Puerto Rico Affirmative updates
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Inherency
Observation 1-Inherency
Currently, Puerto Ricans aren’t eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit—denying vital help to
persons living in poverty on the island.
Pierluisi, congressman of Puerto Rico, 6/11 (Pedro, congressman of Puerto Rico, “In the news.” 2009.
http://pierluisi.house.gov/NEWS/06-11-09-CREDIT.html. Accessed 7/22)
“The EITC was established to reduce poverty and increase the incentive to work. The EITC has a proven track
record of success. Research has shown that the credit has helped reduce welfare caseloads and increase single mothers’
employment rates in the 50 states. Puerto Rico would likely see similar social and economic benefits if its
workers qualified for the credit. There is no principled basis for excluding Puerto Rico from the EITC
program on the ground that Island residents do not pay federal taxes on their local income, since the
EITC is available to residents of the states who do not earn enough to have a federal tax liability,” the
Resident Commissioner said.
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Poverty
Advantage 1 is poverty
Nearly half of Puerto Rico’s inhabitants fall below the poverty line.
Zarcone-Pérez, award winning writer with more than ten years of experience, 2005 [Teresa Zarcone-Pérez. “Working To
Address
Poverty
in
Puerto
Rico.”
Equal
http://ejm.lsc.gov/EJMIssue8/povertyinpuertorico.htm.]
Justice.
Volume
4.
No.
1.
Spring
2005.
Yet amidst the vibrant colored picture of the island’s most marketable attributes is a darker reality.
Traveling inland into the modest communities where most natives reside reveals a more sobering picture: that of a people
struggling with the day-to-day problems of poverty. Despite the rambunctious demeanor of a citizenry always ready for a
festival (there are more than 500 a year here), life on the island is no tropical paradise for many of Puerto Rico’s 3.8 million
inhabitants. Forty-five percent, or roughly 1.8 million people, live at or below the poverty line. The
unemployment rate, which has not dipped below double digits in this millennium, currently hovers
above 11 percent. By some estimates, as many as 100,000 Puerto Ricans are homeless, living on the streets and in the
island’s cramped shelters. The drastic change in scenery can be an eye-opener for tourists and the small, elite circle of
island residents with the disposable income to buy expensive cars, high-end second homes, and water toys.
Poverty is the worst form of genocide imaginable- it is a slow-paced holocaust. Inaction is a form of
complicity.
Udayakumar, director of the South Asian Community Center for Education and Research, 1995 [S.P Udayakumar, “The Futures
of the Poor,” Futures Vol. 27, no. 3 pp 339-351, 1995]
Although race, ethnicity, gender, generation and political powerlessness all contribute to poverty, the
‘economic worth’
factor forms the basis in ‘poorcide,’ the genocide of the poor. It is an economic group (or class)
discriminated against in poorcide. A particular group of people is massacred in genocide, but poverty
kills indiscriminately, irrespective of the group. Genocide just kills you, but poverty tortures and condemns
you to a slow and painful death. Poverty degrades human beings, negates human dignity and wastes
human resources, genocide prompts physical elimination, but poverty causes physical pain, mental
agony, moral degradation and spiritual dissipation. Extending the analysis of physical violence and structural
violence to genocide, we can distinguish between direct and indirect or physical and structural, genocide. Genocide
means not just massive killing (which we can call direct or physical genocide) but also includes
calculated attacks on and constant efforts at undermining the basic human dignity and life-support
systems of a particular group of people (which may be described as the indirect or structural genocide).
Poorcide may not be actual physical elimination of the poor in a massive scale, but it’s a slow-pace
silent holocaust. Genocide takes place in pockets of human polity, but poverty afflicts humanity all
over the world. Unlike genocide, poverty is widespread, systematically rooted and popularly accepted.
However fickle and fragile, the victims, or potential victims, of genocide may be able to take some precautions.
But the victims of poverty can only watch themselves being taken for granted, or even worse, being taken
advantage of by the privileged. In a genocidal act, only those with prejudices and biases participate, but we are all
complicit in the poverty crime. Leading a ‘rich lifestyle; or letting the problem persist is the definite
complicity in the crime of poorcide.
