SENATE BILL: Ukrainian Technical, Economical and Military Aid (Debating)

[Lumine]

Why did TNF's amendment fail so badly? Section 1 of this bill is totally ridiculous. Why would we ever spend money tracking down the stolen assets of a corrupt Ukrainian leader when there are far more corrupt governments all over the world?  Why are we trying to micromanage Ukraine's economy when there are much poorer countries all over the world? I mean, really, what need is there to spend taxpayer money "diversifying Ukrainian trade?" Where is this money coming from anyway?

Oh, boy, it seems we're going to have a lot of disagreements should you get elected, Deus, xD

If you wish to track down other corrupt governments and help other poor countries I invite you to write a bill regarding that issue, but in this moment my concern is Ukraine due to the geopolitical and strategical situation and because I believe it's important to contain Russia and prevent them from taking over the country (we did committ ourselves to defend their integrity in the 1990's after all). This money is coming from our budget, and I certainly don't feel the need to point out exactly where it comes from. I am very concerned about our budget, truly, and once that discussion arrives I'll work hard to make sure this is not an extra burden for the government. But I am more than willing to spend our money in the foreign stage in order to achieve results, and right now I am interested in achieving positive results in Ukraine. Leaving things alone so they can sort out the issue themselves is a poor choice to take, I believe, specially when our intervention could help that nation.

What does tracking down Yanukovych's stolen goodies have to do with "containing Russia?" How can the money come from "our budget" when we don't have a budget surplus (or so I'm told)? If this bill is successful, we would need to borrow the money, and if we did we would have to use some sort of borrowing instrument (such as a Treasury bond). You need to decide what that is before you pass this bill. Also, what does "diversifying Ukrainian trade" have to do with "containing Russia" or "defending Ukrainian integrity?"

Tracking down the stolen assets serves to help the current Ukrainian government with their work, and I am convinced it's a good idea to lend them our help in that issue. Diversifying Ukrainian trade is key here because they do depend a lot from Russia in certain economic matters (like oil and energy sources, which allows Russia to strangle their economy as they wish). It contains Russia by depriving them of a client and taking away from them the chance to weaken Ukraine in an economic war, as they have done for the past months.

Deus, please look around and try to be realistic here, there's not a single member of the Senate who makes the calculations. I agree with you in some levels, we should do it, and we should care about how much we're spending and in what kind of a mess we are right now on certain areas (see the Health Care debate), but we don't even have the required numbers yet to make such decisions or see what's going to happen. I am certainly not going to let that paralyze my foreign policy efforts, there's a lot to do, and the sums I am requesting are not as large as the ones other projects need (and less than what other nations have sent to Ukraine as well, I might add).

[Deus Naturae]

Why did TNF's amendment fail so badly? Section 1 of this bill is totally ridiculous. Why would we ever spend money tracking down the stolen assets of a corrupt Ukrainian leader when there are far more corrupt governments all over the world?  Why are we trying to micromanage Ukraine's economy when there are much poorer countries all over the world? I mean, really, what need is there to spend taxpayer money "diversifying Ukrainian trade?" Where is this money coming from anyway?

Oh, boy, it seems we're going to have a lot of disagreements should you get elected, Deus, xD

If you wish to track down other corrupt governments and help other poor countries I invite you to write a bill regarding that issue, but in this moment my concern is Ukraine due to the geopolitical and strategical situation and because I believe it's important to contain Russia and prevent them from taking over the country (we did committ ourselves to defend their integrity in the 1990's after all). This money is coming from our budget, and I certainly don't feel the need to point out exactly where it comes from. I am very concerned about our budget, truly, and once that discussion arrives I'll work hard to make sure this is not an extra burden for the government. But I am more than willing to spend our money in the foreign stage in order to achieve results, and right now I am interested in achieving positive results in Ukraine. Leaving things alone so they can sort out the issue themselves is a poor choice to take, I believe, specially when our intervention could help that nation.

What does tracking down Yanukovych's stolen goodies have to do with "containing Russia?" How can the money come from "our budget" when we don't have a budget surplus (or so I'm told)? If this bill is successful, we would need to borrow the money, and if we did we would have to use some sort of borrowing instrument (such as a Treasury bond). You need to decide what that is before you pass this bill. Also, what does "diversifying Ukrainian trade" have to do with "containing Russia" or "defending Ukrainian integrity?"

Tracking down the stolen assets serves to help the current Ukrainian government with their work, and I am convinced it's a good idea to lend them our help in that issue.

Why are you convinced of such a strange conclusion? What does tracking down the assets by a corrupt oligarch have to with anything? How would finding this stuff (how would that even happen anyway, wouldn't most of his assets be in a private bank account somewhere under a fake name?) improve the strategic position of Atlasia or even Ukraine?

