The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[Dereich]

So...what happens now?

[Dereich]

If he can manage to make things more user-friendly while keeping the wheels turning as he says, I see no reason why Zanas shouldn't be Speaker.

[Dereich]

Imperial Speaker:
[ X ] jerryarkansas
[ ] Zanas46

[Dereich]

Congratulations Zanas.

So do we have to decide what to do with the surplus first then?

[Dereich]

Is our income tax currently flat?

[Dereich]

Hmm...adjusting our income tax for inflation could be a sensible way to use our surplus, if we could calculate out the cost. Anyone know how we'd go about that?

[Dereich]

The current tax system was initially designed to be a form of progressive taxation, but certainly isn't as of now. Virtually everyone pays 6% - a flat tax - which is totally regressive and antithetical to my values. Likewise, conservatives have the chance to lower taxes on many individuals by adjusting these brackets for inflation.

However, I'd favor seeing a doubling of the rates if such action were taken (2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%, 12%) in order to prevent a hemorrhaging of revenue. I'm just a plain ol' prole, though.

I don't know if something so drastic is needed at this time...we need to get a cost analysis on this. Anyway, I agree with Duke that corporate tax reduction should be top priority.

[Dereich]

I could see a scenario where profits are lower then expected causing layoff with the removal of the tax causing more layoffs and a vicious cycle of layoffs. Anyway, while I agree that incentives are a good idea, maybe we should focus on bringing in new jobs?

We could, (If we're not already, I have a hard time finding whether we do or not) offer business tax incentives to bring new jobs to the IDS. We can even tool those incentives towards higher wage jobs or jobs that fulfill certain standards, like Georgia does: http://www.georgia.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Business/Taxation/Business_Incentives_Brochure.pdf

We could also offer infrastructure improvements to the areas where businesses want to relocate, like Florida does with its "road fund" http://www.flgov.com/financial-incentives/

Either way, a general reduction in corporate tax rate is a good idea. 

[Dereich]

I agree with the way discussion is moving on the corporate tax rate, but I'm not sure about the disabled tax credit.

[Dereich]

After looking more into the status of disabled workers, I think I could support the tax credit.

I will, of course, support the corporate tax cut.

[Dereich]

The IDS Budget 2013 :
[X] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] Abstain

The IDS Disability Employment Tax Credit Act
[X] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] Abstain

[Dereich]

I would like to propose a bill which gives tax breaks to a business which moves to our area.  A one percent break will allow even more people to come to our region.

Man, I wish you had brought this up when we were debating what to do with the surplus. But if we were to move forward with this at any point, I'd think that a cut per job (e.g. a $5000 a year tax credit per job) would be better then a blanket cut to any company bringing even one job.

[Dereich]

I hate to interrupt this era of good feelings we've been having, but I'm just announcing here that I've put forth new legislation to lower the minimum wage.

[Dereich]

If nobody else wants to do it, I guess I can take over some/most of these. I certainly won't be able to argue for them as well as their original sponsors though.

[Dereich]

Is there a reason to assume that the regional government could better handle these parks then the federal government could?

[Dereich]

That works and we need to get through this backlog. I motion to table this bill.

[Dereich]

Ok then, motion withdrawn. Zanas?

[Dereich]

You know, we should do more then one bill at a time. It'd get rid of this backlog faster, and I doubt any of us are unable to handle the stress of doing two things at once.

[Dereich]

I'm not aware of any movement to create a federal congress, so I'm not sure that we need to pursue the congressional elections act

[Dereich]

     I like the Clean Power Act, though the cost of commissioning these reactors is one obvious issue to me. I would suggest decommissioning old reactors and selling off whatever we can (other than the waste itself, of course). I doubt that would suffice to pay for the sheer number of new reactors, though.

Well if this act https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Nuclear_Power_Advancement_Act
is still in force (and I don't see why it wouldn't be), the federal government will cover 20% of those replace dirty fuels.

Oh, and to Zanas and Velesco's concerns the federal government agreed here https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Nuclear_Waste_Reprocessing_Act
to cover 75% of the cost of reprocessing as opposed to directly disposing of nuclear waste. So I say we go with that over shooting it to the moon. I see no reason to support this act right now, although I certainly think it could be toned down to help ease the minds of our Labor legislators and the burden on taxpayers.

[Dereich]

Apparently most or all of these are supposed to be built in Texas? And 50 plants seems like way too much. Much of this doesn't make much sense to me so I'm gonna try to amend it.

Amendment:

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[Dereich]

I feel like this should be its own bill. The current bill was clearly focused on nuclear power and while we should look at a comprehensive energy bill, I'd prefer to get the nuclear issue done with now.

[Dereich]

I think we should really get movement going again. If it came to a vote I'd vote nay on Velasco's amendment. I agree that the current bill is poorly named, and calling it the Nuclear Power Act would be more appropriate. But what he's proposing is a totally different matter, and I feel that the current draft is a good idea.

[Dereich]

Well I'd still like a vote on this bill; I think its an important step to better and more efficient power generation in the IDS. But I see the logic in waiting for GM analysis. So perhaps we should move on to the annexation bill and put the nuclear issue on hold? I'm willing to sponsor it and argue for it if no one else will.

[Dereich]

The election is coming up soon, we'll need to have a new election for speaker after that anyway so we should probably wait until then.