The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[Mr. Taft Republican]

While we're thinking infrastructure, can we get some three-lane highways? Everywhere?

[Yelnoc]

While we're thinking infrastructure, can we get some three-lane highways? Everywhere?

We just passed a massive infrastructure bill a page or two back allocating lump sums of federal funds to the states for precisely defined infrastructure categories.  I'm sure the states will make some of those now

PiT, I'm not a good numbers person, though I doubt this will take up more than a fraction of our budget.  If all we're doing is renovating a select few buildings though I wouldn't think it would take more than $1 million, $5 million tops.

[Associate Justice PiT]

While we're thinking infrastructure, can we get some three-lane highways? Everywhere?

We just passed a massive infrastructure bill a page or two back allocating lump sums of federal funds to the states for precisely defined infrastructure categories.  I'm sure the states will make some of those now

PiT, I'm not a good numbers person, though I doubt this will take up more than a fraction of our budget.  If all we're doing is renovating a select few buildings though I wouldn't think it would take more than $1 million, $5 million tops.

     But it might be convenient to plan out any new interstate highways on the regional level. That would be a good place for us to come up with something.

     I was looking at the GSA website & I noticed that there are dozens of federal buildings. If we assume every city with a federal building has a regional building as well, we could renovate all of them, which would cost quite a bit. However, I don't think we could justify that expenditure according to any of the categories laid out.

[Yelnoc]

While we're thinking infrastructure, can we get some three-lane highways? Everywhere?

We just passed a massive infrastructure bill a page or two back allocating lump sums of federal funds to the states for precisely defined infrastructure categories.  I'm sure the states will make some of those now

PiT, I'm not a good numbers person, though I doubt this will take up more than a fraction of our budget.  If all we're doing is renovating a select few buildings though I wouldn't think it would take more than $1 million, $5 million tops.

     But it might be convenient to plan out any new interstate highways on the regional level. That would be a good place for us to come up with something.

     I was looking at the GSA website & I noticed that there are dozens of federal buildings. If we assume every city with a federal building has a regional building as well, we could renovate all of them, which would cost quite a bit. However, I don't think we could justify that expenditure according to any of the categories laid out.

How about $7 million?  I took the below quote from the GSA website...

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And divided 354 million by five and rounded down to 70 million and then assumed that each square foot costs 10 cents to renovate.  It's a very rough figure when you consider that not every square foot will be renovated but some will cost much more than 10 cents but I don't think it is too far off the mark.

As to highways, if anyone has a specific highway they would like to propose feel free to do so.  Should take the money out of the slush fund we just gave to the states or this new stack of cash coming down the tube?

[Associate Justice PiT]

While we're thinking infrastructure, can we get some three-lane highways? Everywhere?

We just passed a massive infrastructure bill a page or two back allocating lump sums of federal funds to the states for precisely defined infrastructure categories.  I'm sure the states will make some of those now

PiT, I'm not a good numbers person, though I doubt this will take up more than a fraction of our budget.  If all we're doing is renovating a select few buildings though I wouldn't think it would take more than $1 million, $5 million tops.

     But it might be convenient to plan out any new interstate highways on the regional level. That would be a good place for us to come up with something.

     I was looking at the GSA website & I noticed that there are dozens of federal buildings. If we assume every city with a federal building has a regional building as well, we could renovate all of them, which would cost quite a bit. However, I don't think we could justify that expenditure according to any of the categories laid out.

How about $7 million?  I took the below quote from the GSA website...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And divided 354 million by five and rounded down to 70 million and then assumed that each square foot costs 10 cents to renovate.  It's a very rough figure when you consider that not every square foot will be renovated but some will cost much more than 10 cents but I don't think it is too far off the mark.

As to highways, if anyone has a specific highway they would like to propose feel free to do so.  Should take the money out of the slush fund we just gave to the states or this new stack of cash coming down the tube?

     I think we should take the money that we have not handed down to the states. The purpose of sending the sum we did to them was to let them decide what projects to spend it on, after all.

[Yelnoc]

While we're thinking infrastructure, can we get some three-lane highways? Everywhere?

We just passed a massive infrastructure bill a page or two back allocating lump sums of federal funds to the states for precisely defined infrastructure categories.  I'm sure the states will make some of those now

PiT, I'm not a good numbers person, though I doubt this will take up more than a fraction of our budget.  If all we're doing is renovating a select few buildings though I wouldn't think it would take more than $1 million, $5 million tops.

     But it might be convenient to plan out any new interstate highways on the regional level. That would be a good place for us to come up with something.

     I was looking at the GSA website & I noticed that there are dozens of federal buildings. If we assume every city with a federal building has a regional building as well, we could renovate all of them, which would cost quite a bit. However, I don't think we could justify that expenditure according to any of the categories laid out.

How about $7 million?  I took the below quote from the GSA website...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And divided 354 million by five and rounded down to 70 million and then assumed that each square foot costs 10 cents to renovate.  It's a very rough figure when you consider that not every square foot will be renovated but some will cost much more than 10 cents but I don't think it is too far off the mark.