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Self Determination (1/6)
Advantage 2: Self Determination
Global secession is inevitable
Muller, Professor of History at the Catholic University, 08 [Jerry Z. Muller, Professor of History at the Catholic University,
March/April 2008, “The Clash of peoples”, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/opinion/29iht-edmuller.html?_r=1]
But none of this will make ethno-nationalism go away. Immigrants to the United States usually arrive with a willingness to
fit into their new country and reshape their identities accordingly. But for those who remain behind in lands where
their ancestors have lived for generations, if not centuries, political identities often take ethnic form, producing
competing communal claims to political power. The creation of a peaceful regional order of nation-states has
usually been the product of a violent process of ethnic separation. In areas where that separation has
not yet occurred, politics is apt to remain ugly. Yet the experience of the hundreds of Africans and Asians who
perish each year trying to get into Europe by landing on the coast of Spain or Italy reveals that Europe's frontiers are not so
open. And a survey would show that whereas in 1900 there were many states in Europe without a single overwhelmingly
dominant nationality, by 2007 there were only two, and one of those, Belgium, was close to breaking up. Aside from
Switzerland, in other words - where the domestic ethnic balance of power is protected by strict citizenship laws - in
Europe the "separatist project" has not so much vanished as triumphed. Far from having been superannuated
in 1945, in many respects ethno-nationalism was at its apogee in the years immediately after World War II. European
stability during the Cold War era was in fact due partly to the widespread fulfillment of the ethnonationalist project. Although the term "ethnic cleansing" has come into English usage only recently, its
verbal correlates in Czech, French, German, and Polish go back much further. Much of the history of 20th century
Europe, in fact, has been a painful, drawn-out process of ethnic disaggregation. The breakup of Yugoslavia was simply the
last act of a long play. But the plot of that play - the disaggregation of peoples and the triumph of ethno-nationalism in
modern Europe - is rarely recognized, and so a story whose significance is comparable to the spread of democracy or
capitalism remains largely unknown and unappreciated. When the European overseas empires dissolved,
meanwhile, they left behind a patchwork of states whose boundaries often cut across ethnic patterns of
settlement and whose internal populations were ethnically mixed. It is wishful thinking to suppose that
these boundaries will be permanent. As societies in the former colonial world modernize, becoming more urban,
literate, and politically mobilized, the forces that gave rise to ethno-nationalism and ethnic disaggregation in Europe are apt
to drive events there, too. This unfortunate reality creates dilemmas for advocates of humanitarian intervention, because
making and keeping peace between groups that have come to hate and fear one another is likely to require costly ongoing
military missions rather than relatively cheap temporary ones. When communal violence escalates to ethnic
cleansing, moreover, the return of large numbers of refugees to their place of origin after a cease-fire has
been reached is often impractical and even undesirable, for it merely sets the stage for a further round
of conflict down the road. Partition may thus be the most humane lasting solution to such intense communal conflicts.
It inevitably creates new flows of refugees, but at least it deals with the problem at issue. Contemporary social scientists
who write about nationalism tend to stress the contingent elements of group identity - the extent to which national
consciousness is culturally and politically manufactured by ideologists and politicians. They regularly invoke Benedict
Anderson's concept of "imagined communities," as if demonstrating that nationalism is constructed will rob the concept of
its power. It is true, of course, that ethno-national identity is never as natural or ineluctable as nationalists claim. Yet it
would be a mistake to think that because nationalism is partly constructed it is therefore fragile or infinitely malleable.
Ethno-nationalism was not a chance detour in European history: it corresponds to some enduring propensities
of the human spirit that are heightened by the process of modern state creation, it is a crucial source of both
solidarity and enmity, and in one form or another, it will remain for many generations to come. One can
only profit from facing it directly.
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Puerto Rico Affirmative updates
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Self Determination (2/6)
Resolving Puerto Rican poverty and stimulating economic growth is key to Self-Determination
Monge, Former supreme justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and J.S.D at Harvard University, 1999 [Jose Tnas Monge,
Former supreme justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and J.S.D at Harvard University, 1999, ARTICULOS: PLENARY
POWER AND THE PRINCIPLE OF LIBERTY: AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF THE POLITICAL CONDITION OF PUERTO
RICO, Lexis]
Changes in the territorial policy rhetoric have not clarified the picture. References to Puerto Rico's right to selfdetermination, a term miscast as the key to solving Puerto Rico's status dilemma, only stands for the right to opt
for independence and cannot be taken to mean that Puerto Rico can self-determine its way to statehood
or non-colonial Commonwealth. The United States has been most careful through the years to point out that the
extension of certain political rights or measures of selfgovernment did not in any way imply a commitment or even a
promise of eventual statehood, but the failure of the United States to identify its present interest in Puerto Rico complicates
a complex situation. The United States should address questions which are often sidestepped in legislative
proposals concerning the political status of Puerto Rico. Is the admission of Puerto Rico as a state of the Union
in the near future in its best interest? Should English be required to be the language of instruction and government? Given
the cyclical nature of the statehood [*21] movement and its repeated rejection by the people of Puerto Rico in the course
of the twentieth century, should a supermajority in favor of such formula be necessary in order to exclude to the extent
possible an embarrassing change of mind? Given also Puerto Rico's abysmal poverty, its annual per capita income
amounting only to one-third of that of the United States, should it be required that its economy be somewhat
reasonably improved before consideration is given to a statehood petition? Finally, should Puerto Rico first
become an incorporated territory so that direct experience be made available on how statehood would actually work? The
present debate in Puerto Rico, as was the case especially up to the late forties, has an air of unreality about it. The status
options are discussed in Utopian fashion, as if they were there for the asking and the United States
were not part of the equation. Fanciful interpretations of each of the options are presented in minute
detail. The possibility of consensus among Puerto Ricans seems to recede farther and farther in the
distance, as one version of Utopia clashes with another. Acrimony among the disputants and disrespect, even contempt,
for the options not favored by the speaker often mark the debate. This unhealthy climate has fostered distortion of the issues
being faced by the people of Puerto Rico. The position regarding the applicability of the territorial clause and the discussion
whether Puerto Rico is or is not a United States colony provide examples.
