SB 2018-317: Revenue Enhancement Act (Debating)

[Terry the Fat Shark]

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Passed 5-4-0 in the Atlasian House assembled on September 25th, 2018,
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Sponsor: Mr. Reactionary

[Terry the Fat Shark]

A sponsor is needed for this bill.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Ill sponsor

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Ill sponsor

24 hours for objections

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Mr. Reactionary assumed sponsorship.

[Sestak]

Let's start off with this.

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[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

What's the purpose of this amendment?

[Sestak]

Oh yeah, this needs a new sponsor, too.

[Sestak]

Since no one else seems to want to, I’ll move to sponsor.

24 hours to object.

[Sestak]

What's the purpose of this amendment?

Gets rid of several bad portions of the bill.

The Smithsonian, National Art Gallery, and Library of Congress should be open for all. Metrorail is also a valuable service and we shouldn’t be increasing ticket prices.

I also think we shouldn’t be increasing mining and logging - and we definitely shouldn’t be selling off the entire federal power infrastructure to private bidders.

[fhtagn]

I guess it's fair to say Sestak loves OPEC and Russian exports, has no interest in lowering prices for people who commute (the majority of which are the people he campaigns caring the most about), and wants to hurt coal miners.

As someone who has put a lot towards environmental regulation in this game and has worked towards the use of cleaner energy at federal and regional levels, I'm also realistic in acknowledging that we still very much need these products, but that it's better that we are the ones producing it rather than relying on countries we shouldn't be doing business with.

[fhtagn]

Also worth noting that the Smithsonian, National Art Gallery, and Library of Congress require a very large sum of money annually for operating costs and any needed repairs. Such a small admission fee is incredibly reasonable, goes a long way towards reducing the costs that go towards keeping them running, and doesn't actually have much effect on the number of people who visit or will visit in the future. And also worth noting since you had provided criticism of this elsewhere, the idea of charging a fee for these places has been floated by members of both parties IRL. 

[Sestak]

Well, I guess I’m the sponsor. 24 hours to object to the amendment.

[Mr. Reactionary]

What's wrong with timbering? It encourages reforestation. If we didnt need trees for lumber and paper, trees would largely become nothing more than a nuisance and bar to development. We have a lot of federal trees, and increasing our timber cutting is an easy way to increase revenues without tax increases. The entirety of the revenue is coming from companies the left hates. You'd think yall would approve of the resource sales provisions.

[fhtagn]

Anyone going to answer Mr. R's questions? It's been almost 8 days.

[Dr. MB]

As there have been no objections, amendment has passed.

[Sestak]

Could the VP post the current text?

[fhtagn]

I guess Sestak is going to do what he always does and refuse to answer questions when someone asks.

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

I guess Sestak is going to do what he always does and refuse to answer questions when someone asks.

[Dr. MB]

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We really need to get back to requiring bill and amendment sponsors to post statements explaining and advocating for their amendments within the first twenty-four hours of offering.

For instance we had a massive amendment get passed with no vote, no objections, no debate and no explanation as to what was being changed and why. This is not conducive to debate and it is certainly not conducive to the speed situation since this bill has sat idle for most of the last month with no action, interest, discussion or importance being placed on it by the members of the body. Therefore I see no reason why we are cutting corners on debate, if such is even justifiable at all, in a situation where speed of passage is certainly not a present priority.

If we want to change the situation with regards to how Atlasia finds itself it has to start with us individually making the decision to say what we are doing, why we are doing it and how and do so within a timely fashion. That way others can then engage in and respond to such discussions, the present state of affairs merely lends itself to "the Echo Chamber of Crickets".


 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

One provision that stood out for me in the muddle of that large amendment was the removal of a fairly meaningless and poorly written clause "encouraging the production of mining and drilling on federal lands". On the issue of structure there were certainly issues with the wording because who is doing the encouraging, how are they encouraging them? Hookers and black jack?


