NDI Camp Updates – Seniors 2012
Airline Industry Impacts
US airline industry key to competitiveness
ATA 7 (Air Transport Association, “ATA 2007 Economic Q&A and Industry Update,” June 29th,
http://www.airlines.org/economics/review_and_outlook/ATA2007EconOutlookQandA.htm Link is
outdated, but available at:
http://www.beurskings.nl/viewtopic.php?p=381904&sid=210daea4a2568d5e2fb018eb2de76e9a)
U.S.
airlines operate in a global economy. A healthy U.S. airline industry, operating in an efficient commercial aviation system, is
among the key ingredients of U.S. economic growth and competitiveness on the world stage. A March 2006
study by the Campbell-Hill Aviation Group found that commercial aviation ultimately drives 11.4 million U.S. jobs, or 8.8 percent
of the nation’s employment. If aviation markets are allowed to work, other U.S. markets will also work
better.
An effective public-private partnership in passenger- and cargo-related aviation issues should facilitate economic activity while maintaining safety and security. Remember,
Airline industry key to the economy
Campbell-Hill Aviation Group ’06 (Campbell-Hill Aviation Group is an economic and aviation consultant
research group, this report was prepared for the Air Transport Association of America: “Commercial
Aviation and the American Economy,” March, http://www.smartskies.org/NR/rdonlyres/E20C30489FD4-46D8-91F1-6303C4148C5A/0/CommercialAviationEconomyMar06.pdf)
The U.S. civil aviation sector (including air transportation, related manufacturing and air-based travel and tourism) was collectively responsible
for $1.37 trillion of national output in 2004, supporting 12.3 million U.S. employees and $418 billion in personal earnings.
Commercial aviation accounts for the majority of this impact with $1.2 trillion in output, $380 billion in earnings and 11.4 million jobs. The national economy is
highly dependent on commercial aviation, which, in 2004, was directly or indirectly responsible for 5.8
percent of gross output (i.e., economic activity), 5.0 percent of personal earnings and 8.8 percent of national employment.1
AT: Asia Pivot
Alt causes to Middle East presence – this evidence is on fire
Gvosdev, Naval War College, 7/20 – former editor of National Interest, faculty of Navy War College, foreign policy commentator
[Nikolas K., 7/20/2012, World Politics Review, “The Realist Prism: Putting Out Mideast Fires Will Delay US Asia Pivot,”
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12178/the-realist-prism-putting-out-mideast-fires-will-delay-u-s-asia-pivot]
It looks like the
vaunted U.S. pivot to Asia is going to be delayed . The ongoing conflict in Syria and the
escalation of tensions with Iran make it highly unlikely that Washington will be able to shift away
from its long-held priority focus on the Middle East anytime soon.
When the Asia pivot was first floated by the Obama administration in 2009, it was based on a series of strategic
assessments about the likely future of the Middle East. There was guarded optimism that a combination of
effective sanctions and deft diplomacy could produce a workable deal on the Iranian nuclear program.
The U.S. disengagement from Iraq was proceeding on schedule, and confidence was high that a surge in
Afghanistan might similarly put that country on a positive trajectory allowing for the U.S. to successfully terminate its combat
mission there. Then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ unequivocal pronouncement that any future U.S. leader who proposed a massive military intervention in
the region should have “his head examined” seemed to indicate that once Iraq and Afghanistan were tidied up, the United States wouldn’t be “coming ashore”
anywhere else anytime soon. And the
smart Washington money was on a series of next-generation leadership
transitions -- among them Gamal Mubarak in Egypt and Seif-al-Islam Gadhafi in Libya -- leading to
political and economic reforms.
Many of those assumptions have been upset by the events of the past year. The Arab Spring deposed a
number of familiar and predictable faces, while installing previously unknown ones, such as Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. In so
doing, it has introduced a great deal of uncertainty into the politics of the region as to whether successor governments
will continue to support the American security agenda, undermining part of the assumption on which the U.S. pivot to Asia
was based: namely, the assessment that the U.S. could continue to count on the strong support of key
states such as Egypt. And while the United States remains committed to turning over security responsibilities to the Afghan government in 2014, no
one expects a rapid American disengagement from Afghanistan to follow.
As the fighting continues in Syria -- with the government of President Bashar al-Assad unable to crush the uprising and
its control over the country as a whole slipping away, as highlighted by Wednesday’s bombing in Damascus -- the prospect of any
sort of managed transition to resolve the crisis erodes. A fracturing of Syria along ethno-sectarian lines, in turn, imperils other
fragile states, such as Iraq and Lebanon, and opens up two distinct but unwelcome possibilities:
Yugoslav-style conflicts as groups seek to create compact statelets, creating further unrest and instability; or
the need for a large-scale peacekeeping intervention to separate warring factions and hold countries together.
Neither option is attractive to the Obama administration in an election year dominated by concerns about America’s own
economic future.
And while Iran denies responsibility for the bombing Wednesday in Bulgaria that targeted Israeli tourists, the attack -- along with the
deployment of
U.S. naval forces to the Persian Gulf and the failure of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers
to reach even the outlines of an agreement -- makes it highly unlikely that a diplomatic grand bargain that wraps up all
the outstanding issues between Iran and the United States is in the cards. While Washington’s preference is still for
using sanctions to exert more pressure on the Islamic Republic to modify its behavior, the possibility of a more direct confrontation
between Iran and the United States cannot be ruled out.
Indeed, the twin possibilities of an impending meltdown in Syria and an open clash with Iran mean that
the United States must be prepared for new large-scale engagements in the Middle East, notwithstanding the
apparent validation of the approach taken in Libya, where a relatively low-cost intervention deposed Moammar Gadhafi and has seemingly empowered a moderate
coalition to take power. Already, some
Syria to redraw
in Washington are advocating that the United States take advantage of the situation in
the political map of the Middle East. By this logic, helping to administer a final blow to the Baathist regime in Syria would
simultaneously sever Iran’s ability to connect to its allies in Lebanon and its proxies in the Palestinian territories, thereby creating the conditions that will bring the
Islamic Republic itself crumbling down.
But if this happens, the
United States cannot manage the subsequent transition by relying on drones and a
few special forces units while otherwise leading from behind. As much as Washington might want to get out of the business of
being intimately involved in the political and security arrangements of the Middle East, which requires dedicating a large
proportion of the nation’s focus and military might, events are conspiring to suck the United States back in. President Barack Obama
ran for office in 2008 promising to wrap up American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Iran and Syria, not East Asia, may be where American attention will
be focused next.
One cannot help but wonder, therefore, if the reluctance of China and Russia to back Washington’s preferred
approach on Syria and Iran -- both to force the Assad regime out and start the process of political transition in Syria and to implement crippling sanctions that would
collapse the economy in Iran -- is
based on an assessment that drawing out the Middle East endgame prevents
the United States from focusing its full attention on Asia. Certainly, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s timetable for getting his
vaunted Eurasian Union off the ground is geared to expectations that U.S. involvement in the greater Middle East will continue for the next several years. And
China’s ability to exercise pressure to block the mention of territorial disputes in the South China Sea
in the final communiqué of the ASEAN summit last week suggests that for now, at least, Beijing
continues to see the American pivot as more rhetorical than real.
When first announced in 2009, the pivot to Asia was predicated on the assumption that the United States would be able to focus more on Asia by extracting itself
from the Middle East. This, then, is
the premier challenge that either a second-term Obama administration or a first-term Romney administration
under conditions of growing scarcity, to resource and sustain a credible Asia pivot,
even as the United States remains deeply engaged in the Middle East.
must grapple with: how,
Internal link turn – China’s rise is peaceful now but hard-line policies derail it
Xia, 12 – professor of political science at City University of New York [Ming, 2012, New York Times, “China Rises,” http://www.nytimes.com/ref/college/collchina-overview.html]
Under the guiding principle of "China's peaceful rise," the
Chinese government has conducted actively diplomacy at four
(at least) different levels: (1) Creating strategic partnerships with the second-tier powers. China has signed
strategic partnership treaties with the EU, Russia and India to strengthen their relationships as well as to balance the American power. (2) Promoting
"good neighbor policy" in the Asian Pacific region. By increasing trade with the Asian-Pacific region and also let these countries enjoy
trade surplus with China, China has positioned as an important trading partner with these countries. Besides, China
has entered into various mechanisms of regional cooperation with these countries. During the 1997 Asian financial crises, that
China refrained from devaluing its currency and helped stabilize the regional economy by mobilizing its foreign currency reserve won positive reactions from this
region and the U.S. (3) Seeking
cooperation and avoiding confrontation with the U.S. The Chinese side basically
has sent to Washington a clear message that China is a conservative power and has no intention to
upset the status quo—namely the U.S. as the sole superpower in the world. (4) Neglecting Japan. As China has successfully managed relationships with the
sole superpower, the second-tier strategic partners, and neighboring countries, China is able to afford to ignore Japan and occasionally show some toughness.
For the past five years, the
Chinese leadership has been cautious and successful in managing the internal
nationalism and American unilateralism, to some degree, thanks to the anti-terror war. Now some signs
have indicated that the honeymoon between the U.S. and China in the aftermath of Sept.11 attack
and anti-terrorism coalition has arrived at its end. If the United States shifts its policy to a hard-line
toward China, the cyclical turbulence in the Sino-American relationship may soon resurface. This
might jeopardize China's plan of a peaceful rise.
At the micro-level, the U.S. seems to have been more provocative toward China, the
latter has been more on defensive; but if we look at the Sino-U.S. relationship from the macro-level, it seems that China can take back initiative if it can remove the
thorn of communist ideology and authoritarianism, because the Americans tend to believe that under the doctrine of democratic peace, democratic countries do
not fight war against each other. Therefore, to create long-term internal and external stability, the CPC has to learn how to play the card of democracy. Does this
amount to ask a leopard to change its spots?
China is working within international systems – it also won’t conflict with them now
Little, former diplomat, 7/18 – Australian diplomat from 1963 to 1988 [Reg Little was an Australian diplomat from 1963 to 1988. He gained
high level qualifications in Japanese and Chinese and served as Deputy of four and Head of one overseas Australian diplomatic mission. He is the co-author of The
Confucian Renaissance (1989) and The Tyranny of Fortune: Australia’s Asian Destiny (1997) and author of A Confucian Daoist Millennium? (2006). In 2009, he was
elected the only non-ethnic Asian Vice Chairman of the Council of the Beijing based International Confucian Association; 7/18/2012; On-line Opinion, “Why is the
West unprepared for China’s rise?” http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13878, DS]
The Chinese
have accompanied their "peaceful rise" with the development of three separate groupings
as possible alternative structures to fill in for the "existing international order", should this be necessary in
managing their expanding global interests. These are ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan and Korea), the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation (comprised of Russia, China and 4 Central Asian States, plus observer states
India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Iran, Afghanistan and dialogue partners Belarus, Sri Lanka, Turkey) and the
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). It is noteworthy that the 13 ASEAN Plus Three nations all
have administrative and commercial elites shaped by Confucian, and not Platonic, traditions of
excellence in thought, education and administration. Moreover, the name given to the BRICS in Chinese would be translated into
English as the Gold Brick Five Nations.
The fragility
of the "existing international order" and the "universal values" enshrined in it is
increasingly vulnerable to Western excess in the use and abuse of privileges built into it in 1945 when American and British authority was
beyond challenge. Chinese perceptions of American transgressions, whether in the Security Council over
Libya, in the WTO over rare earths or in the IMF over the rescue of Western economies, will not lead
to immediate action or even protest , but will simply strengthen the resolve to work towards a more
acceptable and less anachronistic international order.
AT: Education Alt Cause to Competitiveness
Mishel and Rothstein 7 – *president of the Economic Policy Institute AND **research associate at
the Economic Policy Institute (Lawrence, director of the EPI education program; and Richard, senior
fellow of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California
(Berkeley) School of Law; November 2007, “Schools as Scapegoats,” Education Digest, Volume 73, Issue
3, pp. 32-39, p. EBSCO)
EDUCATION is the answer. But, what's the question? Simple: What's the cure for any adverse
economic condition?¶ Is your pay stagnant or declining? Quick, get more education.¶ Are workers failing to share in economic growth?
Too bad, they should have gained more skills.¶ Are you worried about jobs offshored to low-wage countries? Blame
schools for workers' lack of creativity.¶ Is the nation failing to compete globally? Raise education
standards across the board.¶ Education as the cure-all is everywhere. But this contention exaggerates the role of
schools in the economy, and it conflates two issues: First, how can American firms increase
productivity to improve their ability to compete? Second, how have the fruits of U.S. productivity growth been distributed,
and what explains rising inequality?¶ Education can help in the first area, although it is far from a silver bullet. As to the second, education
deficits have had very little to do with the changes in the distribution of wages.¶ Fortunately, after more than two decades, the education-
as-panacea argument is being overwhelmed by contradictory evidence. We may now be able to face more clearly
the separate challenges of enhancing competitiveness and reconnecting the link between productivity growth and pay.¶ The modern obsession
with schools as the cause and cure of economic problems began with Ronald Reagan's 1983 report, A Nation at Risk. Increased market shares
for Japanese automobiles, German machine tools, and Korean steel, the report charged, reflected the superior education of workers in those
nations: "Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors
throughout the world…. The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our
very future as a Nation."¶ In 1990, a group of prominent Democrats and Republicans, calling themselves the National Center on Education and
the Economy, followed with another report, America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages. It saw skills development as virtually the only policy
lever for shaping the economy. It charged that inadequate skills attained at flawed schools caused productivity to "slow to a crawl" and would,
without radical school reform, lead to permanently low wages for the bottom 70 percent of Americans.¶ Leading public intellectuals, such as
Prospect co-founder Robert Reich, focused attention on human capital solutions in a laissez-faire global system. In The Work of Nations, Reich
argued that international competition would be won by nations with the most (and best) "symbolic analysts," not "routine" workers. Lester
Thurow's book, Head to Head, forecast that Western Europe would come to dominate the United States and Japan because European schools
were superior.¶ Many mainstream economists, both liberal and conservative, agreed that rising wage and income inequality were caused by an
acceleration of "skill-biased technological change," meaning that computerization and other advanced technologies were bidding up the
relative value of education, leaving the less-skilled worse off.¶ A Curious Response¶ Yet the response of American manufacturers to these
analyses was curious. Automakers moved plants to Mexico, where worker education levels are considerably lower than those in the American
Midwest. Japanese manufacturers set up nonunion plants in places like Kentucky and Alabama, states not known for having the best-educated
workers. But high school graduates in those locations apparently had no difficulty working in teams and adapting to Japanese just-in-time
manufacturing methods.¶ The ink was barely dry on America's Choice when Americans' ability to master technological change generated an
extraordinary decade-long acceleration of productivity in the mid-1990s, exceeding that of other advanced countries. It was accomplished by
the same workforce that the experts claimed imperiled our future. Productivity advances created new wealth to support a steady increase in
Americans' standard of living.¶ And for a brief period, standards of living did increase because the fruits of productivity growth were broadly
shared. The late 1990s saw increasing wages for both high school and college graduates.¶ Same Old Story¶ Even wages of high school dropouts
climbed. But no presidential commissions or distinguished experts were praising American education for producing widely shared prosperity.
Instead, denunciations of public schools increased in intensity, often tied to calls for their privatization with vouchers.¶ Then, the collapse of the
stock bubble in 2000, the recession of the early 2000s, and the intensification of policies hostile to labor brought wage growth to a halt. Living
standards began to decline and inequality zoomed — at the same time that workforce productivity continued to climb. White-collar offshoring
to India, China, and other low-wage countries signaled that globalization was now taking its toll on computer programmers and other symbolic
analysts of the information age.¶ Today, however, a
new cast of doomsayers has resuscitated an old storyline.
contemporary cliché is that however good schools
may once have been, the 21st century makes them obsolete. Global competition requires all students
to graduate from high school prepared either for academic college or for technical training requiring
an equivalent cognitive ability. We can only beat the Asians by being smarter and more creative. ¶ The
Forgetting how wrong such analyses were in the 1980s and 1990s, the
argument got a boost from Thomas Friedman's 2005 book, The World is Flat, and has been repeated by the National Center on Education and
the Economy in Tough Choices or Tough Times, a sequel to its 1990 report. The argument has also garnered support from influential
foundations and education advocacy groups.¶ The
Tough Choices report bemoans the fact that "Indian engineers
make $7,500 a year against $45,000 for an American engineer with the same qualifications" and
concludes that we can compete with India only if our engineers are smarter. This is silly: No matter
how good our schools, American engineers won't be six times as smart as those in the rest of the
world. Nonetheless, Marc Tucker, author of Tough Choices, asserts, "The fact is that education holds the key to personal and national
economic well-being, more now than at any time in our history." Administration officials blame workers' education for the middle class income
stagnation that has occurred on Bush's watch. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson contends that "market forces work to provide the greatest
rewards to those with the needed skills in the growth areas. This means that those workers with less education and fewer skills will realize
fewer rewards and have fewer opportunities to advance." Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan blamed schools for inequality:
"We have not been able to keep up the average skill level in our workforce to match the required increases of increasing technology."¶ This
view can be found in both the Republican right and the Democratic center. The American Enterprise Institute's Frederick Hess and former
Clinton domestic policy staffer Andrew Rotherham jointly write in an AEI article that "study after study shows an America unprepared to
compete in an increasingly global marketplace."¶ They
worry that the urgent "competitiveness agenda" could be
derailed if we are distracted by a focus on equity-improving outcomes for disadvantaged students.
Attention will now have to be turned, they conclude, to further improving the technological savvy of
those already primed to succeed.¶ Economists Kevin Murphy and Gary Becker recently wrote that there is an "upside" to income
inequality because it encourages people to go to college. They warn that raising taxes on high-income households and reducing them on lowincome households is tantamount to "a tax on going to college and a subsidy for dropping out of high school." In this way of thinking,
preserving the Bush tax cuts is the way to stimulate college enrollment.¶ The Biggest Threats¶ But these 21st-century claims are as misguided as
those of the last century. Of course we should work to improve schools for the middle class. And we have an urgent need to help more students
from disadvantaged families graduate from good high schools. If they do, our society can become more meritocratic, with children from lowincome and minority families better able to compete for good jobs with children from more privileged homes. But the biggest threats to the
next generation's success come from social and economic policy failures, not schools. And enhancing opportunity requires much more than
school improvement.¶ The misdiagnoses of the early 1990s were understandable. When America's Choice was written, when the Reich and
Thurow books were best sellers, American productivity growth had, indeed, stagnated. These authors could not have known that explosive
growth was just around the corner. But today's
education scolds have no such excuse. Workforce skills continue
to generate rising productivity. In the last five years, wages of both high school- and college-educated
workers have been stagnant, while productivity grew by a quite healthy 10.4 percent.¶ Necessary Changes¶
Rising workforce skills can make American firms more competitive. But better skills are not the only source of productivity
growth. The honesty of our capital markets, the accountability of our corporations, our fiscal-policy and currency management, our national
investment in R&D and infrastructure, and the fair-play of the trading system, also influence whether the economy reaps the gains of
Americans' diligence and ingenuity. The
obsession with schools deflects attention from policy failures in other
realms.¶ But while adequate skills are an essential component of productivity growth, workforce skills cannot determine
how the wealth created by national productivity is distributed.¶ That decision is made by policies over which schools
have no Influence — tax, regulatory, trade, monetary, technology, and labor-market policies that modify market forces affecting how much
workers will be paid. Continually upgrading skills and education is essential for sustaining growth as well as for closing historic race and ethnic
gaps. It does not, however, guarantee economic success without policies that also reconnect pay with productivity growth. ¶ American middle
class living standards are threatened not because workers lack competitive skills but because the richest among us have seized the fruits of
productivity growth, denying fair shares to the working- and middle-class Americans, educated in American schools, who have created the
additional national wealth. Over the last few decades, wages of college graduates overall have increased, but some college graduates —
managers , executives, white-collar sales workers — have commandeered disproportionate shares, with little left over for scientists, engineers,
teachers, computer programmers, and others with high levels of skill. No amount of school reform can undo policies that redirect wealth
generated by skilled workers to profits and executive bonuses.¶ College
graduates are not in short supply. A background
paper for the Tough Choices report acknowledges that "fewer young college graduates have been able
to obtain college labor market jobs, and their real wages and annual earnings have declined
accordingly due to rising mal-employment." In plain language, many college graduates are now forced
to take jobs requiring only high school educations.¶ In many high school hallways, you can find a chart displaying the
growing "returns to education" — the ratio of college to high school graduates' wages. The idea is to impress the urgency of going to college
and the calamity that will befall those who don't. The data are real — college graduates do earn more than high school graduates, and the gap
is substantially greater than it was a few decades ago. But it is too facile to conclude that this ratio proves a shortage of college graduates.¶
Causes of Decline¶ Statistically, the falling real wages of high school graduates has played a bigger part in boosting the college-to-high-school
wage ratio than has an unmet demand for college graduates. Important causes of this decline have been the weakening of labor market
institutions, such as the minimum wage and unions, which once boosted the pay of high school-educated workers.¶ For the first time in a
decade, the minimum wage recently increased. The curious result will be a statistical decline in "returns to education." But we should not
conclude that we need fewer college graduates, any more than we should have concluded from falling wages for high school graduates that
college graduates are scarce and schools are failing.¶ Another too-glib canard is that our education system used to be acceptable because
students could graduate from high school (or even drop out) and still support families with good manufacturing jobs. Those jobs are vanishing,
and with them the chance of middle class incomes for those without good educations.¶ Many manufacturing jobs have indeed disappeared. But
replacements have mostly been equally unskilled or semi-skilled jobs in service and retail. There was never anything more inherently valuable
in working in an assembly line than changing linens in a hotel. What made semiskilled manufacturing jobs desirable was that many were
protected by unions, provided pensions and health insurance, and decent wages.¶ That
today's working class doesn't get
similar protections has nothing to do with the adequacy of its education. Rather, it has everything to
do with policy decisions stemming from the value we place on equality. Hotel jobs that pay $20 an hour, with
health and pension benefits (rather than $10 an hour without benefits), typically do so because of union organization, not because maids
earned bachelor's degrees.¶ It
is cynical to tell millions of Americans who work in low-level administrative jobs
and in janitorial, food-service, hospitality, transportation, and retail industries that their wages have
stagnated because their educations are inadequate for international competition.¶ The quality of our civic,
cultural, community, and family lives demands school improvement, but barriers to unionization have more to do with low wages than does the
quality of education.¶ After all, since
1973 the share of the workforce with college degrees has more than
doubled; over 40 percent of native-born workers now have degrees beyond high school. The
proportion of native-born workers that has not completed high school or its equivalent has decreased
by half to just 7 percent.¶ Indeed, Becker's and Murphy's own data confirm that the wage gap between college- and high schooleducated workers was flat from 2001 to 2005. However, inequality surged in this period, a fact that can't be explained by something that didn't
change! Moreover, other industrialized countries have seen a more rapid growth in college completion than the United States, yet those
nations accomplished educational growth without increasing inequality.¶ Revised Views¶ Fortunately, the elite consensus on education as a
cure-all seems to be collapsing. Offshoring of high-tech jobs has deeply undercut the Clinton-era metaphor of an education-fueled transition to
the information age. Former Clinton economic advisor Alan Blinder has emerged as an establishment voice calling attention to the potentially
large-scale impact of continued offshoring. Blinder stresses that the distinction between American jobs likely to be destroyed by international
competition and those likely to survive is not one of workers' skills or education. "It is unlikely that the services of either taxi drivers or airline
pilots will ever be delivered electronically over long distances…. Janitors and crane operators are probably immune to foreign competition;
accountants and computer programmers are not."¶ A growing number of mainstream economists now also caution that blaming inadequate
schooling for falling living standards and growing inequality might be too simplistic. In a series of papers, David Autor, Larry Katz, Melissa
Kearney, Frank Levy, and Richard Mur-nane, mainstream economists who promoted the story of a technology-based transition to the 21st
century, now have revised their account.¶ They assert that prior to the 1990s, technology increased demand for more educated workers across
the board, but that now there is "polarization," where technology disadvantages middle-skilled workers relative to those with both more and
less education. Their finding severely undercuts the suggestion that upgrading human capital is the solution to inequality.¶ Alan Greenspan's
successor as Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, has also adopted a less simplistic analysis. While concurring that skills matter, Bernanke
observes that a poorly educated workforce cannot explain "why the wages of workers in the middle of the distribution have grown more slowly
in recent years than those of workers at the lower end of the distribution, even though, of the two groups, workers in the middle of the
distribution are typically the better educated."¶ Prominent
free-trade economists now also acknowledge that
education reform cannot address Americans' economic insecurity nor solve globalization's political
problems. In a recent analysis, two prominent former Bush administration economists and one from the Clinton administration wrote that
since 2000, "only a small share of workers at the very high end has enjoyed strong growth in incomes. The strong U.S. productivity growth of
the past several years has not been reflected in wage and salary earnings, and instead has accrued largely to the earnings of very highend
Americans and to corporate profits. The bottom line is that today, many American workers feel anxious — about change and about their
paychecks. Their concerns are real, widespread, and legitimate…. For college graduates and those with nonprofessional master's degrees, this
poor income performance is a new and presumably unwelcome development."
AT: Infrastructure Bill Triggers the Link
The bill is only a reextension, so it doesn’t trigger the link – and it’s perceived as
necessary spending
New York Times 7/1 (“At Last, a Transportation Bill,” New York Times editorial,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/opinion/at-last-a-transportation-bill.html)
Thanks to the stubbornness of the Senate’s political odd couple — the liberal Barbara Boxer of California and the conservative James Inhofe of
Oklahoma — Congress
approved on Friday afternoon a serviceable transportation bill. And in the nick of
time, too. The current program was due to expire Saturday night, potentially disrupting highway and
mass transit projects at the height of the construction season and jeopardizing 2.9 million jobs.
Though the final bill is far from perfect, it more nearly resembles the solid Senate measure crafted by Ms. Boxer and Mr. Inhofe,
the chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate public works committee, than the appalling House version. It will sustain current
financing for 27 months, at a cost of $120 billion, along the lines of the Senate bill. And it does not include two antienvironmental riders pressed by the House — one approving the risky Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, the other preventing regulation of
toxic coal ash waste from power plants.
The bill doesn’t deficit-spend
Duncan 6/29 (press release by the office of Congressman John T. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN), 6/29/12, “House
Approves Major Transportation Reform Bill,” http://duncan.house.gov/2012/06/house-approves-majortransportation-reform-bill.shtml)
“This measure
also shrinks the federal bureaucracy. Two-thirds of federal transportation programs are
consolidated or eliminated, and states will be given more authority to focus on their most pressing
needs and determine how to spend their resources. States will be given the opportunity to opt out of burdensome requirements to spend
money on planting roadside flowers if they decide they need to invest more gas tax funds on improving roads and bridges.¶ “Although the
previous transportation law contained over 6,300 earmarks, this bill has none. This legislation is paid
for and does not deficit-spend. This is a responsible bill with real reforms that will boost employment in the
particularly hard-hit construction industry, and ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are more effectively spent in improving America’s
infrastructure,” Mica said.¶ “The average highway project in the United States takes 15 years from concept to completion, far more than any
other developed Nation,” said U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN), Chairman of the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee. “We have got
to cut the red tape and speed up these projects. This bill goes further in streamlining environmental rules and regulations than any previous
highway bill.Ӧ The
bipartisan, bicameral conference report to H.R. 4348 will fund federal highway, transit
and highway safety programs at current funding levels through the end of fiscal year 2014, allowing states
to plan and undertake major transportation improvements.
Cap
Cap – AT: Negativity Perm
NEGATIVITY IS A PREREQUISITE – the alternative is a completely negative gesture
which is essential to any progressive politics – extend the Johnston evidence – the alt
is necessary to wipe the slate clean for ethical politics – more evidence on this
question
Zizek 99 (Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Studies, Ljubljana Slavoj, The Ticklish Subject,
page 153-154)
It would therefore be tempting to risk a 'Badiouian-Pauline reading of the end of psychoanalysis, determining it as a New Beginning, a symbolic
'rebirth' - the radical restructuring of the analysand's subjectivity in such a way that the vicious cycle of the superego is suspended, left behind.
Does not Lacan himself provide a number of hints that the end of analysis opens up the domain of Love beyond Law, using the very Pauline
terms to which Badiou refers? Nevertheless, Lacan's way is not that of St Paul or Badiou: psychoanalysis is
not
'psychosynthesis'; it does not already posit a 'new harmony', a new Truth-Event; it - as it were - merely
wipes the slate clean for one. However, this 'merely' should be put in quotation marks, because it is Lacan's contention
that, in this negative gesture of 'wiping the slate clean', something (a void) is confronted which is
already 'sutured' with the arrival of a new Truth-Event. For Lacan negativity, a negative gesture of
withdrawal precedes any positive gesture of enthusiastic identification with a Cause: negativity
functions as the condition of (im)possibility of the enthusiastic identification - that is to say, it lays the
ground, opens up space for it but is simultaneously obfuscated by it and undermines it. For this reason,
Lacan implicitly changes the balance between Death and Resurrection in favour of Death: what
'Death' stands for at its most radical is not merely the passing of earthly life, but the 'night of the
world', the self-withdrawal, the absolute contraction of subjectivity, the severing of its links with
'reality' - this is the 'wiping the slate clean' that opens up the domain of the symbolic New Beginning,
of the emergence of the 'New Harmony' sustained by a newly emerged Master-Signifier
Cap – AT: Utilitarianism
Our ethic of impossibility is the only means of freedom – utilitarianism denies the
subject
Kunkle 7 (Sheila, Professor of Social Sciences at Vermont College, International Journal of Zizek Studies,
1.3 http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/article/view/59/118)
Here, utilitarian
calculations of justice and moral culpability give way to a fleeting recognition that
Roark’s ethics offer a kind of complete freedom, even if his character appears at first as an automaton and his actions seem
absurd. As Zizek repeatedly shows, “this inhuman dimension is for Lacan at the same time the ultimate support
of ethics” (Zizek, 2007), because what subjects such as Roark do is to confront us in various forms with “the latent monstrosity of being
human”(ibid), and from this we reconfigure a way to go on. But if, as Lacan recognized in his reformulation of Dostoevsky, God’s death signals a
universal immobility (if God is dead, then nothing is permitted), then how do we grasp Roark’s ethics and his ability to keep creating? The
answer lies in the recognition that Roark, under conditions of complete freedom, keeps on creating because in this very act he ensures the
space for creation itself. What Zizek sees in Roark is similar to what he sees in many fictional characters who “fully assume the paradox of
human existence” (2006: 105); that is, the negotiation of a central Kantian paradox of knowing that
the condition of impossibility
of ethical activity is at the same time its very condition of possibility.4 What would stop most subjects
in their tracks, what would make it impossible for them to carry on, or at the extreme, lead to insanity, becomes
for Roark the condition of his own possibility.