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Self Determination (3/6)
The EITC alleviates poverty and ensures economic growth, creating an economically self-sufficient and
determined Puerto Rico
The Brookings Institute, 08 (“Metro Raise: Boosting the Earned Income Tax Credit to Help Metropolitan Workers and
Families,” 5 June 2008, http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/05_metro_raise_berube.aspx)
To alleviate poverty, make work pay, and help low-wage workers and lower-income families meet
rising costs of living, the federal government should expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
Targeted expansions to the credit, and new options for workers to receive the EITC’s proceeds
throughout the year (rather than in a lump sum), would ensure more economically inclusive growth,
especially in the major metropolitan areas where the bulk of America’s working poor resides. America’s Challenge Even
as the U.S. economy was growing strongly in recent years, median household incomes and average hourly wages stagnated.
Today, about onequarter of the nation’s workforce is employed in low-wage jobs, and low-wage occupations are projected
to account for 30 percent of U.S. job growth in the coming years. Meanwhile, prices for necessities such as housing,
transportation, and child care have continued to rise for lower-income workers and families. Slowing economic growth, and
a potential recession, place additional, immediate pressures on the nation’s less-skilled, lower-wage workforce. Limitations
of Existing Federal Policy Because it reduces poverty and inequality while promoting work, the EITC is
widely acknowledged as one of the singular successes of American social policy in recent decades. Yet
the EITC could do more for certain workers and families to help make work pay and to close the
growing gap between stagnant wages and rising prices. Moreover the annual lump sum in which nearly
all EITC is delivered is not well-timed to help low-income families meet their year-round needs.
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Self-Determination (4/6)
The plan uniquely shifts the focus of self-Determination from succession to a human rights framework
Thornberry, Professor of International Law, Keele University, 2000 [Patrick Thornberry, Professor of International Law, Keele
University, 2000, Operationalizing the Right of Indigenous People to Self Determination, p. 64]
Secession is not an issue for most groups, though it is still embedded in the standard imagery of selfdetermination. There is opportunity as well as difficulty for the further development of international law. If we are
witnessing the emergence of a specific form of self-determination, its legal recognition as a benign,
protective and balanced mode of self-determination, would be a considerable prize for international law
and a possible model of good practice for application in related contexts. There are features in
indigenous descriptions which are capable of moving self-determination away from a fascination with
secession towards broader notions of human dignity and solidarity.
Internal self determination is key to global peace—it prevents external self determination or territorial
solutions
Eric Kolodner, currently completing a joint degree at New York University School of Law and Princeton University's Woodrow
Wilson School, Fall 1994, Connecticut Journal of International Law, 10 Conn. J. Int'l L. 153
some commentators have suggested that the international community should begin to
resist movements for self-determination. This perspective derives from a misguided conception of selfdetermination and a short-sighted view on geo-political realities. Contrary to the assumption of these observers,
self-determination is not coterminous with secession, and therefore, self-determination movements do not
inherently produce international instability. In fact, since efforts to limit the self-determination movements of
today often foment the conflict of tomorrow, recognizing legitimate claims for self-determination
might ensure world stability. Rather than abandoning this important right, the international community must
readjust its conception of self-determination to address the changing needs of the post-Cold War world. It should
emphasize the internal aspects of this right, which in many respects comport with principles of democratic
Recently, however,
governance that have recently assumed a primacy throughout the world. Additionally, by the international community
supporting movements for internal self-determination, it can potentially avoid the disruption that often
accompanies movements for external self-determination. Because some peoples still suffer under neo-colonial
oppression, however, the international community should not categorically reject movements for external selfdetermination. Only when principles of internal self-determination cannot satisfy the legitimate needs of an aggrieved
people, should the international community support this people's right to external self-determination. It should attach
stringent conditions upon the legitimate exercise of this right, however. Only by limiting movements for external
self-determination and recognizing legitimate movements for internal self-determination, can the
international community simultaneously foster human rights, support democracy, and maintain world
peace and stability.