Beyond that though, the root idea is not a bad one. We need to produce natural resources in large quantities, sell those resources on the international market and then use the revenue to invest in education, infrastructure and entrepreneurship to diversify the the economies of commodity based localities/states and to rebuild the economies of areas that have been devastated by economic dislocation. We should also put that revenue towards environmental projects and towards research in alternative fuels. This is the realistic, responsible and effective away of addressing such issues as economic dislocation, lack of economic development/diversification and most important with regards to the environment and climate change.

 

[Mr. Reactionary]

This is an attempt to help with the December budget. These are all ways to increase revenue without affecting income, corporate, payroll, or estate taxes.

Section 2 involves federal excise taxes. The logic being that it is consumption based and so sort of a fairer allocation of tax burden. Excise taxes increased are:
Fuels
Tires
Processing at ports of entry
Alcohol
Tobacco
Machine Guns
Specialty fishing equipment
Gambling winnings
Ozone depleting chemicals being phased out under the Montreal Treaty
Bad behavior by investors

2b eliminates the vaccine tax loophole that exempts a few big pharma vaccine makers from paying into the common fund for settling lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.

2c creates new federal excise taxes to bring in additional revenue. New items taxed are:
Foreign money transfers
Large bank assets we have to insure where the bank failure would cripple the economy
CEO stock agreements and salaries above $1 Million
Weed (sorry)
Medical cocaine
Untaxed machine guns

2d eliminates a loophole that exempts big oil/coal/logging from aircraft related excise taxes

2e eliminates a tax subsidy handout for some rum producers

2f resolves an annoying estates issue that the Regions must deal with when resolving estates involving a legally registered machine gun. This fix ensures that any purchaser must comply with all NFA registration requirements including paying the tax, fingerprints, application, recorded serial number, disassembly and storage requirements, requirement to carry paperwork.

Section 3 increases a bunch of user fees. I confess, I have no idea how much of a change the specifics are at the moment. This list was largely compiled by me several years ago and I cant account for if any have increased since like 2015. Trump decreased some last year like grazing fees. Hopefully the GM office will assist with budget scoring please. Anyway, user fee increases are:
FDA inspection and testing fees
Ag inspection of animals and meat
Patent and Copyright fees
Hunting and Fishing fees
National Park fees
Import fees
Airplane fees
D.C. metro vendors

3b are new user fees to help fund Capitol area museums

3c increases how much we can collect from an airplane user fee

3d extends a practice currently available to local governments to pay to expedite CWA permit applications.

3e insures DC Metro prices contribute to maintenance

3f pegs all of these user fees to inflation so they automatically grow with inflation.

3g Readjusts cabin fees and also ties increases to inflation.

3h allows the Regions to help fund operations at National Parks if there is a government shutdown so we dont get more unnecessary dickheaded roping off of Monuments or telling people they cant look at a mountain because the mountain is closed.

4 sells some of our excess assets to make some scratch.
4a increases our cut of big oil profits from the people's oil

4b proposes we decrease how much oil we stockpile by 10% over 5 years. And we dont sell it all at once to push down the price we get.

4c and 4d set targets for increasing revenue from asset sales

4f finalizes the closing of the Helium Reserve that was supposed to have closed by 2015.

4g allows us to sell water to more farmers.

4h - k set targets for asset sales and relax rules that slow sales down.

4l caps administrative expenses for payments Atlasia makes to localities where we own a lot of land that they cant tax to generate local revenue.

4m sells off local projects that dont require federal ownership over.

5 is about how we get our money. I do debt collection. Its not easy to get what you are supposed to get sometimes which reduces revenue. These changes will increase total revenue collected.

5a imposes a civil penalty on bad non-profit behavior.

5b increases the minimum civil penalty on bad behavior.

5c - 5e allow us to use debt collection agents earlier in the process.

5f - 5h allow us to deduct money others owe us from money we are giving them

5i gives us more time to investigate and collect against people who lie about a lot of hidden income

5j - 5k tweak what is considered assets we can collect against from our debtors

5l require you to pay your taxes to get a security clearance or passport

[Mr. Reactionary]

Sure would be useful for budget forecasting if I could tell if this bill was going to pass or not ...

[fhtagn]

So I take it no one in the Senate is going to bother doing anything here, such as respond to Yankee's concerns that he posted 12 days ago?