Cap – Impossible Under Cad
Capitalism precludes ethics because it preferences economic valuation to any other
method of judging the world
Morgareidge 98 (Clayton, Prof of Philosophy at Lewis & Clark College, Why Capitalism is Evil 08/22
http://www.lclark.edu/~clayton/commentaries/evil.html)
Now none of these philosophers are naive: none of them thinks that sympathy, love, or caring determines all, or even most, human behavior.
The 20th century proves otherwise. What they do offer, though, is the hope that human beings have the capacity to want the best for each
other. So now we must ask, What forces are at work in our world to block or cripple the ethical response? This question, of course, brings me
back to capitalism. But before I go there, I want to acknowledge that capitalism is not the only thing that blocks our ability to care. Exploitation
and cruelty were around long before the economic system of capitalism came to be, and the temptation to use and abuse others will probably
survive in any future society that might supersede capitalism. Nevertheless, I want to claim, the putting
the world at the disposal
of those with capital has done more damage to the ethical life than any thing else. To put it in religious terms,
capital is the devil. To show why this is the case, let me turn to capital's greatest critic, Karl Marx. Under capitalism, Marx writes,
everything in nature and everything that human beings are and can do becomes an object: a resource
for, or an obstacle, to the expansion of production, the development of technology, the growth of
markets, and the circulation of money. For those who manage and live from capital, nothing has value
of its own. Mountain streams, clean air, human lives -- all mean nothing in themselves, but are
valuable only if they can be used to turn a profit.[1] If capital looks at (not into) the human face, it
sees there only eyes through which brand names and advertising can enter and mouths that can
demand and consume food, drink, and tobacco products. If human faces express needs, then either products can be manufactured to
meet, or seem to meet, those needs, or else, if the needs are incompatible with the growth of capital, then the
faces expressing them must be unrepresented or silenced. Obviously what capitalist enterprises do have consequences
for the well being of human beings and the planet we live on. Capital profits from the production of food, shelter, and all the necessities of life.
The production of all these things uses human lives in the shape of labor, as well as the resources of the earth. If we care about life, if we see
our obligations in each others faces, then we have to want all the things capital does to be governed by that care, to be directed by the ethical
concern for life. But feeding people is not the aim of the food industry, or shelter the purpose of the housing industry. In medicine, making
profits is becoming a more important goal than caring for sick people. As capitalist enterprises these activities aim single-mindedly at the
accumulation of capital, and such purposes as caring for the sick or feeding the hungry becomes a mere means to an end, an instrument of
corporate growth. Therefore ethics, the overriding commitment to meeting human need, is
left out of deliberations about
what the heavyweight institutions of our society are going to do. Moral convictions are expressed in churches, in
living rooms, in letters to the editor, sometimes even by politicians and widely read commentators, but almost always with an attitude of
resignation to the inevitable. People no longer say, "You can't stop progress," but only because they have learned not to call economic growth
progress. They still think they can't stop it. And they are right -- as long as the production of all our needs and the organization of our labor is
carried out under private ownership. Only a minority ("idealists") can take seriously a way of thinking that counts for nothing in real world
decision making. Only
when the end of capitalism is on the table will ethics have a seat at the table.
Cap – Problems Not Ideological
Problems are not ideological but political—Social Democracy has brought the most
viable economic system and avoids the problematic practices they critique
Rose 12 [Gideon, Gideon Rose is the editor of Foreign Affairs and the Peter G. Peterson chair. He served as managing editor of the
magazine from 2000 to 2010. Prior to this, he was the Olin senior fellow and deputy director of national security studies at the Council on
Foreign Relations. From 1994 to 1995, Mr. Rose served as associate director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National
Security Council. He was assistant editor at the foreign policy quarterly the National Interest from 1986 to 1987, and held the same position at
the domestic policy quarterly the Public Interest from 1985 to 1986. He received his BA in classics from Yale and his PhD in government from
Harvard, and has taught American foreign policy at Columbia and Princeton. “Making Modernity Work”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2012,
We do not endorse Gendered Language] SV
We are living, so we are told, through an ideological crisis. The United States is trapped in political deadlock and
dysfunction, Europe is broke and breaking, authoritarian China is on the rise. Protesters take to the streets across the
advanced industrial democracies; the high and mighty meet in Davos to search for "new models" as
sober commentators ponder who and what will shape the future. In historical perspective, however,
the true narrative of the era is actually the reverse—not ideological upheaval but stability. Today’s
troubles are real enough, but they relate more to policies than to principles. The major battles about how
to structure modern politics and economics were fought in the first half of the last century, and they ended with
the emergence of the most successful system the world has ever seen. Nine decades ago, in one of the first issues
of this magazine, the political scientist Harold Laski noted that with "the mass of men" having come to political power, the challenge of modern
democratic government was providing enough "solid benefit" to ordinary citizens "to make its preservation a matter of urgency to themselves."
A generation and a half later, with the creation of the postwar order of mutually supporting liberal
democracies with mixed
economies, that challenge was being met, and as a result, more people in more places have lived longer, richer, freer lives than ever
before. In ideological terms, at least, all the rest is commentary. To commemorate Foreign Affairs 90th anniversary, we have thus decided to
take readers on a magical history tour, tracing the evolution of the modern order as it played out in our pages. What follows is not a "greatest
hits" collection of our most well-known or influential articles, nor is it a showcase for the most famous names to have appeared in the
magazine. It is rather a package of 20 carefully culled selections from our archives, along with three new pieces, which collectively shed light on
where the modern world has come from and where it is heading. THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN In the
premodern era, political,
was governed by a dense web of interlocking relationships inherited from the past and sanctified by
religion. Limited personal freedom and material benefits existed alongside a mostly un-questioned social solidarity.
Traditional local orders began to erode with the rise of capitalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the
increasing prevalence and dominance of market relationships broke down existing hierarchies. The shift produced economic and
social dynamism, an increase in material benefits and personal freedoms, and a decrease in
communal feeling. As this process continued, the first modern political ideology, classical liberalism, emerged to celebrate and justify it.
Liberalism stressed the importance of the rule of law, limited government, and free commercial
transactions. It highlighted the manifold rewards of moving to a world dominated by markets rather than traditional communities, a shift
the economic historian Karl Polanyi would call "the great transformation." But along with the gains came losses as well—of
a sense of place, of social and psychological stability, of traditional bulwarks against life's vicissitudes.
Left to itself, capitalism produced long-term aggregate benefits along with great volatility and
inequality. This combination resulted in what Polanyi called a "double movement," a progressive
expansion of both market society and reactions against it. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
therefore, liberalism was being challenged by reactionary nationalism and cosmopolitan socialism , with
both the right and the left promising, in their own ways, relief from the turmoil and angst of modern life. The catastrophic
destruction of the Great War and the economic nightmare of the Great Depression brought the
contradictions of modernity to a head, seemingly revealing the bankruptcy of the liberal order and the need for some other,
better path. As democratic republics dithered and stumbled during the 1920s and 1930s, fascist and
communist regimes seized control of their own destinies and appeared to offer compelling alternative
models of modern political, economic, and social organization. Over time, however, the problems with all
these approaches became clear. Having discarded liberalism's insistence on personal and political freedom, both fascism and
economic, and social life
communism quickly descended into organized barbarism. The vision of the future they offered, as George Orwell noted,
was "a boot stamping on a human face—forever." Yet classical liberalism also proved unpalatable, since it contained no
rationale for activist government and thus had no answer to an economic crisis that left vast swaths of society destitute and despairing.
Fascism flamed out in a second, even more destructive world war. Communism lost its appeal as its
tyrannical nature revealed itself, then ultimately collapsed under its own weight as its nonmarket economic system could not
generate sustained growth. And liberalism's central principle of laissez faire was abandoned in the depths of
the Depression. What eventually emerged victorious from the wreckage was a hybrid system that combined
political liberalism with a mixed economy. As the political scientist Sheri Berman has observed, "The postwar
order represented something historically unusual: capitalism remained, but it was capitalism of a very
different type from that which had existed before the war— one tempered and limited by the power
of the democratic state and often made subservient to the goals of social stability and solidarity,
rather than the other way around." Berman calls the mixture "social democracy" Other scholars use other terms: JanWerner Miller prefers "Christian Democracy," John Ruggie suggests "embedded liberalism," Karl Dietrich Bracher talks of "democratic
liberalism." Francis Fukuyama wrote of "the end of History"; Daniel Bell and Seymour Martin Lipset saw it as "the end of ideology." All refer to
essentially the same thing. As Bell put it in i960: Few
serious minds believe any longer that one can set down
"blueprints" and through "social engineering" bring about a new Utopia of social harmony. At the same
time, the older "counter-beliefs" have lost their intellectual force as well. Few "classic" liberals insist that the State should
play no role in the economy, and few serious conservatives, at least in England and on the Continent, believe that the Welfare
State is "the road to serfdom." In the Western world, therefore, there is today a rough consensus among
intellectuals on political issues: the acceptance of a Welfare State; the desirability of decentralized
power; a system of mixed economy and of political pluralism. Reflecting the hangover of the inter-war ideological
binge, the system stressed not transcendence but compromise. It offered neither salvation nor Utopia,
only a framework within which citizens could pursue their personal betterment. It has never been as satisfying
as the religions, sacred or secular, it replaced. And it remains a work in progress, requiring tinkering and modification
as conditions and attitudes change. Yet its success has been manifest— and reflecting that, its basic framework has remained
remarkably intact. THE ONCE AND FUTURE ORDER The central question of modernity has been how to reconcile
capitalism and mass democracy, and since the postwar order came up with a good answer, it has managed to weather all
subsequent challenges. The upheavals of the late 1960s seemed poised to disrupt it. But despite what activists at the time thought, they had
little to offer in terms of politics or economics, and so their lasting impact was on social life instead. This had the ironic effect of stabilizing the
system rather than overturning it, helping it live up to its full potential by bringing previously subordinated or disenfranchised groups inside the
castle walls. The
neoliberal revolutionaries of the 1980s also had little luck, never managing to turn the
clock back all that far. All potential alternatives in the developing world, meanwhile, have proved to be
either dead ends or temporary detours from the beaten path. The much-ballyhooed "rise of the rest"
has involved not the dis-crediting of the postwar order of Western political economy but its
reinforcement: the countries that have risen have done so by embracing global capitalism while
keeping some of its destabilizing attributes in check, and have liberalized their polities and societies
along the way (and will founder unless they continue to do so). Although the structure still stands, however, it has
seen better days. Poor management of public spending and fiscal policy has resulted in unsustainable
levels of debt across the advanced industrial world, even as mature economies have found it difficult
to generate dynamic growth and full employment in an ever more globalized environment. Lax
regulation and oversight allowed reckless and predatory financial practices to drive leading economies
to the brink of collapse. Economic inequality has increased as social mobility has declined. And a loss
of broad-based social solidarity on both sides of the Atlantic has eroded public support for the active
remedies needed to address these and other problems. Renovating the structure will be a slow and
difficult project, the cost and duration of which remain unclear, as do the contractors involved. Still, at root, this is not an
ideological issue. The question is not what to do but how to do it—how, under twenty-first-century conditions, to
rise to the challenge Laski described, making the modern political economy provide enough solid benefit to
the mass of men that they see its continuation as a matter of urgency to themselves.
Dam Removal – Neg Case Cards
Recent study proves Spilling is working
Boise Daily 6/29(Boise’s premium news source, 2012, “Record Returns of Sockeye Salmon Met With
Caution” http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/archives/2012/06/28/record-returns-of-sockeyesalmon-met-with-caution)
Record numbers of sockeye salmon—nearly 30 a minute were clocked on Wednesday—have been
swimming over the Bonneville Dam this year. The Associated Press reports that an additional 38,000
sockeye passed the Columbia River dam on Monday. The daily numbers have surpassed some
previous years' entire totals. All in, more than 400,000 sockeye salmon are expected to return this
year to the Northwest's Columbia Basin.¶ Twenty years ago this summer, only one sockeye, the
legendary Lonesome Larry, fluttered into Idaho's Redfish Lake Creek.¶ A series of court-ordered spills
along the eight Snake and Columbia river dams have assisted salmon survival, along with an
Endangered Species Act listing, but IRU remains concerned.
Hatchery solving sockeye extinction now
Idaho Press Tribune 7/21(Idaho’s leading news reporters, 2012, “State, tribe break ground on new
sockeye hatchery”, http://www.idahopress.com/news/state/state-tribe-break-ground-on-new-sockeyehatchery/article_9125ba9b-efa0-546e-a4df-2ff78836f9f9.htmlP)
Now the coalition is poised to take what an Idaho Fish and Game biologist calls a real step toward
recovery of the highly endangered species. The state broke ground on July 13 on the long-planned
Springfield Hatchery near American Falls. When finished sometime next year, the hatchery is expected
to boost production of sockeye smolts from 200,000 a year to more than 1 million, with the first
release of hatchery sockeye planned for 2015.¶ "Springfield is going to allow us the opportunity to get
these things out of the museum," said Jeff Heindel of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, told the
Lewiston Tribune (http://bit.ly/eqraLC ).¶ "We have spent 20 years trying to prevent extinction of the
stock and to maintain genetic diversity of the stock. Only now are we going to have the opportunity to
make a step forward and try to recover these fish," he said.¶ The Northwest Power and Conservation
Council signed off on the $13.5 million hatchery set on the north shore of American Falls Reservoir near
the tiny town of Springfield. The state received funding to build the hatchery in 2008 when it, other
Northwest states and most Columbia River treaty tribes signed agreements known as the Columbia
River Fish Accords.¶ "This is an important step for our state and for the Northwest, as we are showing
how a species on the brink of extinction can be restored through the dedication and collaboration of
state, federal, and tribal scientists and policymakers," said Bill Booth, one of Idaho's representatives on
the power and conservation council
Spilling solves- most recent data proves
Lewiston Morning Tribune 12 (Idaho news source, directly on Snake River, “Will more spill bring
more fish? :Some researchers say it could be the answer to restoring salmon and steelhead runs” May
5th Lexis Nexus)
Salmon managers know spilling water at Snake and Columbia river dams is good for fish.¶ They have
years of data saying as much. Now they have data that indicate turning up the spigot a bit more could
produce survival rates high enough to begin reversing decades of declines in wild salmon and
steelhead runs.¶ It's a tantalizing idea to many who have been involved in the two-decade-long struggle
to find a solution to the dams versus fish problem.¶ It leaves the dams intact, doesn't alter barge
transportation, irrigation or the modest flood control the dams provide. It doesn't draw down the
rivers or ask for more water to be released from upriver reservoirs.¶ Instead, the idea is simply to
divert more of the existing flow away from turbines at the dams and run it through spillways. Power
generation would suffer but all the other uses of the dams would not.¶ "Everything we have seen so far
indicates with more spill we could move things in the right direction," said Charlie Petrosky, an Idaho
Department of Fish and Game researcher involved in the region-wide Comparative Survival Study. "The
big question is how far can we move it? Can we move it to the spot where it would be meaningful?" ¶
Right now, under court ordered spill regimes, about 40 percent of the flow in the Snake and Columbia
rivers goes through spill gates instead of turbines. The study shows increasing spill rates to 55 or 60
percent will produce survival goals that have thus far been elusive.¶ There are 13 populations of
salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin protected by the Endangered Species Act, including
wild steelhead, spring chinook, fall chinook and sockeye from the Snake River and its tributaries. Federal
dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers have been identified as the biggest problem affecting the Snake
River runs. The dams and their reservoirs make it more difficult for juvenile salmon and steelhead to
reach the ocean. The slack water slows their travel time and is a breeding ground for predators. Young
fish die when they are flushed through turbines or they are weakened from the stress and later
succumb.¶ Salmon managers have tried to stabilize the runs through a mix of changes to dam
operations, upstream habitat improvements and hatchery and harvest reform. They have long had a
goal of achieving smolt-to-adult return rates of 2 to 6 percent. A smolt-to-adult return rate is the
percentage of young fish that leave for the ocean as smolts that actually survive the trip, thrive in the
ocean and return as adults. The long-term average for Snake River spring and summer chinook is about
1 percent, and for Snake River steelhead it's slightly higher.¶ While the political, legal and biological
debate has raged over the federal government's plan to reconcile dam operations with the needs of fish,
spill at the dams ordered by now-retired Judge James Redden, has led to higher survival rates,
according to the Comparative Survival Study - a joint venture between state, federal and tribal fish
management agencies.¶ Models based on that information indicate even more spill, which keeps fish
away from turbines and shortens travel times, could bump smolt-to-adult return rates to the point
where threatened and endangered runs start to rebound.¶ "If we increase spill and provide that spill in
all flow years, including low flow years, we may be able to reach that 2 to 6 percent we talk about,"
said Michelle DeHart of the Fish Passage Center at Portland.¶ Testing the idea is possible. It would cost
money in lost power generation but leaves other river operations untouched. And unlike dam
breaching, which many scientists say would be the surest way to restore the runs, it can be done
without an act of Congress and is reversible if it doesn't work.¶ "It should be viewed as a positive
development among the region at large because it is saying we can do more for fish and see a response
that is substantive within the existing dam configuration simply by providing more spill within the
existing constraints," said Ed Bowles of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Breaking dams is unpopular, causes a loss of job, increases energy prices, and stops
barges
Lewiston Morning Tribune 09(News in Idaho, April 8th, “Snake on list of endangered rivers :Group
puts lower Snake River in third place on its annual tally, cites four dams as primary problem” lexis nexus)
R.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., a staunch supporter of the dams, said both salmon and the dams can
be saved.¶ "The citizens of the Northwest overwhelmingly oppose tearing out the four Snake River
dams," Hastings said recently. "We can recover fish runs and protect our dams."¶ The dams generate
electricity and provide irrigation water. The reservoirs behind them allow barges filled with grain and
fuel to travel up and down the Snake and Columbia rivers, rather than by truck on highways.¶ "It's
time we again stand up and speak out against dam removal as an extreme action that won't help fish
but will increase energy prices, hurt our economy and cost us jobs," Hastings said.
Removing the Snake River dams would DRASTICALLY increase global warming
US Fed News 09(Leading source of politics from Washington, April 1st, “REP. HASTINGS SPEAKS AT
ANNUAL MEETING OF NATIONAL WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION” Lexis Nexus)
Many of your issues are also my issues. Much of my district in central Washington has been transformed
from desert to some of the most fertile agricultural lands in the world thanks to Bureau of Reclamation
projects. The Pacific Northwest region is also the least carbon-emitting area of our Nation thanks to a
whole series of dams - including Grand Coulee - that produce massive amounts of clean, renewable
and emissions-free hydroelectricity that keep water pumps running and the lights on. As my friends in
the audience know, these legendary projects are under constant assault from age and environmental
litigation. Despite the known and widely regarded successes associated with the Bureau of Reclamation
and Army Corps of Engineers projects, the flow of our Columbia River system has been managed by a
federal judge who knows little about science or engineering. In fact, he is a lawyer and Democrat
politician. Over the past decade, our projects have been managed by litigation, and judicial action and
reaction because of the rigid Endangered Species Act. We are at a point in the West that species are
often more important than people. As we will see at the Committee hearing later today, this fish over
people scenario is occurring in California, which is experiencing a catastrophic drought caused by
environmental regulations. Even though massive precipitation has soaked the state in the last month,
some irrigators will get zero water from the water projects due to a Biological Opinion for the Delta
Smelt - a three-inch fish. Roughly 40,000 workers will join the unemployment lines and 300,000 acres
of prime farmland will go fallow as a result. The stimulus package failed to address this issue - and it
wouldn't have cost a dime of taxpayer money to keep folks working. Speaking of the stimulus spending,
the Bureau of Reclamation received one billion dollars. My Republican colleagues on Resources and I
have asked for details as to how this money will be spent, and have urged the Bureau to focus on aging
infrastructure. It's vitally important that we protect what we have and what works before we involve the
agency in new, unproven missions. Yet, we have received no word from this Administration on what the
money will be used for. We have also asked for a hearing on this subject and have been told there will
be one in late April. We want to work with you on this hearing. There has been much talk about whether
the Bureau of Reclamation will direct some of its stimulus funding towards new schemes relating to
climate change. We hope to hear answers, but the larger issue is over what the Obama Administration
plans to do on this topic. I earlier talked about a cap-and trade scheme that the Administration
proposed. While the details of this regulatory scheme are still emerging, a new report from Moody's
Investor Service predicts that Cap-and-Trade could cause electricity prices to jump by 15 and 30 percent
depending on the source and region. Many of you depend on hydropower generated at federal
facilities for your pumping needs, but others here depend on outside electricity providers. You could
see your rates increase by double digits under the Obama proposal. In addition, my region has
traditionally been hydro-based and thus, relatively emissions-free. The Obama proposal could put my
region's economy at a disadvantage relative to other regions, which could get credit for reducing or
making more efficient their existing coal or other fossil-based power. Let us be clear what this Cap-andTrade proposal really is: a national energy tax. The Administration's own people have told Congress it
could cost nearly $2 Trillion. We must also keep in mind that this cap-and-trade proposal comes at a
time when China and India will build almost 800 new coal-fired power plants by 2012. The combined
carbon dioxide output from those plants will be five times as much as the total reductions mandated by
the Kyoto Accords. But, China and India aren't even covered by the Kyoto Accords and they have no
intention of constraining their emissions growth. Many people inside the Beltway have started to
believe that wind and solar are the sole solution to our current energy crisis. I believe wind and solar
have an important role to play in meeting our energy needs. Our country truly needs and all-of-the
above approach to meeting our energy needs. And while I do not want to spend too much time
speculating on the seriousness of these proposals, I would like to simply point out that it gets dark and
night and there are times when the wind doesn't blow. That being said, if capturing the energy of the
wind blowing and the sun shining is clean, natural and renewable, then so is water running downhill.
Now, this is an audience I certainly don't need to convince about the benefits of hydropower. Yet,
because of politics, some of the most vocal climate change activists are incapable of plainly stating
that low-cost hydropower is a clean energy source, a renewable energy source, and a non-emitting
energy source. By any measure, hydropower IS a renewable energy source and should officially be
recognized as such by any legal or regulatory standard established by the federal or state governments.
While it's astonishing that hydropower as a renewable energy source is even a matter of debate, it is
even more astonishing that some demand the removal of the four Snake River dams in the name of
climate change. This is pure politics and hypocrisy at its worst. Replacing the power from the dams
would involve increased coal and natural gas energy - which was calculated to increase carbon
emissions by 3.6 million tons and result in a 59 percent rate increase over the 1990 rate. Of course,
what's not included in these calculations are all of the non-power generation benefits of the dams,
most important to this discussion is the replacement of river barge traffic with an estimated 70,000
diesel trucks. This would greatly increase gasoline consumption, traffic, and yes, emissions. If you are
serious about global warming, you can't seriously support Snake River dam removal. Tearing out
these dams would make global warming worse and make reducing carbon emissions more difficult .
Another alarming proposal is Clean Water legislation offered by my colleague and the Chairman of the
House Transportation Committee, Jim Oberstar, to dramatically expand the reach of the federal
government.
De-Dev
De-Dev Neg
Civilization will inevitably collapse – complexity and innovation are unsustainable
Mackenzie 8 –Deborah, BBC Correspondant, The Collapse of Complex Societies, and Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex
Systems Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts 4/5/2008, http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=97741]
DOOMSDAY. The end of civilisation. Literature and film abound with tales of plague, famine and wars which ravage the planet, leaving a few
survivors scratching out a primitive existence amid the ruins. Every
civilisation in history has collapsed, after all. Why
should ours be any different? Doomsday scenarios typically feature a knockout blow: a massive asteroid, all-out nuclear war or a
catastrophic pandemic . Yet there is another chilling possibility: what if the very nature of civilisation means that ours, like all the others, is
destined to collapse sooner or later?
A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly,
recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a
society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches
a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down. Some say we have
already reached this point, and that it is time to start thinking about how we might manage collapse. Others insist it is not yet too late, and that
we can - we must - act now to keep disaster at bay. History is not on our side. Think
of Sumeria, of ancient Egypt and of the
Maya. In his 2005 best-seller , Jared Diamond of the University of California, Los Angeles, blamed environmental mismanagement for the fall
of the Mayan civilisation and others, and warned that we might be heading the same way unless we choose to stop destroying our
environmental support systems. Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC agrees. He has that governments must pay more
attention to vital environmental resources. "It's not about saving the planet. It's about saving civilisation," he says. Others think our problems
run deeper.
From the moment our ancestors started to settle down and build cities, we have had to find
solutions to the problems that success brings. "For the past 10,000 years, problem solving has produced increasing
complexity in human societies," says Joseph Tainter, an archaeologist at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and author of the
1988 book The Collapse of Complex Societies . If crops fail because rain is patchy, build irrigation canals. When they
silt up, organise dredging crews. When the bigger crop yields lead to a bigger population, build more
canals. When there are too many for ad hoc repairs, install a management bureaucracy, and tax people
to pay for it. When they complain, invent tax inspectors and a system to record the sums paid. That
much the Sumerians knew. Diminishing returns There is, however, a price to be paid. Every extra layer of
organisation imposes a cost in terms of energy, the common currency of all human efforts, from building
canals to educating scribes. And increasing complexity, Tainter realised, produces diminishing returns. The
extra food produced by each extra hour of labour - or joule of energy invested per farmed hectare - diminishes as that
investment mounts. We see the same thing today in a declining number of patents per dollar invested in
research as that research investment mounts. This law of diminishing returns appears everywhere, Tainter says. To
keep growing, societies must keep solving problems as they arise. Yet each problem solved means more complexity. Success
generates a larger population, more kinds of specialists, more resources to manage, more information to juggle - and, ultimately, less bang
for your buck. Eventually, says Tainter, the point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to
maintain its existing level of complexity. Then when the climate changes or barbarians invade, overstretched
institutions break down and civil order collapses. What emerges is a less complex society, which is organised on a smaller
scale or has been taken over by another group. Tainter sees diminishing returns as the underlying reason for the
collapse of all ancient civilisations, from the early Chinese dynasties to the Greek city state of Mycenae.
These civilisations relied on the solar energy that could be harvested from food, fodder and wood, and from wind. When
this had been stretched to its limit, things fell apart. Western industrial civilisation has become bigger
and more complex than any before it by exploiting new sources of energy, notably coal and oil, but these are
limited. There are increasing signs of diminishing returns: the energy required to get is mounting and although global is still increasing,
constant innovation is needed to cope with environmental degradation and evolving - the yield boosts
per unit of investment in innovation are shrinking. "Since problems are inevitable," Tainter warns, "this
process is in part ineluctable." Is Tainter right? An analysis of complex systems has led Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New
England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the same conclusion that Tainter reached
from studying history. Social organisations become steadily more complex as they are required to deal both
with environmental problems and with challenges from neighbouring societies that are also becoming more complex, Bar-Yam says.
This eventually leads to a fundamental shift in the way the society is organised. "To run a hierarchy,
managers cannot be less complex than the system they are managing," Bar-Yam says. As complexity
increases, societies add ever more layers of management but, ultimately in a hierarchy, one individual has to try and get their head around
the whole thing,
and this starts to become impossible. At that point,
hierarchies give way to networks in which decision-making is
distributed. We are at this point. This shift to decentralised networks has led to a widespread belief that
modern society is more resilient than the old hierarchical systems. "I don't foresee a collapse in society because of increased
complexity," says futurologist and industry consultant Ray Hammond. "Our strength is in our highly distributed decision making." This, he says,
makes modern western societies more resilient than those like the old Soviet Union, in which decision making was centralised. Things are not
that simple, says Thomas Homer-Dixon, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, Canada, and author of the 2006 book The Upside of
Down . "Initially, increasing connectedness and diversity helps: if one village has a crop failure, it can get food from another village that didn't
The very nature of civilisation may make its demise inevitable, says Debora MacKenzie New Scientist April 5, 2008 As connections increase,
though, networked systems become increasingly tightly coupled. This means the impacts of failures can propagate: the more closely those two
villages come to depend on each other, the more both will suffer if either has a problem. "Complexity
leads to higher
vulnerability in some ways," says Bar-Yam. "This is not widely understood." The reason is that as networks become ever tighter, they
start to transmit shocks rather than absorb them. "The intricate networks that tightly connect us together - and move
people, materials, information, money and energy - amplify and transmit any shock," says Homer-Dixon. "A
financial crisis, a terrorist attack or a disease outbreak has almost instant destabilising effects, from one side of the world to the other." For
instance, in 2003 large areas of North America and Europe suffered when apparently insignificant nodes of their respective electricity grids
failed. And this year China suffered a similar blackout after heavy snow hit power lines. Tightly coupled networks like these create the potential
for propagating failure across many critical industries, says Charles Perrow of Yale University, a leading authority on industrial accidents and
disasters. Credit crunch Perrow says interconnectedness
in the global production system has now reached the
point where "a breakdown anywhere increasingly means a breakdown everywhere". This is especially
true of the world's financial systems, where the coupling is very tight. "Now we have a debt crisis with
the biggest player, the US. The consequences could be enormous." "A networked society behaves like a multicellular
organism," says Bar-Yam, "random damage is like lopping a chunk off a sheep." Whether or not the sheep survives depends on which chunk is
lost. And while we are pretty sure which chunks a sheep needs, it isn't clear - it may not even be predictable - which chunks of our densely
networked civilisation are critical, until it's too late. "When we do the analysis, almost any part is critical if you lose enough of it," says Bar-Yam.