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Self Determination (5/6)
Unbridled secession leads to global war and other scenarios for massive death
Gottlieb, Leo Spitz Professor of International Law and Diplomacy University of Chicago Law School, 19 93 [Gidon Gottlieb, Leo
Spitz Professor of International Law and Diplomacy University of Chicago Law School, 1993, Nation Against State, p. 26-27]
Self-determination unleashed and unchecked by balancing principles constitutes a menace to the society
of states. There is simply no way in which all the hundreds of peoples who aspire to sovereign
independence can be granted a state of their own without loosening fearful anarchy and disorder on a
planetary scale. The proliferation of territorial entities poses exponentially greater problems for the
control of weapons of mass destruction and multiplies situations in which external intervention could
threaten the peace. It increases problems for the management of all global issues, including terrorism,
AIDS, the environment, and population growth. It creates conditions in which domestic strife in remote
territories can drag powerful neighbors into local hostilities, creating ever widening circles of conflict .
Events in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union drove this point home. Like Russian dolls, ever smaller ethnic
groups dwelling in larger units emerged to secede and to demand independence. Georgia, for example, has to contend with
the claims of South Ossetians and Abkhazians for independence, just as the Russian Federation is confronted with the
separatism of Tartaristan. An international system made up of several hundred independent territorial states cannot be the
basis for global security and prosperity.
Secession and external Self-Determination movements are the root cause of all international problems
and will create new great power rivalries and ideological conflicts
Callahan, Director of Research at Demos 2002 [David, Director of Research at Demos, written extensively on both foreign and
domestic policy, and is the author of four books, including Unwinnable Wars: American Power and Ethnic Conflict, 2002 Carnegie
Challenge, “The Enduring Challenge: Self Determination and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century,”
http://www.carnegie.org/pdf/ethnicconflict.pdf]
While the emerging terms of the international security debate after September 11th promise to further marginalize selfdetermination issues, this should not be the case. The new debate is still fluid enough to be shaped. And if there is one
critical idea that should help frame post-September 11th views of the world, it is this: Ethnic conflict and quests for
self-determination around the world are likely to be among the most important factors driving
international politics in the next decades. This phenomenon, moreover, should not be seen as separate
from other global problems such as terrorism, failed states, rivalry among great powers, access to
natural resources, and clashes between the modern and the traditional, or between the rich and the
poor. Instead, self-determination issues weave through many of these problems. In the years ahead,
self-determination movements and ethnic rivalries are sure to produce a steady stream of discrete
conflicts that have little consequence beyond horrible local bloodletting. But just as surely, these movements will
interact with a range of other global dynamics to create major challenges to peace and stability.
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Unchecked self-determination conflict causes nuclear war
Shehadi, Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 19 93 [Kamal Shehadi, Research Associate at the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, December 1993, Ethnic Self Determination And the Break Up of States, p. 81]
This paper has argued that self-determination conflicts have direct adverse consequences on international
security. As they begin to tear nuclear states apart, the likelihood of nuclear weapons falling into the
hands of individuals or groups willing to use them, or to trade them to others, will reach frightening levels.
This likelihood increases if a conflict over self-determination escalates into a war between two nuclear states. The Russian
Federation and Ukraine may fight over the Crimea and the Donbass area; and India and Pakistan may fight
over Kashmir. Ethnic conflicts may also spread both within a state and from one state to the next. This can
happen in countries where more than one ethnic self-determination conflict is brewing: Russia, India and Ethiopia, for
example. The conflict may also spread by contagion from one country to another if the state is weak politically and
militarily and cannot contain the conflict on its doorstep. Lastly, there is a real danger that regional conflicts will erupt
over national minorities and borders.
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Puerto Rico 1AC-Caribbean Security (1/4)
Advantage 3: Caribbean Security
Puerto Rico’s economy is failing—action now key to stop a depression.
