Afleitch, if you don't mind answering this question as the vote proceeds:
What role to you envision/want for the SoIA in the budget process? I realize the budget process itself is still unsettled, but surely you can give a reasonably specific idea of how active/passive a role you would like to play, and doing what exactly?
That's quite a tough question actually. While I have no qualms at all in aiding the Budget Process through reporting on expenditure, it should never becomes to excessive and wide so that it is all that we are charged with doing. Ultimately the Senate is charged with making laws. As SOIA, my mandate comes from the President. If I can aid the Senate in anyway then I shall. I would be willing to assist in budgeting the cost of past laws in my time in office and allow the Senate or another committee to focus on new laws and amendments to existing laws. I costed a few bills when in the Senate so I'm happy to do so.
That's encouraging, Afleitch. Hopefully you won't have to do much in terms of pricing the effects of past laws as the Budget Process Committee should address most of that. FWIW, let me give you my overview and hopes for what the SoIA can do in this role:
The SoIA is the President's top adviser and implementer of domestic policy. The budget is obviously a crucial, arguably even paramount, expression of a president's economic agenda. The budget process will take a fair bit of work to maintain and prepare. The SoIA has long been criticized as a do-nothing office. See the
kismet at work here?
Obviously as SoIA you'd take your cue on policy from the President. If the already-busy president wants to wholly immerse himself in the details of budget negotiations, that's his prerogative. That said, hopefully the president would use the SoIA as their point man in coordinating a budget with the Senate and GM. Although the Senate constitutionally has the responsibility to introduce and pass a budget to the president's desk, the SoIA could by informal tradition be expected to prepare the initial detailed budget proposal (under the president's direction, of course) based on the numbers provided by the GM at the beginning of a presidential term. Such proposal would almost certainly be amended and reworked with counter-proposals by the Senate, but the SoIA would still be invaluable if charged with the duty of 'getting the budget ball rolling'.
Think of it as expanding the SoIA's role as the Atlasian equivalent of OMB.