"Now that we can ask questions of such systems in more sophisticated ways, we are discovering that they can be very vulnerable. That means
civilisation is very vulnerable." So what can we do? "The key issue is really whether we respond successfully in the face of the new
vulnerabilities we have," Bar-Yam says. That means making sure our "global sheep" does not get injured in the first place - something that may
be hard to guarantee as the climate shifts and the world's fuel and mineral resources dwindle. Scientists in other fields are also warning that
complex systems are prone to collapse. Similar ideas have emerged from the study of natural cycles in
ecosystems, based on the work of ecologist Buzz Holling, now at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Some ecosystems become steadily
more complex over time: as a patch of new forest grows and matures, specialist species may replace more generalist species, biomass builds up
and the trees, beetles and bacteria form an increasingly rigid and ever more tightly coupled system. "It becomes an extremely efficient system
for remaining constant in the face of the normal range of conditions," says Homer-Dixon. But unusual
conditions - an insect
outbreak, fire or drought - can trigger dramatic changes as the impact cascades through the system. The
end result may be the collapse of the old ecosystem and its replacement by a newer, simpler one.
Globalisation is resulting in the same tight coupling and fine-tuning of our systems to a narrow range of
conditions, he says. Redundancy is being systematically eliminated as companies maximise profits. Some products are produced by only
one factory worldwide. Financially, it makes sense, as mass production maximises efficiency. Unfortunately, it
also minimises resilience. "We need to be more selective about increasing the connectivity and speed of our
critical systems," says Homer-Dixon. "Sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits." Is there an alternative? Could we heed these
warnings and start carefully climbing back down the complexity ladder? Tainter knows of only one civilisation that managed to decline but not
fall. "After the Byzantine empire lost most of its territory to the Arabs, they simplified their entire society. Cities mostly disappeared, literacy
and numeracy declined, their economy became less monetised, and they switched from professional army to peasant militia."
Pulling off
the same trick will be harder for our more advanced society. Nevertheless, Homer-Dixon thinks we
should be taking action now. "First, we need to encourage distributed and decentralised production of vital goods like energy and
food," he says. "Second, we need to remember that slack isn't always waste. A manufacturing company with a large inventory may lose some
money on warehousing, but it can keep running even if its suppliers are temporarily out of action." The electricity industry in the US has already
started identifying hubs in the grid with no redundancy available and is putting some back in, Homer-Dixon points out. Governments could
encourage other sectors to follow suit. The trouble is that in a world of fierce competition, private companies will always increase efficiency
unless governments subsidise inefficiency in the public interest. Homer-Dixon
doubts we can stave off collapse
completely. He points to what he calls "tectonic" stresses that will shove our rigid, tightly coupled system outside the range of conditions it
is becoming ever more finely tuned to. These include population growth, the growing divide between the world's rich and poor, financial
instability, weapons proliferation, disappearing forests and fisheries, and climate change.
In imposing new complex solutions we
will run into the problem of diminishing returns - just as we are running out of cheap and plentiful
energy. "This is the fundamental challenge humankind faces. We need to allow for the healthy breakdown in natural function in our societies
in a way that doesn't produce catastrophic collapse, but instead leads to healthy renewal," Homer-Dixon says. This is what happens in forests,
which are a patchy mix of old growth and newer areas created by disease or fire. If the ecosystem in one patch collapses, it is recolonised and
renewed by younger forest elsewhere. We
must allow partial breakdown here and there, followed by renewal, he
says, rather than trying so hard to avert breakdown by increasing complexity that any resulting crisis is
actually worse. Lester Brown thinks we are fast running out of time. "The world can no longer afford to waste a day. We need a Great
Mobilisation, as we had in wartime," he says. "There has been tremendous progress in just the past few years. For the first time, I am
starting to see how an alternative economy might emerge. But it's now a race between tipping points which will come first, a switch to sustainable technology, or collapse?" Tainter is not convinced that
even new technology will save civilisation in the long run. "I sometimes think of this as a 'faith-based' approach to the
future," he says. Even a society reinvigorated by cheap new energy sources will eventually face the problem
of diminishing returns once more. Innovation itself might be subject to diminishing returns, or perhaps
absolute limits. Studies of the way by Luis Bettencourt of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, support this idea. His
team's work suggests that an ever-faster rate of innovation is required to keep cities growing and
prevent stagnation or collapse, and in the long run this cannot be sustainable.
Species extinction comes first
Jim Chen 2K - Prof of law U of Minneasota, Now Dean of Law School at Louisville (“Globalization and Its Losers:, 9 Minn. J. Global Trade 157’
HeinOnline)
Conscious decisions to allow the extinction of a species or the destruction of an entire ecosystem
epitomize the "irrevers- ible and irretrievable commitments of resources" that NEPA is designed to retard.312 The
original Endangered Species Act gave such decisions no quarter whatsoever;313 since 1979, such decisions have rested in the hands of a
solemnly convened "God Squad."314 In its permanence and gravity, natural extinction provides the baseline by which all other types of
extinction should be judged.
The Endangered Species Act explicitly acknowledges the "esthetic, ecological, educational, historical,
recreational, and scientific value" of endangered species and the biodiversity they represent.315 Allied bodies of international law confirm this
view:316 global biological diversity is part of the commonly owned heritage of all humanity and deserves full legal protec- tion.317 Rather
remarkably, these broad assertions understate the value of biodiversity and the urgency of its protection. A Sand County Almanac, the
eloquent bible of the modern environmental movement, contains only two demonstrable bio- logical errors. It opens with one and closes with
another. We can forgive Aldo Leopold's decision to close with that elegant but erroneous epigram, "ontogeny repeats phylogeny."318 What
concerns erns us is his opening gambit: "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot."319 Not quite. None
of
us can live without wild things. Insects are so essential to life as we know it that if they "and other
land-dwelling anthropods ... were to disappear, humanity probably could not last more than a few
months."320 "Most of the amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals," along with "the bulk of the flowering plants and ... the physical
structure of most forests and other terrestrial habitats" would disappear in turn.321 "The land would return to" something
resembling its Cambrian condition, "covered by mats of recumbent wind-pollinated vegetation, sprinkled
with clumps of small trees and bushes here and there, largely devoid of animal life."322 From this perspective, the mere thought of valuing
biodiver- sity is absurd, much as any attempt to quantify all of earth's planetary amenities as some trillions of dollars per year is ab- surd. But
the frustration inherent in enforcing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has shown that conservation cannot
work without appeasing Homo economicus, the profit-seeking ape. Efforts to ban the interna- tional ivory trade through CITES have failed to
stem the slaugh- ter of African elephants.323 The preservation of biodiversity must therefore begin with a cold, calculating inventory of its
Fortunately, defending biodiversity preservation in human- ity's self-interest is an easy task. As
yet unexploited species might give a hungry world a larger larder than the storehouse of twenty
plant species that provide nine-tenths of humanity's cur- rent food supply.324 "Waiting in the wings are
tens of thousands of unused plant species, many demonstrably superior to those in favor."325 As genetic warehouses, many
benefits.
plants enhance the pro- ductivity of crops already in use. In the United States alone, the lates phylogeny" means that the life history of any
individual organism replays the entire evolutionary history of that organism's species.
genes of wild plants have accounted for
much of "the explosive growth in farm production since the 1930s."326 The contribution is worth $1 billion each year.327
Nature's pharmacy demonstrates even more dramatic gains than nature's farm.328 Aspirin and
penicillin, our star analgesic and antibiotic, had humble origins in the meadowsweet plant and in cheese mold.329
Leeches, vampire bats, and pit vipers all contribute anticoagulant drugs that reduce blood pressure, prevent heart attacks, and facilitate skin transplants.330 Merck & Co., the multinational pharmaceutical company, is helping Costa Rica assay its
rich biota.33' A single commercially viable product derived "from, say, any one species among... 12,000 plants and 300,000 insects ... could
Wild animals, plants, and microorganisms
also provide eco- logical services.333 The Supreme Court has lauded the pes- ticidal talents of migratory birds.334 Numerous
handsomely repay Merck's entire investment" of $1 million in 1991 dollars.332
organisms process the air we breathe, the water we drink, the ground we stroll.335 Other species serve as sentries. Just as canaries warned
coal miners of lethal gases, the decline or disappearance of indicator species provides advance warning against deeper environmental
threats.336 Species conservation yields the great- est environmental amenity of all: ecosystem protection. Saving discrete species indirectly
protects the ecosystems in which they live.337 Some larger animals may not carry great utilitarian value in themselves, but the human urge to
protect these charis- matic "flagship species" helps protect their ecosystems.338 In- deed, to save any species, we must protect their
ecosystems.339
Defenders of biodiversity can measure the "tangible eco- nomic value" of the pleasure derived from "visiting, photographing, painting, and just looking at wildlife."340 In the United States alone, wildlife
observation and feeding in 1991 generated
$18.1 billion in consumer spending, $3 billion in tax revenues, and 766,000 jobs.341 Ecotourism gives tropical countries,
home to most of the world's species, a valuable alternative to subsis- tence agriculture. Costa Rican rainforests preserved for ecotour- ism
"have become many times more profitable per hectare than land cleared for pastures and fields," while the endangered go- rilla has turned
ecotourism into "the third most important source of income in Rwanda."342 In a globalized economy where commodities can be cultivated
almost anywhere, environmen- tally sensitive locales can maximize their wealth by exploiting the "boutique" uses of their natural bounty.
The value of endangered species and the biodiversity they embody is "literally . . . incalculable."343
What, if anything, should the law do to preserve it? There are those that invoke the story of Noah's Ark as a moral basis for biodiversity preservation.344 Others regard the entire Judeo-Christian tradition, especially the biblical stories of Creation and the Flood, as the root of the West's
deplorable environmental record.345 To avoid getting bogged down in an environmental exegesis of Judeo- Christian "myth and legend," we
should let Charles Darwin and evolutionary biology determine the imperatives of our moment in
natural "history."346 The loss of biological diversity is quite arguably the gravest problem facing
humanity. If we cast the question as the contemporary phenomenon that "our descend- ants [will] most regret," the "loss of
genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats" is worse than even "energy
depletion, economic collapse, limited nuclear war, or con- quest by a totalitarian government."347
Natural evolution may in due course renew the earth with a diversity of species approx- imating that
of a world unspoiled by Homo sapiens - in ten mil- lion years, perhaps a hundred million.348
Growth causes ecosystem collapse and extinction—Jim Chen 2K - Prof of law U of Minneasota, Now Dean of Law School
at Louisville (“Globalization and Its Losers:, 9 Minn. J. Global Trade 157’ HeinOnline)
Globalization marks the end of an epoch. Not merely an ep- och in the colloquial sense, but an epoch in the geological sense.
The spread of Homo sapiens around the earth has brought about mass extinctions and related
ecological changes on a scale not seen since the Cretaceous period. In its evolutionary impact,
comprehensive human colonization of the planet easily out- classes an ice age, or even twenty.' The
previous geological event of comparable magnitude ushered out the dinosaurs; the one before that, the mass extinction that closed out the
Permian period, nearly ended the terrestrial tenure of what we arro- gantly call "higher" life forms.2
In the last 600 million years of
geological history, only five previous extinction spasms have taken place.3 We are living - or perhaps
more accurately, dy- ing - through the sixth.4 "[Half the world's species will be ex- tinct or on the verge
of extinction" by the end of the twenty-first century.5 In environmental terms, globalization merely continues what humanity has been doing since the glaciers last re- treated: subdue every niche within its
reach. he spectacle of mass extinction gives rhetorical ammuni- tion to all opponents of globalization - not just environmental- ists, but also
those who resist free trade as a threat to labor standards, cultural independence, religious values, declining languages, agricultural selfsufficiency, and the like. Just as the global expansion of a single "Terminator" primate species has sparked the Holocene epoch's ecological
holocaust, the emer- gence of a global society threatens a host of human institutions. Where a geological clock once marked the entrance and
exit of species, an accelerated human stopwatch now tracks the rise and fall of regimes, religions, languages, and civilizations. Time and
chance happen to them all.7 The extinction metaphor describes not only a natural world in ecological cataclysm, but also a human society
buffeted by changes of unprecedented scope and seemingly relentless accel- eration. In this dual sense, globalization
is nothing
short of the end of the world.8 So apocalyptic an assertion deserves nothing
less than the most grandiose of intellectual
frameworks. I will examine globalization through a Darwinian lens, in the hope that an application of natural evolution as "universal acid" will
"eat[ ] through just about every traditional concept, and leave[ ] in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still
recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways."9 In economic, cultural, and environmental realms, globaliza- tion unleashes the same
Darwinian dynamics of adaptation, natural selection, and extinction. But the natural world and human society do differ fundamentally.
For
natural species, ex- tinction truly is forever. The ecosystems they inhabit will not recover in any time
frame that humans can meaningfully con- template. Human institutions, by contrast, are much more
readily preserved and revived. To the extent that globalized so- ciety must choose, it should
systematically favor the environ- ment over jobs and even culture. One final observation bears notice. Received
wisdom in American intellectual circles distrusts almost any extension of evolutionary metaphors and analogies outside the strictly bioeconomic case for free trade lies beyond reasonable dispute, "so- cial issues" affecting employment and income, community and culture, and
health and environment supply the primary - per- haps even exclusive - fault lines for legal debate.16
Current growth rates will destroy biodiversity
Trainer 07— Senior Lecturer of School of Social Work @ University of New South Wales [Ted, “Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain A
Consumer Society”, p. 125-159]
The reason why we have an environment problem is simply because there is far too much producing and
consuming going on. (For a detailed argument see Trainer, 1998.) Our way of life involves the consumption of huge amounts of materials.
More than 20 tonnes of new resources are used by each American every year. To produce one tonne of
materials can involve processing 15 tonnes of water, earth or air. (For gold the multiple is 350,000 to 1.) All this must
be taken from nature and most of it is immediately dumped back as waste and pollution. One of the most serious
environmental problems is the extinction of plant and animal species. This is due to the destruction of
habitats. Remember our footprint; if all 9 billion people soon to live on earth were to have rich-world "living standards", humans would have
to use about ten times all the productive land on the planet. Clearly our resource-intensive lifestyles, which require so
much land and so many resources, are the basic cause of the loss of habitats and the extinction of
species.
Growth causes disease spread.
Fidler 96 (David p, J.D. @ Indiana U, Writer for CDC, Emerging Infectious Diseases Volume 2 – Number 2 “Globalization, International Law,
and Emerging Infectious Disease” http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol2no2/fidler.htm)
Globalization has affected public health in three ways. First, the
shrinking of the world by technology and economic
interdependence allows diseases to spread globally at rapid speed. Two factors contributing to the
global threat from emerging infections stem directly from globalization: the increase in international
travel (2, 10) and the increasingly global nature of food handling, processing, and sales (2, 10). HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, cholera, and malaria represent a few infections that have spread to new regions through
global travel and trade (10). The beneficial economic and political consequences of economic interdependence may have negative
ramifications for disease control. In the European Union, for example, the free movement of goods, capital, and labor makes it more difficult for
member states to protect domestic populations from diseases acquired in other countries (11). Second, the
development of the
global market has intensified economic competition and increased pressure on governments to reduce
expenditures, including the funding of public health programs, leaving states increasingly unprepared to
deal with emerging disease problems. Industrialized as well as developing countries confront deteriorating public
health infrastructures (12). Referring to the United States, one author described this deterioration as the “thirdworldization” of the
American health care system (13). Third, public health programs have also “gone global” through WHO and health-related nongovernmental
organizations. Medical advances have spread across the planet, improving health worldwide. The worldwide eradication of smallpox in 1977 is
a famous example. The global reach of health care advances has, however, a darker side.
The globalization of diseasecontrol has
contributed to the population crisis because people are living longer. Overpopulation creates fertile
conditions for the spread of disease: overcrowding, lack of adequate sanitation, and overstretched
public health infrastructures (2). Further, the widespread use and misuse of antibiotic treatments has
contributed to the development of drug-resistant pathogens (1, 2). Finally, the success of control efforts in previous
decades caused interest in infectious diseases to wane in the international medical and scientific communities and is now hampering emerging
infectious disease control efforts (14).
Disease spread risks extinction
Steinbruner 98 – Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution
[John D., “Biological weapons: A plague upon all houses,” Foreign Policy, Dec 22, LN]
It is a considerable comfort and undoubtedly a
key to our survival that, so far, the main lines of defense against this threat
have not depended on explicit policies or organized efforts. In the long course of evolution, the human body has
developed physical barriers and a biochemical immune system whose sophistication and effectiveness exceed anything we could
design or as yet even fully understand. But evolution is a sword that cuts both ways: New diseases emerge, while old
diseases mutate and adapt. Throughout history, there have been epidemics during which human immunity
has broken down on an epic scale. An infectious agent believed to have been the plague bacterium killed an estimated 20
million people over a four-year period in the fourteenth century, including nearly one-quarter of Western Europe's population at the time.
Since its recognized appearance in 1981, some
20 variations of the HIVvirus have infected an estimated 29.4
million worldwide, with 1.5 million people currently dying of aids each year. Malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera-once
thought to be under control-are now making a comeback. As we enter the twenty-first century, changing
conditions have enhanced the potential for widespread contagion. The rapid growth rate of the total world
population, the unprecedented freedom of movement across international borders, and scientific advances that expand the
capability for the deliberate manipulation of pathogens are all cause for worry that the problem might be greater in the future than it has
ever been in the past. The
threat of infectious pathogens is not just an issue of public health, but a fundamental security
problem for the species as a whole.
Economic Collapse inevitable—this crisis is different because modern society is in its terminal phase
and decline is key to avert inevitable extinction
Li 2010 – PhD, Assistant Professor Department of Economics, University of Utah (Minqui, paper prepared for the David Gordon Memorial
Lecture at URPE Summer Conference 2010, “The 21st Century Crisis: Climate Catastrophe or Socialism”)
The impending climate catastrophe is but one of several aspects of the structural crisis of capitalism in the
21st century. We are currently in the beginning of a prolonged period of global instability and chaos. Similar
periods of systemic chaos had happened before (for example, during the first half of the 20th century). Capitalism had managed to survive
earlier crises, through institutional adjustments without changing the system’s essential features (production for profit and endless
accumulation of capital).
Because of this historical observation, some have developed the belief that capitalism is such a remarkably “flexible” and “creative” system that
it can always reform itself, adapt to change, survive crises, and meet challenges. But this belief is short-sighted and fundamentally ahistorical.
Like every other social system, for
capitalism to exist and function, it requires certain necessary historical
conditions. Capitalism would remain viable (and therefore “reformable”) only to the extent the necessary historical conditions required for
its normal operations are present. But the development of capitalism inevitably leads to fundamental changes in the underlying historical
conditions. Sooner or later, a point will be reached where the necessary historical conditions are no longer present, and capitalism as a
historical system will cease to exist.
If one compares the current systemic crisis with earlier instances of systemic crisis, what are some of
the major differences?
First, in previous periods of crisis, the world’s natural resources remained relatively abundant and the
global environment remained largely intact. Today, the global ecological system is literally on the verge
of complete collapse. The impending climate catastrophe is only one among many aspects of global
environmental crisis. Global capitalism has already exhausted the environmental space for further capital accumulation.
Secondly, the successful operations of the capitalist world system require it be regulated by an effective
hegemonic power at the systemic level. However, with the decline of the US hegemony, no other big power
was in a position to replace the US to become the new hegemonic power. Without an effective hegemonic power,
the system would be unable to pursue its own long-term interest and solve system-wide problems.
Thirdly, in the past the capitalist system had managed to survive crisis through social reforms. In essence, social
reform is for the system to buy off certain opposition groups by making limited concessions. The concessions have to be limited so that they do
not undermine the essential interest of the ruling class. Today,
the system has run out of its historical space for social
compromise.
In virtually all the advanced capitalist countries, now a restoration of favorable conditions for capitalist accumulation would require nothing
short of large and sustained declines of working class living standards. Will the western working classes simply surrender and give up their
entire historical gains since the 19th century? If not, Western Europe and North America will again become major battlegrounds of class
struggle in the coming decades.
Fourthly, the world has reached the advanced stage of proletarianization. Marx famously predicted that the proletariat
would become the grave diggers of capitalism. For the entire 19th and much of 20th century, the process of proletarianization was largely
limited to the “West” (the advanced capitalist countries). In the neoliberal era, as capital is relocated from advanced capitalist countries to the
rest of the world to exploit the reserve army of cheap labor force, there
have been large formations of industrial working
classes in the non-western world.
Over time, the non-western working classes will have developed the organizational capacity and demand a growing range of economic, social,
and political rights. For the capitalist world system, if its economic and ecological resources are already so limited that it is no longer possible to
accommodate the historical demands of the western working classes, what is the chance for the system to accommodate the demands of the
much larger non-western working classes?
If the system can no longer survive by buying off its potential oppositions, can it simply survive by repression, and for how long?
How will the combination of these trends play out in the coming decades? Will
the current structural crisis turn out to be the
terminal crisis of capitalism? One thing is clear. If capitalism does survive the current crisis, there is probably
not much hope for the humanity to survive the coming global climate catastrophe. For the humanity’s sake, end capitalism
before we are ended by capitalism.
Delay causes exponentially more deaths
McPherson 10 [Guy McPherson is professor emeritus of natural resources and the environment at the University of Arizona, where he
taught and conducted research for 20 years. His scholarly efforts have produced nine books and well over 100 articles, and have focused for
many years on conservation of biological diversity, 8-16-10, “A review before the exam,” http://guymcpherson.com/2010/08/a-review-beforethe-exam/]
I’ve written all this before, but I have not recently provided a concise summary. This essay provides a brief overview of the dire nature of our
predicaments with respect to fossil fuels. The primary consequences of our fossil-fuel addiction stem from two primary phenomena: peak oil
and global climate change. The former spells the end of western civilization, which might come in time to prevent the extinction of our species
at the hand of the latter.
Global climate change
threatens our species with extinction by mid-century if we do not terminate the
industrial economy soon. Increasingly dire forecasts from extremely conservative sources keep stacking up. Governments
refuse to act because they know growth of the industrial economy depends (almost solely) on consumption of fossil
fuels. Global climate change and energy decline are similar in this respect: neither is characterized by a politically viable solution.
There simply is no comprehensive substitute for crude oil. It is the overwhelming fuel of choice for transportation, and there is no
way out of the crude trap at this late juncture in the industrial era. We passed the world oil peak in 2005, which led to near-collapse
of the world’s industrial economy several times between September 2008 and May 2010. And we’re certainly not out of the economic woods
yet.
Crude oil is the master material on which all other depend. Without
abundant supplies of inexpensive crude oil, we cannot
produce uranium (which peaked in 1980), coal (which peaks within a decade or so), solar panels, wind turbines,
wave power, ethanol, biodiesel, or hydroelectric power. Without abundant supplies of inexpensive crude oil, we cannot
maintain the electric grid. Without abundant supplies of inexpensive crude oil, we cannot maintain the industrial economy for an
extended period of time. Simply put, abundant supplies of inexpensive crude oil are fundamental to growth of the industrial economy and
therefore to western civilization. Civilizations grow or die. Western civilization is done growing.
Not only is there no comprehensive substitute for crude oil, but partial
substitutes simply do not scale. Solar panels on
every roof? It’s too late for that. Electric cars in every garage? It’s too late for that. We simply do not have the cheap energy
requisite to propping up an empire in precipitous decline. Energy efficiency and conservation will not save us, either, as demonstrated by the
updated version of Jevons’ paradox, the Khazzoom-Brookes postulate.
Unchecked, western civilization drives us to one of two outcomes, and perhaps both: (1) Destruction of the living planet on which we depend
for our survival, and/or (2) Runaway greenhouse and therefore the near-term extinction of our species. Why would we want to sustain such a
system? It is immoral and omnicidal. The industrial economy enslaves us, drives us insane, and kills us in myriad ways. We need a living planet.
Everything else is less important than the living planet on which we depend for our very lives. We act as if non-industrial cultures do not matter.
We act as if non-human species do not matter. But they do matter, on many levels, including the level of human survival on Earth. And, of
course, there’s the matter of ecological overshoot, which is where we’re spending all our time since at least 1980. Every
day in
overshoot brings us 205,000 people to deal with later. In this case, “deal with” means murder.
Shall we reduce Earth to a lifeless pile of rubble within a generation? Or shall we heat the planet beyond human
habitability within two generations? Or shall we keep procreating as if there are no consequences for an already crowded planet? Pick your
poison, but recognize it’s poison. We’re dead either way.
Don’t slit those wrists just yet. This essay bears good news.
Western civilization has been in decline at least since 1979, when world per-capita oil supply peaked coincident with the Carter Doctrine
regarding oil in the Middle East. In my mind, and perhaps only there, these two events marked the apex of American Empire, which began
about the time Thomas Jefferson — arguably the most enlightened of the Founding Fathers — said, with respect to native Americans: “In war,
they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them.” It wasn’t long after 1979 that the U.S. manufacturing base was shipped overseas and we
began serious engagement with Wall Street-based casino culture as the basis for our industrial economy. By most economic measures, we’ve
experienced a lost decade, so it’s too late for a fast crash of the industrial economy. We’re in the midst of the same slow train wreck we’ve
been experiencing for more than a decade, but the train is teetering on the edge of a cliff. Meanwhile, all we want to discuss, at every level in
this country, is the quality of service in the dining car.
When the price of crude oil exhibits a price spike, an economic recession soon follows. Every recession since 1972 has been
preceded by a spike in the price of oil, and direr spikes translate to deeper recessions. Economic dominoes began to fall at a rapid and
accelerating rate when the price of crude spiked to $147.27/bbl in July 2008. They haven’t stopped falling, notwithstanding economic
cheerleaders from government and corporations (as if the two are different at this point in American fascism). The reliance
of our
economy on derivatives trading cannot last much longer, considering the value of the derivatives — like the U.S.
debt — greatly exceeds the value of all the currency in the world combined with all the gold mined in
the history of the world.
Although it’s all coming down, as it has been for quite a while, it’s relatively clear imperial decline is accelerating. We’re obviously
headed for full-scale collapse of the industrial economy, as indicated by these 40 statistics. Even Fortune and CNN
agree economic collapse will be complete soon, though they don’t express any understanding of how we arrived at this point or the hopelessness of
extracting ourselves from the morass.
Growth is unsustainable and will cause agricultural collapse, nuclear war and environmental
destruction culminating in extinction – only economic collapse causes cultural shift that solves.
Djordjevic
98
Johnny
, March 19
. BA Global Economics, Paper in Global Sustainability at UC, Irvine. “Sustainability,” Senior Seminar for
Instructor: Peter A. Bowler, http://www.dbc.uci.edu/~sustain/global/sensem/djordj98.html.
Max Weber believed in the power of an idea. This political theorist discussed how Calvinism was one idea that perpetuated the rise of
capitalism. Few people ever examine the power of an idea, but if one examines and contemplates this theory, a realization comes across: that
ideas drive society. The key premise is that some values of our society must be altered in order to avert
catastrophic consequences. The way of life in developed countries is "the origin of many of our most serious problems"(Trainer,
1985). Because developed countries have high material living standards and consume massive quantities of all resources, "hundreds of millions
of people in desperate need must go without the materials and energy that could improve their conditions while these resources flow into
developed countries, often to produce frivolous luxuries"(Trainer, 1985). People's
way of life seems to be a glaring example
of values leading to high rates of personal consumption of resources and the waste of these same materials. In
addition to overconsumption, the services used to supply our society with goods, (examples of these goods would be food, water, energy, and
sewage services.) tends to be wasteful and expensive. Production is organized in such a way, (usually highly centralized) that travel becomes an
enormous burden. Another consideration is that our population is expected to increase to rise to eleven billion within the next half century.
Considering the mineral and energy resources needed in the future, these estimates must also include
the consumption of a population almost doubled from its current status and these same figures must
include an expected increase in the affluence of developed countries. "If we are willing to endorse an already
affluent society in which there is continued growth on this scale,(american resource use increasing 2% each year), then we are assuming that
after 2050 something like 40 times as many resources can be provided each year as were provided in the 1970's, and that it is in order for
people in a few rich countries to live in this superaffluent way while the other 9.5 billion in the world do not"(Trainer, 1985). The
environment is in danger from our pursuit of affluence. Serious worries come from predictions about the atmosphere.
