2009 Atlasian Economic Relief and Recovery Bill (Law'd)

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

PS' amendments to Section 2 are perfectly fine amendments and I'll vote for them.

The language in clause j amendment must be cleaned up to be concise and make sense. However, it seems to be a good amendment, once again.

Alright I have revised my amendment adding a new clause J as follows.

Amendment to the Atlasian Economic Relief and Recovery Bill

Section 2: Infrastructure Investment shall be amended in the following ways:


Clause J Shall be inserted with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly: The office of Private Energy Investment Coordinator is established. The duties of this office include securing private capital to fund the projects in Clause i alongside the Gov't effort. Special attention is to be given to securing the investment necessary to build the power grid in clause i. The amount of private capital should in all cases be equal to the amount provided by the Gov't, except for the above power grid in which Private funing can equal as much as 55% of the total amount of funding private+public.

If there are any other improvements that you can suggest to the language, they would be most welcomed. If not, then I wish the language of my amendment be replaced with the above text.

[MasterJedi]

I hereby open up a vote on this amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

Section 2, Clause a. shall include the words "shovel ready" before the word "highway".

Section 2, Clause i. is replaced with the following: "All projects and purchased materials related to highway, road, and bridge construction or repair projects funded through this legislation are required to go through a competitive bidding process. Preference in bidding shall be given to companies that hire American workers for projects and are closest to the start of construction."

Aye

[President Marokai]

Aye, happily.

[Fritz]

Aye

[Hashemite]

Aye

[I left.]

Aye. I support this and the proposed increases in infrastructure spending.

Sorry I haven´t been around to debate these items...but I´ll be back home on Friday evening.

[Jayhawker]

Aye

[MasterJedi]

With 6 Ayes, 0 Nays and 0 Abstentions this amendment has passed.

Please begin discussing the next one in the queue on PS's list. We need actual debate time on each before the vote starts.

[Fritz]

I believe this one is next:

I propose the following amendment to be added to the queue:

Section 2: Infrastructure Investment shall be amended in the following ways:
Clause a. shall replace $60 billion with $150 billion.
Clauses c., d., e., f. and g. shall replace $10 billion with $30 billion.
Clause h. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$10 billion to repair and modernize the power grid"
Clause i. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$100 billion to develop and implement alternative energy power sources and $50 billion for necessary power distribution grids"
Clause j. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$50 billion to repair, replace and modernize military equipment and facilities"

Purple State, a few words please as to your intent with this amendment?

[President Marokai]

I'm fully in support of this amendment, as I do believe it's essential to have a large a robust infrastructure portion of the stimulus. It puts people to work and builds an infrastructure for future prosperity.

I do wish we could give preference to General Motors when it comes to military equipment and/or vehicles, but all in all, good stuff.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Aye ftr on the previous Amendment.

I fully support this current amendment particulary the military spending which will have most  likely the quickest impact of any project in this bill. It will provide numerous benefits to not only the auto companies but also the parts suppliers. I thank the honerable Senator Purple State for including this in his amendment and I thank the honerable Senator Marokai for his support of this measure.


Although we are already pushing this bills price tag to the limit, I was wondering how much has been earmarked for Energy Assisstance in this bill, and how much has Earmarked to replenish "Crisis Funds" through social services. Considering we now in Hurricane Season I think it would be wise to replenish these funds which have almost certainly either been exhausted or are approaching that since many poor and low income families have used it to help pay Electricity bills. Consider also that the months of November, December, January, and February are usually the most expensive months of the Year both for Electricity and Energy costs on families. Seeing as this coincides with the Christmas Shopping season it would be wise to both replenish crisis funds; increase the limit per family since many, like unfortunately my own RL family, have already reached that limit; and increase Energy assisstance to the poor.  The last thing we want is people have there lights turned off on Christmas, but consider also that if people worry about there abililty to pay for Electricity and heat they will likely spend less on Christmas shopping and thus hurt the economy. It is my belief that if a recovery is still possible, this season will have to beat expectations, otherwise we could see a wave of layoffs and bankruptcies early next year from retail, manufacturing, and other industries that might match or exceed what we have already seen. It is something that we should consider.

[President Marokai]

Some states have HEAP (Home Energy Assistance Program) which assists low-income families with their heating bills, my state included. Perhaps we could make that a national program?

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Some states have HEAP (Home Energy Assistance Program) which assists low-income families with their heating bills, my state included. Perhaps we could make that a national program?

All we got here I think is the federal program LIHEAP. It was small and pretty useless $180. Considering we don't have a heating system and use a combo of Electric heat and Karosene, our Energy costs for the winter probably exceeded $1500, if not more.  Consider that with only one parent able to work and he is on Unemployement which is about $1200 per month. Well you can see where this is going.

Whatever we do it has to be adequately funded and give enough assisstance to really make a difference. As I said there is also the Hurricane season and most of the "Crisis Funds" are exhausted meaning no dough for even those who haven't maxed out since there is none to dish out, those funds definately need to be replenished as well. We should consider rasing the limit for those people like myself who have reached the limit and will thus be screwed when the Winter Electricity bills come in.

[Purple State]

Aye ftr.

