Fwurg

[Former Senator Bolv'ar of the Confederacy of Excaria]

((OOC: This thread is private to the ministers and chancellor of the Union))

"Ministers,

I would like to bring the following new law to a vote in the senate. Since it concerns your department, before doing so, I would like to hear your views.

Code: Select all

Safety of the Union act

1.   In order to promote worlds to construct their own defence forces, each member world of the Union will be granted a one time 500 (:tax) subsidy to construct one Defence Force, to be paid out when their Defence Force is being constructed.
2.   To promote new worlds defending themselves, Planetary Defence Zones and Defence Forces may now be purchesed with the 'Offer of Aid' funds granted to new members.
3.   To promote member worlds to build their own fleets, the Union will pay 10 (:tax) upkeep for a single fleet for each member world, if such a fleet is present.
4.   To further promote member worlds to build their own fleets, the Union will pay a 1000 (:tax) subsidy to member worlds who construct a fleet.
5.   Article 4 applies only if the Capital Ships for this fleet are produced by the member world themselves or if they are acquired from another member world who produced them through trade.
6.   When researching a technology relevant to Defence under the Tax Deductable Technological Research Law, a subsidy of 500 (:tax) will be made available for each such technology developed.
7.   Funds acquired through Article 6 may be distributed amongst the researching nations by their mutual agreement. In case an agreement cannot be reached, no subsidy will be paid out.
8.   To finance these subsidies, Tax Brackets 1 will be increased to 15%, for a total additional tax per turn of up to 50 (:tax) per member world.

I believe this should make significant steps to improve Union security. What are your opinions?"

[Senator Shahkra of the Federal Republic of Bisidn]

"First, it does me good to see that you have not forgotten your campaign promises. However it concerns me that you are trying to put this all through in one law. My opinion is to divide this proposal in several laws.

I would propose to put the points of 1, 4,5,6,7, and 8 into a 'defence subsidy law'

Point 2 can be added to the already existing law. However, this law does not prohibit the construction of defence zones, so the addition is also not necessary.

Point 3 is an separate issue, this issue can either be put forward as a new law, or as an addition to the already existing aid directive, that factions which are hosting a Union fleet get a compensation. Speaking of which, I couldn't find the directive, so maybe the minister of defence can add this directive in the paperworks to prevent any misunderstandings in the future. At least I believe there exists such a directive."

[Senator Enrorgh of Meritonia]

a short message was recieved from the Meritonian Embassy in response:

Chancellor, Fellow Ministers,

This law is a step in the right direction when it comes to providing additional incentive for Union members to provide for their own protection and we are glad to see steps are being taken to improve overall security.

I can support this law, be it for art. 2 which should be placed in the Offer of Aid law as an amendment, however I would like to emphasize that the safety of each individual member is and must at all time be guaranteed by the Union. This means that even though individual members must provide for their own protection, Union aid must be given if requested.

Concerning art. 8, I think it is unfair to ask a contribution for military development and subsidies from our smaller, developing economies. I therefore propose to not raise the taxes in bracket 1 but find an alternate means of financing this bill, perhaps by drawing the needed funds directly from the Defence budget, the scrapping of art. 3 and lowering the subsidies under art. 4 to 500 .

Senator Enrorgh of Meritonia

[Former Senator Bolv'ar of the Confederacy of Excaria]

"I have no problem moving article 2 into a separate addendum for the Offer of Aid law in the same vote and the suggestion that the Defense Zone clause is superfluous is excellent and the article will be amended for this.

I do not believe article 3 to require a separate law. In fact, including it will allow us to join it into a statement that naturally this payment to promote fleet development will not affect the support by regular Union fleets, addressing some of Senator Enrorgh's concerns.

We have looked at alternative sources of funding, but we specifically chose not to further drain the already pressed defence budget. Under Chancellor Acehtoo, the defence budget has been stripped to the bone and I cannot justify further cuts in this area.

Raising tax in bracket 1 already spares small, developing economies as they pay less than the maximum automatically. Once they are more developed, they pay 50 which is not a lot and I believe in these troubled times with war possible on two fronts, it is not unfair to ask all members to contributed something extra to our collective security, especially when all member worlds can reap the benefits of this proposal as well."

[Supreme Judge Khaw Rohana]

"My government has asked that I only oversee the day-to-day running of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.", the old veolian woman said with a cool voice.

"However, I feel it is my duty to the position I have been appointed to to offer advice to the chancellor.

I concur that article 2 would be best executed as an amendment to the Offer of Aid law. Though article 4 and 5 provide an incentive, there are only two commercially available shipyards in the Union capable of constructing Capital Ships, it might be beneficial to promote the construction of shipyards. Otherwise, this promotion might have little impact.