The burning of fossil fuels will raise temperatures and result in climatic effects. Rising temperatures
could have horrific effects. First of all, food production could seriously be imperiled even by increases of
only one degree celcius. If the temperature should increase by five degrees scientists predict the
coastal island nations would be submerged and possibly trigger the next ice age. Another environmental
concern deals with the soil. Our agricultural practices disregard the value of recycling food waste. Also, the use of pesticides and
chemicals in agriculture lead to the poisoning of the soil and topsoil loss through erosion. Yields per
acre for grain are falling and "we do not produce food in ways that can be continued for
centuries"(Trainer, 1985). Even more disturbing is the deforestation of rainforests. This results in the extinction of
many species, concentration of carbon dioxide, the loss of many potential medical breakthroughs, and
possibly the disruption of rainfall. Opponents of the deforestation fail to realize that our expensive way of life and
greedy economic system are the driving forces. "Nothing can be achieved by fighting to save this forest or that species if in
the long term we do not change the economic system which demands ever-increasing production and consumption of non-necessities"(Trainer,
1985). There also lies a problem in the Third World. Developed
countries high living standards and quest for an everincreasing quality of life lead to Third World poverty and the deprivation of the Third World's access
to its own resources. As Third World countries get deprived of materials, the developed world
consumes and imports over half of their resources. A few developed countries seem to be consuming the globe's resources
and this consumption rate is always increasing. "The rich must live more simply that the poor may simply live"(Trainer, 1985).
The Third World is exploited in many ways. One way is that the best land in a developing country is used for crops exported to developed
countries, while citizens of the Third World starve and suffer. Another way is the poor working conditions of the Third World. A third
exploitation can be overlooked but no less disgusting; "The world's greatest health problem could be simply by providing water for the perhaps
2.000 million people who now have to drink form rivers and wells contained by human and animal wastes. Technically it is a simple matter to
set up plants for producing iron and plastic pipes. But most of the world's iron and plastic goes into the production of luxurious cars, soft-drink
containers, office blocks and similar things in rich countries"(Trainer, 1985). The
threat of nuclear war and international
conflict rises with countries of all kinds entranced with the logic and idea of materialism. Perhaps the
most dangerous and likely chances for a nuclear conflict arise from the competition for dwindling
resources by developed countries. Similar events can be seen all across the globe. Major superpowers get
themselves involved in domestic matters not concerning them, providing arms and advice to try and
obtain the inside track on possible resources. International tension will rise in the competition for
resources and so will the "ever-increasing probability of nuclear war"(Trainer, 1985). As developed countries
pursue affluence they fail to see the inherent contradiction in this idea; as growth is the quest, the quality of life will decrease. For a healthy
community, there exists a list of non-material conditions which must be present, "a sense of purpose, fulfilling work and leisure, supportive
social relations, peace of mind, security from theft and violence, and caring and co-operative neighborhoods"(Trainer, 1985). And as developed
countries think their citizens are the happiest in the world, "In most affluent societies rates of divorce, drug-taking, crime, mental breakdown,
child abuse, alcoholism, vandalism, suicide, stress, depression, and anxiety are increasing"(Trainer, 1985). Despite all the gloomy facts and sad
stories, there
is a solution, to create a sustainable society. Rather than being greedy and only thinking about the self, each
individual must realize the impacts of his/her selfish tendencies, and disregard their former view of the world. One
must come into harmony with what is really needed to survive, and drawn a strict distinction between what is
necessity and what is luxury. Not every family needs three cars, or five meals a day or four telephones and two refrigerators. Countries do not
need to strive for increasing growth, less materials could be imported/exported and international tension could be greatly reduced. The major
problems seem not to step from the determination of what a sustainable society is, but on how to get people to change their values. This task is
not an easy one. People
must be forced to realize the harmful and catastrophic consequences lie in their
meaningless wants and greed. The problem of cognitive dissonance is hard to overcome, but it is not
impossible. The solution to this dilemma lies in castastrophe. The only event that changes people's minds
is social trauma or harm. The analogy is that a person who refuses to wear a seat belt and one day gets thrown through his/her
windshield will remember to wear the seat belt after the accident. The logic behind this argument is both simple and feasible. So the question
of dissonance is answered in part, but to
change a whole society obviously takes a bigger and more traumatic
event to occur. An economic collapse or ice age would trigger a new consciousness leading to a
sustainable society. The power of an idea should never be underestimated. Hitler's idea of the Aryan race lead to the Holocaust, Marx's
idea of socialism lead to Stalin's reign and the deaths of over 50 million people. But ideas change be changed, disregarded and adopted. As
developed countries find themselves engaging in a greedy philosophy, once that realization is made, the first step to a better society is taken.
Our current path will lead to massive suffering all across the world, with extinction a distinct possibility. Global
sustainability must be adopted by every person on the planet, (starting in the developed world), otherwise the world will
cease to support life.
Growth increases chance of conflict
Boehmer 10 (Charles, professor of political science at the University of Texas – El Paso and Ph.D. in Political Science from Pennsylvania
State University, “Economic Growth and Violent International Conflict: 1875-1999,” Defence and Peace Economics, June, Vol. 21, Issue 3, pg.
249-268)
The theory set forth earlier theorizes that economic
growth increases perceptions of state strength, increasing the
growth appears to increase the resolve of leaders to stand
against challenges and the willingness to escalate disputes. A non-random pattern exists where higher rates of
GDP growth over multiple years are positively and significantly related to the most severe international
conflicts, whereas this is not true for overall conflict initiations. Moreover, growth of military expenditures, as a measure of the
war chest proposition, does not offer any explanation for violent interstate conflicts. This is not to say that growth of
likelihood of violent interstate conflicts. Economic
military expenditures never has any effect on the occurrence of war, although such a link is not generally true in the aggregate using a large
sample of states. In comparison, higher
rates of economic growth are significantly related to violent interstate
conflicts in the aggregate. States with growing economies are more apt to reciprocate military challenges
by other states and become involved in violent interstate conflicts. The results also show that theories from the
Crisis-Scarcity perspective lack explanatory power linking GDP growth rates to war at the state level of analysis. This is not to say that such
theories completely lack explanatory power in general, but more particularly that they cannot directly link economic growth rates to state
behavior in violent interstate conflicts. In contrast, theories of diversionary conflict may well hold some explanatory power, although not
regarding GDP growth in a general test of states from all regions of the world across time. Perhaps diversionary theory better explains state
behaviors short of war, where the costs of externalizing domestic tensions do not become too costly, or in relation to the foreign policies of
particular countries. In many circumstances, engaging in a war to divert attention away from domestic conditions would seemingly exacerbate
domestic crisis conditions unless the chances of victory were practically assured. Nonetheless, this study does show that domestic conflict is
associated with interstate conflict. If diversionary conflict theory has any traction as an economic explanation of violent interstate conflicts, it
may require the study of other explanatory variables besides overall GDP growth rates, such as unemployment or inflation rates. The
contribution of this article has been to examine propositions about economic growth in a global study. Most existing studies on this topic focus
on only the United States, samples of countries that are more developed on average (due to data availability in the past), or are based on
historical information and not economic GDP data. While I have shown that there is no strong evidence linking military expenditures to violent
interstate conflicts at the state level of analysis, much of the remaining Growth-as-Catalyst perspective is grounded in propositions that are not
directly germane to questions about state conflict behavior, such as those linking state behavior to long-cycles, or those that remain at the
systemic level. What answer remains linking economic growth to war once we eliminate military expenditures as an explanation? Considering
that the concept of foreign policy mood is difficult to identify and measure, and that the bulk of the literature relies solely on the American
historical experience, I do not rely on that concept. It is still possible that such moods affect some decision-makers. Instead, similar to Blainey, I
find that economic
growth, when sustained over a stretch of years, has its strongest effect on states once they find
themselves in an international crisis. The results of this study suggest that states such as China, which have a
higher level of opportunity to become involved in violent interstate conflicts due to their capabilities,
geographic location, history of conflict, and so on, should also have a higher willingness to fight after enjoying
multiple years of recent economic growth. One does not have to assume that an aggressive China will emerge from growth. If
conflicts do present themselves, then China may be more likely to escalate a war given its recent national
performance.
Prefer our study – others are not empirical, lack coherent definitions, and don’t specify duration of
growth
Boehmer 10 (Charles, professor of political science at the University of Texas – El Paso and Ph.D. in Political Science from Pennsylvania
State University, “Economic Growth and Violent International Conflict: 1875-1999,” Defence and Peace Economics, June, Vol. 21, Issue 3, pg.
249-268)
The literature cited above is quite diverse concerning units of analysis, theories, research methods, and data. One study such as this cannot reexamine all the potential hypotheses therein. However, this paper offers some general critiques across the literature. First, most
of the
studies at the systemic level of analysis are either difficult to substantiate empirically , such as providing
evidence thai long cycles are actually 'cycles' endogenous to the global economy and not simply statistical random walks (Beck, 1991), or are
theoretically imprecise concerning mechanisms and processes. Some work in this area lacks agency, linking
periodicities of economic cycles to individual states. Second, most of the studies that focus on foreign
policy moods lack a well-developed conception of 'mood'. How could we best identify such a variable and does it extend
equally to leaders and those in society? Third, most of these studies from both perspectives are unspecific about
ihe duration of growth and its effects on conflict. Shorter-term growth rates are often
undifferentiated from longer-term economic development. Some studies simply use one-year lags of
economic growth while others measure growth over several years using moving averages, whereas others
focus on long waves or cycles of more than a decade. There are important theoretical distinctions in such choices.
Local cultures following collapse are key to survive
Lewis 2k—prof, U Colorado, Boulder. Ph.D. (Chris, Global Industrial Civilization: The Necessary Collapse,
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/ecology/lewglo.pdf)
We are now witnessing the collapse of a globalized modern industrial civilization. Far from being inevitable,
globalization, the movement toward a globally
undermining the very
integrated, free-market capitalist economy, dominated by First World nations and transnational corporations (TNCs), is
foundation of global industrial civilization. Global populist challenges in the late 1990s and early 2000s by First and Third World activists and peoples
to the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the crippling burden of Third World debt illustrate the increasing
stresses and ruptures that are even now undermining global industrial civilization. Just like the Roman Empire, overexpansion and structural weaknesses
are undermining this emerging global civilization at the very height of its power. Smug, arrogant arguments about the
inevitability of globalization, and the triumph of global industrial free-market capitalist civilization, such as Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree
(2000), are symptoms of the very
contradictions that are being exacerbated by "forced" globalization and will cause
the collapse of global industrial civilization. The seeds of its collapse are even now being sown by First World elites' and TNCs'
efforts to impose a globalized, free-market capitalist economy on the world. The most prominent of these increasing structural contradictions
that are tearing apart global industrial civilization are the increasing destruction of the global environment, increasing poverty and
inequality between First and Third World peoples, and increasing threats to national and democratic governance by the World Trade Organization and by
global financial markets. Global industrial civilization is collapsing because the very economic growth and global development that it
promises will address these structural contradictions are only making them worse. Our hope lies in the creation of local and regional cultures and
economies that can truly solve these problems by focusing on sustainable development, the health of local
peoples and communities, and the re-democratization of everyday life. Globalization will fail because it
supports TNCs over peoples and communities, bolsters corporate profits over human rights and the environment, and demands the reign of global
corporations and markets over people and nature. Led and supported by First World governments such as the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan,
globalization is swamping nation-states and putting nothing in their place but global corporations and unregulated global financial markets (Athanasiou 1996, 173).
The current debate over the WTO is really a debate about the future of global industrial civilization.
EKC doesn’t apply to warming
Aldy, economics prof, 4—fellow at Resources for the Future. Co-director of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, co-director of
the International Energy Workshop, treasurer of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown
University. Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University (Joseph, An Environmental Kuznets Curve Analysis of U.S. State-Level Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 9 August
2004, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/repsol_ypf-ksg_fellows/Papers/Aldy/Aldy%20States%20EKC%20Paper.pdf)
The only theory of the environmental Kuznets curve that appears plausible for per capita carbon dioxide emissions focuses on the shifts in energy-intensive
production associated with various stages of economic development. All
countries cannot someday converge to a low carbonintensity, advanced stage of development characterized by specialization in services and imports of carbon-intensive goods from other
countries. This certainly questions whether the inverted-U income-emissions shape is permanent or only reflects the presumably temporary variation in economic
development across the world. While the previous literature has attempted to address this issue by including broad measures of trade as additional regressors, this
paper makes a contribution by explicitly adjusting carbon dioxide emissions based on the emissions intensity of net electricity trade. The empirical evaluation in
section 4 provides evidence in support of this theory as the estimated EKCs for consumption-based CO2 have peaks at higher incomes than standard or productionbased CO2 EKCs and the post-peak shapes of these two types of EKCS also appear to diverge. The empirical
work also calls into question the
robustness of the inverted-U shape of the per capita carbon dioxide EKC. The consumption-based environmental Kuznets curve
appears to have higher peaks and much higher post-peak emissions than production-based EKCs. Tests for common
slope parameters suggest that the states do not follow a common income-emissions relationship. The statespecific time series
regressions show that some of the estimated reduced-form regressions may be spurious, and few states have cointegrated data that yield
a statistically significant inverted-U environmental Kuznets curve. The regression results also show that per capita emissions do reflect
variations in state climatic conditions as well as the impact of historic energy endowments.
Tech causes disease extinction
Sandberg et al, fellow at Oxford, 8—Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. PhD in computation
neuroscience, Stockholm—AND—Jason G. Matheny—PhD candidate in Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins. special consultant to the Center for
Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh—AND—Milan M. Ćirković—senior research associate at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade. Assistant professor of
physics at the University of Novi Sad. (Anders, How can we reduce the risk of human extinction?, 9 September 2008, http://www.thebulletin.org/webedition/features/how-can-we-reduce-the-risk-of-human-extinction)
The risks from anthropogenic hazards appear at present larger than those from natural ones. Although great progress has been made in reducing the number of
nuclear weapons in the world, humanity is still threatened by the possibility of a global thermonuclear war and a resulting nuclear winter. We may face
even
greater risks from emerging technologies. Advances in synthetic biology might make it possible to
engineer pathogens capable of extinction-level pandemics. The knowledge, equipment, and materials needed to engineer pathogens are
more accessible than those needed to build nuclear weapons. And unlike other weapons, pathogens are self-replicating, allowing
a small arsenal to become exponentially destructive. Pathogens have been implicated in the extinctions of many wild species.
Although most pandemics "fade out" by reducing the density of susceptible populations, pathogens with wide host ranges
in multiple species can reach even isolated individuals. The intentional or unintentional release of engineered pathogens with
high transmissibility, latency, and lethality might be capable of causing human extinction. While such an event seems unlikely today, the
likelihood may increase as biotechnologies continue to improve at a rate rivaling Moore's Law.
Collapse causes mindset shift—this evidence is awesome
Lewis 2k—prof, U Colorado, Boulder. Ph.D. (Chris, Global Industrial Civilization: The Necessary Collapse,
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/ecology/lewglo.pdf)
Since its birth in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe, the modern industrial First World, driven by the desire to accumulate wealth and control human and
natural resources, has waged a brutal war against the earth. In Extinction, biologists Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich note hat "never in the 500 million years of
terrestrial evolution has this mantle we call the biosphere been under such savage attack" (1981, 8). In their 1993 "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" signed
by more than 1,680 scientists worldwide, concerned scientists warned that "human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on
critical resources" (Union of Concerned Scientists 1993, 3). Tragically, the industrial world's relentless struggle
to conquer and subdue the earth in the
name of progress will bring its collapse and ruin. Its vain struggle to control and defeat the awesome power of nature will, in the end, destroy
global industrial civilization. Driven by individualism, materialism, and the endless pursuit of wealth and power, the modern industrialized First World's efforts
to modernize and integrate the world politically, economically, and culturally since World War II are only accelerating this global collapse. In the
early twenty-first century, global development leaves 80 percent of the world's population outside of the industrialized nations' progress and affluence (Wallimann
1994). When this modern industrialized world collapses, Third World peoples will continue their daily struggle for dignity and survival at the margins of a moribund
global industrial civilization. With
the collapse of global industrial civilization, smaller, autonomous local and regional civilizations,
cultures, and polities will emerge. We can reduce the threat of mass death and genocide that will surely accompany
this collapse by encouraging the creation and growth of sustainable, self-sufficient regional polities. John Cobb has already made a case for
how it may work in the United States and how it is working in Cuba. After the collapse of global industrial civilization, First and Third World peoples
will not have the material resources, biological capital, and energy and human resources to reestablish global industrial
civilization. Forced by economic necessity to become dependent on local resources and ecosystems for their survival,
peoples throughout the world will work to conserve and restore their environments. Those societies that destroy their local
environments and economies, as modern people so often do, will themselves face collapse and ruin.
EKC doesn’t apply to biodiv
Majumder 6—Professors at the University of New Mexico— Robert Berrens, and Alok Bohara [Pallab, “Is There an Environmental Kuznets Curve for the Risk
of Biodiversity Loss?”, The Journal of Developing Areas, Volume 39, Number 2, Spring 2006, pp. 175-190, muse]
The empirical robustness of the inverted U-shape relationship remains a debatable issue (Dasgupta et al. 2002; Grossman and Krueger, 1996). Stern (1998) argues
that the evidence for the inverted U-shape relationship applies only to a subset of environmental measures. Such arguments
require investigating the EKC relationship for as broad an array of possible types of pollutants. Whether the EKC relationship holds for biodiversity loss or the risk of
biodiversity loss, remains an open issue. While there are several recent studies (McPherson and Nieswiadomy 2000; Dietz and Adger 2001; and Naidoo and
Adamowicz 2001) investigating the EKC relationship for
biodiversity, they are subject to various limitations. Specifically, all the
prior EKC studies for biodiversity looked into the diversity of a particular species or a number of species rather than a
broader measure or index of overall biodiversity. In addition, these studies do not account for variations in ecosystems
that directly affect species diversity. We investigate the EKC hypothesis for the overall risk of biodiversity loss by using the multivariate
National Biodiversity Risk Assessment Index (NABRAI; Ryers et al. 1998, 1999) and several variants, which include genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity.1
Analyzing cross-country data, our findings suggest that there is no EKC relationship for the risk of biodiversity loss. The EKC relationship has
generated extensive debate and empirical investigation. Various empirical EKC studies have employed different methods, and evaluated different environmental
indicators resulting in a broad spectrum of findings. Based on a number of empirical findings supporting the EKC, some analysts (e.g., Beckerman 1992) argue that
there exists a general inverted U-shape relationship between economic growth and the environment. They tend to draw the broad policy conclusion that economic
growth in a society will somehow automatically take care of most environmental problems. On the contrary, others argue that there is no blanket inverted U-shape
relationship between income and overall environmental quality (e.g., Stern 1998; Stern and Common 2001; Harbaugh et al. 2002).2 Further, even
if the EKC
over some historical range, it may not hold in the future due to ecological thresholds and
carrying capacities (e.g. Arrow et al. 1995). Since the EKC results are usually estimated from a reduced form equation, a variety of conflicting theoretical
relationship holds
explanations may be consistent with the EKC. Suggested reasons for observed EKC results are: shiftable externalities (Arrow et al. 1995), industry composition
(Grossman and Krueger 1996), environmental regulation [End Page 176] (Grossman and Krueger 1996), technology (Grossman and Krueger 1996), net migration
(Berrens et al. 1997) and differences in trade policy regimes (Copeland and Taylor 2003). In a recent meta-analysis synthesizing the results of numerous EKC studies,
Cavlovic et al. (2000) show that EKC relationships and their corresponding income turning points depend on the scale of analysis and the type of pollutants. The
view that the EKC relationship holds only for a subset of environmental pollutants or disamenities is supported by a number of different
perspectives. From the consumption-side view, it is simply easier to live with some pollutants than others, or it is easier to shift the externality effect for some types
of pollutants than others.3 As income rises,
households are more likely to spend to have access to safe drinking water, but not
necessarily to spend for less directly visible measures, such as biodiversity protection, with the same urgency. On the other hand,
production-side EKC theories imply that with higher per capita income, countries will be able to substitute environmental-friendly production technology. However,
there may be some environmental damages that cannot be continuously substituted with better production technology
due to ecological thresholds (Dasgupta, 2000) and the unique nature of the damage (e.g., loss of critical habitat and keystone
species). From a broad perspective, biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth, and includes genetics, species, ecosystems and the ecological processes of
which they are a part (Ecosystem Health 2001). As is common, Turner et al. (1993) divide the notion of biodiversity into three different categories: (1) genetic
diversity, (2) species diversity and (3) ecosystem diversity. The richness and diversity of genetic information stored in the genes of plants, animal and
microorganisms is referred as genetic diversity. The richness and variety of different species is referred as species diversity, where species variety is most commonly
used to proxy biodiversity. The richness and variety of ecological process is referred to as ecosystem diversity. Recently, some biologists measure biodiversity as an
index that incorporates all three aspects (Ryers et al. 1998). Ryers et al. (1998, 1999) developed the National Biodiversity Risk Assessment Index (NABRAI), which
attempts to account for all three aspects of biodiversity and is potentially more accurate than simpler measures of biodiversity (i.e., counts of species, or types of
species). There are several recent EKC studies for biodiversity that use these simpler measures. McPherson and Nieswiadomy (2000) examined the EKC relationship
for threatened birds and mammals and found an N-shape relation for threatened birds; the implication is that biodiversity loss ultimately increases with higher level
of income. They found no evidence of an EKC relationship for threatened mammals. Naidoo and Adamowicz (2001) examined the EKC relationship for birds and
mammals as well as for amphibians, reptiles, fishes, invertebrates and found a general U-shape relationship for amphibians, reptiles, fishes, and invertebrates.
However, they find an inverted U-shape relationship for birds and mammals. Dietz and Adger (2001) examined the EKC hypothesis using species area-relationship in
a number of tropical countries. They found no EKC relationship between income and biodiversity loss, but did find that conservation effort increases with income.
These studies focused on the diversity of particular species rather [End Page 177] than some overall biodiversity stock or index. More preferably, a proper
measure of biodiversity should include other factors that directly affect species diversity. Land exposed to high disturbance levels,
human population density, other endemic species, genetically invented new species etc. can be the examples of such factors. None of the earlier
studies took these factors into account in exploring EKC relationship for biodiversity. To fill this gap, we investigate the EKC
relationship using cross-sectional (country-level) data and the recently introduced NABRAI, which measures the overall biodiversity risk considering species
diversity, genetic diversity and ecosystem diversity.4
Sustainable development is useless as long as populations keep growing and consuming too many
resources
Mehlman, 92 – Leader of the Writer’s Support Group at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) – 1992 (Ira, “The Social Contract: Avoiding
the Obvious,”http://www.thesocialcontract.com/cgi-bin/showarticle.pl?articleID=173&terms=Population%20growth)
Beyond the simple fact that international
aid could never keep up with demographic growth in the Third World, it
could also be a suicidal pursuit. As noted by Rudolf Weiersmuller, the Swiss Ambas-sador for International Refugee Policy, if the Third
World ever attempted to model its development after that of the West, it would have a cataclysmic
effect on the health of our planet. The world's three leading economic powers, the United States, Japan and
Germany, account for 8.5 percent of global population, but 30 percent of the world's carbon dioxide
emissions. Conversely, China and India, the two most populous nations on earth account for 37 percent of world
population and only 14 percent of CO2 spewed into the atmosphere. We would surely destroy the
earth's environment long before these two nations ever achieved economic parity with the
industrialized nations. In an ironic twist, the ''solutions'' to the crisis discussed in Geneva are precisely the causes of the crisis discussed in Rio. It seems
to defy logic that one arm of the United Nations would meet in May to promote the kind of development another arm of the U.N. was scheduled to try to contain in
June. Yet, because a frank and rational discussion of the root cause of both the migration and environmental crises — exploding human population — was off the
table, both conferences are likely to achieve marginal results at best. There is no mystery about the causes of mass migration and severe environmental
degradation. They are, in fact, malignant symptoms of the same disease overpopulation in the South and East and overconsumption in the North and West. They
Much of the underdeveloped
world (with the now overt encouragement of the Vatican) either can't or won't control their Population growth. President Bush,
are problems that may prove beyond our capacity to solve, but they are certainly not beyond our ability to recognize.
the leader of the developed world, has made it clear that the affluent nations are not prepared to make any significant sacrifices to reduce their disproportional
consumption of resources and environmental damage. And so we have a stand-off. Rather than talk about the real issues, we talk about peripheral matters, careful
not to call on anyone to make any real sacrifices. The
developed world talks vaguely about economic assistance it can't
afford and which the environment cannot sustain. It refuses to consider true reform of its own industrial
and economic infrastructure and a more equitable use of the world's resources. The underdeveloped
nations continue to show little resolve in controlling Population growth which makes any hope of a
better life for their citizens impossible. Instead they have opted for the post-Cold War version of
Mutually Assured Destruction in which the developed countries must pay them not to destroy the rain
forests and must absorb at least a part of their overflow population.
Market can’t solve resource wars
Heinberg 4 – journalist, teaches at the Core Faculty of New College of California, on the Board of Advisors of the Solar Living Institute and the Post Carbon
Institute (Richard, “Power Down”, Published by New Society Publishers, pg. 62)
So: the idea of a truly free market is a fiction -probably as much so now as at any time in history. To be fair, it is true that economists sometimes admit that the free
market is an unrealized ideal; but as such it has little to do with historical, political, and social reality. Rather
than the market making
resource wars obsolete, war (or the threat of war) is actually an integral part of the modern market system. Further, to the
degree that the market creates or exacerbates economic inequality (and economic inequality has clearly increased markedly during the
past two decades of global market mania ), it makes conflict ultimately more likely, as extreme economic inequality either must be sustained by
overt or threatened violence, or it will be opposed by violence
Growth makes wars inevitable
Trainer 7, (Ted, professor at Universtiy of New South Wales, “The Simpler Way”)
If we take a look at the past we see a close connections between war and the quest for resources,
markets and territory. Some wars have been due to other causes, including religious and ethnic
antagonisms, but most has been contests over access to resource wealth. Consider World War II. It is
tempting to say it was clearly a morally open and shut case. "We British didn't start it. It was those Germans and Japanese."
But they were only doing what Britain had done previousy. Over a 200 year period Britain conquered
the biggest empire ever, fighting more than 70 wars and slaughtering who knows how many thousands
of people in the process, then shipping out their wealth. Yet when the Germans and Japanese tried to get into the same game and
started taking Britain's "possessions" the British reacted in outrage to "defend their interests". They had not the slightest doubt that their
position was morally pure while the Germans and Japanese were diabolically evil. World Wars I and II
can be seen as attempts by Germany to challenge British global domination, to get into the business of
conquering territory and controlling markets, in order to become a "great imperial power" too. The last
500 years has been largely about the struggle between Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, Germany,
Britain and the US to dominate the world. Dominate means impose the rules and arrangements that
ensure you get most of the wealth on terms that favour you. But what about Hitler? Aren't there cases where there
is no doubt we have to fight against an unambiguously evil villain? But you shouldn't have let it come to that, and it would not have had you been sensible long
The time to stop a war is many years before it breaks out, and the way to stop it usually involves
you refusing to take part in the grabbing that leads to it. World War I was largely about imperial grabbing. After it was over the
before.
victors carved up for themselves what had been the Turkish empire, ignoring the needs and the rights of the people in those regions. They punished Germany
severely at Versailles, helping to set up World War II. If you had really wanted to avoid World War II you should have started working seriously on the problem no
later than perhaps 1880 before the imperial scramble to carve up Africa began and that would have got you nowhere if you were not prepared to relinquish the
underlying drive to get more and more of the world's wealth. What a totally different world it would be, and how completely different history would have been, had
relations between nations not been primarily about the effort to dominate, conquer and take the wealth and territory of others that is if nations had been prepared
to live within their means. The
last several thousand years of human history can mostly be put in terms of people
trying to grab more than their fair share of the available wealth and power. States constantly jockey
diplomatically and from time to time resort to aggression. Why? Simply because they are never content to
live with what they have or content to organise satisfactory lifestyles for themselves within their own
borders. There are always energetic "entrepreneurs" who are not happy just to be very wealthy, so they
go out looking for even more resources and markets, and try to outmanoeuvre and bully their rivals.
States try to increase their wealth, territory, status and power, usually via normal economic strategies,
but often it eventually comes to blows. This is largely what history has been about. Many groups of people haven't
done this. Many tribes maintain stable social systems within stable boundaries and are not constantly
seeking to outsmart or steal from their neighbours. This is not true of all tribes, but it is true of some,
and it is totally foreign to Western culture with its restless urge to go out and acquire more, conquer,
build empires and take over markets, or one way or another to get more and more, with no concept of
ever having enough wealth. "International relations" is in other words essentially about thuggery and
bullying ---- polite and impolite, subtle and ham-fisted, --- with a view to getting as much as is possible.
Take for example, at the relatively polite end of the scale, Australia's recognition of the Indonesian invaders as the rulers of East Timor (almost the only nation to
recognise,) In 2004 East Timor sought to have the rights to the oil fields in the Timor sea fields renegotiated, but Australia refused to allow the international
tribunals to hear the case, probably because they would have ruled in favour of East Timor.
De-Dev Aff
Renouncing growth causes extinction
Land 9 – PhD, philosopher and economist at the Thunen Institute in Bollewick. (Rainer, “A New Pareadigm: The New Deal of the 1930s,”
10/30, http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/ 2009/10/30/18627196.php)//
The way of continued deregulation of the financial system and inflation of money capital led unavoidably to financial
crises like the present crisis. All three ways can only postpone without solving the problem of the limits of the Fordist type of economic
development. The only logical possible solution would be the transition to a resource-efficient and environmentally compatible type of
economic development. Renouncing
on economic development would not be a way out because it would sanction the
environmental problems existing today and unsolvable without another type of industry will
continue and cause the death of today’s humanity. Renouncing on economic development would mean renouncing on the
status quo. The
future technologies with which environmental destruction could be avoided and environmental problems at least partly repaired.
