Alleviating Rural Poverty Act of 2015

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

1. Can they not already decide to tax them in such fashion?


2. Why should we be regulating how this money is then spent if it is raised by "local authorities"?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yeah, I can't remember exactly why I put that in there, maybe some sort of brain freeze. I originally was going to ask for some sort of tax on second homes but then decided, bizarrely, that that wasn't within our authority so put this in instead.

With regard to Hagrid, I guess we're working with somewhat different versions of rural, but I agree it makes no sense to send one bus to a house an hours drive from anywhere. It's also important that I'm not trying to get a similar level of bus service to that in the cities, the demand simply isn't there. That said, almost every town and village in the UK has at least some, it may only be once or twice a day, access to a bus service, and I see no reason why we shouldn't do the same in atlasia.

The main problem with subsidising cars is that there are whole sections of the population who can't use them, like the very elderly, whereas everyone can use a bus.

There are places where there are towns that spread out as Hagrid alluded too and they have too few people to sustain such a long trip fuel wise and such.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yeah, I can't remember exactly why I put that in there, maybe some sort of brain freeze. I originally was going to ask for some sort of tax on second homes but then decided, bizarrely, that that wasn't within our authority so put this in instead.

With regard to Hagrid, I guess we're working with somewhat different versions of rural, but I agree it makes no sense to send one bus to a house an hours drive from anywhere. It's also important that I'm not trying to get a similar level of bus service to that in the cities, the demand simply isn't there. That said, almost every town and village in the UK has at least some, it may only be once or twice a day, access to a bus service, and I see no reason why we shouldn't do the same in atlasia.

The main problem with subsidising cars is that there are whole sections of the population who can't use them, like the very elderly, whereas everyone can use a bus.

There are places where there are towns that spread out as Hagrid alluded too and they have too few people to sustain such a long trip fuel wise and such.

True, but there are also places where they aren't ludicrously inefficient but aren't commercially viable. Even one or two buses a day to a regional centre would be a real benefit for remote areas. And, frankly, if virtually every village in the highlands can have at least one or two buses a day going somewhere I don't see why most areas in atlasia can't.

North Carolina hill country alone would match or exceed the Scottish Highlands. Add in WV, PA, KY, TN, GA, VA and MD and that is just part of Appalachia.

You have vast stretches of deserts in AZ and plains in Tornado alley where that trip could be a hundred miles just for a small town center.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So we'll be making this already-impractical program even more cost inefficient?

Yes that's my exact plan. I'm proposing environmental legislation just to make this bill even worse

The President said that this is a seed program of sorts. He used the word "kickstart". The inclusion of such a provision would increased the cost of the equipment meaning that the already fraction percentage of rural areas being served, would thus be even worse.


That said, I do support the rest of the amendment though unless the grant structure has issues that I am not thinking of right now.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I agree with the President, we're not calling for buses from sparsely located frontier towns in Texas to drive up to Montana. We're simply trying to support rural bus services, which helps the most vulnerable in our society, helps drive down CO2 emissions and helps economic investment

I never said anything about driving from Texas to Montana. I meant driving from one county to another in Texas or even within some counties themselves. There are counties in Texas with just a few hundred people, or maybe thousand.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I know full well the impact of not having transportion an what it can me if you are in a rural area. We actually do/did have transportion of sorts in the country we moved out of back in January, but it didn't run all hours of the day obviously and it was free if you were on food stamps or similar gov't assistance. However, it was of very little use because the types of jobs in question were hardly the eight to five ones that such service served and it didn't run after a certain time at night.

No one doubts that the routes would be operating at a loss of some kind, hence the purpose behind gov't intervention in this case. However, I would say though that the marginal benefit for the investment should count for something, because there are other places that also assist with rural poverty that could be much more effective potentially and hence why we should still be concerned about the number of people served and the percentage that the ticket sales generate towards the total cost for that reason if no other.

Broadband comes to mind for instance, as does career/technical education, education in general etc. Transportation is not unimportant, nor a secondary concern even, but the multitude of important areas regarding rural poverty, including and extending to issues of health and the related issue of environmental pollution and its impacts on health dictate the need for one to be concerned about the cost, even if operating at a loss is already a given.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

And I would say the point here is that there really is no good public transportation available in rural areas. I argue that it doesn't exist for a reason, but most people seem to disagree with me. I'd be interested to hear what the Vice President has to say actually, because I remember this issue coming up in the past.

But hell, I think vouchers for taxis would be more financially viable than this plan. But again, no one seems to be up for that. Instead we have senators wanting to spread the already limited funds even thinner on greening up buses... when all our car-less countryfolk really care about is getting from here to there. Alleviating those concerns is supposed to be the point of this bill. But now it's getting messy and inefficient. Let's set our minds to one goal and get it done.

Yes, climate change is a serious issue for the entire nation. Small steps like this actually matter-if you don't want to provide funding for green buses then I hope you'll support Cap and Trade, massive reduction in CO2 emissions, Talleyrands upcoming biodiversity act along with a limit on arctic drilling that I want to propose. I'm not going to apologize for trying to reduce our carbon emissions.

