SENATE RESOLUTION: Fiscal Year Spending Resolution (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senate Resolution

To amend the Senate rules to require all legislation spending money to delay said spending until the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Be it resolved in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

Fiscal Year Spending Resolution

Article 2, Clause 7 of the Senate Rules is amended as follows:
7.) All bills appropriating money must take effect no sooner than the beginning of the next fiscal year, and also have either raise taxes or cut other spending to cover the costs of the appropriations contained therein. Exempted from this shall be emergency legislation declared as such by the President in clause 2d of this section. The Senate may override this section with a 2/3rds vote.

People's Regional Senate
Pending

Sponsor: NC Yankee
Senate Designation: SR18:04

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The sponsor has 24 hours to commence an advocacy and the other members have 48 hours for their initial comments, concerns and questions.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This was a modification discussed in multiple settings leading up to the formulation of the FY2019 budget. Over the past several terms we have made a conscious effort to make sure that all bills that spend money don't take effect until the following fiscal year, but there is nothing requiring this to be done. With this resolution I hope to change that.


Now there is one are of difficulty and that is with bills passed in the session just before the fiscal year, so we might want to make a cut off with term commencing in July and certainly a cutoff at the one commencing in September since it would be rather late to add those into a budget that is already crafted and may already be passed (hope springs eternal).

We should also considering proactively compiling spending items and dates of effectiveness in some kind of massive spreadsheet though the SoIA is probably the one in the best position to do that and whether it be him or a successor, it would help greatly when it does come time to do the budget and save time compiling, which was most of the time spent on FY2019. This would be better for the game if we can make it work because then we can focus on the issue differences and not compiling information.

The major alternative to this would be to not appropriate money all in bills and have separate processes like in real life, but that could very well and probably is a much taller order to pull off when consider what that would mean.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So no preference on whether the cutoff should be the Congress starting in July or September in terms of when it has to go on the fiscal year after the next one starting?

[Esteemed Jimmy]

Doing the appropriations process like Congress does irl would certainly be interesting and give some added realism to the game.

[tmthforu94]

I support this resolution, I encourage the Senate to put this to a vote.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Doing the appropriations process like Congress does irl would certainly be interesting and give some added realism to the game.

True enough, the problem comes into the details.

We had a taste of doing that with some of the Pericles bill's last year into early this year, but it would essentially work like that. We would pass a budget every year like now and then the bills we pass wouldn't actually be funded until we passed the appropriations bill. The problem comes when you consider the level of engagement that would require.

Anyway the underlying bill needs at least one amendment and I will try to get that up tomorrow or Saturday, dealing with the bills that pass in that late FY Congress and what FY they apply to.

[tmthforu94]

Final vote?

[ON Progressive]

If no objections are held, final vote in 24 hours.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senate Resolution

To amend the Senate rules to require all legislation spending money to delay said spending until the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Be it resolved in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

Fiscal Year Spending Resolution

Article 2, Clause 7 of the Senate Rules is amended as follows:
7.) All bills appropriating money must take effect no sooner than the beginning of the next fiscal year unless passed in the Congress beginning in July with those expenditures taking affect in the second fiscal year after that time, and also have either raise taxes or cut other spending to cover the costs of the appropriations contained therein. Exempted from this shall be emergency legislation declared as such by the President in clause 2d of this section. The Senate may override this section with a 2/3rds vote.

People's Regional Senate
Pending

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senate Resolution

To amend the Senate rules to require all legislation spending money to delay said spending until the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Be it resolved in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

Fiscal Year Spending Resolution

Article 2, Clause 7 of the Senate Rules is amended as follows:
7.) All bills appropriating money must take effect no sooner than the beginning of the next fiscal year unless passed in the Congress beginning in July or afterwards with those expenditures taking affect in the second fiscal year after that time, and also have either raise taxes or cut other spending to cover the costs of the appropriations contained therein. Exempted from this shall be emergency legislation declared as such by the President in clause 2d of this section. The Senate may override this section with a 2/3rds vote.

People's Regional Senate
Pending

Sponsor Feedback: Origination
Status: Senators have 24 hours to object.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am not thrilled with this wording, but it is better than nothing. As I have said repeatedly during this thread's debate, of which I would point out that I am the only Senator to have actually engaged on the substance of the matter, that an amendment was required to deal with the matter of bills passed in the period just prior to the start of a new fiscal year, was just as problematic as passing a bill during a fiscal year that took effect immediately because the time period was too short to include it in the next budget, which might already be passed by that point in time if things go as planned.

I had hoped to get some feedback as to whether it should be one Congress or two that would be treated as such with application denied until the second fiscal year, ultimately I went with July because of my own personal view on practicality since Budgets take a while and thus four months of buffer is better than two. Also of course because no one else chimed in in spite of multiple repeated PMs to the members encouraging them to check through the threads, which would have included this one.