Renouncing on growth urged again and again would also not be a solution. The current path of population growth will lead
to a stabilization of the world population at nine to ten billion people by 2050 (currently seven billion). Renouncing on increased
production of food, consumer goods and services meant less and less had to be consumed per capital year after year. Thus
people of developed countries must lose more and more so people in the third world can win. At the end everyone
suffers distress. The only alternative is a new combination of development and growth, an economic development where growing
production goes along with declining resource consumption (energy, raw materials and emissions) and environmentally compatible industry
arises. Renouncing
on development and renouncing on growth would be fatal like growth without development or
development without growth. The alternative is another path of economic development, growth based on another
principle of economic development and invention and extension of a new type of industry. If such a change of
direction occurs, a greater investment boom and development push would occur than the boom after the Second
World War that led to the genesis of Fordist participation capitalism.
Growth solves all impacts
Reich 10 (Robert Bernard, August 17th served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, from 1993 to 1997.
Reich is currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, a
former Harvard University professor and the former Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at the Heller School for Social
Policy and Management at Brandeis University, http://robertreich.org/post/968048444)
Economic growth is slowing in the United States. It’s also slowing in Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Spain, and Canada. It’s even
slowing in China. And it’s likely to be slowing soon in Germany. If governments keep hacking away at their budgets while
consumers almost everywhere are becoming more cautious about spending, global demand will shrink to the
point where a worldwide dip is inevitable. You might ask yourself: So what? Why do we need more economic growth anyway?
Aren’t we ruining the planet with all this growth — destroying forests, polluting oceans and rivers, and spewing carbon into
the atmosphere at a rate that’s already causing climate chaos? Let’s just stop filling our homes with so much stuff. The answer is economic
growth isn’t just about more stuff. Growth is different from consumerism. Growth is really about the
capacity of a nation to produce everything that’s wanted and needed by its inhabitants. That includes
better stewardship of the environment as well as improved public health and better schools. (The Gross
Domestic Product is a crude way of gauging this but it’s a guide. Nations with high and growing GDPs have more overall capacity; those with
low or slowing GDPs have less.)Poorer
countries tend to be more polluted than richer ones because they don’t have the
capacity both to keep their people fed and clothed and also to keep their land, air and water clean. Infant mortality is higher and
life spans shorter because they don’t have enough to immunize against diseases, prevent them from
spreading, and cure the sick.In their quest for resources rich nations (and corporations) have too often devastated
poor ones – destroying their forests, eroding their land, and fouling their water. This is intolerable, but it isn’t an indictment of
growth itself. Growth doesn’t depend on plunder. Rich nations have the capacity to extract resources responsibly. That they
don’t is a measure of their irresponsibility and the weakness of international law. How a nation chooses to use its productive capacity – how it
defines its needs and wants — is a different matter. As
China becomes a richer nation it can devote more of its
capacity to its environment and to its own consumers, for example. The United States has the largest capacity
in the world. But relative to other rich nations it chooses to devote a larger proportion of that capacity to consumer goods, health care,
and the military. And it uses comparatively less to support people who are unemployed or destitute, pay for noncarbon fuels, keep people healthy, and provide aid to the rest of the world. Slower growth will mean even more
competition among these goals. Faster growth greases the way toward more equal opportunity and a wider
distribution of gains. The wealthy more easily accept a smaller share of the gains because they can still come out
ahead of where they were before. Simultaneously, the middle class more willingly pays taxes to support public
improvements like a cleaner environment and stronger safety nets. It’s a virtuous cycle. We had one during
the Great Prosperity the lasted from 1947 to the early 1970s. Slower growth has the reverse effect. Because economic
gains are small, the wealthy fight harder to maintain their share. The middle class, already burdened by high
unemployment and flat or dropping wages, fights ever more furiously against any additional burdens, including tax increases to
support public improvements. The poor are left worse off than before. It’s a vicious cycle. We’ve been in one most of the
last thirty years. No one should celebrate slow growth. If we’re entering into a period of even slower
growth, the consequences could be worse.
De-dev kills the environment, politically unsustainable
Van de Bergh 10 PhD in Economics from VU University Amsterdam Professor of Environmental Economics (1997-2007) and Professor
of ´Nature, Water and Space´ (2002-2007) at VU University Amsterdam, and Member of the Energy Council of the Netherlands (Jeroen,
Environment versus growth — A criticism of “degrowth” and a plea for “a-growth”, http://degrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/vanden-bergh_degrowth-and-a-growth.pdf)
Perhaps for the majority of degrowth proponents the notion of degrowth
denotes a radical change of (or many radical
changes in) the economy. This may involve changes in values, ethics, preferences, financial systems,
markets (versus informal exchange), work and labor, the role of money, or even profit-making and
ownership (Latouche, 2009; Schneider et al., 2010). Such an approach comprises degrowth notions 2 and 3, but it is broader. Fournier
(2008) has called it “escaping from the [capitalist] economy.” The main problem I see here that this is such a
grand, imprecise idea which lacks a good, thorough analysis that it will be impossible to obtain
political support for it in a democratic system. More importantly, it is void of a good view on systemic
solutions and instrumentation, making it unclear how to upscale radical changes in lifestyles and
grassroots initiatives by small subsets of the population (“niches”) to society as a whole. Alternative
lifestyles, i.e. outside the cultural norm, have always existed but have never been adopted by the
large majority of people. So why would this now suddenly be different? This does, of course, not mean such lifestyles need not
exist or do not deserve respect. They may influence slow change in dominant lifestyles, but cannot be expected to be copied by the masses.
Writings on this issue tend to be normative and idealistic rather than analytical and realistic. They
seem to be motivated more by political ideology about justice and equity than about solving urgent
and threatening environmental problems (an “ecological imperative”). As a result, they do not
necessarily offer an effective approach to combat environmental problems. One can certainly be positive about
the underlying humanistic ideals of equality, solidarity, citizenship, locality and “good life.” However, a drastic change in the
economy upfront seems an overly risky experiment and a diffuse, undirected strategy that is not sure
to meet the desired environmental aims. Moreover, it may well result in unintended social and economic
chaos and instability. The main historical, large-scale experiments aimed at moving away from market
capitalism which we can learn from, namely central planning by communist states as in the former
USSR, Eastern Europe and China, certainly do not offer a good record in terms of clean production and
environmental regulation — quite the opposite. Here, a lack of market mechanisms and other
incentives seems to have given rise to excessive waste and inefficiency, also in relation to
environmentally relevant categories of inputs and outputs. Thinking about radical changes should moreover
incorporate received insights about human behavior and its diversity as found in modern psychology and behavioral economics. These are
already slowly changing mainstream economics and associated ideas about public policy (Gsottbauer and van den Bergh, forthcoming).
Given the urgency of environmental and notably climate change problems it makes sense to think carefully about the effectiveness of
strategies in the short and medium term, which should
involve taking into account behavioral features and limits of
human individuals and organizations. Striving for radical degrowth seems risky in this sense as it does
not well integrate received insights about human behavior. Instead, a less risky and more effective strategy is adding
new institutions to our economies — to begin with an effective international climate agreement. What we need most of all is a hard
environmental constraint on our economy (complemented by price regulation and possibly other types of regulation, like of commercial
advertising and taxing status goods with serious environmental repercussions) and then let consumers, producers and investors adapt to it.
Possibly, this will go along with fundamental, radical
changes in our economy and institutions, but it does not
seem necessary to require these and have a blueprint of them upfront.
Growth is sustainable – attempts to stop it fail
Aligica 3 (Paul, Fellow @ Mercatus Center at George Mason U. and Adjunct Fellow @ Hudson Institute, “The Great Transition and the Social
Limits to Growth: Herman Kahn on Social Change and Global Economic Development”, April 21,
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=2827)
Indeed Kahn made what today is considered to be the standard case for growth: growth is moral, feasible and desirable. But
more important he turned the table on the limits to growth agenda demonstrating the social, psychological and institutional limits to any
social and demographic context is against the
limits to growth approach. "The social limits to growth are simply not, for the time being, likely to be as restrictive as much current
discussion suggests. At least 90 percent of the world's population rejects such arguments" (Kahn, 1979, 24). As these
attempt to arbitrarily limit growth. First of all Kahn pointed that the sheer
people become more affluent, their worldviews and values may change and their opposition to growth may increase. As the world gets richer,
the marginal utility of increased wealth may diminish. However Kahn was convinced that even if much better arguments were advanced in
favor of social limits to growth, most
people would be willing to take chances. He was certain that once the Multifold Trend
Stopping things would mean if not to
engage in an experiment to change the human nature, at least in an equally difficult experiment in altering powerful
cultural forces: "We firmly believe that despite the arguments put forward by people who would like to 'stop the earth and get off,' it is
simply impractical to do so. Propensity to change may not be inherent in human nature, but it is firmly
embedded in most contemporary cultures. People have almost everywhere become curious, future
oriented, and dissatisfied with their conditions. They want more material goods and covet higher status
and greater control of nature. Despite much propaganda to the contrary, they believe in progress and future" (Kahn, 1976, 164). As
set into motion the Great Transition, things were difficult if not impossible to stop.
regarding the critics of growth that stressed the issue of the gap between rich and poor countries and the issue of redistribution, Kahn noted
what most people everywhere want was visible, rapid improvement in their economic status and
living standards, and not a closing of the gap (Kahn, 1976, 165). The people from poor countries have as a basic goal the
that
transition from poor to middle class. The other implications of social change are secondary for them. Thus a crucial factor to be taken into
Any
serious attempt to frustrate these expectations or desires of that majority is likely to fail and/or create
disastrous counter reactions. Kahn was convinced that "any concerted attempt to stop or even slow 'progress'
appreciably (that is, to be satisfied with the moment) is catastrophe-prone". At the minimum, "it would probably require
the creation of extraordinarily repressive governments or movements-and probably a repressive
international system" (Kahn, 1976, 165; 1979, 140-153). The pressures of overpopulation, national security
challenges and poverty as well as the revolution of rising expectations could be solved only in a
continuing growth environment. Kahn rejected the idea that continuous growth would generate political repression and absolute
poverty. On the contrary, it is the limits-to-growth position "which creates low morale, destroys assurance,
undermines the legitimacy of governments everywhere, erodes personal and group commitment to
constructive activities and encourages obstructiveness to reasonable policies and hopes". Hence this position
account is that while the zero-growth advocates and their followers may be satisfied to stop at the present point, most others are not.
"increases enormously the costs of creating the resources needed for expansion, makes more likely misleading debate and misformulation of
the issues, and make less likely constructive and creative lives". Ultimately "it is precisely this position the one that increases the potential for
the kinds of disasters which most at its advocates are trying to avoid" (Kahn, 1976, 210; 1984).
Growth solves any of its problems
Zey 97 – Ph. D. in Sociology, Professor at Montclair State University, Department of Management (Michael G., “The Macroindustrial Era: A
New Age of Abundance and Prosperity”, The Expansionary Institute, March-April, http://www.zey.com/Featured_2.htm) //
This brings me to one of my major points about the necessity of growth. A recurring criticism of
growth - be it industrial, economic, or
technological - centers
around its negative consequences. A good example of this is the tendency of economic and industrial
solutions to any problems it
introduces. The following examples will illustrate my point. Although economic growth can initially lead to such
problems as pollution and waste, studies show that, after a country achieves a certain level of prosperity, the
pendulum begins to swing back toward cleaner air and water. In fact, once a nation's per capita income rises to about
$4,000 (in 1993 dollars), it produces less of some pollutants per capita. The reason for this is quite simple: Such a nation can
now afford technologies such as catalytic converters and sewage systems that treat and eliminate a variety of wastes.
According to Norio Yamamoto, research director of the Mitsubishi Research Institute, "We consider any kind of
environmental damage to result from mismanagement of the economy." He claims that the pollution problems of poorer
regions such as eastern Europe can be traced largely to their economic woes. Hence he concludes that, in order to
ensure environmental safety, "we need a sound economy on a global basis." Thus, the answer to pollution,
the supposed outgrowth of progress, ought to be more economic growth. Such economic growth can be accelerated by any
growth to generate pollution. However, I contend that growth invariably provides
number of actions: the transfer of technology, the sharing of scientific know-how, and economic investment. The World Bank estimates that
every dollar invested in developing countries will grow to $100 in 50 years. As
their wealth increases, these countries can take
all the necessary steps to invest in pollution-free cars, catalytic converters, and other pollution-free technologies, such
as the cleanest of all current large-scale energy sources, nuclear power. They can also afford to invest in bioremediation - the utilization of
viruses to literally eat such impurities as oil spills and toxic waste. Russia is actively growing and exporting microorganisms that eat radioactive
and metallic wastes from such sources as uranium, plutonium, magnesium, and silver. In
this exciting new epoch of human
development, the Macroindustrial Era, the primary emphasis will be on the production of material goods and tangible
products. And this will only occur by the development and application of advanced technologies and the dissemination of scientific knowledge.
Of course, to achieve these goals a nation must have an "expansionary" culture that fosters progress and technological improvement and
facilitates the development and nurturance of the workers and scientists who must be the creators of the new technology of the
Macroindustrial Era. Such a society will have a strong sense of purpose and a vision of the future to serve as its goal and as a guidepost for
advancement.
No transition shift---no solvency
Aligica 3 - Fellow @ Mercatus Center at George Mason U. and Adjunct Fellow @ Hudson Institute, (Paul, “The Great Transition and the
Social Limits to Growth: Herman Kahn on Social Change and Global Economic Development”, April 21,
http://rs.reviewhudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=2827)//
First of all Kahn pointed that the sheer social and demographic context is against the limits to growth approach. "The
social limits to
growth are simply not, for the time being, likely to be as restrictive as much current discussion suggests. At least
90 percent of the world's population rejects such arguments" (Kahn, 1979, 24). As these people become more affluent,
their worldviews and values may change and their opposition to growth may increase. As the world gets richer, the marginal utility of increased
wealth may diminish. However Kahn was convinced that even if much better arguments were advanced in favor of social limits to growth, most
people would be willing to take chances. He was certain that once the Multifold Trend set into motion the Great Transition, things were difficult
if not impossible to stop. Stopping
things would mean if not to engage in an experiment to change the human
nature, at least in an equally difficult experiment in altering powerful cultural forces: "We firmly believe that despite the
arguments put forward by people who would like to 'stop the earth and get off,' it is simply impractical to do so. Propensity to
change may not be inherent in human nature, but it is firmly embedded in most contemporary cultures. People have almost everywhere
become curious, future oriented, and dissatisfied with their conditions. They want more material goods and covet higher
status and greater control of nature. Despite much propaganda to the contrary, they believe in progress and future" (Kahn, 1976,
164). As regarding the critics of growth that stressed the issue of the gap between rich and poor countries and the issue of redistribution,
Kahn noted that what most people everywhere want was visible, rapid improvement in their
economic status and living standards, and not a closing of the gap (Kahn, 1976, 165). The people from poor countries have as a basic goal
the transition from poor to middle class. The other implications of social change are secondary for them.
Disabilities – AT: States CP
Amtrak sucks for disabilities—USFG is key
The Arc 12 (The Arc is the largest national community-based organization advocating for and serving
people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, Transportation Issues for
People with Disabilities” http://www.thearc.org/page.aspx?pid=2730)
Amtrak has increased its ridership by 32 percent between 2002 and 2008. Within that ridership, 288,000 were passengers with disabilities.
Although all Amtrak trains meet or exceed the requirements of ADA, not all stations are accessible.
Currently, 94 percent of Amtrak passengers board at accessible stations. Congress mandated a deadline of July 26, 2010 for
all stations to be accessible, but Amtrak does not have enough funding to make this a reality . It is
estimated they will need $1.6 billion, but have only been allocated $144 million from Congress.
Fed key to ensure states fall in line—they can’t do it on their own
The Arc 12 (The Arc is the largest national community-based organization advocating for and serving
people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, Transportation Issues for
People with Disabilities” http://www.thearc.org/page.aspx?pid=2730)
http://www.thearc.org/page.aspx?pid=2730
However, despite these two landmark federal laws, transportation services are often not accessible to individuals
with disabilities as policies are not implemented and adequate funding is not provided. A recent
settlement of a class action suit brought against the Jackson, Mississippi public transportation system
is an example of the federal government’s efforts to ensure that localities provide accessible
transportation for individuals with disabilities.
DC has insufficient access too
Iezzoni et al 6 (Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, with Mary B Killeen, PhD at the
University of Michigan, and Bonnie L O’Day, senior researcher who specializes in conducting research
and evaluation studies on disability and employment, “Rural Residents with Disabilities Confront
Substantial Barriers to Obtaining Primary Care”, August 2006,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1797079/) RF
Our study was not designed to compare barriers with health care for rural and urban residents with disabilities. Nonetheless, in focus
groups we conducted in Boston and greater Washington, DC , we also heard from persons with
disabilities about insufficient knowledge of clinicians regarding certain disabling conditions, problems identifying appropriate primary
care and specialist physicians, difficulties with continuity of care (especially when persons change insurance), inadequate physical
access, local transportation problems, and inaccessible information (Iezzoni 2003; O'Day, Killeen, and Iezzoni 2004; Iezzoni,
O'Day et al. 2004; O'Day et al. 2005; Iezzoni and O'Day 2006)—findings consistent with the clinical and access needs of many persons with
disabilities regardless of where they live (Burns et al. 1990; Andriacchi 1997). Other studies, primarily involving largely urban populations,
corroborate these barriers to care confronting persons with disabilities (Beatty and Dhont 2001; DeJong et al. 2002; O'Day et al. 2002; Hanson
Relatively little has yet been done to address these problems except in small
targeted programs, again primarily in cities (Master et al. 1996; Blanchard and Hosek 2003; Eichner and Blumenthal 2003; Reis et al.
et al. 2003; Harris Interactive 2004).
2004).
DC sucks for disabilities
National Council on Disability 5 (“The Current State of Transportation for People with Disabilities
in the United States National Council” p. 47-48, published June 13th, 2005)
Despite these gains, paratransit riders in many cities still experience a variety of problems , sometimes very
significant ones, with ADA paratransit service, including substantial problems with service quality and limitations in capacity. Typical of
problems that have been seen in many cities are those alleged by riders in Washington, D.C . A
Washington Post article in March 2004 described a lawsuit just filed there. Riders alleged the following: • Vehicles are often
late, appearing hours after they were expected, or fail to show up at all; • The service takes far too
long to transport passengers; • The telephone reservation system is staffed by rude operators who do not answer calls, place calls
on hold for long periods, or hang up; • Managers do not give accurate information about the location of assigned
vehicles and do not respond to complaints; and • Some drivers do not know how to secure
wheelchairs and scooters inside vans, operate dangerously, and falsely accuse passengers of not
showing up for trips, which can cause a rider to be suspended from service. Marc Fiedler, cofounder of the Disability Rights Council of
Washington, says, It’s not just an inconvenience. It’s people who may end up losing their jobs because [the service] over and over and over
again isn’t getting them to work on time. It’s people who miss dialysis appointments. It’s people who rely on oxygen, whose trips are so
circuitous they run out of oxygen. Lives
are endangered instead of enhanced.
Economy Uniqueness
Growth Now
No Growth Now
Growth is slowing
LA Times 7/27 (Tiffany Hsu, 7/27/12, “Consumer confidence at 2012 low on poor hiring and slow
economy,” http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-consumer-confidence20120727,0,2181210.story)
The sunny weather in July isn’t doing much for consumer
sentiment – confidence is at the lowest level of the year,
according to a new index compiled by Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan.¶ All sorts of
factors are to blame: The hiring and wage deceleration in the U.S., the ripple effect of the malaise in
Europe, the threat of a fiscal cliff of higher taxes and spending cuts along with the slowing gross
domestic product reported Friday, and more.¶ The monthly gauge in sentiment slipped 1.2% to 72.3 in July from 73.2 the previous
month. Compared to a year ago, however, consumer confidence is up 13.5%. How consumers feel largely dictates how they
spend, which makes up for the vast majority of U.S. economic activity.¶ “The good news is that consumers do not
expect the economic slowdown to prompt an economy-wide recession,” according to the report. “The bad news is that consumers do not
expect the pace of economic growth to revive job and income prospects.Ӧ Nearly
half of consumers said their financial
situation had worsened, blaming lower incomes and higher prices, largely for food. Only 10% said they
expected pay raises next year to reflect inflation growth. Half said they don’t expect the 8.2% jobless rate to change in the next 12 months.¶
The index measuring consumer expectations for the next six months fell to 65.6 from 67.8 in July. But at the moment, they’re feeling pretty
good. The gauge for current conditions improved to 82.7 from 81.5 as manufacturers and retailers offer discounts on big-ticket durable goods.¶
A government report Friday found that spendthrift consumers and investment-shy businesses caused
U.S. economic growth to slow again in the second quarter. GDP expanded at an annual rate of 1.5%
from April through June, down from 2% the previous quarter and 4.1% during the last quarter of 2011.
Elections – Impacts
Romney Cuts Disabled Support
Romney’s budget proposals would cut out supplemental security incomes which
provide for elderly disabled individuals
Kogan and Water 5/21/12 (“Romney Budget Proposals Would Require Massive Cuts in Medicare,
Medicaid, and Other Programs,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3658)
Governor Mitt Romney’s proposals to cap total federal spending, boost defense spending, cut taxes, and
balance the budget would require extraordinarily large cuts in other programs, both entitlements and
discretionary programs, according to our revised analysis based on new information and updated
projections.
For the most part, Governor Romney has not outlined cuts in specific programs. But if policymakers
exempted Social Security from the cuts, as Romney has suggested, and cut Medicare, Medicaid, and all
other entitlement and discretionary programs by the same percentage — to meet Romney’s spending
cap, defense spending target, and balanced budget requirement — then non-defense programs other
than Social Security would have to be cut 29 percent in 2016 and 59 percent in 2022 (see Figure 1).
Without the balanced budget requirement, the cuts would be smaller but still massive, reaching 40
percent in 2022.
The cuts that would be required under the Romney budget proposals in programs such as veterans’
disability compensation, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for poor elderly and disabled individuals,
SNAP (formerly food stamps), and child nutrition programs would move millions of households below
the poverty line or drive them deeper into poverty. The cuts in Medicare and Medicaid would make
health insurance unaffordable (or unavailable) to tens of millions of people. The cuts in non-defense
discretionary programs — a spending category that covers a wide variety of public services such as
elementary and secondary education, law enforcement, veterans’ health care, environmental
protection, and biomedical research — would come on top of the deep cuts in this part of the budget
that are already in law due to the discretionary funding caps established in last year’s Budget Control Act
(BCA).
Elections – Uniqueness
Obama Now
Voters will decide on the economy- jobs are the key I/L to Obama’s reelection
Reuters 12, 7/7/12, “Dismal US hiring shows economy stuck in low gear”,
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-07-07/news/32567400_1_job-creation-jobless-rate-jobsdata#
WASHINGTON: US
employers hired at a dismal pace in June, raising pressure on the Federal Reserve to do
more to boost the economy and dealing another setback to President Barack Obama's reelection bid.
The Labor Department said on Friday that non-farm payrolls grew by just 80,000 jobs in June, the third straight month below 100,000. Job
creation was too weak to bring down the country's 8.2 per cent jobless rate and the report fueled concerns that Europe's debt crisis was
shifting the US economy into low gear. "We're just crawling forward here," said Nigel Gault, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington,
Massachusetts. While Obama
holds a narrow lead in most national polls, many voters are critical of his
handling of the economy. Speaking at a campaign rally in Ohio, Obama said the pace of job creation needs to pick up.
"It's still tough out there," he said. Mitt Romney, Obama's Republican challenger, assailed the president for not doing enough to get people
back to work. "This kick in the gut has got to end," Romney told reporters in New Hampshire. US stocks closed about 1 per cent lower, while
yields on US government debt fell on bets the Fed would launch a new round of bond purchases to lower borrowing costs and spur hiring. The
dollar fell against the yen, but rose against the euro as investors sought a safe haven.
Obama will win—incumbency, Romney tax returns/Bain issues and key swing states
Sheridan 7/18/12 (Greg, Foreign Editor for The Australian, “Obama's Political Judo Will Deliver A Knockout,”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/obamas-political-judo-will-deliver-a-knockout/story-e6frg76f-1226429418931) SV
So why do I think he will still win? Notwithstanding everything listed above, Obama
is still well liked. He is not loved as Ronald Reagan
elections
are a referendum on the incumbent. The anti-Obama factor is there, but it is not strong enough to
guarantee his loss. Enter Romney. Obama, in a brilliant if ruthless political judo trick, has taken what should have been
Romney's greatest strength – his business experience – and made it into his greatest weakness. This is
was, but he is not despised as Richard Nixon was, nor held in broad public contempt as was Jimmy Carter. And presidential
what reminds me so much of 2004. In that election Kerry wanted to make a great deal of his heroic war service in Vietnam, in contrast to Bush,
who had had a brief stint, part-time, in the National Guard but never served in uniform overseas. Instead, the Bush team used Kerry's political
opposition to the war, and his unwillingness to disclose some elements of his war service, to build a cloud of troubling doubt about Kerry's
fitness to command. Kerry gave an excruciating military salute at the Democratic nominating convention, showing he thought this was a key to
his political persona, and the whole of America laughed, or felt embarrassed. Thus, although the preconditions for Bush's defeat were in place,
he eked out a narrow but clear victory. This is what I expect Obama to do to Romney. For unknowable reasons, Romney
is unwilling to
release more than two years of his tax returns. Similarly, it seems unclear when Romney left the firm
he founded, Bain. There is nothing to suggest any wrongdoing by Romney, who was clearly successful as a businessman, governor, and,
in the Salt Lake City Olympics, an administrator. Yet Romney looks now not only like a plutocrat, which Americans
generally don't mind, but a shifty and deceitful one. This may be unfair but it has turned his key strength
into a weakness and makes it harder for him to make his key pitch, that he would be better at running
the economy. The polls at the moment are effectively showing a dead heat, with Obama ahead in key swing
states. This could change. Generally the headline poll is very reliable in the US. It is extremely rare for a candidate
to win the popular vote but lose the election by failing to gain a majority in the Electoral College. Bush
did in 2000 but it's rare. In the Electoral College for electing the president there is a small gerrymander towards small states, which tend to be
rural and favor Republicans. But it is very small. If either candidate wins 52-48, or even 51-49, it is all but certain that he will win the presidency.
But if the margin is 50.2 to 49.8 the Electoral College numbers in the swing states become very important – the mid-west and the Rocky
Mountain States will be the real battleground.
Obama’s holding key states – means he’ll win
Quillen 7/16/12 (Dennis, Former Professor of Geography, “Election geography suggests Obama win,”
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20120717/OPINION/207170311/Election-geography-suggests-Obamawin?odyssey=nav%7Chead) SV
Based upon current information dealing with electoral mathematics coupled with the geographic
patterns of population, unemployment, and ethnic composition, it appears President Obama should
be a betting favorite to be re-elected in November. Our electoral system requires 270 votes for either Romney or Obama
to be determined the winner. Among three of the major news sources, CNN, USA Today, and Real Clear Politics, Obama
currently leads Romney in the anticipated electoral vote count. Similarities exist among the three sources, but
differences are shown by the range of delegates in the camp of each candidate. President Obama shows a range of 196- 247 likely votes; Gov.
Romney shows 181- 206 likely votes. Clearly, both are short of the needed 270 votes for election, but the needed votes are found in the seven
to 12 "Toss Up" states. Special attention is drawn to these key states, for they will be the states that will determine whether Obama is returned
to office or whether Romney will take over. Basically, Mississippi and the large number of other non-crucial states have no further say in
determining the election in November. In effect, we might as well stay home on Election Day. Politicians and fund raisers clearly get the picture,
for millions of dollars of political fund raising proceeds are being heavily spent in these dozen states. For very practical reasons, little attention
is being placed elsewhere. For the most part, the group of "Toss Up" states is geographically contiguous to the traditional groupings of Red and
Blue States. Red states are largely found in the South, the Midwest, and in the Rocky Mountain West. Blue states, by contrast, are generally
associated with the Northeast, the Great Lakes states, and the Pacific Rim states. The two "Toss Up" states that are outliers are Colorado and
Florida. So, the election battle will center on a dozen or fewer states. All sources seem to agree on seven such states for sure: Florida, Virginia,
New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada. The remaining five states, included by one or more sources, are Missouri, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. It is generally accepted that the number one issue in the campaign will be on jobs, specifically the
unemployment rate. Among the 12 crucial states, eight have unemployment rates below the national average. Among the four remaining
states (with rates higher than U. S. rate of 8.2 percent), all four are showing faster decreases in unemployment than the national average.
Consequently, the
issue of jobs and unemployment will be relatively less an issue than in other parts of
the U.S. This situation should aid Obama more than Romney. The increased number of Hispanic voters
is seen by some to be a factor in particular areas. Hispanics potentially account for nearly 25% of the
vote in both Nevada and Florida. Obama is likely to benefit from this factor. A third condition among
the crucial states is the fact that Obama won 11 of the 12 current "Toss Up" states in 2008, losing only
in Missouri. It is not unreasonable to assume that Obama might well retain a number of these states. A
couple of wins in key states would assure his victory. The mathematics of the Electoral voting can be rather involved, but a couple of examples
illustrate the headwinds that Romney must overcome in order to win in November. CNN
shows Obama needing just 23
additional electoral votes to reach 270. Florida alone (29 votes) provides the number needed for victory.
An alternate scenario: Obama loses Florida, but takes Ohio and Iowa. That provides 24 votes, one more than
needed. Countless other combinations can be found through the examination of the electoral maps produced by the news sources. The
path to attaining 270 Electoral votes shows President Obama having a tailwind and Romney facing a
headwind. Both candidates are clearly viable candidates at this point. It simply appears at present, though, that the path to victory
is easier for the incumbent Obama than the challenger, Romney.