Banuchi, Associated Press Financial Wire Writer, 09 (Rebecca Banuchi, Associated Press Financial Wire Writer, “PR gov: 30,000
workers could be fired amid crisis,” 4 March 2009, Lexis)
More than 30,000 government employees about 14 percent of the public work force could lose their
jobs and new taxes will be introduced as Puerto Rico attempts to shore up its ailing economy, the
governor of the U.S. island territory announced Tuesday. In a half-hour televised address, Gov. Luis Fortuno outlined a
plan to cut a long-bloated work force excluding police officers and teachers and institute new taxes to increase revenue on
the cash-strapped island, which is in its third year of recession. The layoffs will begin on July 1, the start of the
new fiscal year and are necessary even when taking into consideration the roughly $5 billion Puerto
Rico is slated to receive from President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package over the next two
years, the governor said. The government is Puerto Rico's main employer, with 218,000 people, or 21 percent of the work
force on the island of 3.9 million inhabitants. Economic analysts have been advising Puerto Rico, which currently has a
$3.2 billion budget deficit, to slash its sprawling public payroll for years. "The government is too big and spends too
much," Fortuno said. "Simply, the government has to be minimized." The governor, a Republican who is the
leader of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, said Puerto Rico was facing its most painful
financial crisis in decades, and failing to take immediate action to rein in spending would push the
economy into a depression. Opposition legislators could not immediately be contacted for comment. Fortuno said
he did not have an exact number for how many workers would be let go but said he was "afraid" it
would exceed 30,000. The total will depend on the success of a voluntary retirement offer and savings from wage and
benefit freezes, he said. "We all must confront the reality of a bankrupt government and work together to
return progress, opportunity and your future to you. The government may be bankrupt, but Puerto Rico
is not," said Fortuno, who declared a fiscal emergency shortly after taking office on Jan. 2.
Reducing unemployment would improve Puerto Rico’s economy
Collins, United States Senator, 2006 [Susan Collins. “The Economy of Puerto Rico.” The Brookings Institution Center for the New
Economy. P. 37]
Labor Inputs. In this section, we provide an overview of trends in the quantity (employment rate) and quality (education) of
the workforce. The low Puerto Rican employment-to-population rate, shown in table 2-1, is a major
contributor to the depressed levels of family incomes on the island. If Puerto Ricans were employed at
the same rate as on the mainland (with unchanged income per worker), per capita incomes would be raised by
50 percent. However, we also find that the Puerto Rican workforce has levels of educational attainment well above those
of other countries with comparable incomes.
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Caribean Security (2/4)
Puerto Rico’s Economy, as part of the larger Caribbean economy, is vital to the region’s security
Tulchin, Professor of History at Yale University, 2000 [Joseph Tulchin, Professor of History at Yale University, 2000 , “Security
in the Caribbean Basin.” Ralph H. Espach: 2000.
http://books.google.com/books?id=j0sFgqxgddAC&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=puerto+rico+economy+caribbean+security&source
=bl&ots=r2JZkZ1N1s&sig=JPw-Udd8k1ctEysKSbpVYmCt5tk&hl=en&ei=QdhnSvamLD7tgeYq6GbCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3]
In keeping with our focus on nonstate actors, we can observe that improved social and economic conditions in the
Caribbean, while not automatically lowering migration rates, would certainly be a disincentive to migration.
Unfortunately, in the near future the likeihood of significant economic improvement in the region is not very
great. Cuts in aid programs, the redirection of U.S. investment away from the Caribbean, and the
dismantling of structures such as Law 936 in Puerto Rico will put even more economic pressure on Caribbean
societies. That pressure will result in more tension within these societies and a sharpening distinction
between the approaches to security of the state and its citizens. We can also anticipate increased
friction between the states of the region as a result of the massive displacement of undocumented
populations, for example, from Haiti to the Dominican Republic of from the latter country to Puerto Rico and the United
States. These frictions are made worse due to the lack of clear migration policies and noncoercive institutional mechanism
to deal with population movements. Conclusion. Migration should be one of the most important issues in a more inclusive
discussion of regional security that focuses on human as well as strategic concerns. News summaries of a 1996 OAS
meeting on Caribbean security, however, did not even mention the question of migration. In the current atmosphere,
bringing migration to the center of debates about security would raise several basic questions for the countries of the region.
Caribbean security key to prevent bioterrorism and an LNG attack
Bryan, Director of the Caribbean Program – North/South Center, and Stephen E. Flynn, Senior Fellow – Council on Foreign
Relations, 2001 [Anthony T. Bryan, Director of the Caribbean Program – North/South Center, and Stephen E. Flynn, Senior Fellow –
Council on Foreign Relations, “Terrorism, Porous Borders, and Homeland Security: The Case for U.S.-Caribbean Cooperation”, 1021-2001, http://www.cfr.org/publication/4844/terrorism_porous_borders_and _homeland_ security.html]
Terrorist acts can take place anywhere. The Caribbean is no exception. Already the linkages between drug
trafficking and terrorism are clear in countries like Colombia and Peru, and such connections have similar potential in the
Caribbean. The security of major industrial complexes in some Caribbean countries is vital. Petroleum
refineries and major industrial estates in Trinidad, which host more than 100 companies that produce
the majority of the world’s methanol, ammonium sulphate, and 40 percent of U.S. imports of liquefied
natural gas (LNG), are vulnerable targets. Unfortunately, as experience has shown in Africa, the Middle East, and
Latin America, terrorists are likely to strike at U.S. and European interests in Caribbean countries.
