Empherias - National Budgets

The national budgets are often discussed by primarily the Chancellor, and the Lord of the Treasury. Alongside this, some domestic affairs ministers, chief advisers and financial advisers - even the Prime Minister - may get involved to direct the state of affairs. Previously, the budget had been held confidentially but soon these budgets were broadcast on radio and television, and published in national newspapers.

The first time the national budget is mentioned in a political policy publicly, was in 2412 when Elizabeth Rose, under a caretaker government, passed the "Socialist Debt and Emergency Fund Act of 1912". Parliament was called for a vote on putting aside 8% of the 2413 GDP budget to emergency funds for the recession, and another 5% to pay back debt. This act passed 187 - 131 in Parliament at the time. This was to minimise the global recession during the Great War.

The first official full national budget published was the budget for 2415 - also during a socialist government, this one a legitimately elected one. It detailed a recession recovery plan that would:


 * Set the national debt repayment per year to 50pc of GDP.
 * Government spending is capped at 35pc of GDP.
 * 15pc of GDP is added to the Treasury for future financial savings and large investment projects.

Furthermore, it was announced that this budget would stay in place for the years of 2416 and 2417. Focuses for government spending were:


 * Transport and Infrastructure, which was set at 53pc of government spending.
 * National Defence, split amongst armed forces, naval forces and general research and development at 15pc of government spending, due to the Great War.
 * Education and knowledge economy efforts set at 3pc of government spending.
 * The remainder going to other projects or general government spending like wages.

The next announced national budget was the budget for the fiscal year of 2418 - which would extend similarly into 2419 and 2420. The budget allocated as such was this:


 * 11pc of government spending to Education, up 8pc from the 2417 budget.
 * 10pc of government spending to Defence, down 5pc from the 2417 budget.
 * of the Defence spending, 60pc was spent on Research and Development, with 28pc on Naval Forces, and 12pc on Armed Forces.
 * 50pc of government spending went to Transport and Logistics, a decrease of 3pc
 * Others were unclear in percent points, assumed to the get the rest

In 2420 only, Debt Repayment was decreased from 50pc to 30pc, which was evenly distributed amongst others excluding the Armed Forces. This was then decreased again in the 2421 budget to just 25pc, and then again in the 2422 budget to 20pc, with these extra funds going to infrastructure investments. The National Budget of 2424 was heavily detailed in the papers with this transcript:"'In the 1924 national budget, Chancellor Ludwig Reimes and Lord of the Treasury Peter Lareatte would propose new measures to ensure new infrastructure projects begin. The year would begin as many in Parliament agree that the Great War is almost over and the economy is unlikely to fail again. Because of this, drastic austerity measures are no longer needed to ensure that the economy could stay afloat in a crisis. The Budget would still put in some measures of austerity however. As of the 1923 budget, a whole 40% of the GDP would be pumped either into saving in the treasury or to repay debt directly. In the new budget for 1924, the money saved by the treasury would be decreased from 15% of the GDP to 3% of GDP. This saves 12% of the GDP for other projects. Debt Repayment, which is currently 25% would move down to 12%, saving another 13% of the GDP for other projects. Education, becoming more important in today's world, is currently sitting at a budget of 12% from the 1923 budget. This would be increased to 17% in an attempt to turn the nation into a small knowledge economy. Most of this planned money would go to the creation of a public school system. These would allow kids to go to school without paying a single penny for admission up until the age of 16. The rest of the money would go to sponsoring large universities to increase capacity and paying some very smart children's tuitions. Many universities however would still cost a lot of money, and private schools would remain in operation. The Army, now seeing a very demobilised world, would move from 1% of GDP spending to just 0.5% of GDP spending. The navy would gain that 0.5% of GDP, alongside another 1% of GDP from freed up money and go from 3% to 4.5% of the GDP. The Navy is seen as a more important project in a more global world, and a world in which our continent is very safe from conflict. General Defence Research and Development would remain at 6% of GDP. Transport is a key issue for developing the interior and allowing for quick travel between areas for leisure or for work. Currently at 12%, an extra 12% will be allocated to projects for 24% of GDP. Majority of this money would go to railways and decreasing travel costs and keeping up maintenance and creating more lines. Money would also go to roads, pathways, and other logistic routes. Money would also go to development of naval ports. Currently 14%, this will be increased to 30% and will go to the maintenance of general infrastructure, sewer maintenance and expansion, social housing and the building of new houses, the emergency services funding such as firefighters and the police force, all public offices buildings, collection of drinking water, electricity, gas, food, and other logistics, etc, etc'"No official budget documentation or broadcast was made for the 2422 or 2423 budgets, nor the 2425 or 2426 budgets. However, the 2426 budget was mentioned in the 2426 Third Military Expansion in which Henry Alark describes that "Research for a new Battleship class, used as a combination of Hveden naval technology, our own old battleships and Ceironia battleships begins with the full R&D of the military & naval forces budget of 1925 and 1926 combined." This was later amended by Alark himself stating that help from Kiavar would speed up the process and that 15pc of the 2426 budget would be allocated elsewhere in the Military, most likely to other naval research and the private agreement to build a tank with Palakkinen.