Obama will win the swing states – everyone hates the GOP
Tomasky 7/15/12 (Michael, Editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, “Obama Is Winning Because of the Shrinking GOP,”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/15/michael-tomasky-obama-is-winning-because-of-the-shrinking-gop.html) SV
The race is close, and of course Romney has a decent shot at winning. But the fact is that by every
measure, he’s behind. He’s behind, a little, in national polls. He’s behind by more in the swing states.
And behind by still more in the electoral college conjectures, where Nate Silver gives Obama 294 votes. Obama
leads—narrowly, but outside the margin of error—in Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, and Nevada. If he wins those
and holds the usual Democratic states—and yes, he’s up in Pennsylvania, where Romney has been sinking fast; only Michigan is
really close—he will have won, even with maybe $1.5 billion thrown at him, a not-particularly close
election. Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. But the fact is, as I wrote at the beginning of the week, Romney should be six points ahead. At
least four. The congressional Republican strategy—disgraceful but successful—of opposing Obama on everything has largely worked. The
biggest thing Obama did manage to pass was wildly unpopular, though matters
are improving for him a bit on the health-
care front. Obama was soundly rebuked in the mid-term elections. And yet for all that and more, Silver has Obama pegged at roughly a 66
percent chance of winning. That’s not insurmountable in July, but if that’s still the number after both conventions, it’s pretty close to over.
Why? One reason is that, as Peter Beinart argued yesterday, Obama
is simply a lot more likeable than Romney. Certainly
no arguing with that. Blech! But there’s more to it. It’s the whole Republican Party that’s not likeable. Thomas
Jefferson argued roughly that it was in the nature of mankind to divide itself, wherever there be free government, into two basic factions: an
aristocratic party that wishes to “draw all powers...into the hands of the higher classes,” as he once put it; and a party that opposes that one,
representing the broader people. The
GOP has, I admit, done a marvelous job of convincing the media and even
some liberals that it is the party of the people, because of its hold on the white working-class majority
(a segment that is fast dwindling, by the way—electoral demographer Ruy Teixeirareported recently that this bloc will
constitute a sizeable 3 percent less of the electorate this year than it did in 2008—the minority vote will overtake the white working-class by
2016 or certainly 2020). The
GOP has no moderate faction anymore. It’s a rump amalgamation of plutocrats
and the people who service their air conditioning.
Romney’s strategy fails
Eskew 7/17/12 (Carter, co-host of The Insiders Blog, “Romney Needs A Game Changer,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/theinsiders/post/romney-needs-a-game-changer/2012/07/17/gJQABHxkqW_blog.html) SV
Mitt Romney's outrage isn't working, and his campaign has the whiff of panic right now. Instead of a smart response
on Bain, it attacked the attack. As Ed put it, President Obama has reached "a new low" with his campaign's accusations. But is it
lower than questioning whether Obama is a Christian or whether he was born in the United States? Lower than swiftboating, Willie Horton or,
for those who can remember, saying that a candidate for South Carolina governor had "been hooked up to jumper cables" to slime him as
crazy? Come on. No
one hits the low road better than Republicans. They have no credibility when they
decry negative politics; it's an insult to the pot and to the kettle. Romney is now moving on to another attack that
he believes has more promise — namely, that Obama gave jobs to campaign contributors instead of to the middle class. This,
too, will fail because it requires people to believe that Obama is a sleazy, graft-ridden president. Even
the majority of Republicans won't believe that. Meanwhile, another storm, much more powerful than the Romney attack
against Obama's jobs record, is brewing. Maybe it will be another chapter in the Bain saga, or maybe the tax returns. Does Romney
really think he will make it to November without more financial disclosure? Romney needs a game
changer. But it won't come from a new negative ad or the announcement of a running mate. Instead, it
has to come from him. It's time for Romney to answer "wth" (why the heck) he wants to be president. And it has to be more than
tax cuts, less regulation and no Obamacare. That will get him 49 percent and change of the electorate, but it won't win. It is tempting, I'm
sure, for Romney to think he'll win by playing it safe. After all, the race is tied, and Obama has outspent him (so far) and had the
luxury of no primaries. The economy is still bad and the money advantage is being erased. But Romney isn't playing it safe
right now. Instead, he's rolling around in the mud with the Chicago gang and his pressed chinos are getting
really dirty.
Public thinks that Obama sucks less than Romney—latest poll
Rogers 7/18/12 (Ed, co-host of The Insiders Blog, “Vote for Obama — for a job or for a better life on the dole?”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-insiders/post/vote-for-obama--for-a-job-or-for-a-better-life-on-thedole/2012/07/18/gJQALZMHtW_blog.html) SV
Here is some bad news for both presidential campaigns. President Obama's bad news is that in
the latest Purple Strategies
poll, 45 percent of voters in Ohio say that Obama is unable to improve the economy. The bad news for
Mitt Romney is that in the same poll, 46 percent of Ohio voters also say Romney couldn't do a better
job improving the economy. Somebody call Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), and quick. Photoshop a picture of him sitting behind
President Romney at a State of the Union address and see if it thrills an Ohio focus group.
The public mistrusts Romney over tax returns
Fineman and Rosalsky 7/17/12 (Howard and Greg, Independent Journalists for The Huffington Post, “James Carville Advises
Obama: Talk About Tax Returns? Sure, But Health Care Above All,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/james-carvilleobama_n_1680850.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012)
But for the time being, the "Ragin' Cajun," who helped Bill Clinton win the White House twice, said Team Obama
is right to focus on
pushing Mitt Romney to disclose more than one year of his federal tax returns. "What campaign wouldn't do
what they're doing now?" Carville asked. "One year of the returns produced this kind of flood of stories. What will
a bunch of years of returns do?" Tuesday's flailing attack on the president by Romney surrogate John Sununu, former governor of
New Hampshire, shows the tax return issue has unsettled the Romney camp, Carville said. "It's giving them fits." Aside
from raising the suspicion that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is hiding something
damaging, his refusal to make the returns public feeds a broader, damaging narrative, Carville contended. "I
would be very aggressive, saying that Romney believes a set of rules applies to him and then there is a set of
rules for everybody else," said Carville. "He doesn't have to tell you about his taxes and his investments.
He doesn't have to tell you about his plans for immigration. He doesn't have to tell you anything
because he doesn't think you need to know. He doesn't really respect you. I think people are
predisposed to believe that."
Even the GOP hates Romney’s campaign
Edwards-Levy 7/18/12 (Ariel, Writer for The Huffington Post, “Obama Campaign Liked Better Than Romney's: Poll,”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/obama-campaign-liked_n_1682188.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012) SV
More Americans approve of President Barack Obama's campaign for president than approve of Mitt
Romney's, according to a Washington Post/ABC poll released Wednesday morning. Victory, in this case, was relative, with
only 46 percent looking favorably on how Obama is running his campaign, compared to 45 percent who felt
unfavorably. But Romney fared worse, garnering only 38 percent favorable ratings to 49 percent
unfavorable. Nearly a quarter of Republicans also held unfavorable views of his campaign. As Gary Langer
of Langer Research Associates, which produced the survey, notes, "With the race so close -- the pair were precisely tied in an ABC/Post poll last
week -- views of their effectiveness running their campaigns can matter." Last week's ABC/Post poll showed voters evenly split in their vote
preferences, 46 percent to 46 percent, but the questions about campaign effectiveness were new this week. Democrats
were more
highly positive about their candidate than Republicans were about theirs, supporting Obama's
campaign by a 75-18 margin. Romney, who has been battling perceptions of unenthusiastic support from
the Republican establishment, as well as increasing calls from within his own party to release more of
his tax returns, scored 66 percent favorable and 24 percent unfavorable among Republicans for his campaign. Independents slightly
preferred Obama's campaign, viewing it positively by a 1-point margin, while 5 percent more disapproved of Romney's than approved.
Multiple warrants for Obama’s win—but the economy is still the deciding factor
Pace 7/15 [Julia Pace, Associated Press, “Obama's pros, cons as summer of campaigning starts”,
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/07/15/obamas_pros_cons_as_summer_of_campaigning_starts/?page=full, 2012] SV
A look at Obama's assets and liabilities: ADVANTAGES: Power of Incumbency: He's the president, and that means
he can set the national agenda. It's a power Obama has put to good use during his re-election campaign. He used the anniversary
of Osama bin Laden's death to remind voters of his national security credentials. He made a direct appeal to Hispanics by announcing a
more lenient immigration policy for people who came to the U.S. illegally as children. The president also already is known to the
public so his campaign can focus its efforts on defining Romney instead of spending time and money introducing Obama. Demographics:
Obama leads Romney among women, African-Americans, Hispanics and young people, edges with key
voting blocs that could help him capture battleground states. The Obama campaign is banking on support from Hispanics to win out west
in places like Nevada and Colorado, and in Virginia, where the Hispanic population has surged. High turnout among African-Americans would
help Obama in North Carolina. And if Obama wins the women vote, it would be a significant boost to his efforts to reach the 270 electoral votes
needed for victory. Likability: No matter how bad the economy gets or how low Obama's job approval ratings dip, polls show many Americans
still like the president. And that personal
appeal could make a big difference with undecided voters who may
find it hard to vote against someone they like. About 50 percent of those surveyed in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll felt
positively about Obama, compared to 33 percent who felt positively about Romney. Strong Surrogates: The Obama campaign has
two popular and persuasive surrogates at its disposal: Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
Both keep up a robust campaign schedule. They head to battleground states when official business keeps the president in Washington. And
they're dispatched to places where they may be more popular than he is. The first lady's approval ratings -- 64 percent view her favorably
according to a recent Pew poll -- far exceed her husband's. And Biden has an easier rapport than Obama with white, working class voters in
places like Ohio and Pennsylvania. LIABILITIES: Economy: There
is no greater threat to Obama's re-election prospects
than the economy. Even the most loyal Obama supporters say that if the already shaky economy
softens any further before Election Day, the president's chances of winning will be significantly
diminished. The nation's unemployment rate is stuck above 8 percent, though it has come down from its high of 10.1 percent in 2009. No
one in the White House or Obama campaign expect significant economic improvement before the
election. But advisers do fear that the economy could get worse, it could cement the notion with
voters that the president is the wrong economic steward.
Uniqueness doesn’t overwhelm the link—it’s a very close race
Fitzgerald 7/15 [Thomas Fitzgerald, Philadelphia Inquirer Politics Writer, “Thomas Fitzgerald: Electorate is unmoved”,
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/162492986.html, 2012] SV
Since May, when the Republican primaries wrapped up, Obama and Romney have been essentially
tied among likely voters, with the president doing a little better than that among a wider universe of registered
voters. "Not a thing has changed," said veteran pollster Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College. "Not a thing." In 10 of 13
polls of likely voters compiled by Real Clear Politics, the president's vote share has ranged between 43
and 47 percent, while Romney's is in the same range. Twenty surveys of registered voters compiled by
the website give Obama between 44 and 49 percent, while Romney has between 42 and 46 percent.
Strategists on both sides, as well as independent analysts, say the race seems destined to remain
close for the three months and three weeks between now and Election Day.
Narrow but steady lead for Obama—newest national polls
Blumenthal 7/11 [Mark Blumenthal, Huffington Post, “Obama-Romney Polls Show Steady But Narrow Lead For The President”,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/11/obama-romney-polls-july_n_1665876.html?view=print&comm_ref=false, 2012] SV
WASHINGTON -- Same as it ever was. That's the primary message from the
latest batch of national polls on the race for president
they show the race in roughly the same place as it has been for months: very close, with
most polls giving President Barack Obama a slight edge over presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. The latest
survey released on Wednesday by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute gives Obama a three percentage
point lead over Romney (43 to 40 percent) nationwide. Similarly, the Wednesday release by the Gallup Daily national tracking
poll shows Obama leading Romney by two points (47 to 45 percent). The latest Quinnipiac and Gallup surveys find
Obama with about the same advantage as does the HuffPost Pollster chart, which calculates trend
lines based on all available public polls. As of this writing, the chart shows the president leading his challenger by just under two
conducted in early July. Collectively
points (45.9 to 44.1 percent).
Obama will win Virgina—a key swing state
Brower 7/14 [Kate Andersen Brower, Bloomberg, “Obama Makes Populist Pitch To Hold Swing Voters In Virginia”,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-14/obama-makes-populist-pitch-to-hold-swing-voters-in-virginia.html, 2012] SV
Targeting Virginia While
Obama took the state by 6 percentage points against Republican John McCain in 2008,
both campaigns are forecasting a close contest this year. Obama held a 3 percentage point lead over
Romney in an average of six polls taken since mid-May, as compiled by the website Real Clear Politics. Virginia’s unemployment
rate was 5.6 percent in May, down from a high of 7.3 percent in January 2010. By comparison, the rate nationally was 8.2 percent and hit 10
percent in October 2009. Still, Virginia was among four electoral battleground states that showed declining economic health in the first three
months of the year, according to the Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of States. The index is based on the performance of local-company
shares, tax collections, home prices, mortgage delinquencies, job growth and personal income. Obama
has been to Virginia 15
times since announcing his run for re-election in April 2011, and Romney has visited six times since announcing his candidacy in June 2011.
Energizing Voters “When we win Virginia we’re going to have won the election,” Obama told the overflow crowd at
Green Run High School in Virginia Beach, where he went yesterday after meeting with the spouses of service members at a local café. Dustin
Cable, a Charlottesville-based demographer for the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, said, the
key to Virginia is going to be
to energize white, college-educated voters in northern Virginia because that’s where most of the
state’s population is concentrated. The president is doing that today, heading to Chantilly and Centreville, a Washington
suburb that Obama won 72 percent to McCain’s 27 percent in 2008. He’ll also go to Richmond and Glen Allen, outside of Richmond. He beat
McCain 79 percent to 20 percent in Richmond city.
Obama’s on a roll—attack ads and campaigning
EN 7/15 [Euronews, “Obama steps up attacks on Romney”, http://www.euronews.com/2012/07/15/obama-steps-up-attacks-on-romney/,
2012] SV
Neither candidate has been officially nominated yet, but the
presidential election campaign in the United States is already in
full swing. In fact, the last week was what was described by political observers as the nastiest of the year so far. It was a week that should
have been a perfect opening for the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, as the release of the latest unemployment figures showed
that the US economy is still in bad shape. But instead of pounding Barack Obama on a seemingly disappointing job performance, it was the
incumbent who took off the gloves. Day after day the Obama campaign hammered
at Mitt Romney’s business record,
demanding more information about his personal finances and defining the multimillionaire as an outof-touch elitist. As a result, headlines were not dominated by jobs and the economy, but by Romney’s
bank accounts in Switzerland and the Caribbean. The Democratic attacks escalated on Thursday with fresh
accusations that Romney did not leave Bain Capital, an investment company that he co-founded, in 1999 – as he had said –
but later. The date is important, as Bain did outsource jobs during the following years. Romney reacted by
giving a series of network interviews that aired on Friday, demanding an apology from Obama for the attacks. “This is simply beneath
the dignity of the presidency of the United States,” Romney told ABC. Romney called that “Chicago-style politics at its worst” and accused the
president, who’s from Chicago, and his campaign of trying to shift attention from the economy and unemployment situation. But it wasn’t just
Obama pressuring Romney. “There is
no whining in politics,” said John Weaver, a veteran Republican
strategist. “Stop demanding an apology, release your tax returns.” In addition, conservatives commentators on
Sunday’s political talk shows expressed their dissatisfaction with Romney’s apparent unwillingness to go on the offensive, as Romney spent the
weekend without public events scheduled at one of his family retreats in New Hampshire. At the same time, Obama
stepped up his
attacks on Romney on a two-day barnstorming tour across the critical swing state of Virginia. “He invested in
companies that have been called pioneers of outsourcing,” the President said in Glen Allen. “I don’t want pioneers in outsourcing, I want some
insourcing. I want to bring companies back.” Obama’s
campaign also met Romney’s plea for an apology for the
attacks with a mocking ad that charged that the firm shipped American jobs to China and Mexico, that Romney has personal wealth
in investments in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, and that as Massachusetts governor, he sent state jobs to India. “Mitt
Romney’s not the solution. He’s the problem,” the ads says as Romney is heard singing America the Beautiful. The intensifying attacks and the
calls for greater openness came amid stepped up attention to discrepancies between Securities and Exchange Commission filings and Romney’s
recollection of his role at Boston-based Bain Capital. At stake is Romney’s chief contention that as a former businessman, he has the experience
to create jobs and spur a struggling economy. The Obama campaign has countered that Romney ran a firm that pioneered the practice of
sending American jobs out of the country and that his background is one of an investor. Romney insists that he stepped down from his private
equity firm years earlier than federal records indicate. Meanwhile, latest
polls in swing states suggest that the President
has an edge in Virginia and even in Florida. This should set off alarm bells at the Romney campaign, as it
would be virtually impossible for Romney to win the election without carrying Florida. The new Obama ad was set to run in
Florida, as well as in closely fought Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and Virginia. Virginia was once deeply conservative, and Republicans still dominate the rural south and west. But
growing minority populations in the eastern cities and Washington suburbs, younger and
independent-minded military families have transformed Virginia into one of the most important
presidential battleground states of the election year. These are the groups that were targeted by Obama on his weekend
campaign blitz.
It all comes down to independents—electoral college deadlock is a possibility in which
case Romney would win
West 7/11 [Paul West, LATimes, “Electoral deadlock between Romney, Obama not so far-fetched this year”,
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/11/news/la-pn-electoral-deadlock-between-romney-obama-not-so-farfetched-this-year-20120711, 2012]
SV
With President Obama and Mitt Romney tied in the latest national polls, this may not come as a huge surprise:
An electoral college deadlock between opponents — something that has never happened under our centuries-old process
of choosing a president — is more than a remote, theoretical possibility . Depending on how a handful of
swing states fall on the battleground map, American voters may not choose the next president in
November. Instead, that decision could be thrown into the House of Representatives, where, in all
likelihood, Romney would become the next president. All it would take for that to happen: President
Obama carries most of the states he won in 2008, including Colorado and Virginia, swing states now rated as
tossups. Mitt Romney holds the states that John McCain won last time, recaptures Republican Indiana and North
Carolina and carries five swing states that are current tossups, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa and
Nevada. In that case, Obama and Romney each winds up with 269 electoral votes — one short of the
270 needed to win.
Newest polls indicate Obama will win Wisconsin—a key swing state
Easley 7/11 [Jonathan Easley, “Poll: Obama's lead grows in swing-state Wisconsin”, http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/237299poll-obama-leads-in-swing-state-wisconsin, 2012] SV
Obama takes 50 percent to Romney’s 44, up from his 47 to 46 lead in the same poll from May .¶ Romney
saw a leap in support in the Badger State after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) won his recall election there earlier this month. One survey
from conservative polling outlet Rasmussen showed Romney moving ahead of Obama 47 to 44. ¶ Many
believed the recall election would mobilize and energize the GOP base for the presidential election, but Obama’s lead is now
holding steady at 4 points, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls.¶ “Barack Obama’s the
clear favorite to win Wisconsin,” said President of Public Policy Polling Dean Debnam in a statement. “But it looks like it will be a
much closer race than his 14 point victory in 2008.” ¶ Still, Romney has a potential wild card in Wisconsin — if he were to select Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) as his running mate, it would bring him to within 1 point of the president, 47 to 46.¶ Wisconsin is one
of 12 battleground
states — the others are Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New
Hampshire — that will be critical in determining the outcome of the 2012 election.
Romney Now
Obama is destroying private sector support – means he will lose
Rogers 7/16/12 (Ed, co-host of The Insiders Blog, “Obama could win in July but lose in October,”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-insiders/post/obama-could-win-in-july-but-lose-in-october/2012/07/16/gJQAPyk8oW_blog.html)
SV
The president has said several things recently that have made me do a double take. Since he has the
resources of the presidency at his disposal and an able campaign team, I assume they know what they are doing. So I assume when the
president said on Friday, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” he meant to belittle
business leaders, entrepreneurs and the private sector generally by suggesting that building a
business is not a worthy individual accomplishment. Since he has committed to destroying the notion
that Romney was an effective, productive business leader, he’s going all in with the populist — dare I say,
socialist — idea that all business is bad; or at least that being in business or developing a business is not a noble calling. I’ve
avoided calling Obama a socialist until now, but what socialist wouldn’t say what he said? Isn’t it one of socialism’s core beliefs that business
the
president’s campaign is too intense too early. Fewer voters are deciding today who to vote for in November than us insiders
think. Obama's tactics could produce some short-term benefits for his campaign, but the election is a
long way away. The president might have some regrets late this fall. He could win July and lose
October. Obama has made a strategic mistake by punting away any moderate appeal to the private
sector and those who aspire to succeed on their own.
activity and achievement are somehow a credit to a collective effort rather than individual hard work? Anyway, it seems as if
Obama screwed – he’s getting bashed on healthcare
Hogberg 7/6/12 (David, Writer for Investors Business Daily, Obama's Lead Shrinks After Obamacare Court Ruling,
http://news.investors.com/article/617333/201207061805/obama-leads-mitt-romney-43-42-ibd-tipp-poll.htm) SV
President Obama's edge vs. Mitt Romney shrank to 43%-42%, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll released Friday, his smallest head-to-head
lead yet. The
Supreme Court's recent ruling has given ObamaCare a small boost while simultaneously
hurting Obama's re-election chances. Obama lost a little support among his base: 86% of Democrats supported
him vs. 90% in June. He still trails Romney among independents, 38%-35%, although in June he trailed 43%-36% among swing
voters. Overall, respondents disapprove of his handling of the economy, 41%-32%. Raghavan Mayur, president of
TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, which conducted the poll, notes that a record 28% of households have at least one member looking for
work. In June it was 23%. Respondents also sent mixed messages on health care. The June 28-July 5 poll of 825 registered
voters began on the day of the Supreme Court ruling. That seems to have given the law a lift. The poll shows 48% support it vs. 44% opposed. In
June, 46% opposed it vs. 44% supporting. "That's consistent with the Kaiser Family Foundation poll, which also found an uptick in support," said
Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. But Mayur warns against reading too much into those
numbers. "Support vs. opposition for the health care law has always been pretty close in this poll," he said. Opposition
to the
individual mandate is still heavy, 61%-34%.
Romney will win – Obama slipping
Bouie 7/16/12 (James, Writing Fellow for The American Prospect, “Is Obama losing ground against Romney?”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/is-obama-losing-ground-against-romney/2012/07/16/gJQAW2ceoW_blog.html) SV
In a memo released this morning, Romney
campaign pollster Neil Newhouse offers a pointed response to
Obama’s onslaught of negative ads — it’s not working. Newhouse notes that between April and July,
Obama’s lead has dwindled from an average of 5.3 percentage points, to one of 2.4 percentage points. He attributes this
change to public discontent with the administration: President Obama’s campaign will never have a more substantial
advertising advantage than it has had over the past few weeks, yet there is no evidence to suggest that the ballot has moved. If throwing
the kitchen sink at Gov. Romney while leveraging a two-to-one ad-spending advantage doesn’t move
numbers for the President, that’s got to tell you something about the state of the electorate: Voters
are frustrated with President Obama’s failure to keep his promises from the 2008 campaign and don’t truly
believe the next four years will be any different from the last three and a half. The Obama campaign’s
misleading advertising can’t make up for the failed policies of this Administration.
Romney will beat Obama – advertisements key to Independent vote
LoGiurato 7/16/12 (Brett, Political Reporter for Business Insider, “Here's Evidence That Obama Is Losing The Negative Ad Wars,”
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-bain-negative-ads-romney-outsource-jobs-economy-2012-7#ixzz210N6znpf) SV
With the campaign taking a negative turn over the past few weeks, the
most interesting nugget in Purple Strategies' new
poll of 12 swing states measures the effectiveness of one of Obama's negative ad messages vs. one of
Romney's. And among crucial Independent voters, it's Romney who comes out on top. Here's the question Purple Strategies
asked voters in the 12 swing states. “Which of the following statements comes closer to your view? 1) I won’t vote for Barack
Obama because he can’t create jobs, improve our economy or reduce the deficit, and his health care
law is all wrong. He’s a failure as president. 2) I won’t vote for Mitt Romney because as CEO of Bain Capital he got rich
outsourcing American jobs to China and India while putting his millions in offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. He’s too out of touch to be
president.” Among
the crucial Independent voters in these states, Romney's argument wins with 5
percent more voters — 47 percent to 42 percent.
Romney will win with Tea Party backing
Travis 7/18/12 (Shannon, Political Reporter for CNN, “First on CNN: Tea party plans bus tour to help Romney, Republicans,”
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/18/first-on-cnn-tea-party-plans-bus-tour-to-help-romney-republicans) SV
Washington (CNN) - The
nation's largest tea party political action committee is planning a major push this
September for Mitt Romney and other Republicans with what will be their "longest" cross country bus tour since the movement began in
2009, the group said Wednesday. The
Tea Party Express will mount its eighth nationwide tour – titled "Winning for
circuit will
begin in Florida and hit several other battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia,
America" - in the last two weeks of September and the first week of October, according to chief strategist Sal Russo. The
Colorado, and Nevada. Other stops are planned for Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana, Missouri, and Georgia. "It's going to be our longest tour,"
Russo said. "We're covering so much ground…it looks like a W across the country." The
group intends to invite presumptive
GOP presidential nominee Romney to participate in the tour. Russo stressed that the invitation has not yet been made,
though he hopes Romney will accept. The intention to invite Romney is a sign that tea party activists are
increasingly warming to the former Massachusetts governor's candidacy. Many tea partiers have long viewed
Romney as not sufficiently conservative – a claim Romney's supporters have long beat back. Yet most activists openly back
Romney, whether willingly or begrudgingly, because of fierce opposition to President Obama. The tour
will be the first test of tea party power ahead of a presidential election. In 2010, the movement saw mixed success: helping to
flip the House into Republican hands but losing coveted Senate races in Alaska, Delaware and Nevada. Since then, tea party
activists have also wrecked political aspirations of other establishment Republicans in other parts of the country. While stressing that tour
details are still being worked out, Russo discussed its logistics, goals and aim. As in past Express bus tours, the upcoming one will include two to
three buses carrying staffers and supporters from rally to rally. Russo stressed that tour
stops have been planned for
maximum political effect: to not only help Romney but also Republican candidates for the Senate and
House.
Romney Now – Florida
Romney is winning Florida
Rasmussen Reports ‘7/10 (“Election 2012: Florida President”, Rasmussen Reports, July 10, 2012,
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_pre
sidential_election/florida/election_2012_florida_president)
Florida’s a key swing state in this year’s presidential contest, and it remains in play with President Obama and Mitt
Romney still running almost even there. Florida is considered a Toss-Up State in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projections. Currently,
states with 207 Electoral Votes are projected to go for President Obama while states with 170 Electoral Voters are projected to go for Mitt
Romney. States with 161 Electoral Votes are projected to be either Toss-Ups or Leaners. The latest
Rasmussen Reports
telephone survey of Likely Florida Voters finds Romney with 46% support to the president’s 45%. Five
percent (5%) prefer someone else, and four percent (4%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Florida Tied—But Romney will pull it out
Bourrouj 7/15 [KHELIL BOUARROUJ, “Obama and Romney Locked in Florida Heat”, http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-andromney-locked-florida-heat, 7/15/2012]
According to a new Mason-Dixon poll, President Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney are effectively
tied in the crucial state of Florida. Obama leads by a margin of one, 46% to Romney's 45%. But because
it's within the margin of error (3.5%), Romney could be leading by 2.5%. As the firm's pollster put it, Florida is a
"Coin toss."¶ Florida is one of the most fought-after "swing states" in any presidential race as a state rich in
delegates. It boosts 29 Electoral College votes. That places it third alongside New York after California and Texas; but unlike the other
three Florida's actually up for garbs as a state which may vote Democratic or Republican. It voted for Bush
twice and then for Obama. And since the 2000 recount fiasco the state's incredibly close votes make it hard to decipher as to which way it will
vote next and, hence, worthy of every campaign investment. Both Obama
and Romney are investing heavily in the state.¶
Romney does have one obvious card to play: Senator Marco Rubio. Formerly Speaker of the State House and elected to the
Senate in 2010, Rubio is one of the most popular Republicans and a Hispanic in a party incredibly
challenged in its outreach to minorities. Rubio has been coy about speculation placing him on a short-list for the Vicepresidential nomination, but many conservatives are galvanized by the prospect.¶ Furthermore, Florida boasts a lot of Hispanic voters crucial to
any winning strategy and Rubio may be of decisive help. Mason-Dixon
polled Hispanic respondents on whether a
Romney-Rubio ticket would flip their vote. Without Rubio, Romney trails Obama among Hispanics by a margin of 7%, or 42%
to Obama's 49%. But with Rubio on board Romney does flip the Hispanic vote by a margin of one, or 44% to Obama's 43%. In a close
election, a 6% shift among a crucial voting bloc may determine the election so Rubio as a potential closer
is not to be dismissed.