Security issues become even more critical when one considers the possible use of Caribbean countries
by terrorists as bases from which to attack the United States. An airliner hijacked after departure from an airport
in the northern Caribbean or the Bahamas can be flying over South Florida in less than an hour. Terrorists can sabotage or
seize control of a cruise ship after the vessel leaves a Caribbean port. Moreover, terrorists with false passports and visas
issued in the Caribbean may be able to move easily through passport controls in Canada or the United States. (To help
counter this possibility, some countries have suspended "economic citizenship" programs to ensure that known terrorists
have not been inadvertently granted such citizenship.) Again, Caribbean countries are as vulnerable as anywhere else
to the clandestine manufacture and deployment of biological weapons within national borders.
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Bioterror risks extinction
Steinbrunner, Senior Fellow at the Brookings, 97 [John Steinbrunner, Senior Fellow – Brookings, Foreign Policy, 12-22-1997,
Lexis]
Although human pathogens are often lumped with nuclear explosives and lethal chemicals as potential weapons of mass
destruction, there is an obvious, fundamentally important difference: Pathogens are alive, weapons are not. Nuclear and
chemical weapons do not reproduce themselves and do not independently engage in adaptive behavior; pathogens do both
of these things. That deceptively simple observation has immense implications. The use of a manufactured weapon is a
singular event. Most of the damage occurs immediately. The aftereffects, whatever they may be, decay rapidly over time
and distance in a reasonably predictable manner. Even before a nuclear warhead is detonated, for instance, it is possible to
estimate the extent of the subsequent damage and the likely level of radioactive fallout. Such predictability is an essential
component for tactical military planning. The use of a pathogen, by contrast, is an extended process whose
scope and timing cannot be precisely con- trolled. For most potential biological agents, the
predominant drawback is that they would not act swiftly or decisively enough to be an effective
weapon. But for a few pathogens---ones most likely to have a decisive effect and therefore the ones
most likely to be contemplated for deliberately hostile use--the risk runs in the other direction. A lethal
pathogen that could efficiently spread from one victim to another would be capable of initiating an
intensifying cascade of disease that might ultimately threaten the entire world population. The 1918
influenza epidemic demonstrated the potential for a global contagion of this sort but not necessarily its outer limit.
Also, importing liquefied natural gas risks a terrorist attack that would have the force of a nuclear
explosion
Reynolds, Staffwriter for the providence Journal, 2004 [Mark Reynolds, staffwriter, “Lloyd's executive likens LNG attack to
nuclear explosion” 9-21-2004, www.projo.com/massachusetts/content/projo_20040921_ma21lng.134600.html]
A terrorist attack on an LNG tanker "would have the force of a small nuclear explosion," according to the
chairman of Lloyd's, a British insurer of natural gas port facilities like the ones being proposed in Fall River and
Providence. The assertion, which is contested by industry experts, was in a speech that the chairman, Peter Levene,
delivered last night to business leaders in Houston. Levene described Texas as a "state at risk" and said that securing its
remote oil facilities is a "particular challenge." "Gas carriers too, whether at sea or in ports, make obvious
targets," said Levene. "Specialists reckon that a terrorist attack on an LNG tanker would have the force of a small nuclear
explosion." Levene did not name the specialists in his remarks, although a text of his speech contains a footnote. The
footnote attributes the observation to the author of an article posted, in an abbreviated form, on the Web site of Jane's
Terrorism and Security Monitor in July. The same abstract, apparently authored by the same person, Dr. J.C.K. Daly, was
also posted on the Internet weblog Talk Show American. Levene also did not specify Texas LNG port facilities and tanker
ships that might be at risk. Records kept by federal regulators show that several LNG port facilities have been proposed in
Texas. They do not show any existing facilities. Levene's company, Lloyd's, is the world's second-largest commercial
insurer. The chairman could not be reached for comment yesterday. Some critics of the proposal in Fall River have
spoken in apocalyptic terms of potential LNG disasters. But to date, no official reports by government regulators
have made comparisons between the various LNG catastrophes that experts have hypothesized and destruction
from an atomic bomb. One report does describe hypothetical fires that might erupt if gas leaks from a
tanker in its liquid form changes into a gaseous form and ignites when it comes into contact with a
flame. In one instance, the blaze, in less than a minute, would be capable of inflicting third-degree
burns a little less than a mile away.
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Puerto Rico Affirmative updates
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Caribean Security (4/4)
And Puerto Rico economic collapse independently spills over to the US
Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, 03 (“Trade Summit Convenes in Jacksonville to Save Thousands of U.S.