As to article 6, I agree with the chancellor that this is a useful addition to the proposed law. However, it is not an objective law. The concept 'Defence' will have to be defined, lest different factions interpret this in different ways. Unless this is intended as 'any technology that has to do with a factions military capacity'.

Personally, I agree with the chancellor on the necessity of article 8. I would however like to point out that the proposed tax increase offers up roughly 1000(:tax) per turn, while the proposed subsidies are mostly one-time subsidies summing to at most 38.000 given the Union does not gain members. The proposed fleet upkeep benefits sum to only 200 per turn. It will be difficult to explain such to the Inner Worlds, as not all of them will see the benefit of a strong military.

If might be possible to mitigate part of the tax increase by addressing the purses of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the rational that a strong military will offer a better position in negotiations with other superpowers?


Might I suggest that the issue of funding is put to the senate for discussion? I am sure that you, chancellor, will be able to convince the senate of the necessity of these measures, as you would not have been elected if the inner worlds did not share your sentiment."

[Former Senator Bolv'ar of the Confederacy of Excaria]

"Please allow us to give a clarification of the budget, which was drawn up with the consideration for time of one year (50 ). The expected growth for the Union in this period is at least two new member worlds for a total of 25 worlds. Finally, an estimated total of 10 new technologies will be developed that qualify for the listed subsidies during this period, or one technology every five turns.

Under this assumption the eventual set costs per turn will be 25 * 10 for fleet maintenance plus 500 / 5 for technology subsidies or 350 per turn. Expected eventual income from article 8 will be 1.250 per turn, leaving a total of 900 per turn. In the fifty turn period, this is a total of 45.000 .

Non-continuous cost estimates are article 1 with 25 * 500(:tax) and article 4 & 5 with 25 * 1000 , or a total of 37.500 .

This leaves 7.500 in room in the budget to compensate for uneven cost distribution and unexpected costs and benefits.

Not all member worlds will wait in turn to take advantage of their subsidies. Instead, some turns will not feature any subsidy requests while others will see multiple subsidy requests. This will require the ministry of finance issue loans to the ministry of defence to compensate these uneven distributions, on which interest must be paid. By contrast, money cannot be saved to gain interest.

An additional post of potential unexpected cost will be unexpected new members beyond two. New members will not pay the full 50 additional each turn as their economies are not of the proper scale yet, but they do qualify for the fleet and defence force subsidies.

Finally there is the risk of member worlds taking the benefit of this subsidy and then leaving the Union or becoming Fringe Worlds, which would limit income from them to pay for these benefits.

Unexpected lowered cost may occur if members choose not to benefit from these subsidies.

All in all, it would be prudent to have some sort of buffer. The 7.500 is there to insure this does not cause budgetary problems.

It is my belief that this buffer is reasonable. I would furthermore propose that after a time of one year, the issue can be raised by any senator that the primary cost has now been completed and that taxes be once again lowered.

I would prefer to put a complete proposal to the senate. My plan is to propose this, leave it open to debate and amendment for one week and then put the matter to a vote."

[Supreme Judge Khaw Rohana]

"Thank you for the elaboration. Though I am surprised that the Ministry of Finance acts as if the other ministries are corporations that aim for profit -- I do not see the need for internal interest. You can be sure that this will raise some eyebrows with others in the commonwealth as well.

As I have been instructed to oversee the day-to-day operations of the ministry of Foreign Affairs, I have no further opinion on the proposal."

((OOC: I think it is completely senile that the Ministries receiving money from the Ministry of Finance are required to pay interest on their 'loan'.

I though the whole point of the Ministry of Finance was to reinforce the purses of other ministries, and to hand out Union Grants. By adding things such as internal loans, the assumption is made that the Union government exists to make a profit -- something which seems unreasonable given the way the Union has operated for the last 75 turns.))

[Former Senator Bolv'ar of the Confederacy of Excaria]

"Appologies for the confusion Minister - the Ministry of Finance does not broker for profit. It in turn must loan money on interest on the financial market."

((OOC: Clarification: I envision the Ministry of Finance does save the Union money by having payments on loans from one ministry pay for loans by other ministries, meaning no interest is necessary then, but that cannot always be the case and in the end governments, including the Union, must loan money and must pay for those loans in turn. Does that make more sense?))

[Supreme Judge Khaw Rohana]

"It is I who should apologize, chancellor. I should be aware of such trivial facts."

((OOC: Well, other than that the Min.Finance has a purse of 8.279 from which to finance other things, it's logical. If there is not enough money to finance all things, the Union could loan money. But if the Union is actually overdrawn on the total budget, I think this might be a major issue; at least one that should be mentioned to the senate?

I think most senators would have a serious opinion on such a budget deficit -- for some it might be usual, but for others it might be a serious offence to their sense of good government.))