HOUSE BILL: The HELIOS Act (At Final Vote)

[The Govanah Jake]

Upon consideration of the recently passed  "Free Higher Education for Atlasia Act" by the Atlasia Senate, i motion a tabling of this bill.

 Why not just offer the Senate bill as a full text replacement amendment to this current one?

Fine, that seems like the better option.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Sponsor Feedback: Friendly I guess
Status: Representatives have 24 hours to object

[Bidenworth2020]

I like the additions, overall a good re-write.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The amendment has been adopted.


Now we need to solve the problems that the Senate punted to us to solve.

[RFayette]

Interesting re-write.  I am not a fan of any form of tax on financial transactions, so this will be a Nay vote from me in the end of the day.

[Pericles]

Interesting re-write.  I am not a fan of any form of tax on financial transactions, so this will be a Nay vote from me in the end of the day.

Is there anything that could change your mind on this bill? Also given that a lack of funding is used as an excuse to oppose the bill, if you have oppose a financial transactions tax that's fine but please people, introduce alternative funding measures. Let's be constructive and get this done.

[RFayette]

Interesting re-write.  I am not a fan of any form of tax on financial transactions, so this will be a Nay vote from me in the end of the day.

Is there anything that could change your mind on this bill? Also given that a lack of funding is used as an excuse to oppose the bill, if you have oppose a financial transactions tax that's fine but please people, introduce alternative funding measures. Let's be constructive and get this done.

I would much rather impose a 0.5% VAT tax instead.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Interesting re-write.  I am not a fan of any form of tax on financial transactions, so this will be a Nay vote from me in the end of the day.

Is there anything that could change your mind on this bill? Also given that a lack of funding is used as an excuse to oppose the bill, if you have oppose a financial transactions tax that's fine but please people, introduce alternative funding measures. Let's be constructive and get this done.

I would much rather impose a 0.5% VAT tax instead.

How much does such a vat raise versus how transaction tax?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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As College for All Act:
Atlasian Regional Senate
Passed 4-0-2 in the Atlasian Senate assembled
Be it resolved, X Senator PiT, PPT

As Free Higher Education for Atlasia Act:
People's Regional Senate:
Passed 3-2-0 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

Atlasian People's House of Representatives
Pending
[/quote]

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Interesting re-write.  I am not a fan of any form of tax on financial transactions, so this will be a Nay vote from me in the end of the day.

Is there anything that could change your mind on this bill? Also given that a lack of funding is used as an excuse to oppose the bill, if you have oppose a financial transactions tax that's fine but please people, introduce alternative funding measures. Let's be constructive and get this done.

I would much rather impose a 0.5% VAT tax instead.

How much does such a vat raise versus how transaction tax?

Next time the font gets ten points higher!!!!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Interesting re-write.  I am not a fan of any form of tax on financial transactions, so this will be a Nay vote from me in the end of the day.

Is there anything that could change your mind on this bill? Also given that a lack of funding is used as an excuse to oppose the bill, if you have oppose a financial transactions tax that's fine but please people, introduce alternative funding measures. Let's be constructive and get this done.

I would much rather impose a 0.5% VAT tax instead.

How much does such a vat raise versus how transaction tax?

Next time the font gets ten points higher!!!!

[RFayette]

We can use these numbers and then re-scale them in proportion to the size of Atlasia's economy:
https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2016/52285
So it would be 18 billion per year at US population levels.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We can use these numbers and then re-scale them in proportion to the size of Atlasia's economy:
https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2016/52285
So it would be 18 billion per year at US population levels.

That is what the VAT raises?

Is that enough?

[Pericles]

We can use these numbers and then re-scale them in proportion to the size of Atlasia's economy:
https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2016/52285
So it would be 18 billion per year at US population levels.

That is what the VAT raises?

Is that enough?

Total cost of the bill is just under $11 billion so that'd be revenue positive.

[NeverAgain]

Yeah, CBO says a VAT does about 18B for .5%.

Funnily enough, a .1% FTT would bring in about 18-19B according to EPI/Progressive Budget.

