[Debate] Mandatory Budget Information
UNL Congress
Greetings, citizens of Netherlands,
A new debate has been requested by Janty F:
It is a long standing practice of Dutch Governments to publish an article about our budget for each term. I believe it is a vital information for our citizens in terms of learning about our economical situation, as well as getting a general idea about how much expenses the Government will be able to afford on programs, etc. However, up until now, publishing such an information has been only voluntary, which can lead to situation that some ministers will not share this information transparently. I would like to prevent that. That's why I propose the following change to the Section III, Article 2, paragraph 1:
1. The budget of the Government of the eNetherlands cannot exceed the income of the previous month. The Government must inform citizens about the size of the budget at the beginning of each term. An additional budget can be awarded by congressional approval.
Janty F and Shawtyl0w
CoC Team
Comments
Hail the MoF trying to pass a law forcing himself to work.
I want Ministry of Finances to be the best, what can I say 😶 .
Hmmm, is this the begin of the end of MoF Janty? Seems like forcing with his rules to keep on working as he does.
I am more in favor of let the government of the future work as they want to work, not as how Janty wants them to work. Less rules, not more please.
If that's how you interpret it 😉 . I believe transparent fiscal responsibility is one of the rules we should have enforced, no matter who is the government of the day - you can't be a government without proper budget anyway. Unlike some other rules, which (I agree there) can indeed serve as a hindrance, or are outright useless (even the Monetary policies have one or two of those, but I don't plan to tackle them right now).
Anyway we allready have article 2.7 for that. So your proposal doesnt add anything new. So: no.
Based on numerous debates in Congress, even former Ministers of Finances have trouble reading simple numbers from sheet.
But I respect your view to have as little rules as possible, even if it makes our citizens less informed.
Exactly let them interpret as they like, as I allow you to interpret it as you do.
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What do you think the Government consists of? Tanks and bread 😃 ?
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The Government is not only your ministry 😉 . Besides, that's not even related to the proposal at hand.
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1. Do not confuse budget and expenses. The proposal merely talks about budget. How each Ministry records their expenses is not in this proposal (as it is in different section of the Law)
2. As I said earlier, there are more people in government besides MoD. And some of them even spend money. Figured you will realize that after being government member for... quite some time already 🙂 .
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The proper answer is given above. The proposal talks about budget of the Government. You know - that one number, based on which the government decides later, how much is it possible to spend without overstepping the budgetary rules.
I really do not know, how to explain in simpler way 😉 .
geen toegevoegde waarde in dit voorstel imo.
It would avoid you starting MoNCs because you cannot read numbers properly, so I expected you will oppose 😛 .
History showed some people could not cope with published budgets as they interpreted it as being in stone denying gov all options to act on changes. Setting a budget, preferably with some directions to continued gov programs and mod, is fine but don't make it fixed and allow for flexibility. Also, expenses just because there is a budget should be prevented by using smart ways to handle excess budgets. Publishing a budget won't help here. Likely it'll work contrary.
a budget is that a budget circumstances change things every seen a business spent the budgetted amount of money in every place money was allocated? I think that would be a first. So I Agree, with your statement but I believe this is already how we are working. The law simply asks for MoF(government) to publish the numbers each term to give the people and congress an indication of what the term expenses should """Idealy""" look like.
You misunderstood the proposal completely. You cannot change the size of the Government budget - it is one number, based on the income of previous month. Therefore it is in stone, as you cannot go back to the past, unless you manipulate with numbers (and unlike some of my predecessors, I would like to avoid doing that 🙂 ) . What you talk about is setting budget for individual ministries, which is not even done officially, because I have seen it being tested few times, and it never worked indeed. That indeed needs to remain flexible - however the size of the budget is not a flexible thing. And I do not want MoFs of the future to hide numbers from citizens, or manipulate with them, as I have seen in Congress couple of times.
Also, elaborate on "smart ways to handle excess budget", because I am quite curious on your ideas there.
I understood. But that one number is already too much for some as you need to take into account other months as well IMO. Long term programs should not be limited by elections. Using the budget of the previous month, therefore, is already a wrong number. I would applaud a change where that kind of limits, combined with preventing the downfall of programs due to a collapsing budget if some part of income is temporarily unavailable.
By the way: I already posted ideas on that several months ago...
If publishing one number is too much, I do not know, what is too little 😛 .
"Using the budget of the previous month, therefore, is already a wrong number."
Income, not budget. But otherwise, you just criticized a method, which has been in use for... well... I guess forever. And yes, it is not 100% ideal (but the current Ministry of Finances acts in exactly the way you have described, trying to prevent any income shortages, like we will have for example next month, when we have minimal concession income, and yet all the programs will function without forced changes, because we have been thinking in advance). However, I do not see any other method, which would improve the situation without creating unnecessary layers of complexity.
Thank you all for the feedback!
Due to the popular demand, the Minister of Finances has decided to no longer publish information about budget or expenses. All people interested can find it in the Finance Sheet.
I wouldn't be mad if the link to the Finance sheet were republished or slightly easier to locate (am newb). I did find the beginner's guide to reading it to be helpful. I didn't voice any strong view as I'm still learning and observing but I do appreciate your view.
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-mof-budget-tutorial-for-beginners-2705460/1/20
The link to the Sheet is always easy to find in the Lawbook, Appendix "Governmental Dictator Protocol and Essential Documents of the eNetherlands"
It is true though, that it could have been put to the description of MoF newspapers, where it will be accessible by two clicks.
ooh i need to read dictator protocol section yet. i glossed over it since it doesn't apply presently and didn't make the connection abt the documents from the title. Thanks!
It doesn't apply, hence why it is "only" Appendix.
Curiously enough, things like programs and essential documents, which apply daily, are also in the Appendixes, making Appendixes quite relevant anyway 😃 .
The link was added to MoF news description as well though - managed to just squeeze it in with the character limit.