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What's stopping Ukraine from buying oil and energy from Europe, Atlasia, or the Middle East? How will handing them taxpayer money solve this problem?

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What "calculations" are you talking about? If you want to engage in $9.5 billion worth of deficit spending, you need to borrow $9.5 billion from somewhere. What's so complex about that?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

How one would go about diversifying another country's economy is a very good question.  Are there other examples one can point to where this has been successful?

[TNF]

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Lumine? Cincy?

[Cincinnatus]

Lumine? Cincy?

I support the amendment, but then I'm not the sponsor.

[Lumine]

Hostile, of course.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The vote Cincy?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Sponsor Feedback: Hostile
Status: A Vote is now open on the underlying legislation, SEnators please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

[TNF]

Aye

[Lumine]

Nay.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Nay.

[President Tyrion]

Aye

[bore]

Aye

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

lean Nay

[Deus Naturae]

Why are people voting Nay on this when the sponsor still has yet to explain why handing Ukraine taxpayer money to "diversify trade" is necessary or how it will even work?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Aye  though I would be interesting in seeing if we can do a reformulated  2.2.

[Lumine]

Why are people voting Nay on this when the sponsor still has yet to explain why handing Ukraine taxpayer money to "diversify trade" is necessary or how it will even work?

Not to dimish the importance of what we're doing, Deus, but Atlasia does allow us to be less specific than in real life. This bill was born by adapting a piece of legislation from OTL America, which ironically had no explanation of what "diversify trade" meant. My understanding of it? The economy of Ukraine is currently suffering from being too centered around a few exportations with Russia being a major part of said market, which means that just like with the energy and gas prices they can strangle Ukraine economically. I have no intention in seeing Ukraine becoming an economic puppet in light of the weakened state of the economy, which is why I had the intention of providing some minor help to Ukraine in order to avoid that undesirable outcome. One could say people are quite opposed to anything that involves foreign spending lately, and I'm quite concerned about that.

EDIT: I removed a rather nonsensical phrase, sorry about that.

[TNF]

Why are people voting Nay on this when the sponsor still has yet to explain why handing Ukraine taxpayer money to "diversify trade" is necessary or how it will even work?

Because MUH FREEDOM

[Deus Naturae]

Why are people voting Nay on this when the sponsor still has yet to explain why handing Ukraine taxpayer money to "diversify trade" is necessary or how it will even work?

Not to dimish the importance of what we're doing, Deus, but Atlasia does allow us to be less specific than in real life. This bill was born by adapting a piece of legislation from OTL America, which ironically had no explanation of what "diversify trade" meant. My understanding of it? The economy of Ukraine is currently suffering from being too centered around a few exportations with Russia being a major part of said market, which means that just like with the energy and gas prices they can strangle Ukraine economically. I have no intention in seeing Ukraine becoming an economic puppet in light of the weakened state of the economy, which is why I had the intention of providing some minor help to Ukraine in order to avoid that undesirable outcome. One could say people are quite opposed to anything that involves foreign spending lately, and I'm quite concerned about that.

EDIT: I removed a rather nonsensical phrase, sorry about that.

Again, why is Ukraine so dependent on Russia for energy supplies? What's preventing them from buying from elsewhere? The fact that real-life politicians chose not to specify any definition either doesn't exactly reassure me. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't seem like this money is going to be put to good use (and I still have no idea what that use would even be) if you use such vague language. Like most of the money we distribute to to foreign countries, this will likely end up in the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats and other cronies.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

In World War I, the supply of Cardiff coal to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) by sea was cut by the German blockage and so they had to train up huge coal drags from the Donets basin to keep the Steel and Iron industry of the Vyborg district running as well as to provide at least some heat for the city, over tracks that were already overstretched to handle the huge flows of supplies to the front and at a time when capcity of the railroad dropped by 60%.

Now the shoe is on the other foot.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Did everyone take a vacation yesterday? Seriously a few of these seem to have been left unposted in for two days or so.

[Lumine]

Did everyone take a vacation yesterday? Seriously a few of these seem to have been left unposted in for two days or so.

I'm just waiting for the vote on the amendment to end to either propose a new amendment of just ask for a final vote, xD

[Deus Naturae]

Again, why is Ukraine so dependent on Russia for energy supplies? What's preventing them from buying from elsewhere?

Pipeline capacity would limit their imports from other sources even if it this oil were not significantly more expensive than the usual prices that the Russians set for Ukraine.

Alright, that makes sense. How will this aid remedy this problem?

[Adam Griffin]

Aye