The problem with CBO is that about 1/4 of the revenue would not be seen in FY 2018 (for us, in Atlasia, is Jan. to Dec., I believe) whereas for the US, it's October to September. Along with administrative timing shifts, of which we don't have to face here, puts the likely actual total to $24B (which corresponds to the later developments in new revenue.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So who wants the honors of offering that as an amendment?

[Sirius_]

Has the GM office released cost estimates on this? I would find it preferable to know how much money needs to be raised before implementing a funding mechanism.

[Bidenworth2020]

No.

[Pericles]

thumb21 did a report on the final bill just before Senate passage.

[NeverAgain]

Has the GM office released cost estimates on this? I would find it preferable to know how much money needs to be raised before implementing a funding mechanism.

The analysis is here, but I guess I am a bit confused on what it means. Was Thumb saying that INCLUDING the revenue measures, this bill will cost $10B, or without them. I would assume the former - but would love Thumb to clarify my ignorance.

[Sestak]

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I assume you are pre-filling that amendment, Sestak? In which case it will be dated as being offered at 1:00 PM EDT, May 4th, 2018.

[Sestak]

Yeah. Introduced now.

[NeverAgain]

Maybe I am just looking at this wrongheadedly, but Sestak, isn't the eligibility already defined in Section II, Subsection 1? Maybe I don't understand the purpose of the amendment.

But, even so, while I agree this should be targeted at the students who most need it and who are academically responsible (although I prefer no tuition free, and just make a more subsidized version of Pell Grants, still with an EFC, and a 10-week student work schedule so that the cost imposed on the students and families is manageable without them having to take out loans, or at least no where near the extent to which they are taken out now), the use of Standardized Tests worries me.

I can give you 100 reasons on why standardized tests are no measure of academic responsibility, intelligence, nor readiness for the college and university level (nor do they value creativity, diversity, the socio-economic issues), but I'll give you an anecdote from my school. One of my good friends, who is not as let's say academically "focused" as I am, has a GPA of 2.3 or 2.4, does none of his homework, and shows up to class late every day. He just took the SATs and got a near-perfect 1550. Now compare that to the hundreds of thousands of kids who do the reverse, are focused academically, etc. and get a 1200 or 1300. The point is, if we are to limit eligibility based on an academic measure, make it GPA, along with extracurricular achievement, and then commitment to a 10 hour a week work schedule. To me that shows more about that individual than a one-day standardized test ever could.

In summary, I just want to clarify if this is changing the current eligibility that is currently in Sec. 2 Subsec. 1 at $120,000 to $40,000, and then adding a GPA + SAT/ACT requirement as well.

[Sestak]

Never,

This does not lower the overall cap, but it does set the standard lower for students under that bar, as well as students from non-college families (who I believe should be a focus of this program).

The reason I didn't base it solely off GPA is that I'm afraid that it will incentivize "GPA hacking", where students forgo tougher classes in order to keep their GPA higher. Not all difficult, challenging, or useful classes are AP or IB. The idea behind this was to give some leeway to students who are able to get better test scores to allow them to take more risks in their course selections. I understand your gripes with standardized testing; trust me, I don't like them either. But I can't think of a better way to do this. I was loosely basing it off of the CSU eligibility index.

I don't think including extracurriculars is a good idea. As you probably know, college extracurricular requirements have led parents to sign kids up for "check box" extracurriculars at a young age, leading to a sort of monotony where every student plays one sport, one instrument, etc., and I don't like the idea of encouraging this. Many also try to game the system through things like church-organized trips to "bulid houses" in some underdeveloped country that don't really generate much of a positive impact and are pretty much designed for a resume check mark. It takes colleges time to adapt, so the parents with the most economic resources are always able to stay ahead. And this is with universities. Imagine how much worse it would be when it's the federal government.

Also, one more note: The one thing I'm most apprehensive about with the amendment is that we're putting the keys to federal funding in the hands on independent educational organizations, one of whom is foreign. But I'm not sure how else to do it.