South: 2015 South Budget

[Associate Justice PiT]

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     Sponsor: PiT

[Associate Justice PiT]

     This is something we need to do. I have not updated the numbers yet, because we ran into a bit of an issue with nobody else knowing how to do it. I want to go through the steps in this thread, so a new generation of civil servants in the South are familiar with them, and also to record it in a more condensed form.

[Adam Griffin]

A few months late on this, eh?

[Associate Justice PiT]

A few months late on this, eh?

     The original 2011 budget came out well into the year too. Retroactive budgeting is a specialty for us here.

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Is the big red number at the bottom our deficit?

And I thought there was no income tax...

Sorry for all the questions

[Associate Justice PiT]

     There was a deficit last year, but we ended up resolving it. I took the text from the original bill passed.

[Flake]

So after y'all told me cutting those taxes would not hurt the budget, we're in a deficit in this estimate?

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Oh, so we have to update the numbers then (sorry I kinda skipped through the post where you said that).

Is anyone in the legislature or Flo familiar with how the budgeting process works?

[PPT Spiral]

So after y'all told me cutting those taxes would not hurt the budget, we're in a deficit in this estimate?

The numbers in the budget that was posted aren't final. PiT still has to update it, so we may very well have a surplus.

In any case, I'm definitely interested in learning how the budgeting process works.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     The first step is to go to usgovernmentspending.com and usgovernmentrevenue.com to get the state-by-state numbers for this breakdown. Add them all up for the states that comprise our region. I'll take out healthcare at this point. Puerto Rico is not included, so that is assumed to be the population-adjusted average. I'll compute the numbers and post an update.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Here it is with spending updated. I should get to revenue tomorrow.

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     See, isn't that a tidy little surplus?

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Is health care nationalized?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Is health care nationalized?

     Yes it is, under a program colloquially known as Fritzcare (for President Fritz, as a parallel to Obamacare). Essentially all regional health care spending was Medicaid, which no longer exists. That's why we don't have any health care spending now. Shout out to Potus for noticing that this was an issue.

     A little down the line, something like this will come up again.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I am now updating revenue. At this point I will incorporate the abolishment of the income tax, so I don't waste time tallying it up. This one is quicker, since there are only three categories to add up.

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     Next step is the tricky one now: incorporate bills that carry changes in spending.

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Looks great so far, how did we get from a defecit to positive balance?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Both spending and revenue have gone down, but spending has gone down a lot more, which has generated a surplus for us. How's that for libertarianism in action?

     We did manage to balance our budget in 2014, which we did by passing a particular bill, which is the only one I know of to not be incorporated into the current budget. I will go and look through the old bills (from the beginning of 2014) to see if there are any other laws passed with budgetary implications, but y'all are also welcome to pitch in and look too. Dealing with the statute is a valuable learning experience.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Looking at the laws passed within the last year, there are a few that affect budgeting. Most are simple, but I am looking at the Small Business Growth Act and that one is more complicated:

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     I'll have to look into crunching the numbers. By the way, I want to amend that bill so the new employee has to be a citizen or legal permanent resident. As written they could get a credit for bringing in H1B's, which would altogether defeat the point of the law.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Guessing, I'd say there's 3 million hires every year in the region (1 million college grads, 1.5 million high school grads, .5 million position changers). 10% in small companies, works out to 300,000 small business hires => $1.2 billion.

     This is a very rough estimate, but the numbers to make it are hard to find and I just want to get it over with so we can complete the budget. I think this looks good. If anyone else doesn't, then we can try again.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     This should be the final version. A little time to look it over and we can proceed to a final vote.

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Seems perfect

[Associate Justice PiT]

     This bill is now up for a final vote.

[windjammer]

Hey,
Sorry for bothering you, but I like following debates about budget in the other regions (so I can learn a lot of things).

I just noticed that "Base" grants you 154 billion. What is this tax please?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Hey,
Sorry for bothering you, but I like following debates about budget in the other regions (so I can learn a lot of things).

I just noticed that "Base" grants you 154 billion. What is this tax please?

     Not a problem, I am here to explain things. For any spending or revenue category that is nonzero, "Base" is the sum of the relevant number for the ten states that comprise the South. The assumption we adopted was that the regional government replaced all of the state governments, and unless otherwise stated was simply continuing to operate in the same fashion as those state governments.

     Also, aye on the bill.

[windjammer]

Hey,
Sorry for bothering you, but I like following debates about budget in the other regions (so I can learn a lot of things).

I just noticed that "Base" grants you 154 billion. What is this tax please?

     Not a problem, I am here to explain things. For any spending or revenue category that is nonzero, "Base" is the sum of the relevant number for the ten states that comprise the South. The assumption we adopted was that the regional government replaced all of the state governments, and unless otherwise stated was simply continuing to operate in the same fashion as those state governments.

     Also, aye on the bill.

So what is it exactly? A sales tax?

[PPT Spiral]

Looks fair to me!

Aye