 'Country folk?' Don't insult the fine rural citizens of Atlasia by implying they don't care about climate change

You do no one a service by continuing to deliberately miss the point and misconstrue my intentions. This bill is not positioned to reduce GHGs, even in its amended form.

And "countryfolk" is not an insult.

Frankly, you'd do better to show a bit of goodwill. Labor ain't gonna have the numbers it has forever.

As for your argument Mr. President, I understand the interests the state has in making public transportation happen, and I understand that operating at a marginal loss could still be worthwhile. The thing is, public transportation like what we're talking about never just runs at a marginal loss (at least not very often). Even in our cities, where we have the density to support public transportation, the farebox recovery rate, at some places, is less than 20%. So let's make no mistake about the profitability issue: It's more than a marginal loss. And let's also make no mistake about my position: I usually support public transportation anyway. I believe in its power to connect people to opportunities and help create more dynamic, walkable landscapes.

But it won't work in rural areas. The walkability and dynamic streetscape benefit is nil because of the sparse population. Connecting people to opportunities could happen, but at a huge cost that makes it such that there are probably better ways to do it than by bus. I mean, if Los Angeles only recovers 50% of its costs from passengers, I don't see how a place with more sprawl, lower density, and less people could get anywhere near that.

And you talk about the government's interest in funding projects like this, even at a loss. I agree. But these projects are usually financed by the regions and municipalities/counties. They have revenue streams. They find a way to make transit work. If these rural areas don't ready have working transit, it means busses would have to operate there at huge losses... Losses that other levels of government have decided aren't acceptable. Why should the federal government take this task on when a taxi grant could be cheaper and work just as well for the people who need it, if not better?

Because "muh transit" and "muh enviromets."

But now I hate the world because I think it's even worse to put out for more expensive green technologies when already these limited funds will hardly be able to scratch the surface in terms of connecting people to opportunities with an efficient public transit scheme. Hagrid's an evil climate change denier1!!1!

I'm not worried how many seats labor have-even if we had one I'd still propose efforts to clean up the environment

I don't know where you're getting the numbers from regarding green transport. There's clear evidence that electric buses (something I proposed) are cheaper to run and also emit less CO2. I'd be happy to take out Hydrogen buses, and make it a strict electric scheme. Look at this date here, it shows that electric buses are the way forward...

What about the supporting infrastructure? Does that include the cost of building recharging stations for these buses?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It's like you want to waste money.

You don't say!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It's like you want to waste money.

You don't say!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It seems to me just as misguided to say that there are no areas in atlasia that would benefit from a bus service than to say that every rural area in atlasia should have a bus service.
 

Who has said this?


Of course there are some areas that can benefit from buses. High density city, and suburbs of said cities and rural areas within X distance of said city/suburb provided they have Y population.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

By all measures this bill is a train wreck for a number of reasons. Not just the intent and scope, but also the means by which handle the money has this place are divided up like wicked game of Twister.

That said, and taking the lack of posting here as an invitiation to wrest control of the debate and hopefully find some direction, energy and ideas (lest we become the Bush 41 Clinton so often derided for lacking all three in 1992?).

I think to get any sense of direction it is important to establish the primary goal of this bill is. Is a generalized bill on rural poverty? Is it a generalize bill on rural transportation? Is it a bill on tranportation every in the country? Or is it yet another bill aimed at reducing carbon emissions in the transportation infrastructure? Once that determination is made, the bill should be restructured from the title on down to achieve that end.

You must chose, but chose wisely.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Indeed, and it also means that you would be using companies that have existing markets and existing operations as opposed to starting from scratch in an area with no base at all and operating without any revenues as well.

I think Polnut is right on that count.

On the other hand, Polnut, would you be dead set against adding some kind of stipulation be it Talleyrand's or some other formulation to ensure only additions reaching into rural areas qualify for the subsidy?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Indeed, and it also means that you would be using companies that have existing markets and existing operations as opposed to starting from scratch in an area with no base at all and operating without any revenues as well.

I think Polnut is right on that count.

On the other hand, Polnut, would you be dead set against adding some kind of stipulation be it Talleyrand's or some other formulation to ensure only additions reaching into rural areas qualify for the subsidy?

Absolutely.

If we do go beyond just rural though, which is implied as a possibility without a restriction to just rural areas, doesn't that fall out of the purpose of the bill, getting back to the whole bill purpose post that I made unless we want to go for transportation as a focus as opposed to rural poverty?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

How about the subsidy is given to bus routes that stop somewhere that didn't have a service before?

Isn't that what Polnut was pushing though?

I think we need some more beef in the depatment of making sure that it is going to the primary objective here. As in a place that didn't have service before, but also didn't have some other means of service. Like a part of L.A. that has subways and taxis but no bus service. That really doesn't address the issue of rural poverty at all. You could easily find subsidized bus lines being established to rich suburbs and high end communities, which may be fine if you this was a make the transporation sector more green bill, but not so with a rural poverty bill.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think the bill is as good as we are going to get it.

At least now it is narrowly focused on a specific objective, which ironically so much of the debate was spent just trying to sort that out.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

AYE