Empirics = Correct Epistemology
Empirical validity is a sufficient justification for action
Owen 2 (David, Reader of Political Theory at the Univ. of Southampton, Millennium, Vol 31, No 3)
Commenting on the ‘philosophical turn’ in IR, Wæver remarks that ‘[a]
frenzy for words like “epistemology” and
“ontology” often signals this philosophical turn’, although he goes on to comment that these terms are often used loosely.4
However, loosely deployed or not, it is clear that debates concerning ontology and epistemology play a central role in the contemporary IR
theory wars. In one respect, this is unsurprising since it is a characteristic feature of the social sciences that periods of disciplinary disorientation
involve recourse to reflection on the philosophical commitments of different theoretical approaches, and there is no doubt that such reflection
can play a valuable role in making explicit the commitments that characterise (and help individuate) diverse theoretical positions. Yet, such
a
turn is not without its dangers and I will briefly mention three before turning to consider a confusion that has, I will
has
an inbuilt tendency to prioritise issues of ontology and epistemology over explanatory and/or
interpretive power as if the latter two were merely a simple function of the former. But while the
explanatory and/or interpretive power of a theoretical account is not wholly independent of its ontological and/or
philosophical
suggest, helped to promote the IR theory wars by motivating this philosophical turn. The first danger with the philosophical turn is that it
epistemological commitments (otherwise criticism of these features would not be a criticism that had any value), it is by no means clear that it
is, in contrast, wholly dependent on these philosophical commitments. Thus, for example, one need not be sympathetic to
rational choice theory to recognise that it can provide powerful accounts of certain kinds of problems, such as the tragedy of the commons in
It may, of course, be the case that the advocates of rational choice
theory cannot give a good account of why this type of theory is powerful in accounting for this class of problems
which dilemmas of collective action are foregrounded.
(i.e., how it is that the relevant actors come to exhibit features in these circumstances that approximate the assumptions of rational choice
theory) and, if
this is the case, it is a philosophical weakness—but this does not undermine the point that,
for a certain class of problems, rational choice theory may provide the best account available to us. In
other words, while the critical judgement of theoretical accounts in terms of their ontological and/or
epistemological sophistication is one kind of critical judgement, it is not the only or even necessarily the
most important kind. The second danger run by the philosophical turn is that because prioritisation of ontology and
epistemology promotes theory-construction from philosophical first principles, it cultivates a theory-driven
rather than problem-driven approach to IR. Paraphrasing Ian Shapiro, the point can be put like this: since it is the case that
there is always a plurality of possible true descriptions of a given action, event or phenomenon, the challenge is to
decide which is the most apt in terms of getting a perspicuous grip on the action, event or phenomenon in
question given the purposes of the inquiry; yet, from this standpoint, ‘theory-driven work is part of a reductionist program’
in that it ‘dictates always opting for the description that calls for the explanation that flows from the
preferred model or theory’.5 The justification offered for this strategy rests on the mistaken belief that it is
necessary for social science because general explanations are required to characterise the classes of
phenomena studied in similar terms. However, as Shapiro points out, this is to misunderstand the enterprise of
science since ‘whether there are general explanations for classes of phenomena is a question for socialscientific inquiry, not to be prejudged before conducting that inquiry’.6 Moreover, this strategy easily slips
into the promotion of the pursuit of generality over that of empirical validity. The third danger is that the
preceding two combine to encourage the formation of a particular image of disciplinary debate in IR—what might be called
(only slightly tongue in cheek) ‘the Highlander view’—namely, an image of warring theoretical approaches with each,
despite occasional temporary tactical alliances, dedicated to the strategic achievement of sovereignty over the disciplinary field. It encourages
this view because the turn to, and prioritisation
of, ontology and epistemology stimulates the idea that there
can only be one theoretical approach which gets things right, namely, the theoretical approach that gets its ontology
and epistemology right. This image feeds back into IR exacerbating the first and second dangers, and so a
potentially vicious circle arises.
Hegemony
Wohlforth Prodict
Wohlforth is a beast
Lieberman 9 [Peter, Professor of Political Science at Queens College, “What to Read on American Primacy,” Foreign
Affairs,http://www.foreignaffairs.com/features/readinglists/what-to-read-on-american-primacy] SV
As the Cold War era came to a close, Charles Krauthammer announced the arrival of its successor. The
United States was the preeminent power in the world, he wrote, but it needed to exercise global
leadership to maintain its position. The most compelling analysis of unipolarity was ultimately offered
by William Wohlforth, who argued that the United States possessed a commanding lead in four critical
elements of material power: economic strength, military might, technology, and geography . The
combination meant that the United States was not only dominant but so strong that other powers
had no chance of catching up anytime soon no matter what they did. As a result, Wohlforth claimed, U.S.
primacy would not fade quickly but last for decades to come.
AT: Khalilzad
Khalilzad exaggerates claims to justify heg, prefer our evidence
Layne 97 [Visiting Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing” International Security,
Summer 1997]
The security/interdependence nexus results in the exaggeration of threats to American strategic
interests because it requires the United States to defend its core interests by intervening in the peripheries. There
are three reasons for this. First, as Johnson points out, order-maintenance strategies are biased inherently toward
threat exaggeration. Threats to order generate an anxiety “that has at its center the fear of the unknown. It is not just security, but the
pattern of order upon which the sense of security depends that is threatened.”4’ Second, because the strategy of
preponderance requires U.S. intervention in places that concededly have no intrinsic strategic value,
U.S. policymakers are compelled to overstate the dangers to American interests to mobilize domestic
support for their policies.42 Third, the tendency to exaggerate threats is tightly linked to the strategy
of preponderance’s concern with maintaining U.S. credibility. The diplomatic historian Robert J. McMahon has
observed that since 1945 U.S. policymakers consistently have asserted that American credibility is “among the most critical of all foreign policy
objectives.” As
Khalilzad makes clear, they still are obsessed with the need to preserve America’s
reputation for honoring its security commitments: “The credibility of U.S. alliances can be undermined if key allies, such as
Germany and Japan, believe that the current. arrangements do not deal adequately with threats to their security. It could also be undermined
if, over an extended period, the United States is perceived as lacking the will or capability to lead in protecting their interests.” Credibility is
believed to be crucial if the extended deterrence guarantees on which the strategy of preponderance rests are to remain robust.
Preponderance’s concern with credibility leads to the belief that U.S. commitments are interdependent. As Thomas C. Schelling has put it: “Few
parts of the world are intrinsically worth the risk of serious war by themselves. but defending them or running risks to protect them may
preserve one’s commitments to action in other parts of the world at later times.”45 If others perceive that the United States has acted
irresolutely in a specific crisis, they will conclude that it will not honor its commitments in future crises. Hence, as happened repeatedly in the
Cold War, the United States has taken military action in peripheral areas to demonstrate—both to allies and potential adversaries—that it will
uphold its security obligations in core areas.
AT: Ferguson
Ferguson is wrong about US power
Wallace-Wells 04 (Benjamin, editor of the Washington Monthly, “Right Man’s burden” June)
But Ferguson argued that not only was the British empire good, but that a similarly liberal American empire could also
play a crucial role in the world today. "Capitalism and democracy," Ferguson wrote, "are not naturally occurring, but require
strong institutional foundations of law and order. The proper role of an imperial America is to establish these institutions where they are
lacking, if necessary... by military force." He also went a good deal further than that.
An American failure to take up the
imperial yoke, he wrote last year, would result in a dangerous and chaotic "apolarity." The last time the
world was truly apolar, Ferguson is fond of saying, was in the 9th century, "and that was the age of the Vikings. There are Vikings today too,
only they're not pagans, they're zealous monotheists, and they're a real threat to America and her allies." When Ferguson says the United
States ought to be an empire, he meant precisely that: He
wants America to use her might to exercise benign, formal
control over other countries. He does not mean a cultural hegemony or a network of economically and militarily dependent
regimes, like the United States worked through in the Cold War. Nor does he favor a role for the United Nations, which he regards (like a
generation of writers who saw the U.N.-flubbed deterioration of Yugoslavia up close) as incapable of arranging an effective international
system. If the world were made into a movie, for Ferguson, the United Nations would be played by Peter Sellers--faultlessly polite, but
intolerably dithering. If
an American empire is going to work, Ferguson argued, it is going to have to look as much
like its British predecessor as possible. Ferguson is awfully specific about this. America, he argues, must refit its military to
undertake decades-long occupations of foreign nations. It must export settlers, who bring Western values to the rest of the world. It must add a
branch of government, the equivalent of the India Civil Service, to provide civil administration to conquered territories. A comparison
this
rigid doesn't make sense: The world is too greatly changed. As Ferguson documented in graphic detail in Empire,
building an empire has always been rough, unsavory stuff. Native populations are massacred. Women are raped. The rebellious are burned at
the stake. In the 19th century, when British goons were building their empire this way, their transgressions happened at distances of weekslong journeys by ship and rail, in places far from the spotlight. Now, we know of the violations our troops must commit--whether firing on a
wedding party or torturing prisoners or inadvertently bombing an embassy--within days, if not hours. And we are right to refuse to stomach
them. But it is not just Americans who are confronted with these images. People in Riyadh and Karbala and Dhaka see them, too. It
is
difficult to argue that the war in Iraq has settled, rather than inflamed, violent anti-American feelings
throughout the Islamic world. The escalating pace of terrorist attacks and plots in Saudi Arabia, Spain,
Jordan, and elsewhere suggests that the images of the American occupation in Iraq have only made
moderate Muslims into anti-Americans, and given broader popular support to the ideologies and organizations we are trying to
defeat. There is always some kickback over empire, but technology makes that backlash come sooner,
and harder. Ferguson is certainly right--though far from unique--when he writes that to preserve its own security and economic well-being,
the United States will have to shed any lasting isolationist tendencies to take an involved role in world affairs. But to argue that the British
empire should provide the model now because, Ferguson says, it worked in the past just doesn't track--it gives history far too big a role in
determining current policy. New
realities demand new solutions. Most successful armies in human history
have won on the strength of their cavalries, but we're not about to put the American military on
horseback. Ferguson's theory runs smack into the unsuccessful experience of empires over the last
hundred years. Not only did the British and every other European imperial power crumble in the first half of
the 20th century, but in the second half attempts to cling to imperial remnants, as the French did in Algeria, or to impose
them--think Russia in Afghanistan, or us in Iraq, have also run aground on the resistance of local populations. It's worth noting that the only
successful efforts at nation-building have been conducted by the international community, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, where the natives have
accepted the legitimacy of rule. Unilateral
empire might work today if the world beyond America's borders
were populated by five billion Buddhist monks, willing to calmly endure. But the truth is that even the
most benign American unilateral efforts overseas spark deep-seated suspicion and antagonism, and send
the most apolitical street kids heading for the local Kaloshnikov dealer. Remember the old joke, where an economist
plotting his escape from the bottom of a well begins by saying: "Assume a ladder." Ferguson is
similarly improbable: He begins his discussion of America's place in the world by saying, in effect,
"Assume docile natives
HSR – AT: Freight DA
High speed rail boosts the freight industry
Bruce Rushton 9 (Staff Writer for the State Journal Register, “High-speed rail spending to be a boon to
freight rail companies” Published 10/24/2009, http://www.sj-r.com/high-speed-rail/x1938840934/Highspeed-rail-spending-to-be-a-boon-to-freight-rail-companies?zc_p=3)
High-speed passenger rail -- that’s what the government calls it. But spending billions of dollars in
federal stimulus money on rail could also bring big benefits to freight rail companies. “They have a
very strong interest in getting as much of their infrastructure subsidized as possible,” says Samuel Staley,
director of urban growth and land use policy for the Reason Foundation, a non-profit think tank that leans libertarian. And that’s exactly what’s
happening. *The Illinois Department of Transportation is asking the federal government for more than $4 billion for improvements to Union
Pacific Railroad track between St. Louis and Chicago, including installation of a new parallel track. *In Michigan, transportation officials are
asking for nearly $74 million for improvements to a rail freight terminal. *Missouri transportation officials are spending $8 million on siding
improvements to Union Pacific track between Kansas City and St. Louis and have applied for an additional $150 million in federal stimulus
money on the same line to expand capacity. In all these cases, freight rail companies would pay little or nothing. Public spending on airports
and highways has benefited airlines and trucking companies, but significant
government investment in privately owned
rail systems is new. Transportation experts say taxpayer investment in railroad properties will separate
passenger trains from freights, increasing rail capacity, improving safety and boosting speeds for
everyone. “It’s sort of an odd situation,” says Rod Massman, administrator of railroads for the Missouri Department of Transportation. “The
Union Pacific is a private company, and we’re using public funds to help build private infrastructure that will be theirs once it is built. “The issue
is, what other options do we have?” he asks. New, publicly owned rail corridors could allow faster passenger trains,
but would cost billions more than sharing track with freight companies. The challenge is figuring out ways to speed up passenger trains while
also providing reasons for freight rail companies to become partners with the government. In some cases, that boils down to taxpayers footing
the bills. The
freight rail industry liked what it heard on Oct. 14, when Joseph Szabo, head of the Federal
Railroad Administration, told a House subcommittee that the Obama administration is committed to a
world-class freight rail system and that the public benefits when the government spends money on tracks owned by freight
companies. “My CEO came out of there with a grin on his face,” said Holly Arthur, spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads,
which includes the nation’s biggest freight carriers as well as Amtrak.
HSR – Neg Case Cards
California HSR is already delayed and the timeframe is too long- funding and
environmental impact statement
Sheehan 2/28/12 (Tim, “High-speed rail project likely delayed until 2013,” The Fresno Bee,
http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/02/28/2740638/rail-project-delayed-construction.html)
Construction of a high-speed train line in the central San Joaquin Valley was supposed to start late this
year. Now, officials say, it's not likely to start until early 2013, even if state legislators approve billions in bond money this
spring. At its meeting Thursday in Sacramento, the California High-Speed Rail Authority will learn about an updated schedule for the $6 billion
construction project. The
slowdown in the schedule is the result of revisions to environmental reports for
the 120-mile Fresno-to-Bakersfield section of the rail line -- part of the backbone of a proposed 520-mile system of
electric trains connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. Later extensions would add lines to Sacramento and San Diego. About $3 billion in
federal stimulus and transportation funds earmarked for the project in 2010 and 2011 were based on construction starting by September 2012.
But a 2013 start isn't expected to endanger the funds, high-speed rail officials said, because the
more important deadline is
having the work completed by late 2017. An environmental report for the track segment was issued last
fall, but two months of comment and public hearings across the Valley attracted a slew of objections,
including opposition in Kings County to a route that would take trains through farmland east of Hanford. A photo illustration of a high-speed rail
train blurring through downtown Fresno. That
uproar prompted rail authority engineers to withdraw the
environmental report in order to revise it with a new alternative that bypasses Hanford to the west. The
authority expects to issue the revised draft report this summer, triggering another round of public hearings and comment, months after the
authority originally expected to have a final version approved. Now,
a final report is not expected to be ready until this
fall, said Jeff Abercrombie, the authority's regional director for the Central Valley. But, he added, a board vote approving the report and
making the final choice on route options "is still anticipated before the end of 2012." Local officials hold out hope for construction starting this
fall. Fresno County Supervisor Henry R. Perea, in Washington, D.C., this week to meet with the Federal Railroad Administration, said that "all
efforts are focused on awarding contracts and turning dirt by the end of the year." But as delays mount,
that seems more and more unlikely. A memo to the state rail authority board for Thursday's meeting suggests that a contractor
likely won't be chosen nor contracts awarded until early 2013 for the first construction segment -- a stretch through the city of Fresno from
north of the San Joaquin River south to American Avenue. That work is expected to cost between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. Later contracts
would extend the work north past Madera and south nearly to Bakersfield. When the Obama administration announced it was awarding federal
funds to California for the high-speed rail program, the money came with several strings. In addition to requiring that the money be used to
start construction in the Valley, where high unemployment created a need for economic stimulus, the grant agreements were based on a
project schedule that called for environmental reviews to be finished by fall of 2011 and the start of construction by Sept. 30, 2012.
Amtrak HSR will take 28 years to finish
Franzen 7/10/12 (Carl, “Amtrak Unveils 151b Plan for Northeast High Speed Rail by 2040,”
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/amtrak-unveils-151b-plan-for-northeast-high-speedrail-by-2040.php
Amtrak, the government-owned national rail corporation, on Monday released an ambitious $151 billion
plan to develop a high-speed rail line along the currently existing Northeast Corridor rail network by
2040. The proposed high-speed rail line would travel at top speeds of 220 miles-per-hour in some sections and be able to deliver passengers
from Washington, D.C. to Boston in a little over 3 hours. Travel times between other major Northeastern cities would be shortened even more
markedly, with travel times between New York and Boston or New York and Washington, D.C. down to 94 minutes, and a little over a half-hour
between New York and Philadelphia. Compare that to the current fastest Amtrak trains along the route, those in the Acela Express line, which
take three-and-a-half hours to get from Boston to New York and a little under three hours to get from Washington, D.C. to New York. The
new Amtrak plan included the following chart showing the estimated time saved as construction on the
new plan proceeds over the next 28 years.
Magnitsky Uniqueness
Obama no longer working to stop Magnitsky Act to pass
Wall Street Journal 7/20 (7/20/2012, “Republicans and Russia”
The White House worked hard to scotch or dilute the Magnitsky Act, which is loathed by Mr. Putin.
But amid bipartisan Senate support and business backing for the trade bill, the Obama Administration
has resigned itself to the package deal.
Will be passed before the summer recess and has overwhelming bipartisan support
Wall Street Journal 7/23 (Best news source ever, “Russian Rights Progress”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444330904577538852096756414.html?mod=googlen
ews_wsj)
Congressional votes line up behind the historic Magnitsky Act and normalized trade relations with
Russia. From the dogs and cats sleeping together files: House Republicans and Democrats now look to
be moving ahead with a bill to advance trade with Russia while also promoting human rights as a
bipartisan statement against Vladimir Putin's authoritarianism.¶ After the Senate moved Wednesday,
House leaders set aside weeks of dithering to forge a similar deal. Michigan's Dave Camp, the Chairman
of Ways and Means, announced on Thursday that he and the ranking committee Democrat, Sander
Levin, are backing the Senate measure that normalizes trade relations with Russia. If passed before the
summer recess, which now looks possible, the bill ensures U.S. business interests won't be hurt after
Russia joins the World Trade Organization in August.¶ As important, the so-called Magnitsky Act—an
historic statute that sanctions rights violators anywhere in the world—will be included in a single version
to be put before the full House, as it is in the Senate bill. Named for a Russian corruption whistleblower
who died in police custody, the provision requires the State Department to name and ban human-rights
abusers from entering or banking in the U.S.¶ This package is good for both the U.S. economy and
foreign policy, and Congress deserves full credit.
Magnitsky Bill unanimously passed Senate Finance committee and is going to pass
Adomanis 7/20(Mark Adomanis, staff writer Nations interest, “When Human-Rights Legislation Goes
Wrong” http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-magnitsky-act-backfires-7225
On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee approved the Sergei Magnitsky Law and
Accountability Act, a bill that would enable the administration to more easily implement visa and
banking restrictions on Russian officials accused of human-rights abuses. This brings the bill, first
introduced in 2011, one step closer to final passage. But supporters of the act, like most advocates of
aggressive human-rights legislation, are very reluctant to acknowledge the potential downsides of their
activity. In fact, they almost uniformly are dismissive and contemptuous of the likely Russian response. ¶
Prominent sponsors of the bill, including senators John McCain and Ben Cardin, seem to think Moscow
will do nothing more but engage in some agonized theatrics as the Russians play a weak and
ultimately losing hand. These supporters didn’t anticipate that passage of the Magnitsky bill would
worsen Russia’s already precarious human-rights situation or that it would drive away some of the ever-
dwindling number of effective opposition journalists in that country. But that may be precisely what is
happening.¶ For Magnitsky act supporters, the only real risk is failing to pass the law; this supposedly
would tell Moscow that it can act with impunity (why the Russian government would need to be made
aware that it can act with impunity after twenty-odd years of doing so is never specified). Cathy Young,
writing in the Weekly Standard, expressed this consensus view quite clearly, arguing that “with the
Kremlin poised to increase repression in the face of growing discontent, a strong signal on human rights
could not be more timely.” The need to “keep pressure” on the Russians is a constant refrain of
Magnitsky supporters, as is the dangers that would immediately result if this pressure ever were allowed
to slacken.¶ Yet over the past week, as passage of the Magnitsky bill has crept ever closer and grown
more likely, several Russian supporters of the bill have found themselves the targets of an incipient
media crackdown. This clearly is a reaction against the Magnitsky bill and its supporters, and it seems to
be payback from the authorities.¶ \
NIB – Aff Stimulus Cards
Government stimulus has empirically proven to create jobs in financial distressmultiple warrants
Heather Boushey* and Michael Ettlinger 11, *Heather is a Senior Economist at American Progress that
focuses on unemployment and social policy, ** Vice President for Economic Policy at American Progress and
Ettlinger spent six years at the Economic Policy Institute directing the Economic Analysis and Research Network,
9/8/11, “Government Spending Can Create Jobs—and It Has”, Center for American Progress,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/yes_we_can.html
Indeed, there’s
a long history that when unemployment rises, the government steps in to pave the way for
job creation. And these policies have been effective . It’s time to do so again because, well, yes, we can.
There is an empirically grounded body of literature documenting the effectiveness of fiscal expansion
during recessions and the importance of economic multipliers in creating jobs above and beyond
directly created by one firm or one government project.
those
The New Deal programs of the Great Depression are, of course,
the granddaddy of these measures. The New Deal programs stabilized our economy, though it was the massive government job creation fueled
by World War II that finally put an end to the economic devastation. Since then, presidents
and congresses of all political
stripes—including the Bush administration—have embraced short-term, temporary fiscal expansion to create
jobs in times of labor market weakness. Each time, they worked as intended . And this isn’t just the experience
of the United States. Economies around the world reflecting a wide range of economic ideologies
understand the importance of government action in the face of economic crises.
Unemployment and economic failure are worsening- Government spending is the only
way to reverse the trend
Heather Boushey* and Michael Ettlinger 11, *Heather is a Senior Economist at American Progress that
focuses on unemployment and social policy, ** Vice President for Economic Policy at American Progress and
Ettlinger spent six years at the Economic Policy Institute directing the Economic Analysis and Research Network,
9/8/11, “Government Spending Can Create Jobs—and It Has”, Center for American Progress,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/yes_we_can.html
Government spending is also an important part of the economy. Millions of people work for the
government and millions more are employed in government-funded work and all those dollars
flowing into the economy create even more jobs.
For example, the Federal Highway Administration periodically estimates
the impact of highway spending on direct employment, defined as jobs created by the firms working on a given project; on supporting jobs,
including those in firms supplying materials and equipment for projects; and on indirect employment generated when those in the first two
groups make consumer purchases with their paychecks. In 2007, $1 billion in federal highway expenditures supported about 30,000 jobs—
10,300 in construction, 4,675 in supporting industries, and 15,094 in induced employment. Today,
though, is a special time when
it comes to the role of government. The lingering consequences of the Great Recession—the housing crisis,
the jobs crisis, the fear among businesses to invest their earnings despite record profits—continue to push against faster
economic growth and job creation. In short, the economy continues to suffer from a lack of demand.
Monetary authorities have already pushed interest rates down to zero. Congress needs to step up and
focus on expansionary fiscal policy. Unless Congress acts, the private sector will continue to generate
insufficient demand. Because customers have less money to spend due to the collapse of the housing bubble and
the ensuing high unemployment, businesses have little incentive to hire and invest. The federal
government can help with this. It can take measures to create private-sector jobs by moving up
investments that the public needs anyway—investments in roads and bridges, investment in changes that the country needs
to make, such as the movement to a more energy efficient cleaner economy, investments in education and research and development. We
know this most recently from fighting the Great Recession.
FEDERAL Government spending is the key internal link to revitalizing the private sector
Heather Boushey* and Michael Ettlinger 11, *Heather is a Senior Economist at American Progress that
focuses on unemployment and social policy, ** Vice President for Economic Policy at American Progress and
Ettlinger spent six years at the Economic Policy Institute directing the Economic Analysis and Research Network,
9/8/11, “Government Spending Can Create Jobs—and It Has”, Center for American Progress,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/yes_we_can.html
Government spending is also an important part of the economy. Millions of people work for the
government and millions more are employed in government-funded work and all those dollars
flowing into the economy create even more jobs.
For example, the Federal Highway Administration periodically estimates
the impact of highway spending on direct employment, defined as jobs created by the firms working on a given project; on supporting jobs,
including those in firms supplying materials and equipment for projects; and on indirect employment generated when those in the first two
groups make consumer purchases with their paychecks. In 2007, $1 billion in federal highway expenditures supported about 30,000 jobs—
10,300 in construction, 4,675 in supporting industries, and 15,094 in induced employment. Today,
though, is a special time when
it comes to the role of government. The lingering consequences of the Great Recession—the housing crisis,
the jobs crisis, the fear among businesses to invest their earnings despite record profits—continue to push against faster
economic growth and job creation. In short, the economy continues to suffer from a lack of demand.
Monetary authorities have already pushed interest rates down to zero. Congress needs to step up and
focus on expansionary fiscal policy. Unless Congress acts, the private sector will continue to generate
insufficient demand. Because customers have less money to spend due to the collapse of the housing bubble and
the ensuing high unemployment, businesses have little incentive to hire and invest. The federal
government can help with this. It can take measures to create private-sector jobs by moving up
investments that the public needs anyway—investments in roads and bridges, investment in changes that the country needs
to make, such as the movement to a more energy efficient cleaner economy, investments in education and research and development. We
know this most recently from fighting the Great Recession.
Their stimulus bad arguments are wrong here are 6 examples where stimulus helped
jobs in the last 2 years
Heather Boushey* and Michael Ettlinger 11, *Heather is a Senior Economist at American Progress that
focuses on unemployment and social policy, ** Vice President for Economic Policy at American Progress and
Ettlinger spent six years at the Economic Policy Institute directing the Economic Analysis and Research Network,
9/8/11, “Government Spending Can Create Jobs—and It Has”, Center for American Progress,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/yes_we_can.html
The analysis of economic multipliers is well known and economists have found that the multipliers are
largest when overall demand is weak, like current economic conditions in the United States. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 and other steps taken to address the Great Recession targeted funds toward a variety of specific job-creation efforts
that have been shown to have created jobs and been cost-effective. A
few concrete examples of how public investments
have created jobs include: Increased investments in infrastructure saved or created 1.1 million jobs in
construction industry and 400,000 jobs in manufacturing by March 2011. Almost all of these jobs were in the
private sector . The reason for this success is simple: Upgrading roads, bridges, and other basic infrastructure not only creates jobs but
also paves the way for businesses small, medium, and large to benefit. Infrastructure investments lower the cost of doing business, making U.S.
companies more competitive. And they put people to work earning good, middle-class incomes, which expands the consumer base for
businesses. There were a variety of ways that the Recovery Act encouraged infrastructure investment. Build America Bonds, for example,
lowered the cost of borrowing for states who invested in infrastructure, which meant that public projects are more affordable for states—and
ultimately, a better deal for taxpayers. By
the end of 2010, $93 billion in investments to the green economy had
created or saved nearly 1 million American jobs. These 997,000 jobs include both the “green jobs” created directly by
investment in specific industries and indirectly by their suppliers, as well as the additional jobs created when workers spend their incomes back
into the economy. Three
programs for energy efficiency retrofits, the Weatherization Assistance Program, Energy Efficiency
almost
25,000 Americans since the programs began to ramp up from April 1, 2011 and June 30, 2011. Three other clean energy
programs also led to job creation. The Treasury Department’s cash grant in lieu of a tax credit (known as the 1603 program), the
Block Grant Program, and state energy programs collectively upgraded over half a million (530,000) buildings and employed
advanced energy manufacturing tax credit (known as the 48C program), and the Department of Energy loan guarantee program together cost
the government about $7 billion and leveraged more than $12 billion in private capital and account for more than 120,000 direct jobs. Direct
aid to states, to a large extent, created jobs in the private sector. Every increase of $100,000 in state aid increased employment
by 3.8 jobs for a year, of which 3.2 jobs were outside the government, health, and education sectors. Funding from the Temporary Assistance to
Needy Families Emergency Fund made it possible for 250,000 workers to find jobs through public-private partnerships. These programs protect
families and their incomes otherwise hurt through no fault of their own by the economic downturn. Putting a floor under them helps to ensure
that the customer base for businesses doesn’t totally dry up. As a result of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund and other components of the
Recovery Act, the Department of Education reports that more than 400,000 teachers got to keep their jobs. Money
targeted toward
the long-term unemployed helped not only those individual families hardest hit by the Great
Recession but also kept dollars flowing into their local communities and helped unemployed workers
access health care, undoubtedly mitigating the well-documented negative health effects of
unemployment. In a report for the Department of Labor, Wayne Vroman, an economist at the Urban Institute, estimated that the
unemployment insurance system closed about one-fifth (18.3 percent) of the shortfall in the nation’s gross domestic product during the Great
Recession. Unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed have kept an average of 1.6 million American workers in jobs every quarter
during the recession. In fiscal year 2010, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Fund allocated
more than $21.2 billion to seven USDA programs that invest in rural infrastructure, businesses, and homes.
These programs upgraded public utilities and community facilities provided broadband connections to businesses and homes, invested in rural
businesses, and helped rural families purchase homes. In
addition to improving quality of life, these investments
resulted in over 300,000 jobs for rural residents.
Tax cuts are not the solution- stimulus is our best bet- experts agree
Heather Boushey* and Michael Ettlinger 11, *Heather is a Senior Economist at American Progress that
focuses on unemployment and social policy, ** Vice President for Economic Policy at American Progress and
Ettlinger spent six years at the Economic Policy Institute directing the Economic Analysis and Research Network,
9/8/11, “Government Spending Can Create Jobs—and It Has”, Center for American Progress,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/yes_we_can.html
The supply-side mantra of tax cuts for the wealthy is not a job creation strategy for current economic
conditions, especially given past policy decisions. It’s important to remember that we have been living in a Bush-tax-cut
economy since 2001. That brought us an anemic economic recovery from the 2001 recession.
