Senate Protest and Analysis Thread

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

anyone else find it strange that a bill could be passed or a nominee confirmed with votes by only 4 Senators in favor?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

In the event that shua's lawsuit succeeds, a fix will be needed.  I have a proposed one, but it would be a pain for the SoFE to administer, so you might want to consult with Franzl to see if he has any better ideas.

Improvement of Election Certification Act

The Consolidated Electoral System Reform Act is amended by inserting the following as Clause 2a of Section 10 of that Act:

2a. In certifying the result the voting booth administrator shall provide a copy of each ballot that is in the voting booth.  Said copy may be in the form of a quote of the ballot, a screenshot of one or more ballots, or such other form that will provide a complete and accurate record of voter intent. This shall be done for all ballots, including any that are discounted under Clause 3 of this Section. In any lawsuit challenging the validity of certified election results, said copy shall be considered prima facie evidence of the state of the voting booth at the time of certification.

i am not challenging this matter on the basis of the consolidated electoral system reform act. i am challenging it on the basis of our constitution. that is the thing that would have to be amended.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

i am not challenging this matter on the basis of the consolidated electoral system reform act. i am challenging it on the basis of our constitution. that is the thing that would have to be amended.

I do not believe you have any chance of persuading the court to apply Article V Section 2 Clause 8 to a ballot deleted after the vote has been certified.

You might have a chance of persuading the court that there is insufficient evidence that gporter's ballot existed to be counted and that therefore it should not be used to determine who won the election. (For that matter even if you succeed in your constitutional claim, and the Constitution needs amending so that it would not apply, I can easily see a future case where the reliability of what votes had been certified would come up, and my proposed bill would help establish a standard of evidence in such cases.)

i am curious as to whether you see anything in the constitution that would limit the applicability of that clause.  you do make a good point about the need to improve reliability in election certification process that would extend beyond this particular issue.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Looks like nothing I propose is ever going to have any support. So what's the point of my service here?

you've been proposing plenty of legislation, so please don't be upset if a couple bills don't go anywhere.  you are still one of the more active and hence influential Senators in the debates.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Should I restore the stupid PM's? It's not enough but atleast it would speed up the votes. We are taking to long to deliberate on bills. We can't keep having discussions that take a day for each person to respond. It seems that very rarely are Senators ever online at one point in time. I realize that would be difficult to insist on trying to have everyone one during a specific set of hours.

sorry I guess you wanted to discuss this. I don't really know how it worked in the past, but I would be okay with receiving PMs when there is a vote.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If I were a Senator, I would neither want nor need annoying PMs. Imagine having to remind your real life Senator that they have to go vote!

they too have people who tell them when the vote is. and they paid a lot more than we do.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If I were a Senator, I would neither want nor need annoying PMs. Imagine having to remind your real life Senator that they have to go vote!

they too have people who tell them when the vote is. and they paid a lot more than we do.

They have a staff but they seem to place a higher importance on making the vote than our Senators do. There is no reason for complacency when improvements can be made.

I agree, but I think the PMs helpful so Senators don't miss a vote without knowing it.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

So, you guys might want to consider passing constitutional amendments to fix the dates of the elections, ban citizens from running for office in regions they do not reside, and post their registration in the registration thread.

I introduced an amendment to change the election calendar.  The Constitution, as I read it, gives the power of determining declaration procedures to the Senate for Federal offices, so that can be done by a statute/amendment to election law.  I don't think the registration issue would require an amendment either.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's a shame that the regional elections amendment went to a vote without an agreement on the details. I counted 6 votes in favor of the general principle, which would be enough with only 8-9 sworn in Senators.
It seems like if you had the SoFE distribute the Presidential election section of the ballot to the various regions (to vote alongside the region administered Senate race), which would then be returned to the SoFE for counting and certifying, that might have worked as a good compromise.

So basically, if this fails, it's not a reason to give up on the idea.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I'm going to be blunt. Repealing of the Privacy Protection Act was sensless. Law in Atlasia is directly contradicting forum rules.

Beside, I'm opposing violating or private conversations as a principle.

I've always agreed with you on this Kal.

Napoleon, I think you need to change the name of your bill. There is a Privacy Protection Act that was passed before (and then repealed), and calling an unrelated bill by the same name would be very confusing.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I can't confirm myself you know

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I need to find out the answer to something as I work on calculating the budget:

Were all prior welfare programs repealed by the CSSRA, or just those with analogues in the final bill?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I need to find out the answer to something as I work on calculating the budget:

Were all prior welfare programs repealed by the CSSRA, or just those with analogues in the final bill?

I'm going to just assume the latter.

Not a single Senate post on Thursday! ( not complaining, just interesting.)
Did the Senate have the day off?  Or was everyone just too distracted by Newt?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

There are a few bills that have passed but have not been signed, and the thread title statuses have not been updated. They probably need to be put in the WH thread or else a PM to the Prez.  Also, the wiki could use some updating - whoever's job it is to do that since we don't have an AG.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

There's a problem in the Trim the Fat Act that was also in the Health Spending Adjustment Act.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is absolutely no way to reduce the costs of Atlasian National Healthcare without changing the way the program works. Either the Atlasian government is responsible for the full cost of it or it isn't.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

There's a problem in the Trim the Fat Act that was also in the Health Spending Adjustment Act.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is absolutely no way to reduce the costs of Atlasian National Healthcare without changing the way the program works. Either the Atlasian government is responsible for the full cost of it or it isn't.

