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Bill: Economic Boost Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Free Reform Coalition (FRP)
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: March 2045
Description[?]:
| Gambling should be legal, depending on the wishes of each region. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change The right to gamble.
Old value:: Gambling is illegal.
Current: Gambling is legal, but only in private homes and casinos with special licences.
Proposed: The legality of gambling is a matter of local governments.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 02:28:39, April 29, 2005 CET | From |  Free Reform Coalition (FRP) | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | Gambling promotes the economy in impoverished areas. If it is properly regulated it can be a boon to any town or city. |
| Date | 02:51:11, April 29, 2005 CET | From | Free Reform Coalition (FRP) | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | The FRP welcomes an open debate on the subject of gambling. |
| Date | 02:54:52, April 29, 2005 CET | From | Leviathan Party | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | The debate is done, and a rudimentary knowledge of maths will tell you that you don't have to votes to get it passed. To what purpose is this bill presented if not to pander to the marginalize minority the FRP represents? |
| Date | 04:36:59, April 29, 2005 CET | From | Radical Centrists | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | We contnue to support, regarless of the futility of such a position. |
| Date | 12:05:21, April 29, 2005 CET | From | Free Reform Coalition (FRP) | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | Here is some info about gambling in the US: In 2003, the gross revenues from gambling were $72.9 billion — more money than Americans spend on movie tickets, theme parks, spectator sports and videogames combined! In the US, gambling accounts for about 10% of leisure spending. There is an untapped market in our country that could boost the economy. |
| Date | 12:32:04, April 29, 2005 CET | From | Free Reform Coalition (FRP) | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | Apologies, I forgot to show where I got my information from: Gambling and the American Economy Eugene Martin Christiansen Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 556, Gambling: Socioeconomic Impacts and Public Policy. (Mar., 1998), pp. 36-52. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7162%28199803%29556%3C36%3AGATAE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 This is a journal article, if you cannot access the website, try your local research library. |
| Date | 15:16:00, April 29, 2005 CET | From | LibCom Party | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | So the FRP believes we should encourage the poor to hand their hard-earned cash over to money-laundering operations in the vain hope of defying the odds and winning enough to lift themselves out of their poverty? |
| Date | 15:51:11, April 29, 2005 CET | From | Labour Party | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | We agree with the Libcom Party. |
| Date | 00:46:47, April 30, 2005 CET | From | Free Reform Coalition (FRP) | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | I don't encourage people to do things they do not want to. I am simply allowing there to be a choice for people. |
| Date | 01:41:33, April 30, 2005 CET | From | Leviathan Party | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | And let me guess, we shouldn't have seatbelt or helmet laws either. And people should be allowed to bike on freeways and base jump off buildings? The government has a responsibility to protect people from themselves in many cases, and gambling is one of them. |
| Date | 03:04:32, April 30, 2005 CET | From | Free Reform Coalition (FRP) | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | The government has a responsibility to protect people from others LevP, it is a subtle difference that you don't grasp. Hobbes wrote about this, surely you must have read him, since you quote him. Gambling has its advantages and disadvantages but it is not tantamount to the lethal dangers of walking across a freeway. Gambling provides employment in areas where industries have collapsed: example a town built around a mine, when the mine goes bust, the town's economy collapses because it is centered around that source. legalized gambling adds another source of economic input and output. Also consider this; you pay money to go see a movie, you buy your ticket for a certain amount of time in order to enjoy yourself. Gambling works under the same principle, someone buys a ticket to play a game for a certain amount of time, if they win they can keep playing or take their money and go. Your resistance to gambling is based on a fear that everyone will suddenly become addicted to gambling and lose all their money. In reality the number of gambling addicts are small. smaller than the number of people killed by guns, smaller than the number of murders or thefts and smaller than the number of criminals who get away because police do not have guns. |
| Date | 07:38:55, April 30, 2005 CET | From | Leviathan Party | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | What an excellent way to dodge the point and attempt to distract people from your total lack of an answer. Of course it's the government's job to protect people from themselves, as demostrated above. End of story, you're wrong. |
| Date | 07:50:13, April 30, 2005 CET | From | Protectorate Party | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | what's wrong with base jumping? |
| Date | 12:31:08, April 30, 2005 CET | From | Free Reform Coalition (FRP) | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | he LevP wrote this concerning gun ownership: There is no reason to restrict the rights of responsible, law abiding citizens, and though the Leviathan Party does not endorse gun ownership, we respect the right of individuals to own them. Our strict licensing laws keep guns out of the hands of criminals and ensure guys are properly linked with their owners in case of crime. We see no reason to extend this to an outright ban. We would like to know why this does not extend to gambling laws. If people are responsible there should be no problem. Would the LevP mind explaining why citizens are inherently responsible with guns, but not with gambling? |
| Date | 19:10:18, April 30, 2005 CET | From | Leviathan Party | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | Will you require someone to fill out an application and get a license to gamble? Will we take measures to ensure that no one loses more money than they can afford? Will we take actions against citizens who gamble irresponsibly? Will we aggressively prosecute gambling institutions if they fail to abide by the strictest regulations regarding accounting practices? If so, then we are for legalizing gambling. However, until we can apply the same safeguards to gambling that we apply to gun ownership, we are against it. |
| Date | 20:59:22, April 30, 2005 CET | From | LibCom Party | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | We disagree with LevP regarding the government's supposed duty to protect people from themselves. We do believe, however, that the government has a duty to protect people from exploitation by casino owners. |
| Date | 23:32:54, April 30, 2005 CET | From | Free Reform Coalition (FRP) | To | Debating the Economic Boost Act |
| Message | LibCom you make a good point, we do not want abuse by casino owners. As for the comments made by the LevP, we will address each individually. There will be no license to gamble, but a casino needs to get a license if it has any gambling activities on the premises. We will stand for a minimum gambling age, which will be 21. We will not enact any procedures to "ensure that no one loses more money than they can afford." While it is nice to offer such regulation, it is impractical and can lead to abuse. If you were to take out a loan in order to start a business, one naturally has to borrow more money than you have at the moment. Naturally you intend to make money on your investment. this is of course a surer thing than gambling, however this law could apply to anything that has a chance of failure and thus has a large potential to hinder growth. it is the choice of individuals to do what they want with their money. the government has no right to say how I or you should spend the money we earned. simple. We support heavy prosecuting of ALL institutions that have fuzzy accounting practices. If we did not have these in place already I would be surprised. In any case, to prevent the development of money laundering and organized crime from getting involved, there should be inspections and regulation of casino games to ensure there is a chance of winning that is specified and that there is not sign of tampering. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||
| yes | Total Seats: 33 | |||||
| no |
Total Seats: 59 | |||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 8 |
| Random fact: In Culturally Protected nations, special care must be taken to ensure realism is maintained when role-playing a government controlled by an ethnic and/or religious minority. If it is to be supposed that this government is supported by a majority of the population, then this should be plausibly and sufficiently role-played. The burden of proof is on the player or players role-playing such a regime to demonstrate that it is being done realistically |
| Random quote: "Those looking for ideology in the White House should consider this: for the men who rule our world, rules are for other people." - Naomi Klein |