Jobs; Declining Trade with Puerto Rico Jeopardizes $61 Billion In Total Trade and 274,000 U.S. Mainland Jobs,” 12 August 2003,
Lexis)
A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study confirms the impact of a sound Puerto Rican economy on the
United States. According to the report, trade with Puerto Rico generates almost $4 billion and creates
32,561 jobs in Florida alone. In 2002 Puerto Rico purchased $16 billion worth of U.S. products,
exceeding imports from such countries as Italy, Spain, Russia or Australia. With a trade relationship
exceeding $61 billion per year, Puerto Rico ranks as the seventh largest global trading partner of the
United States. As the second-largest per capita consumer of U.S. products in the world, Puerto Rico
plays an extremely important role in the U.S. economy. If Puerto Rico tax incentives are phased out,
the devastating effects will have repercussions on the U.S. economy and potentially affect almost
300,000 workers across the nation. Given the scope of potential impact, Section 956 was devised to create mutual
benefits that extend beyond JAXPORT and Florida.
Nuclear war.
Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, 09 [Walter Russell Mead,
the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, February 4, 2009, “Only Makes
You Stronger,” http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8&p=1]
None of which means that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that
financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring
messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal
capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the
Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two
World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad
economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression
poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a
depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi
to be born? The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on
track, we may still have to fight.
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Puerto Rico Affirmative updates
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Solvency (1/2)
The EITC represents an economic bonanza to Puerto Ricans
Eric Kolodner, currently completing a joint degree at New York University School of Law and Princeton University's Woodrow
Wilson School, Fall 1994, Connecticut Journal of International Law, 10 Conn. J. Int'l L. 153
Statehood is traditionally represented by the NPP as representing, as indeed it does, an economic bonanza to
Puerto Ricans. More than 60 percent of Puerto Rican families live under the poverty level , just slightly
less than in 1940, as compared to 7.6 in Vermont and 19.9 percent in Mississippi, the poorest state of the Union. The
application of the United States tax system to Puerto Rico as a consequence of statehood would, for example,
mean that the earned income tax credit (EITC) would extend to the island. The U.S. General Accounting
Office has estimated that under statehood Puerto Rico's aggregate federal tax liability would amount to some $ 623 million.
This sum would be wiped out by the EITC alone, which is estimated at around $ 638 million.
The Puerto Rican Work and Empowerment Act reduces poverty, increases employment, and improves
local economies
US House of Representatives Documents, 6/12 ( “Pascrell Introduces Puerto Rico Work and Empowerment Act,” 12 June
2009, http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/nj08_pascrell/pr6122009.shtml)
Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-08), a member of the House Ways and Means
Committee, today introduced a bipartisan measure in the House of Representatives that would extend
the earned income tax credit (EITC) provision of the federal tax code to United States residents of
Puerto Rico. “The earned income tax credit has proven its worth in the United States by helping to
reduce the welfare caseload, increase employment for single mothers and ultimately lift working
families and individuals,” stated Pascrell. ‘It is a powerful incentive in encouraging workers to come out from the
WASHINGTON—U.S. Rep.
underground economy and contribute to the formal economy. With 15 percent unemployment in Puerto Rico, the earned
income tax credit will encourage workers to come out from the shadows and join the Commonwealth’s economy.” “I want
to thank Rep. Pascrell for his leadership on this issue, as well as to thank Reps Crowley, Towns, Maloney, Sires and Mica.
These members are good friends to the people of Puerto Rico, and I am deeply grateful for their support,” stated the
Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi. The legislation, called the Puerto Rico Work and
Empowerment Act, would extend the EITC to help reduce poverty, increase employment and improve
local economies in Puerto Rico just as it has done in the United States. In order to control the cost of
the benefit, the legislation limits the amount of the credit by the amount contributed by the taxpayer
and his or her employer in payroll taxes. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC or EIC) began in 1975 as a
temporary program to return a portion of the Social Security tax paid by lower income taxpayers, and was made permanent
in 1978. In the 1990s, the program became a major component of federal efforts to reduce poverty, and is
now one of the largest federal anti-poverty programs. Childless adults in 2006 (the latest year for which data are
available) received an average EITC of $237, families with one child received an average EITC of $1,838, and families
with two or more children received an average EITC of $2,864. “With United States residents of Puerto Rico
contributing so heavily to America, I firmly believe that the earned income tax credit should be
extended to the Island,” stated Pascrell. “EITC is a proven tool and valuable resource in combating
poverty and unemployment and boosting local economies. As long as U.S. residents of Puerto Rico
serve honorably in our military, contribute to the tax base and make our country better, I see no reason
to exclude them from this proven anti-poverty program.” Residents of Puerto Rico have fought with
valor and distinction in every war since World War I, and the island’s level of service in
Iraq/Afghanistan exceeds that of all but one state in the United States.