As to highways, if anyone has a specific highway they would like to propose feel free to do so.  Should take the money out of the slush fund we just gave to the states or this new stack of cash coming down the tube?

     I think we should take the money that we have not handed down to the states. The purpose of sending the sum we did to them was to let them decide what projects to spend it on, after all.

Right.  So is $7 million ok?  And do any of our other legislators want to draft this bill?  I pulled a muscle in my neck so typing is slow and painful.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     $7 million seems alright. I would draft it myself, but I am pretty busy these days. Sorry.

[SvenssonRS]

With deepest apologies, I announce my resignation from the legislature. Although you've all been great, this forum has effectively lost all meaning to me.

It was fun while it lasted.

[Yelnoc]

With deepest apologies, I announce my resignation from the legislature. Although you've all been great, this forum has effectively lost all meaning to me.

It was fun while it lasted.

Sorry to see you go.  Will you still be hanging around in the other Atlas boards?

[Yelnoc]

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There is something to get us started.  I'll PM Miles, in the meantime, Emperor (or any other IDS citizen), do you have anything to add?

[Yelnoc]

FWI, if there aren't any comments by the end of the day I will put this up to vote.

PiT, if there is only one vote for it but no votes against and no Lt. Governor to cast a tiebreaker what happens?

[Associate Justice PiT]

FWI, if there aren't any comments by the end of the day I will put this up to vote.

PiT, if there is only one vote for it but no votes against and no Lt. Governor to cast a tiebreaker what happens?

     That would depend on what we take to be a quorum. Since we have not stated otherwise, I assume that it would be a majority of seated members, as is the tradition of legislative bodies in the United States. Exactly half is not a majority, so the vote would fail to attain a quorum & automatically fail.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I'm trying to think of something else to put my name on. Any ideas?

[Yelnoc]

I'm trying to think of something else to put my name on. Any ideas?

Well, if you resigned from the Senate to work in the legislature you'd have a lot better chance of getting Duke Expressway's, Duke Memorials, etc.  You could also call yourself Darth Duke. 

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I'm trying to think of something else to put my name on. Any ideas?

Well, if you resigned from the Senate to work in the legislature you'd have a lot better chance of getting Duke Expressway's, Duke Memorials, etc.  You could also call yourself Darth Duke. 

I think it's more fun to funnel federal money to the South using my Senate seat!

Maybe I'll run for a Legislature seat when I retire from the Senate.

[Yelnoc]

Welcome GPORTER to the IDS Legislature.  I will leave the debate on the below bill open for another day before putting it up to vote now that you're here.

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[Associate Justice PiT]

    Indeed, I thought our discussion generated a figure closer to $7 million. We might want to go somewhat higher for cushioning, but I don't think we should be committing $7 billion to renovating buildings.

     Furthermore, we ought to specify the source of the federal money & specify that it was disbursed to the region. Otherwise the bill could be challenged as unconstitutional, since it might look like we are attempting to impose ourselves on the federal government.

[Yelnoc]

Oops, that was a typo.  How about this?

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[Associate Justice PiT]

Oops, that was a typo.  How about this?

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     I made a small typographical correction.

     It occurred to me though that a certain amount must be allotted to the salaries of those who work on the renovation project. With that in mind, 10 cents per square foot seems a bit low.

[Yelnoc]

Oops, that was a typo.  How about this?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

     I made a small typographical correction.

     It occurred to me though that a certain amount must be allotted to the salaries of those who work on the renovation project. With that in mind, 10 cents per square foot seems a bit low.

Wouldn't that be included under the $7 million "renovation" dollars?

[Yelnoc]

I still believe that there are better ways to spend seven million dollars. These buildings that supposedly need to be renovated, they can wait while the economy is in the tank. When the economy gets out of the tank and we can have prosperiety again, we can come back to those buildings.

Maybe at that time, we will have more money than just the stimulius money to spend on renovations and other improvements. Lets expand our thinking and be more mature in the ways that we spend our money. I still plan to vote no for this bill.

Well than, what do you propose to do with the money given to us by the federal government?  This is their second stimulus, the first one we used to revitalize infrastructure so that's out.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     We could just send another bill to the states with more money to fix the roads, highways, & dams of the region.

[Yelnoc]

     We could just send another bill to the states with more money to fix the roads, highways, & dams of the region.

They don't need anymore money.  We just, a week or two ago, gave each state tens of millions (or was it billions) of dollars for that.  Any more money we give them will turn into Highways To Nowhere. 

I still think renovating government buildings is a decent idea; they have been decaying since they were built decades, in some cases centuries ago. 

[Mr. Taft Republican]

You could expand education and social services. This gives people jobs that don't just disappear, such as would be the case with building projects. Teachers, police officers, etc. their jobs don't just go away.

[Yelnoc]

Remember this is just a small piece of the new stimulus.  GPORTER, if you  have a bill you want to propose please draft one.  Taft4Prez, that's a good idea.  General question: should we pass these things together in one bill or in separate ones?