The Southern Budget, 2017

[Wisconsin+17]

Regional Spending

•   Pensions
   Base: $65 billion
   Total: $65 billion

•   Health care:
   Base: $200 billion
   Total: $200 billion

•   Education:
   Base: $110 billion
   Total: $110 billion

•   Defense:
   Base: $0.8 billion
   Total: $0.8 billion

•   Welfare:
   Base: $35 billion
   Total: $35 billion

•   Protection:
   Base: $25.2 billion
   Total: $25.2 billion

•   Transportation:
   Base: $50 billion
   Total: $50 billion

•   General government:
   Base: $15 billion
   Total: $15 billion

•   Other spending:
   Base: $25 billion
   Total: $25 billion

Total Regional Spending: $526 billion

Regional Revenue

•   Income Taxes:
   Corporate Income Tax Base: $13.6 billion
   Corporate Income Tax Rate: 5% ($22.7 billion)
   Total: $22.7 billion

•   Social Security Taxes:
   Base: $197.9 billion
   Total: $197.9 billion

•   Ad-valorem Taxes:
   Base: $282.7 billion
   Excise Taxes/Tax-Marijuana Products Sales: 20% ($3.7 billion/year)
   Total: $276.4 billion

•   Fees and Charges:
   Base: $80.5 billion
   Total: $80.5 billion

•   Business and Other Revenue:
   Base: $56 billion
   Total: $56 billion

Total Regional Revenue: $633.5 billion

Balance: $ 107.5 billion


Sponsors are PiT and Ben Kenobi, as Committee members for the Southern Budget Committee.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

What do the current tax rates look like?

[Wisconsin+17]

Corporate tax rate is at 5 percent and the Sales tax right now is 7 percent. Sales tax got raised a couple of points along with the elimination of income tax.

[diptheriadan]

What is 'Protection' and what is included in 'Other Spending'?

[Wisconsin+17]

I'm not sure. I'll have to ask PiT. It was there in the previous budget passed last year, so they are not new categories.

[Wisconsin+17]

PiT states that protection is police. Other doesn't have a detailed breakdown.

[Wisconsin+17]

Since everybody's here, I'm going to put this up for a vote.

You have 48 hours.

[Wisconsin+17]

AYE.

[Blackacre]

NAY

[NeverAgain]

You created a committee to work on a budget, yet there was no activity, other than just a basic copy and paste of the previous budget (which I assumed was just a simple template that would be more detailed the following year), and it created this undetailed mess. Budgets need to be WAY more in-depth and take more than 24-hours to create. This is not a budget, but a inept attempt to articulate the multitudes of steps needed to produce a financial plan for our region.

I think this is a fine starting place, but what is any point of having a budget if we don't first know what it means, nor are able to argue over it!

NAY, as we need to continue debate and discussion over this, not just pass something that will be unhelpful to the purpose of what these budgets are for!

[Wisconsin+17]

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There are significant differences between both budgets, which you would see if you'd actually bothered looking at them.

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Well, then, what are you offering in the way of improvements? You said nothing about this until the vote came.

[Associate Justice PiT]

You created a committee to work on a budget, yet there was no activity, other than just a basic copy and paste of the previous budget (which I assumed was just a simple template that would be more detailed the following year), and it created this undetailed mess. Budgets need to be WAY more in-depth and take more than 24-hours to create. This is not a budget, but a inept attempt to articulate the multitudes of steps needed to produce a financial plan for our region.

I think this is a fine starting place, but what is any point of having a budget if we don't first know what it means, nor are able to argue over it!

NAY, as we need to continue debate and discussion over this, not just pass something that will be unhelpful to the purpose of what these budgets are for!

     The budget is set up in such a way to reflect the sources of numbers that we have, and was created to resemble other extant budgets. There is a baseline which is formed from what our constituent states spend IRL, and acts of the Chamber modify it from there; as it happens the Chamber passes few budget-relevant acts. If you have a better proposal, I would be curious to see it.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

Aye

[Santander]

Aye

[Wisconsin+17]

With 3 to 2 - this passes!

[diptheriadan]

Governor diptheriadan