Open budget primary
Michael Allan
mike at zelea.com
Thu May 2 06:58:06 EDT 2013
conseo said:
> ... In the budget everything comes together really. The spreadsheet
> like features will also be very interesting. I hope I can dive into
> hacking that soon.
We might do the calculations in the pollwiki using these extensions.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:VariablesExtension
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:ParserFunctions
And pull in the external data with Semantic MediaWiki.
Here's a running prototype of a simple budget draft:
http://zelea.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=User:Mike-ZeleaCom/scratch&oldid=6561
The bottom example uses SMW to clean up the external data pollution.
That leaves pure, original, budgetary content in the draft. Now we
can cleanly patch budget differences from draft to draft. (It looks
like MediaWiki saves our bacon here, once again. I didn't think we
could this without custom software.)
This would all go in ??? below, as the whole-budget primary. I make
corrections below to the "Unforced expenditures" row:
Issue Guiding Primary Decisive Authority
============ =========================== ========================
Forced Legislative (tax law) [1] Assembly
revenue
Unforced Planning (production) [2] Executive (sub-office)
revenue
Planning (donation) [2] RAC pledger [3]
+ executive (sub-office)
------------ --------------------------- ------------------------
Forced - (supplier contracts) None
expenditures
Legislative [1] Assembly
(statutory expenses)
Unforced Planning (expenditures) [2] Executive (sub-office)
expenditures + budget (expenditures) [4] + executive (finance)
============ =========================== ========================
Budget ??? Executive (finance)
+ assembly
- - - - - - - - - - - -
+ judiciary (all
decisions)
We need two primaries for the unforced expenditures, and two deciders.
On the primary side (left), the planning drafts for each program (or
service etc.) must include their own budgets, specifically each must
project the expenditures of the program. These are either fixed (a
number), or functions of program size, or other execution variables.
These data are pulled into the two types of budget primary
(expenditures and whole budget). Now participants in the expenditures
budgetary primary know how many votes a program needs in order to run,
or to reach a preferred size, or capability, etc. If it hasn't enough
primary votes, they'll know they need to campaign, or increase the
turnout, or turn their efforts to saving other programs.
On the decision side (right), the officer nominated to run the program
decides whether to run it at all, and according to which plan (which
variant draft from the planning primary). So this decision affects
actual expenditures. Meanwhile, the finance officer for the overall
budget has the authority to make changes here as well, of course.
Although this is a complex practice, it looks like we're rationalizing
it fairly well. None of the primaries is looking to be too complex in
itself, not even the whole budget. The budget drafters need only
choose which programs put forward by the nominated officers must be
cancelled (not viable) or given haircuts in order to arrive at the
correct balance with revenue. The correct balance (deficit or
surplus) can be guided by a separate policy primary.
It looks like we could almost generate a default budget automatically
from simple rules (again input from policy primaries), and then tweak
the draft to correct anomolies. Even the voting in the whole-budget
primary might be simplified by a convention: vote for the draft that
imposes the fewest tweaks, because it's likely to be the truest to the
myriad of input primaries (what we're asking for). Moreover, since
each necessary tweak signals an anomoly in the input primaries (like
asking for what's impossible), we might eliminate even those residual
tweaks by shifting our votes in the input primaries and resolving the
anomolies. The primary budget might then be determined wholly from
the input of external primaries; the whole-budget drafters *per se*
(the tweakers) being effectively removed from the process in the end.
The finance officer offered such a "perfect" primary budget need only
be concerned with executing it. He/she would be purely an executive.
That's perhaps the dream of every executive. The clearer the mandate
(what ought to be) the greater the power to make it a fact (what is).
Mike
conseo said:
> Hi,
>
> Michael Allan wrote:
> > This is fairly complicated. But it's interesting too, because it
> > shows how different types of primary come together in the budget.
> >
> > conseo said:
> > > Yes, if [supply side] accounting happened in the same process, then
> > > budget drafting would be embedded in the process, right? ...
> >
> > We spoke since. Here's a summary of how we figured the budget is
> > decided, and how that decision is guided by the participants. The
> > summary reveals some holes, which I try to fill in below. It looks
> > like whole-budget drafting fits in one of them.
> >
> >
> > Issue Guiding Primary Decisive Authority
> > ============ ========================= ========================
> >
> > Forced Legislative (tax law) [1] Assembly
> > revenue
> >
> > Unforced Planning (production) [2] Executive (sub-office)
> > revenue
> > Planning (donation) [2] RAC pledger [3]
> > + executive (sub-office)
> > ------------ ------------------------- ------------------------
> > Forced - (supplier contracts) None
> > expenditures
> > Legislative [1] Assembly
> > (statutory expenses)
> >
> > Unforced Budget (expenditures) [4] Executive (finance)
> > expenditures
> >
> > ============ ========================= ========================
> > Budget ??? Executive (finance)
> > + assembly
> >
> > - - - - - - - - - - - -
> > + judiciary (all decisions)
> >
> >
> > Forced revenue comes from taxes guided by legislative primaries and
> > decided by the assembly. (These could be member fees for other types
> > of organization, but I use government as my standard here.) Unforced
> > revenue may come from production (goods and services charged for),
> > which is guided by planning primaries and decided by the officer who
> > is charged with executing the plan. Unforced revenue may also come
> > from donations that are pledged to specific variants of the plan via
> > the RAC, the pledged amounts being decided by the pledger (of course)
> > while the variant is chosen by the executive; the pledge is redeemable
> > only if the pledged variant is chosen. (We discussed how wealth could
> > influence the planning decision here, and we mostly agreed it's normal
> > in this context, and not a problem.)