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Puerto Rico 1ac-Solvency (2/2)
Current U.S. poverty alleviation programs in Puerto Rico are meant to be temporary solutions to pacify
the poor while unemployment continues to remain high and economic and military exploitation continues
to occur
Kilty and Segal, Ph.D professors of sociology, 2005 [Keith Michael Kilty, Elizabeth A. Segal. “Poverty and inequality in the
Latin American-U.S. borderlands.” P. 62]
The colonial status of Puerto Rico constitutes the milieu for the historical resistance against the U.S. Navy. Deception and
subjugation are some methods used for colonization (Yellow Bird, 2001). Since 1898, the American Empire
colonized and disempowered Puerto Ricans in their quest for self-determination. By 1917, without being
given a choice in the matter, Puerto Ricans were declared U.S. citizens (Jones Act). “Racialist constructions of AngloSaxon superiority were central ideological rationalizations for denying Puerto Ricans a decisive role in their own society”
(Barreto, 2002, p. 13). This colonial, racial and oppressive paradigm permeated throughout the social, economic and
political realms of Puerto Rico. The radical left historically resisted such ideology, struggling for Puerto Rico’s selfdetermination and national identity against the U.S. Empire. Another conscious or unconscious colonial tactic is the
deception that any small island in the Caribbean, as Puerto Rico, cannot survive in a macro world without the U.S.
(Conway, 1998). As states by Silén (1971), “the first lesson a schoolboy learns is that we are small, as if our smallness were
not something positive for grappling with the problems of communication, electrification ,irrigation, and highways” (p. 15).
The military’s presence in the Caribbean served to enable this state of dependency, powerlessness,
constant fear, and therefore, perpetuate Puerto Rico’s colonial status. By 1943, the U.S. Navy
possessed 21,000 of Vieques’ 33,000 acres (Berman Santana, 2002, p. 39). The transformation from an
agrarian to an industrialized society in Puerto Rico was paralleled by the growing presence of the
military in Veiques. This transformation favored the U.S. economy by limiting Puerto Rico’s
competition in the global Markey, thus creating an economic crisis. The U.S. provided federal funds to
relieve poverty and the unemployment rate in Puerto Rico (Dietz, 1986, CH. 3). Such welfare
programs as the Puerto Rican Emergency Relief Administration (PRERA) and the Puerto Rican
Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) temporarily pacified the poor and unemployment while the
growing U.S. industrial empire received military protection.
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Puerto Rico Affirmative updates
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External Self DeterminationWar
The denial of Self-Determination leads to secession
Graham, Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law School, 2000 [Lorie M. Graham, Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law
School, 2000, “Self-Determination for Indigenous Peoples After Kosovo: Translating Self-Determination “Into Practice" and “Into
Peace””, ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=983113]
Yet, as I stated earlier, the Kosovo response may represent a shift in the conceptual understanding and scope of selfdetermination sufficient to warrant an honest re-examination of indigenous claims. As Deputy Secretary Talbott noted one
of the major challenges for the 21st century is how to translate the phrase "self- determination" into
practice and into peace. The Rambouillet Accords and what followed thereafter were an attempt -however imperfect to articulate and uphold that principle for a "sub-national group" in a non-colonial context. The seriousness of the injustices
wrought on the Kosovar people after failed negotiations served as the remedial justification for setting aside the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia's claims to sovereignty and territorial integrity. What we have then is recognition by the United
States and others that the right of selfdetermination is a fundamental human right of all "peoples," the beneficiaries of
whom are not limited by adherence to specious appeals to sovereign boundaries. Equally important is the realization that
self-determination is not limited in its practical application to the act of secession, but rather embodies
in its fullest sense the right to live and develop as culturally distinct groups, in control of their own
destinies, and under conditions of equality. 47 These recent events suggest that at minimum Indigenous
peoples' claims of self- determination should be accorded equal consideration, since all human rights including the right of self-determination -are universal in scope. Unequal application of this principle would
impugn the fundamental integrity of those opposing such rights as well as the international legal system itself.
Yet adhering to principles of equal rights and indigenous self-determination will not lead inevitably to
the kind of political instability and disruption of territorial unity often alluded to in arguments against
such claims. Indeed, just the opposite may be true. Special Rapporteur Erica- Irene Daes notes that "the far more
realistic fear" is that the denial of self-determination for Indigenous Peoples will "leave the most
marginalized and excluded of all the worlds' peoples without a legal, peaceful weapon to press for
genuine democracy in the states in which they live." 48 Let me just close by saying that in the last six weeks I
have heard it twice stated that the defining issue in international law for the 21st century is finding compromises between
the principles of self-determination and the sanctity of borders. In the context of indigenous claims, both the Draft
Declaration and the Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples currently under discussion at the United Nations offer the
best hope for finding just such a compromise -first through the recognition of indigenous peoples' fundamental rights and
second [*466] through a process of negotiated settlements between states and indigenous communities.
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