Cooperatives Administration Act of 2015 (Failed)

[Cranberry]

I am more inclined to support Senator Hagrid's side on the issue here. While certainly cooperatives are worth supporting, he does have a point in that they will, on the short or long term, have to prove themselves by themselves.

Section 2.1 is for me, same as for Senator Hagrid, quite unworkable, simply because there won't be enough cooperatives to begin with.
Section 2.2 will be a rather large cost, I could see myself support paying a share (30%?) of the cost, if you want that.
I don't see where people would derive any capital gain from those bonds as outlined in Section 2.3, and I doubt that many people will suddenly buy such bonds without any revenue in sight.

[Cranberry]

I do as well.

[Cranberry]

AYE

[Cranberry]

What are we spending on the Small Business Administration? I guess a similar figure should suffice?

[Cranberry]

Nix's argumentation makes, as always, perfect sense. I guess I will have to refrain my judgement here on for the time being, would like to see TNF's answer however.

[Cranberry]

Senator Polnut sums up my opinion pretty well and in a nutshell. (This rhymed, yay! )

[Cranberry]

'I don't believe it's our role to promote a particular form of business organization'

Except that you do, because not promoting co-ops means spending federal dollars on contracts with non-cooperative enterprises.

The government is not promoting anything by paying for the goods and services it needs to operate. Contracts should go to companies who can do good work at a reasonably competitive price. If cooperatives cannot deliver on those fronts, then there's a problem inherent to their business model. I'm inclined to believe they can indeed compete on their own.

And since we don't seem to be giving too much help to small business either, I don't see why we should help cooperatives instead.

Exactly. Not giving one thing extra-bonus doesn't mean giving the extra-bonus to its competitors. There is no need for "if you're not for us you're against us" mentality.

[Cranberry]

NAY

We'd be passing something with $TBD in it.

And it's even in bold...

NAY

[Cranberry]

Lief didn't vote, but Blair did.