> >
> > Forced expenditures come from supplier contracts that are already in
> > force for materials, manpower, capital and such. Payment for these is
> > mandatory by contract law, and not decided by anyone. Expenditures
> > may also be enforced by statutory law, as with statutory programs or
> > services. Unforced expenditures - the discretionary balance among
> > departments, programs and services - are guided by the budget primary
> > for that purpose, but decided by the finance officer.
> >
> > The sum of all these decisions is the budget (bottom left), which
> > again is decided by the finance officer, typically in conjunction with
> > the assembly, which has a veto. Note that we're missing a primary
> > here to guide the budget as a whole (???). So I guess we need:
> >
> > (A) Budget primary (whole budget)
> >
> > It might be implemented like a legislative primary [1], with variant
> > budgets instead of bills. It also needs special markup to read data
> > from external sources that are shareable by the variant drafts, and it
> > must render the data on the fly, instead of writing them directly to
> > the text. These data include things like the latest results of the
> > expenditures primary, cost of supplier contracts, interest rate
> > projections, and so forth. It also needs spreadsheet-like
> > capabilities to display intermediate and final calculations on the fly
> > instead of writing them in. Then it might be possible to patch
> > variant budget drafts using text diffs, like we patch bills. The
> > drafting medium (so modified) is the budget composing tool we spoke of
> > earlier. The chief financial officer uses it to compose the official
> > budget. And rivals for that office in the *executive* primary (or
> > budding future candidates) tend to be experienced drafters in the
> > *budget* primary, where they all work more-or-less together.
>
> Yes, this is important imo. Also you are right that it should build a common
> process instead of being separated in budget primary, plan drafting (with RAC
> and pledges for supplies) and executive primary. In the budget everything
> comes together really. The spreadsheet like features will also be very
> interesting. I hope I can dive into hacking that soon.
>
> >
> > All decisions in the authority column (above) are subject to judicial
> > review. Courts may strike down or alter decisions. So the judiciary
> > is a decider, too. But the deciders - the members of the assembly,
> > executive and judiciary - are themselves the products of decision.
> > Here's how *they* are decided:
> >
> >
> > Issue Guiding Primary Decisive Authority
> > ========== ======================= ===========================
> >
> > Assembly Single and multi- [5] Electorate
> > -winner electoral
> >
> > Executive Executive electoral [6] Electorate (presidential)
> > or assembly (parliamentary)
> >
> > Judiciary ??? Executive, electorate,
> > or executive + assembly
> > ========== - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> > Government + judiciary (all decisions)
> >
> >
> > The sum of all the decisions on the left is a government. But we're
> > missing another primary here (???), the one that guides the choice of
> > judges. Judicial appointments are one-off, so I guess it would
> > similar to a single-winner assembly primary [5]. Maybe call it:
> >
> > (B) Judicial bench primary.
>
> Possible and reasonable. I still think the budget primary is closer to
> practice because the judiciary usually does not exist in organisations but in
> the state only. Still you have judicial branches and ethics boards often (as
> well as employee representatives for discriminatory issues), which are also
> elected usually. It is definitely necessary to form a complete government.
>
> >
> > Just as experienced primary budget drafters are the best candidates
> > for financial office, (and experienced primary bill drafters the best
> > candidates for the legislature), so maybe we need a drafting primary
> > for the judicial candidates. I guess it would be one that provides
> > guidance for judicial decisions: [7]
> >
> > (C) Judicial case primary.
> >
> > Again there are deciders in the authority column above (electorate)
> > who themselves are the products of decision:
> >
> >
> > Issue Guiding Primary Decisive Authority
> > ========== ======================= ===========================
> >
> > Electorate Legislative [1] Assembly (maybe others)
> > (constitutional law)
> > - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> > + judiciary (all decisions)
> >
> >
> > The constitution says who the electors are. The constitution is
> > guided by a legislative primary and decided by the assembly under
> > special rules, such as super-majority, consent of other authorities
> > (executive, federal states), and so forth.
>
> Which again can be changed through the constitution (feder borders for
> instance), so the process in total allows consensus based restructuring of the
> whole and all the small parts.
>
> conseo
>
> >
> > Mike
> >
> >
> > [1] Legislative primaries.
> > http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/legislative_action
> >
> > [2] Planning primaries. (not yet drafted)
> > http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/administrative_action
> >
> > [3] Resource accounting framework (RAC).
> > http://zelea.com/w/Category:Account
> >
> > [4] Budget primary (just expenditures). The whole-budget primary
> > (not yet documented) would run in parallel with this.
> > http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/budgeting
> >
> > [5] Single and multi-winner electoral primaries.
> > http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/assembly_election
> >
> > [6] Executive electoral primary.
> > http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/power_structuring
> >
> > [7] To be sure, it's important to bear in mind that: (a) primaries
> > run long in advance of decisions and keep running afterwards;
> > (b) while anyone is free to vote, anyone is also free to filter
> > and recount the votes, e.g. restricting them to legal experts;
> > (c) the appointments of higher judges tend to be secure; and (d)
> > they have the authority to temporarily shut down sources of
> > information, which includes things like case primaries.
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