Investment growth, employment growth, and overall economic output all were slower than any
other economic recovery in the post-World War II era . The result: For the first time in over a half century, middle-class
families saw their incomes fall during an economic expansion, from 2000 to 2007, in inflation-adjusted terms, even as the economy overall
grew. What’s more, in the interest of encouraging firms to invest and create jobs, we have kept tax levels below the Bush levels for the entire
Great Recession, and have already extended these tax cuts for another two years beginning in 2011. The problem we face is not that the
wealthy are not rich enough. The problem is that the policies of the 2000s left us with a hollowed out middle class that should be the engine of
economic growth. With companies sitting on large amounts of cash—the share of financial assets that is cash is higher than at any time since
1984—firms already have the funds to invest. Given this, another tax cut isn’t likely to tip the balance much, but what will is more customers,
that is, more demand. There was once bipartisan agreement that recessions called for increased spending. In January 2008, Congress passed
the Economic Stimulus Act, which injected over $150 billion dollars into the economy, with the support of 165 Republicans. President Bush
signed it. In the spring of 2008, Congress extended benefits for the long-term unemployed, with the support of 182 Republicans. President Bush
signed it into law. These policy actions had their intended effect by temporarily boosting spending. But employment declines continued,
especially after the financial crisis of 2008 spilled over into the broader economy. Those consequences are still with us today—for employed
and unemployed Americans alike. Yet it
is increasingly apparent that the House Republican leadership has only
one goal, spending cuts, even at the risk of throwing our government into default and even as a wide
range of experts recognize that the key variable in demand right now is how much the federal
government spends. The last thing our economy needs is cuts in public spending. “Cut, cap, and
balance” is not an economic growth strategy, it’s a job-destroying agenda.
Borrowing Limits Gut Solvency
Snyder, 11 --- Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica and
public radio (10/28/2011, Tanya, “Why Create an Infrastructure Bank When We Could Just Expand
TIFIA?” http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/10/28/why-create-an-infrastructure-bank-when-we-could-justexpand-tifia/)
Democrats support infrastructure bank — reluctantly Democrats agreed that TIFIA should be expanded
but said that it should be a complement, not a replacement, for the I-bank. Democratic support for the
bank was sometimes tepid, though. Even Senate EPW Chair Barbara Boxer has been known to support
expanding TIFIA instead of an infrastructure bank. At the hearing this month, Rep. Peter DeFazio, top
Democrat on the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, confessed: Before Wall Street destroyed the
economy, I had said, well, I really don’t see why we need an infrastructure bank. Most of the states have
good credit and they can go out and borrow on their own at very good rates. But that isn’t the case
anymore. The states need guarantees. They need help. Many are against their borrowing limits. And
most of the banks, who were generously bailed out by Congress, aren’t lending. And credit bond
markets are tight. So an infrastructure bank could be more useful for the states in that circumstance.
No Private Incentive Currently
Tyson 11 --- professor at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley (6/3/2011, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, NYT
Blogs, “The Virtues of Investing in Transportation; Economix,” ,
That's also why both the administration and a bipartisan group led by Senators John Kerry, Democrat of
Massachusetts; Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, have
proposed the creation of a national infrastructure bank. Such a bank would focus on transformative
projects of national significance, like the creation of a high-speed rail system or the modernization of the
air-traffic-control system. Such projects are neglected by the formula-driven processes now used to
distribute federal infrastructure funds among states and regions. The bank would also provide greater
certainty about the level of federal funds for multiyear projects by removing those decisions from the
politically volatile annual appropriations process and would select projects based on transparent costbenefit analysis by independent experts. The bank would be granted authority to create partnerships
with private investors on individual projects, and these would increase the funds available and foster
greater efficiency in project selection, operation and maintenance. Such partnerships -- common in
Europe and other parts of the world -- often result in earlier completion of projects, lower costs and
better maintenance of infrastructure compared with investments made solely by public entities. Despite
rapid growth in the last decade, such partnerships are still rare in the United States. Why? Because
infrastructure decisions are fragmented, with states, cities and municipalities owning their own assets
and applying their own political and economic criteria to potential deals with private investors.
Several states do not have legislation authorizing partnerships and no guidelines exist for how
decisions will be made. One obstacle may be gone: Representative James Oberstar, Democrat of
Minnesota and the previous chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee,
opposed these partnerships and urged state and local officials to avoid them. He lost his seat in 2010,
and Representative John Mica, Republican of Florida, who now heads the committee, supports the
partnership concept. Improving infrastructure investment decisions through cost-benefit analysis and
public-private partnerships is one way to realize larger returns on scarce investment dollars.
Plan Solves Budget Cuts
McNichol 12 - Senior Fellow specializing in state fiscal issues including the economy’s impact on state budgets and long-term structural
reform of state budget and tax systems at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (Elizabeth, “States Continue to Feel Recession’s Impact,”
5/24,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711)
State budget estimates for the upcoming fiscal year continue to show that states face a long and
uncertain recovery. For fiscal year 2013, the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2012, 30 states have addressed or have
projected shortfalls totaling $54 billion.[1]
The Great Recession that started in 2007 caused the largest collapse in state revenues on record. Since bottoming out in 2010, revenues have
begun to grow again, but states are still far from fully recovered. As of the fourth quarter of 2011, state revenues remained 7 percent below
pre-recession levels, and are not growing fast enough to recover fully soon. Meanwhile, states' education and health care obligations continue
to grow. Next year, states expect to educate 350,000 more K-12 students and 1.7 million more public college and university students in the
upcoming school year than in 2007-08.[2] And some 5.6 million more people are projected to be eligible for subsidized health insurance
through Medicaid in 2012 than were enrolled in 2008, as employers have cancelled their coverage and people have lost jobs and wages.[3]
Consequently, even
though the revenue outlook is trending upward, states have addressed large budget
shortfalls by historical standards as they considered budgets for the upcoming year. As the start of the new fiscal year draws near in most
states, many of these shortfalls have been closed through spending cuts and other measures scheduled to take effect
in the next fiscal year. Other states will soon close these shortfalls in order to meet balanced-budget
requirements. To the extent these shortfalls are being closed with budget cuts, they are occurring on
top of past years' deep cuts in critical public services like education, health care, and human services.
The additional cuts mean that state budgets are poised to continue to be a drag on the national
economy, threatening hundreds of thousands of private- and public-sector jobs, reducing the job creation that
otherwise would be expected to occur. Potential strategies for lessening the impact of deep spending cuts include more use of state reserve
funds in states that have reserves, more revenue through tax-law changes, and a greater role for the federal government.
Our survey of state fiscal conditions shows that:
States continue to face a major fiscal challenge. Thirty states have projected (and in many cases have already closed) budget gaps totaling $54
billion for fiscal year 2013. (See Figure 1.) These shortfalls are all the more daunting because states' options for addressing them are fewer and
more difficult than in recent years. Temporary aid to states enacted in early 2009 as part of the federal Recovery Act was enormously helpful in
allowing states to avert some of the most harmful potential budget cuts in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. But the federal government
allowed that aid to largely expire at the end of fiscal year 2011, leading to some of the deepest cuts to state services since the start of the
Far from providing additional assistance to states, the federal government is now moving
ahead with spending cuts that will very likely make states' fiscal situation even worse .
recession.
Key to the Economy
Pollack 9 – Economic Policy Institute (Ethan, “Dire States: State and Local Budget Relief Need to Prevent Job Losses and Ensure a Robust
Recovery”, EPI Briefing Paper, 11/19 http://epi.3cdn.net/1e7013bc0e4ca00724_0ym6b5yq5.pdf
Widening state and local budget shortfalls present a ticking time bomb for the economy. If they are not
addressed, state and local governments will be forced to accelerate layoffs, reduce pay, reduce services,
and raise taxes and fees. These moves create a drag on the economy, weaken the recovery, and result in
the loss of millions of public and private-sector jobs.
To prevent or reduce job losses induced by cutbacks at the state and local level and to ensure a robust
recovery, Congress must both extend the state and local budget relief offered in the recovery act through state
fiscal year 2011 and raise the funding levels. This should be viewed not as a new recovery act, but rather as an extension of the
first one, necessary because the budget relief originally provided is inadequate to address shortfalls that continue to grow even after the
recovery has begun. Between the mid-year shortfalls in 2010 and the full shortfalls in 2011, state and local governments will raise taxes and cut
spending by $204 billion.9 Not all of that can be mitigated—no distribution formula perfectly targets needy state and local governments,
meaning that if the full amount was provided some recipients would get too much and others would still face shortfalls. While finding an exact
number needed is difficult, at least $150 billion in budget relief should be provided. Without it, between 1.1 and 1.4 million jobs will be lost.
Congress must act before it’s too late.
Public Transit it critical
Christman & Riordan, 11 --- policy analysts at the National Employment Law Project (December 2011,
Anastasia Christman and Christine Riordan, National Employment Law Project Briefing Paper, “State
Infrastructure Banks: Old Idea Yields New Opportunities for Job Creation,”
http://nelp.3cdn.net/fadb21502631e6cb79_vom6b8ccu.pdf)
Unlike a state department of transportation, which typically owns assets (though it may contract out
their construction and maintenance), an SIB acts as a lender or a guarantor. Thus, the SIB has to be
concerned with returns on the investment, often by prioritizing projects with their own revenue streams
or by collecting payments comprised of future tax revenues if the borrower is a county, city or special
district. This distinction means that the ability for repayment is often one of the key criteria for an SIB in
selecting projects to fund, and that often these projects include ongoing revenue streams through tolls
or other user fees. It also means that public transit projects can be more difficult to fund because they
rarely include this kind of money-making guarantee. If a state wants to use its federally-financed SIB to
finance transit projects, it must enter into an agreement with the Federal Transit Administration and
meet a variety of federal regulations, making transit a less attractive sector for some SIB managers.19
This reluctance can be further exacerbated by the challenge of finding transit projects with a
predictable revenue stream for repayment.
Key to solving the economy
Snyder, 10 --- Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor (12/7/2010, Tanya, “Would an Infrastructure Bank Have
the Power to Reform Transportation?” http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/12/07/would-an-infrastructurebank-have-the-power-to-reform-transportation/)
Return on Investment A singular focus on a high rate of return, however, could weaken the impact of a
National Infrastructure Bank. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has advocated for a NIB with grantmaking
authority to cover projects that won’t necessarily make sufficient revenue to be able to pay down a
loan. A proposal, not yet released but expected to be introduced in Congress next year, would establish
a bank with no grantmaking authority, removing one of the best aspects of a potential bank. “Not every
project of regional and national significance is going to generate a return that justifies a financially
rational loan for the bank to make,” says Scott Thomasson, an expert in infrastructure finance from the
Progressive Policy Institute. “There are projects that are worth doing as a nation where the benefits
aren’t going to be repaid financially. They’re going to be enjoyed in other forms” like improving public
health, easing traffic congestion, or reducing emissions. Thomasson worries that a narrowly structured
bank, following a traditional bank model, won’t address compelling projects that can’t capture user fees
or other financing streams.
Federal Government Key
Frankel, 12 --- Visiting Scholar, Bipartisan Policy Center (5/22/2012, “Defining and Allocating Roles,”
http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/not-waiting-for-the-feds.php,)
Whatever the outcome of the current Congressional process on authoriziing federal surface transportation programs, the longer-term trend is
clear: the
federal share of transportation investment is, at best, stagnating and, at worst, declining. These
circumstances reverse a trend of half a century or more of growing federal surface transportation funding. It is evident that a greater
portion of this funding and investment burden will now fall on states and localities.
But that is not the same thing, as devolution. There remains an important, if still inadequately defined, federal
role in transportation. There are national goals and national purposes in transportation, and some
projects are clearly national (to greater or lesser degrees) in scope and impact. There is, however, no clear line between these
national, state, and local interests. Most "mega" projects involve a mix of interests: CREATE in Chicago has obvious local and Illinois benefits,
but this program of rail and grade crossing improvements is probably most significant, in terms of the national benefits that it would generate.
Similarly, the ARC project (the proposed trans-Hudson River commuter rail tunnel), cancelled by Governor Christie after decades of planning
and the initiation of construction, would have offered enormous benefits to the citizens and business firms of New Jersey and to the economy
of the entire New York City region, but there were, and remain, strong reasons for a substanital federal role in this project, because of the
impact of economic growth in the New York City region on national well-being and prosperity.
As Rob Puentes has noted, this
is not an "either-or" situation, one of national versus state or local goals. Many
programs and projects will involve all these interests, in varying measures and degrees, and the sources
of funding should reflect this mix of purposes. What this debate demonstrates, however, is the need to define national goals
more precisely, to reform the institutions that plan and program capital investments in the transportation sector, and to focus on performance
and outcomes. These reforms are more urgent than ever, in the context of shrinking resources and the need to invest wisely in the more
beneficial programs and projects.
The plan allocates funding nationally
SLONE ’11 – transportation policy analyst for The Council of State Governments (Sean, “State Infrastructure Banks”, July 5,
http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/drupal/content/state-infrastructure-banks)
Gifford said the
accessibility to existing credit options available through the municipal bond market may be
a reason for the underutilization. The introduction of the Build America Bonds program in 2009 in particular may have limited use.
It may also be difficult to identify revenue streams for smaller scale projects that are locally sponsored. Finally, it may be that the size
of project backlogs in many states requires state departments of transportation to fully allocate core
federal highway program dollars before seeking other project financing.19
Fed Key
Puentes, 11 --- Senior Fellow, Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program (9/9/2011, Robert, “Obama's Plan a Chance to Get Strategic on
Infrastructure,” http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-avenue/94771/obamas-plan-chance-get-strategic-infrastructure,)
The focus on infrastructure in President Obama’s jobs speech was much-anticipated and necessary. While much the attention is on increasing
funding for fixing roads and bridges, the president also reiterated the call to improve the way the federal government invests in infrastructure.
(“No more earmarks. No more boondoggles. No more bridges to nowhere.”) He also called for the kind of transformative infrastructure
investments that made the U.S. an economic superpower. One way to do that is through a national infrastructure bank.
A quasipublic entity like the Tennessee Valley Authority or Amtrak, the bank would make loans to fund transportation projects that were
important to the nation as a whole. It would have to not only further policy goals, as a federal agency would, but also demand from project
sponsors the same assurances and rate of return that a bank would. While not a panacea, if appropriately designed and with sufficient political
autonomy, it could
improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of future infrastructure projects of truly
national significance.
That last part is important. Today we do not really have a mechanism to focus on investments that truly matter
to the nation as a whole or that transcend state and metro boundaries. Think global ports to boost
American exports, long-haul transmission lines for renewable energy, or a build-out of electric vehicle
recharging infrastructure.
After the speech, some Congressional Republicans rightly pointed out that we already have infrastructure
banks operating within 33 states. No doubt these state infrastructure banks (SIBs) are important and, since 1998,
when the federal government provided $150 million in seed funding for initial capitalization, SIBs have become an attractive financing tool for
transportation projects.
Most of this support comes in the form of below-market revolving loans and loan guarantees. States are able to capitalize their accounts with
federal transportation dollars but are then subject to federal regulations over how the funds are spent. Others, including Kansas, Ohio, Georgia,
and Florida, capitalize their accounts with a variety of state funds and are not bound by the federal oversight which they feel helps accelerate
project delivery. Other states—such as Virginia, Texas, and New York—are also examining ways to recapitalize their SIBs with state funds.
The problem is that, rather, than bringing the tough, merit-based approach, SIBs generally do not filter
projects through a competitive application process. A better approach would be for states to make their
SIBs more strategic and more nimble than a typical appropriation process and as a complement to
existing state, metro, and federal transportation funding and financing. Projects should be evaluated according to
strict return on investment criteria, not selected with an eye towards spreading funding evenly across the state.
States should also think beyond just transportation and create true infrastructure and economic
development banks to finance not just roads and rails, but also energy and water infrastructure, perhaps
even school and manufacturing development. California’s Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (“I-Bank”) provides
a compelling model. After its initial capitalization of $181 million in 1999, the I-Bank has funded itself on interest earnings, loan repayments,
and other fees, and has supported over $400 million in loans.
The bottom line is that either/or
debates about a national or state infrastructure bank is a false choice. Both
are needed but for different reasons.
States fail – can’t run deficits and can’t co-ordinate
Pollack ‘11 - Economic Policy Institute; Office of Management and Budget and the George Washington Institute of Public Policy; staff
member for President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform; M.P.P. The George Washington University (Ethan,
“Nine reasons to invest more in the nation’s infrastructure”, September 27, http://www.epi.org/blog/reasons-invest-national-infrastructure/)
9) There’s no one else. States
governments are facing nearly $150 billion in shortfalls in this fiscal year and
the next, and, unlike the federal government, states generally cannot run deficits. Adding to this situation, fiscal
relief from the Recovery Act has petered out, falling from $127 billion over the last two years to only
$6 billion over the next two years. Local governments face equally difficult fiscal challenges. At this point in time, only the
federal government can make these needed investments.¶ The merits of establishing a National
Infrastructure Bank are once again being debated in the wake of President Obama’s speech to a joint session of the
112th United States Congress and the subsequent introduction of the American Jobs Act 1 . ¶ A review of the Jobs Act offers a vivid illustration
of how far the debate has moved under the Obama Administration. Earlier White House budgets had proposed allocating USD 4 billion as seed
funding to a National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund tasked with supporting individual projects as well as “broader activities of
significance”. Offering grants, loans and long term loan guarantees to eligible projects, the resulting entity would not have constituted an
infrastructure bank in the generally accepted sense of the term. Nor would the Fund have been an autonomous entity, making mere
“investment recommendations” to the Secretary of Transportation2 . ¶ Despite
a number of important alterations, the
Jobs Act contains the key provisions of a bipartisan Senate bill introduced in March 20113 establishing
an American Infrastructure Financing Authority (AIFA). Endowed with annual infusions of USD 10 billion (rising to USD 20
billion in the third year), the Authority’s main goal is to facilitate economically viable transportation, energy and
water infrastructure projects capable of mobilizing significant levels of State and private sector investment.
The Authority thus established: ¶ is set up as a distinct, self-supporting entity headed by a Board of Directors requiring Senate confirmation ¶
offers loans & credit guarantees to large scale projects with anticipated costs in excess of USD 100,000,000 ¶ extends eligible recipients to
corporations, partnerships, trusts, States and other governmental entities ¶ subjects loans to credit risk assessments and investment-grade
rating (BBB-/ Baa3 or higher) ¶ conditions loans to a full evaluation of project economic, financial, technical and environmental benefits ¶
caps Federal loans at 50% of anticipated project costs ¶ requires dedicated revenue sources from recipient projects, such as tolls or user fees
sets and collects loan fees to cover its administrative and operational costs (with leftover receipts transferred ¶ to the Treasury)¶
Particularly striking are the layers of risk assessment contained in the BUILD Act. These translate into a dedicated risk governance structure with
the appointment of a Chief Risk Officer and annual external risk audits of AIFA’s project portfolio. At project level, applicants are required to
provide a preliminary rating opinion letter and, if the loan or loan guarantee is approved, the Authority’s associated fees are modulated to
reflect project risk. Lastly, as a Government-owned corporation, AIFA is explicitly held on the Federal balance sheet and is not able to borrow
debt in the capital markets in its own name (although it may reoffer part of its loan book into the capital markets, if deemed in the taxpayers’
interest).¶ Rationale ¶ As a percentage of GDP, the United States currently invests 25% less on transportation infrastructure than comparable
OECD economies 4 . There is broad agreement that absent a massive and sustained infusion of capital in infrastructure, the backlog of
¶
investment in new and existing transportation assets will hurt productivity gains and ripple economy-wide5 ¶ The
establishment of
AIFA is predicated on a number of market considerations¶ Dwindling demand for municipal bonds,
resulting in significantly decreased capacity to invest at the State and local level. This scenario is confirmed by
recent Federal Reserve data 6 indicating a sharp drop in the municipal bond market for the first two quarters of 2011 despite near-identical tenyear yields, a trend that can partly be explained by record-level outflows prior to the winding down of the Build America Bonds program on 31
December 20107 . Considering that roughly 75% of municipal bond proceeds go towards capital spending on infrastructure by states and
localities 8 , this shortfall amounts to USD 135 billion for the first six months of 2011 alone.¶ Insufficient levels of private sector capital flowing
in infrastructure investments. Despite the relatively stable cash flows typically generated by infrastructure assets, less than 10% of investment
in transportation infrastructure came from capital markets in 2007 8 . By some estimates 9 , the total equity capital available to invest in global
infrastructure stands at over USD 202 billion and investor appetite remains strong in 2011. Federal
underwriting may take
enough of the risk away for bonds to achieve investment grade rating on complex infrastructure
programs, particularly if they protect senior-level equity against first loss positions and offer other
creditor-friendly incentives. For instance, the planned bill already includes a “cash sweep” provision earmarking excess project
revenues to prepaying the principal at no penalty to the obligor. ¶ Convincing evidence across economic sectors that Federal credit
assistance stretches public dollars further 10 . The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) already
empowers the Department of Transportation to provide credit assistance, such as full-faith-and-credit guarantees as well as fixed rate loans, to
qualified surface transportation projects of national and regional significance. It is designed to offer more advantageous terms and fill market
gaps by cushioning against revenue risks (such as tolls and user fees) in the ramp up phase of large infrastructure projects. A typical project
profile would combine equity investment, investment-grade toll bonds, state gas tax revenues and TIFIA credit assistance to a limit of 33%.
TIFIA credit assistance is scored by the Office of Management and Budget at just 10%, representing loan default risk. In theory, a
Federal
outlay of just USD 33 million could therefore leverage up to USD 1 billion in infrastructure funding 11 .
To date, 21 projects have received USD 7.7 billion in credit assistance for USD 29.0 billion in estimated total project cost 12.¶ 32 States
(and Puerto Rico) currently operate State Infrastructure Banks (SIBs) offering an interesting case study
for the American Infrastructure Financing Authority. Moreover the BUILD Act explicitly authorizes the Authority to loan to
“political subdivisions and any other instrumentalities of a State”, such as the SIBs. ¶ SIBs were formally authorized nationwide in 2005 through
a provision of the SAFETEA-LU Act 13 to offer preferential credit assistance to eligible and economically viable surface transportation capital
projects. A provision of the Act also authorizes multistate Banks, although such cooperative arrangements have yet to be established. ¶ SIBs
operate primarily as revolving loan funds using initial capitalization (Federal and state matching
funds) and ongoing funding (generally a portion of state-levied taxes) to provide subordinated loans whose repayments
are recycled into new projects loans. Where bonds are issued by SIBs as collateral to leverage even greater investment capacity, these can be
secured by user revenues, general State revenues or backed against a portion of federal highway revenues. As of December 2010, State
Infrastructure Banks had entered into 712 loan agreements with a total value of over USD 6.5 billion12. ¶ While SAFETEA-LU provided a basic
framework for establishing SIBs, each State has tailored the size, structure and focus of its Bank to meet specific policy objectives. The following
table14 illustrates the scales of SIBS at the opposite end of the spectrum. ¶ These State-driven arrangements warrant a number of observations:
¶ The more active SIB States are those that have increased the initial capitalization of their banks through a combination of bonds and sustained
State funding. South Carolina’s Transportation Infrastructure Bank receives annual amounts provided by State law that include truck
registration fees, vehicle registration fees, one-cent of gas tax equivalent, and a portion of the electric power tax. Significantly, all SIBs have
benefited from the ability to recycle loan repayments – including interest and fees – into new infrastructure projects, a facility currently not
available to the American Infrastructure Financing Authority under the terms of the BUILD Act. ¶ More
from such banks made through 2008 were concentrated in just five
than 87 percent of all loans
States: South Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Texas
and Ohio 14 . As a case in point, South Carolina’s Transportation Infrastructure Bank has provided more financial assistance for
transportation projects than the other 32 banks combined. Most State banks have issued fewer than ten loans, the vast
majority of which fall in the USD 1-10 million size bracket 14 . This suggests that not all States presently have experience, or
the ability , to deal with capital markets for large-scale funding.¶ States are, by and large, left to define
specific selection criteria for meritorious projects, the SIB’s share of the project as well as the loan fee it will charge. Kansas,
Ohio, Georgia, Florida and Virginia have established SIBs without Federal-aid money and are therefore not bound by the same Federal
regulations as other banks. California’s Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank extends the scope of eligible projects to include water
supply, flood control measures, as well as educational facilities. While adapted to local circumstances, this patchwork of State regulations
can also constitute an entry barrier for private equity partners and multistate arrangements.¶ Given
the structure of their tax base, SIBs are vulnerable to short term economy swings as well as the
longer term inadequacy of current user-based funding mechanisms. SIBs borrow against future State
and highway income. Many States are already reporting declining gas tax revenues and, on current
projections, the Highway Trust Fund will see a cumulative funding gap of USD 115 billion between
2011 and 2021 18 . It is notable that Arizona’s Highway Extension and Expansion Loan Program is currently
no longer taking applications citing “state budget issues”.
Cuts destroy education and jobs
Williams et al, 11 (Erica Williams—Policy Analyst with the State Fiscal Project and former Study Director at the Institute for Women’s
Policy Research, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “State Budget Cuts in the New Fiscal Year Are Unnecessarily Harmful: Cuts Are
Hitting Hard at Education, Health Care, and State Economies, 28 July 2011, http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3550,)
Spending Cuts Will Weaken Schools, Reduce Access to Medical Care, and Cost Jobs Since states spend
more of their budgets on education and health care than anything else, lawmakers imposing large spending
cuts are hard-pressed to avoid cutting back on these essential public services. Many states also will lay off state employees or
cut their pay and benefits. These actions, coming on top of deep cuts that states have already made over
the last three years, place a drag on the nation’s economic recovery. Elementary and Secondary Education At least 23 states
have made identifiable cuts in support for public schools. In many cases, these cuts undermine school
finance systems that are intended to reduce disparities between high-wealth and low-wealth school
districts, so the largest impacts may be felt in communities that are least able to compensate for the
loss of funds from their own resources. Higher Education At least 25 states have made large,
identifiable cuts in funding for state colleges and universities, with direct impacts on students. Health
Care At least 20 states have made deep, identifiable cuts in health care that will reduce access to care
for low-income children, seniors, families and people with disabilities. Job and Pay Cuts for Public
Employees At least 16 states have enacted layoffs or specific cuts in pay and/or benefits for state
workers. These cuts are in addition to workforce cuts already implemented in 44 states since the
recession began. Since August 2008, state and local governments have eliminated more than 577,000
jobs.
NIB benefits the economy – stimulus, cooperation and innovation
DUTTON 10 – staff editor (Audrey, “Transportation Infrastructure Bank Plan Would Cost $4B”.
http://www.bondbuyer.com/issues/119_270/2011-budget-transportation-projects-1006756-1.html)
Total new obligations for surface transportation — including highways, bridges, and a new “livable communities” initiative — would be $43.4
billion, according to the budget. That is downsized from fiscal 2010’s estimated $43.7 billion and fiscal 2009’s actual $40.1 billion. Interstate
maintenance, congestion mitigation, and demonstration projects would be pared down, but the
federal government would
obligate more money to federal-land highways, bridges, and other programs.
The bank proposed by the president resembles a hybrid of the one-time-only Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant
program, and the popular Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program.
The National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund would have to be authorized by Congress and would not be
subject to pay-as-you-go rules, according to budget documents.
It would
fund or finance ­projects “that provide a significant economic benefit to the nation or a
region” and “encourage collaboration among non-federal stakeholders including states,
municipalities, and private investors, and also promote coordination with investments in other
infrastructure sectors,” the documents said.
Investment categories would include highways, tunnels, bridges, transit, commuter rail, passenger
rail, freight rail, airports, aviation, and ports — almost the whole transportation universe.
Politics Thumpers
Transportation bill passed 3 weeks ago should have triggered the link
Alan Fram and Joan Lowy 6/29/12, writers for Huffington Post, “House, Senate Pass Transportation Bill,
Extend Current Student Loan Rates”, Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/29/transportation-bill-student-loans_n_1638116.html
WASHINGTON — Congress
emphatically approved legislation Friday preserving jobs on transportation projects
from coast to coast and avoiding interest rate increases on new loans to millions of college students, giving lawmakers campaign-season
bragging rights on what may be their biggest economic achievement before the November elections. The bill sent for President
Barack Obama's signature enables just over $100 billion to be spent on highway, mass transit and other
transportation programs over the next two years, projects that would have expired Saturday without congressional action. It also
ends a bare-knuckle political battle over student loans that raged since spring, a proxy fight over which party was best helping voters muddle
through the economic downturn. Obama signed a one-week temporary measure Friday evening, permitting the highway and loan programs to
continue until the full legislation reaches his desk.
Obama spent the bulk of his PC on Obama care
Ana Navarro 6/29/12, “President Obama Won The Day”, Politic 365,
http://politic365.com/2012/06/29/president-obama-won-the-day/
The Affordable Care Act was upheld by the US Supreme Court. It is President Obama’s signature piece
of legislation. He spent the bulk of his political capital as an incoming president on passing this law .
Had it been found unconstitutional, it would have been a moral defeat and a waste of his political resources. Winning at the Supreme Court
allows the President to take a victory lap. It’s been a hard, long slog. However, this could end up being short term gain and long term pain for
the President and the Democrats. The signing of the Affordable Care Act in March of 2010 galvanized the Republican base and those opposed
to big government. It helped the Republicans pick up a net total of 63 seats in the House of Representatives and ushered in a GOP majority in
the lower chamber. If those flames are re-kindled, today’s ruling could be a short-lived celebration for President Obama. But today, he should
be doing a little happy dance at the White House. It’s unarguable: President Obama won the day.
T – Substantial Means Large Amount
Substantial means a large amount
Dictionary.com 12
sub·stan·tial
money.
[suhb-stan-shuhl] Show IPA adjective 1.
of ample or considerable amount, quantity, size, etc.: a substantial sum of