National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities Elimination Bill

[Defarge]

Were this a more in depth simulation, I would absolutely agree with you.  But the fact remains, Atlasian politics is much more focused on simply winning elections that actual governing.

That is not necessarily the case. Senators do put a lot of work into getting legislation passed, or stopping legislation, as do many private citizens. Take this bill, for example: look at all the private opposition that it has stirred up. If the Budget eliminated the NEA, the same interest would exist as well. I would dispute that nobody is interested in the Budget.

The budget is separate from simply abolishing or creating programs.  Prior Senate Sessions did this as well.  But is it neccessary to create a massive, incredibly complicated budget that must be completed prior to the Senate continuing to other business? 

Abolishing and creating organizations has always created controversy, and will continue to be debated with or without a budget.  The question is, whether we should continue to write up a budget, not whether we should continue to debate continuing or creating programs.

[Emsworth]

The budget is separate from simply abolishing or creating programs.  Prior Senate Sessions did this as well.  But is it neccessary to create a massive, incredibly complicated budget that must be completed prior to the Senate continuing to other business? 

Abolishing and creating organizations has always created controversy, and will continue to be debated with or without a budget.  The question is, whether we should continue to write up a budget, not whether we should continue to debate continuing or creating programs.

By requiring the Senate to pass a Budget, the Constitution compels the Senate to consider the abolition or creation of new programs, as well as tax changes. Otherwise, there would be little reason for them to do so.

Furthermore, the Senate needs to pass only one Budget every twelve months. Once it balances the Budget, the Senate need not worry about passing further Budgets for the rest of the whole year. I don't think that this is an unreasonable requirement.

[12th Doctor]

Abolishing the budget = bad idea


Electing people who will do what you want on economic issues= good idea

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My main reason for changing my mind about whether to have a budget or not isn't so much whether it's fun to do so or not, but more down to realism and I suppose up to a point being fair; we have a budget every 12 months, right? It must be balanced, right? And so on. Stuff gets extremely fiddly as well. Thing is we have new Senators sworn in every 2 months, New Presidents every 4 months.
Can anyone else see the problem with that?

If we are going to keep a budget it really has to change; we'll have to do them more often but at the same time they'll have to be easier to do and try to avoid them turning into mindless slashing of programmes that the slashers know absolutely nothing about (or when the "left" takes control, mindless raising of taxes to pay for er... something...)

[Sam Spade]

A few comments from the GM (and former Senator):

Eliminating the budget would, how should we say, unsettle the economic situation in Atlasia.  I'll simply say that much.

The fact is that budgets are extremely complicated and take time.  As GM, I can tell you that simplifying the budget will proportionally yield lesser returns for the amount of money spent, as it does for all things involved with government spending in general.

As to the year-long vs. four-month long question, this was debated when I was in the Senate during the Budget Amendment.  The overall consensus at that time was that doing a budget every four months was too much work and that it should be every year.

If there is a want to change it now, then there should be a change, but be aware of the amount of work necessary to go into it.