment, and a general disregard for domestic productive capabilities, was allowed to wither on the vine.

We are not going to save the steel industry by turning into a zombiefied sector, carried along only by the taxpayers as it creates ever less competitive and ever lower quality steel, until finally taxpayers say enough and it is allowed to die. This is not the road to saving the steel industry, this declares it terminal and puts it on life support.

Senator Scott has a much better concept for how to revive and support a steel industry, without taking this radically centralist step.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

It was withdrawn after a failed cloture vote was held. It was withdrawn so it can have a fresh introduction each session to make it clear we are continuing to vote on this each session until it passes.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

motion for a final vote

[LAKISYLVANIA]

You didn't even bother to debate it last time and withdrew it from the floor voluntarily, from which I can only assume you don't actually care about this.

I've read all the remarks you quoted again.

But with all respect, i just don't really know what there is to debate about it other than, I disagree.

With regards to Yankees post, I live OOC IRL in a country where rails and transport is public, where 99% of education is public and where healthcare is also overdominantly public, and our system simply works.

For instance, in case of healthcare

The Belgian health system covers almost the entire population for a wide range of health services. Residents must be affiliated to a sickness fund of their choice or to the public auxiliary fund; and contributions are proportional to income. Belgium is among the top ten spenders on health across EU countries, reaching 10.7% of GDP in 2019. With relatively high public spending on health, households’ out-of-pocket payments amounted to 18.2%, spent mainly on non-reimbursed services, official co-payments and extra-billings.

The Belgian population enjoys good health and long life expectancy. This is partly due to the population’s good access to many high-quality health services. Over the next few years, major measures are expected to be introduced in Belgium to continue improving the quality of care and efficiency of the health system. Among them are the continuation of the hospital landscape reform, the mental health care reforms, the integrated care projects, the development of a national health research system and the reform of the national fee schedule, Following the COVID-19 crisis, deliberations on how to improve the resilience of the health system are also underway.

The argument is privatisation or mixed ownership, but we are the example that public ownership or nationalization also works, and often increases accessibility to these vital services.

Perhaps steel isn't as vital, but the thing with steel is that private companies need a profit and need revenue. For us this is not the primary goal, since our goal would be to stimulate the economy. As steel is required in a lot of industries, having cheaper steel would aid and help companies that are dependant on this resource and will benefit from having more profit and also reducing the prices of their end product. This in turn would also increase demand of steel, which would cause the steel industry to be revived and more people to be hired. I disagree with the comparison of manifactured goods such as shoes, groceries, furniture and so on as these are end products. There is a good incentive for nationalizing resource industries and keeping manifactured goods privatised.

I also concur with the notion that the steel industry is dying. The steel industry isn't dying, more steel than ever before is being produced globally, just less and less so in Atlasia.



It isn't dying.

And clearly we are doing something wrong, and we shouldn't rely on Chinese steel for our industries. We should increase tax on importing steel from China and make our steel ourselves to protect domestic jobs and stimulate our own industries. Our goal is not to make more revenue as the government, it is to ensure that the economy is booming again, which in their turn would reduce welfare payments and other expenses the other government has, because people will be less reliable on us with a succesful steel industry. And this in turn creates freedom.

This is the way how one creates a healthy government balance.

[fhtagn]

motion for a final vote

objection

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Question is on the motion for a final vote.

AYE (sane, reasonable, IQ of >20)

[DKrol]

Aye

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Aye

[fhtagn]

NAY (sane, reasonable, IQ of >20)

[reagente]

NAY (sane, reasonable, IQ of >20)

[Vice President Christian Man]

Aye

[Coastal Elitist]

Nay

[Joseph Cao]

Healthcare isn't relevant, Laki. There is a somewhat coherent argument for nationalized healthcare, but people are not fundamentally dependent on steel the way they are dependent on healthcare.

And clearly we are doing something wrong, and we shouldn't rely on Chinese steel for our industries. We should increase tax on importing steel from China and make our steel ourselves to protect domestic jobs and stimulate our own industries. Our goal is not to make more revenue as the government, it is to ensure that the economy is booming again, which in their turn would reduce welfare payments and other expenses the other government has, because people will be less reliable on us with a succesful steel industry. And this in turn creates freedom.

Countering the trade problem does not necessitate nationalization at all. What you have written here is an argument for combatting it through a varied selection of trade policies, none of which cover nationalization. There are many ways to counter the issue and lower domestic steel prices that would not turn it into the government's problem, but none of them have been proposed legislatively and the left has simply been hammering the nationalization peg over and over again.

[Dr. MB]

Aye

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

Abstain

[Jay 🏳️‍⚧️]

Nay

[ChiefFireWaterMike]

Nay

[RFayette]

Nay

[Coastal Elitist]

Nay

[Joseph Cao]

Nay.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Motion fails 5-8-1-4.

Withdrawing the bill from the floor, we'll have another vote next session.