I realize I have been hindered myself the past two months because of RL stress, drama, bs and of course work and its physical impact on my health lately, the lack of engagement in the Senate this time compared to last is rather concerning and it is limiting our ability to improve and craft quality legislation and it is a shame because last Congress we were doing so well in that regards.

I understand the President's desire to get stuff done and I appreciate the Deputy PPT desiring to keep things moving but I would desire that some consideration be made for the policy details and this is not just directed at them but all of the members. Anyone could have made suggestions on how to word, structure or alter the text to fix the problem I mentioned repeatedly from the beginning of the debate. At the very least such would have helped guide and speed up my composition of an amendment text and probably enabled some better wording that what I just offered above.

It is also not some trivial technicality because in the absence of addressing that period just prior to a new fiscal year, you would end up with the same problem occurring regardless of it "being addressed unofficially and now officially with this un-amended version passing. This would thus have a required a subsequent amendment to fix and all that is easily avoided just by adding a few words in an amendment.

Everything is easier with engagement, because at the very least you know what the members will go for. Anyway, I highly doubt this post is going to be read in its entirety by anyone, but I hope that whether it be this, or the PM I just sent to the members, some improvements will occur and more feedback generated on bills going forward. 

[Sestak]

Keep in mind fiscal year restarts at the end of September/start of October. This amendment forces spending passed in the July-August Congress of 2019 to wait until FY 2021 to add new spending, while spending passed in September 2019 would be able to go into effect less than a month later with the commencement of FY 2020.

[Sestak]

Keep in mind fiscal year restarts at the end of September/start of October. This amendment forces spending passed in the July-August Congress of 2019 to wait until FY 2021 to add new spending, while spending passed in September 2019 would be able to go into effect less than a month later with the commencement of FY 2020.

Why would a spending bill passed later be able to go into effect earlier?

Because the amendment Yankee introduced pushes the earliest time back by a year only for the Congress starting in July.

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

I object to the previous amendment and present this one.

Senate Resolution

To amend the Senate rules to require all legislation spending money to delay said spending until the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Be it resolved in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

Fiscal Year Spending Resolution

Article 2, Clause 7 of the Senate Rules is amended as follows:
7.) All bills appropriating money must take effect no sooner than the beginning of the next fiscal year unless passed in the Congresses beginning in July and September with those expenditures taking affect in the second fiscal year after that time, and also have either raise taxes or cut other spending to cover the costs of the appropriations contained therein. Exempted from this shall be emergency legislation declared as such by the President in clause 2d of this section. The Senate may override this section with a 2/3rds vote.

[Sestak]

Now you've gone to the other extreme and are overly punishing October. What did Halloween ever do to you?

[Sestak]

Anyway I suggest language along the lines of "unless passed in the period commencing at the start of the congress elected in June and terminating at the end of the same fiscal year".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You mean like this?

Senate Resolution

To amend the Senate rules to require all legislation spending money to delay said spending until the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Be it resolved in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

Fiscal Year Spending Resolution

Article 2, Clause 7 of the Senate Rules is amended as follows:
7.) All bills appropriating money must take effect no sooner than the beginning of the next fiscal year unless passed in the period commencing at the start of the congress elected in June and terminating at the end of the same fiscal year, with those expenditures taking affect in the second fiscal year after that time, and also have either raise taxes or cut other spending to cover the costs of the appropriations contained therein. Exempted from this shall be emergency legislation declared as such by the President in clause 2d of this section. The Senate may override this section with a 2/3rds vote.

People's Regional Senate
Pending

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Keep in mind fiscal year restarts at the end of September/start of October. This amendment forces spending passed in the July-August Congress of 2019 to wait until FY 2021 to add new spending, while spending passed in September 2019 would be able to go into effect less than a month later with the commencement of FY 2020.

Some words got deleted at some point because originally it referred to both Congresses.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senate Resolution

To amend the Senate rules to require all legislation spending money to delay said spending until the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Be it resolved in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

Fiscal Year Spending Resolution

Article 2, Clause 7 of the Senate Rules is amended as follows:
7.) All bills appropriating money must take effect no sooner than the beginning of the next fiscal year unless passed in the period commencing at the start of the congress elected in June and terminating at the end of the same fiscal year, with those expenditures taking affect in the second fiscal year after that time, and also have either raise taxes or cut other spending to cover the costs of the appropriations contained therein. Exempted from this shall be emergency legislation declared as such by the President in clause 2d of this section. The Senate may override this section with a 2/3rds vote.

People's Regional Senate
Pending

Sponsor Feedback: Friendly
Status: Senators have 24 hours to object.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The amendment is adopted.

[Devout Centrist]

I'd be willing to vote in favor of this resolution

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A Final vote is now open on this resolution, Senators please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.



I never really got subsequent feedback from Sestak, so I hope the text satisfies the concerns he had

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

AYE

[Devout Centrist]

Aye