I believe this one is next:

I propose the following amendment to be added to the queue:

Section 2: Infrastructure Investment shall be amended in the following ways:
Clause a. shall replace $60 billion with $150 billion.
Clauses c., d., e., f. and g. shall replace $10 billion with $30 billion.
Clause h. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$10 billion to repair and modernize the power grid"
Clause i. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$100 billion to develop and implement alternative energy power sources and $50 billion for necessary power distribution grids"
Clause j. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$50 billion to repair, replace and modernize military equipment and facilities"

Purple State, a few words please as to your intent with this amendment?

I don't think the stimulus, as written, is large enough to result in the desired speedy job recovery. We need to make sure that the massive reductions in private investments as a result of the downturn are replaced by government expenditures in the short run.

[Senator MaxQue]

Aye, ftr

[President Marokai]

Some states have HEAP (Home Energy Assistance Program) which assists low-income families with their heating bills, my state included. Perhaps we could make that a national program?

All we got here I think is the federal program LIHEAP. It was small and pretty useless $180. Considering we don't have a heating system and use a combo of Electric heat and Karosene, our Energy costs for the winter probably exceeded $1500, if not more.  Consider that with only one parent able to work and he is on Unemployement which is about $1200 per month. Well you can see where this is going.

Whatever we do it has to be adequately funded and give enough assisstance to really make a difference. As I said there is also the Hurricane season and most of the "Crisis Funds" are exhausted meaning no dough for even those who haven't maxed out since there is none to dish out, those funds definately need to be replenished as well. We should consider rasing the limit for those people like myself who have reached the limit and will thus be screwed when the Winter Electricity bills come in.

Well, first of all, I feel a little embarrassed that I had no idea this program actually did exist in limited form nation-wide. But you're right and bring up an excellent point, perhaps we should double, even permanently, these energy assistance programs, and scale it down as we hit the income limit. (Which should be expanded.)

Was the $180 a monthly or one-time payment? Do you know any specific numbers? I'll try to get some information out of Ohio's energy assistance program and maybe we can put an improved program together.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Some states have HEAP (Home Energy Assistance Program) which assists low-income families with their heating bills, my state included. Perhaps we could make that a national program?

All we got here I think is the federal program LIHEAP. It was small and pretty useless $180. Considering we don't have a heating system and use a combo of Electric heat and Karosene, our Energy costs for the winter probably exceeded $1500, if not more.  Consider that with only one parent able to work and he is on Unemployement which is about $1200 per month. Well you can see where this is going.

Whatever we do it has to be adequately funded and give enough assisstance to really make a difference. As I said there is also the Hurricane season and most of the "Crisis Funds" are exhausted meaning no dough for even those who haven't maxed out since there is none to dish out, those funds definately need to be replenished as well. We should consider rasing the limit for those people like myself who have reached the limit and will thus be screwed when the Winter Electricity bills come in.

Well, first of all, I feel a little embarrassed that I had no idea this program actually did exist in limited form nation-wide. But you're right and bring up an excellent point, perhaps we should double, even permanently, these energy assistance programs, and scale it down as we hit the income limit. (Which should be expanded.)

Was the $180 a monthly or one-time payment? Do you know any specific numbers? I'll try to get some information out of Ohio's energy assistance program and maybe we can put an improved program together.

One time payment received at the end of the Winter season in Late Jan early Feb.

I think you are confusing two of my proposals, so let me clear this up a little.

1. Expanding The Energy Assisstance.

2. Replenishing Crisis Funds(Available at Social Services)- these can used to help pay anything from electric to paying back rent to keep poor from being evicted(Unfortunately they changed this and here in NC at least they no longer cover back rent). You can see why these funds have been depleted and once they run out, they of course can't provide aid to people.

3. Increase the yearly limit on how much each family can receive, of the those same crisis funds, for those who have already reached it like my family(We still have 5 months left in the year).

[MasterJedi]

I hereby open up a vote on the amendment below. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

Section 2: Infrastructure Investment shall be amended in the following ways:
Clause a. shall replace $60 billion with $150 billion.
Clauses c., d., e., f. and g. shall replace $10 billion with $30 billion.
Clause h. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$10 billion to repair and modernize the power grid"
Clause i. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$100 billion to develop and implement alternative energy power sources and $50 billion for necessary power distribution grids"
Clause j. shall be inserted, with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly, and read as follows: "$50 billion to repair, replace and modernize military equipment and facilities"

Aye

[President Marokai]

Aye

[Fritz]

Aye

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Aye

[Senator MaxQue]

Aye

[Jayhawker]

Aye

[MasterJedi]

With 6 Ayes, 0 Nays and 0 Abstentions this amendment has passed.

[SPC]

Section 3: Aid to the Atlasian Auto Industry ($45+ billion)

   a. The federal government will purchase majority shareholder status in the Big 3 auto companies: General Motors, Ford and Chrysler
   b. An Automobile Industry Reform Board (AIRB) will be selected, tasked with the running of the Big 3
   c. The AIRB will be tasked with refocusing and streamlining production, with a focus on the development and production of fuel efficient and hybrid cars
   d. The Big 3 will also be paid to produce buses and trains, to expand the Atlasian public transportation system
   e. The AIRB will be required to make reports to the Senate every six months
   f. A flexible goal of returning to the Big 3 to private ownership within five years will be set

What clause in the Constitution gives the Senate the power to do this?