I still fail to understand how we're falling so short of paying for it. With our tax rates and our simplified welfare structure there should be few problems with dealing with our healthcare spending.

If you don't think the cost of the program is a problem, why did you write a bill reducing doctors' reimbursement for providing mandated care?   

I think some people don't like the idea of having such a huge payroll tax.   And considering the ANHA provides free of charge more coverage than any private insurance plan in existence, I think we can expect that people will continue to move into the program, thus increasing costs.

What do you mean by "simplified welfare structure"?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I think we can reduce costs with the program, but I just take issue with your overall revenue numbers. The idea that we're making only a small amount more in income tax revenue than the actual United States, despite taxing more people and having them be significantly higher and more progressive, seems especially insane to me.

Try as I might, I don't see any way those tax rates come up with more than about 200 Billion over RL. I applied the change in rates as best I could to tax revenue data, and tended to err on the side of higher revenue.
We raise taxes on what amounts to about half the US tax base, by a good deal less than half for most of those taxpayers. These are marginal rates, so even the richest aren't paying that full 60%.  Some people may have expected half a trillion from it, but I haven't a clue why. It's not as though we have that much more income equality than the US.
Note I was quite generous in those corporate income tax figures. Sometimes individual and corporate income tax figures are combined when income tax revenues are cited, so I don't know if that's throwing you off.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Even "taxing the rich" has its limits.

Blah blah blah. We should be raking in significantly more in income tax revenue than we do. If we have a blue avatar GM running wild with his own philosophy on how he wants things work, as opposed to how things actually work, then whatever. I suppose we're burdened by him being Game God either way.

Oh man, imagine what you'd be saying if I'd actually assumed the existence of Laffer curve effects! Maybe I should have assumed the existence of a million trillionaire overlords to tax for whatever castles in the clouds we dream up, instead of using silly things like math and IRS data tables.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Shua is a great GM, how come all I see from you is posts bitching about this or whining about? You really have nothing positive to say and it is such a turn off.

Please take your demagoguery elsewhere. It is beyond transparent at this point.

Shua has been "okay" at best. He hasn't been as active as I was, or even as Badger was. He's only praised because of no one elses willingness to do the job at all. I also dislike his tendency to completely disregard all previous GM stats right back to Purple State.

If all of your criticism of me didn't exude willful dishonesty, I might take it seriously. In the meantime, I will continue freely speaking my mind on these issues, even if you enjoy jumping on every other word I say and winding up your faux-outrage.

If you're going to pop in here to pretend to be nice, though, then at least pop into the three ongoing votes I started hours ago. It's the least you could do.

I really wish you wouldn't be so cryptic about these things. I wasn't around when Purple Sate was GM so I haven't a clue what you're talking about.  The unemployment numbers at least are completely continuous with your numbers. My office has always been open. It's hard for me to improve if I'm not getting any feedback. And it's discouraging when the Senate outright ignores my analysis nearly unanimously without explanation.

I never claimed I was as good a GM as you or Badger, and I believe I said as much when Snowguy recruited me. But I did a revenue analysis, so people know where the revenue is coming from, which no one ever bothered to do before. I admit that took up a lot of my focus as GM, but I think it was worth it. But Hell, if you think I'm not doing a good job, call for a vote for my removal. I'd welcome the trial.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

one budget update. (The latter is supposed to be done monthly.)

I decided I wanted to get the budget complete and on the right track the first time I posted it.   I'm not aware of any laws I broke by not putting one out monthly.

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and the individual concerns I haven't addressed are . . . ?

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right, because the Senate is so interested in what I have to say! 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I really do appreciate people trying to defend me, but there's no need for it here.  It's just giving our esteemed PPT an opportunity to criticize me while ignoring my posts.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I really do appreciate people trying to defend me, but there's no need for it here.  It's just giving our esteemed PPT an opportunity to criticize me while ignoring my posts.

The only thing that's sticking with me here and irritating me is the raping of the word "great" to the point that it apparently means nothing, anymore. Whatever problems I have with your numbers, I'll deal with them because you are still GM and what you say goes, regardless.

Nothings in stone here. I have no problem receiving constructive input to incorporate into future updates, or even to correct things I've already posted in case of an obvious error. If at some point you have a specific suggestion that doesn't involve being dismissive of the work I've put into something, I'll be glad to hear it.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

When is the Senate going to start doing bills again?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

At this point, I don't plan on doing a budget update until someone makes the statute wiki page up to date.  It's really a bit much for me to dig through the forum to find the new spending and tax bills in addition to measuring their impact.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

At this point, I don't plan on doing a budget update until someone makes the statute wiki page up to date.  It's really a bit much for me to dig through the forum to find the new spending and tax bills in addition to measuring their impact.

so no ones gonna help me out here