Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
Summary.................................................................................................................................. 2
Glossary .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Article ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Fiscal Discipline Shell .................................................................................................................... 5
Fiscal Discipline Shell .................................................................................................................... 6
Link – Infrastructure Spending ....................................................................................................... 7
Link – Infrastructure Spending ....................................................................................................... 8
Link – Infrastructure Spending ....................................................................................................... 9
Link – Sacred Cow ................................................................................................................ 10
Link – Sacred Cow ................................................................................................................ 11
Uniqueness – General ................................................................................................................... 12
Uniqueness – Infrastructure Spending .......................................................................................... 13
Fiscal Discipline Key to Investor Confidence .............................................................................. 14
Fiscal Discipline Key to Investor Confidence ....................................................................... 15
High Deficits Destroy the Economy...................................................................................... 16
High Deficits Destroy the Economy ............................................................................................. 17
A2: Spending Good For Economy................................................................................................ 18
A2: Spending Good for the Economy........................................................................................... 19
A2: Spending Good for the Economy........................................................................................... 20
Terminal Economy Impacts -- War ....................................................................................... 21
A2: Economy Resilient ................................................................................................................. 22
A2: US Not Key to World Economy ..................................................................................... 23
A2: US Not Key to World Economy ..................................................................................... 24
A2: Empirically Denied ......................................................................................................... 25
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
Summary
This file makes the argument that the affirmative plan is too expensive (spends too much
money). The argument is that, if something costs too much, the government will not be
responsible with money and this irresponsibility will damage the economy. For example,
most government spending goes through Congress where the two political parties
(Republicans and Democrats) debate it. If they can come to an agreement, they vote on the
spending bill and it becomes a law if the president signs it (which he or she usually does).
The economy is important because, in a down economy, people lose jobs and money and
the country has difficulty providing citizens with the things they need. This can cause
nations to go to war with one another over resources and land because they no longer have
very much to lose. The impact evidence argues that, if the U.S. economy decreases, then it
affects other countries because we trade with them. A worldwide economic downturn
would cause all countries to get involved in conflicts, causing nuclear weapon wars.
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Spending DA
Glossary
Budget – The money that a government has and their plan for spending it.
Debt Ceiling – The money the government is allowed to owe other nations.
Deficit – A deficit is when you have less money than you are spending. If the government is
‘deficit spending,’ then they are spending more money than they are taking in. Some argue that
deficit spending also damages the economy.
Democrats -- This is a political party. Democrats generally are politically liberal and favor a
larger government with more social programs. Democrats are often stereotyped as unwise with
money.
Economy – This is a combination of the labor (workforce), the system of exchange of goods and
services, and the resources a country has at a given time. If the economy is ‘up,’ a country has a
lot of these things, if it is ‘down’, a country has very few.
Fiscal Discipline – Fiscal discipline refers to the ability of the government to spend money
wisely. Fiscal discipline is like making sure that you spend your allowance on the things you
really need instead of just things you want. If the government loses fiscal discipline, it is like
spending your entire allowance on things you don’t need and not having any left for important
things. Lack of fiscal discipline damages the economy because the government is spending more
than it can afford.
Investor Confidence – This refers to whether or not people want to spend their money on things
in the U.S. economy.
Republicans – This is a political party. Republicans generally are more politically conservative
and favor a smaller government that collects fewer taxes. Republicans are often stereotyped as
greedy with government funds.
Resilient – If something is resilient, it will come back up even after it goes down. If the economy
is resilient, that means it will increase eventually even if it is decreasing now.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
Article
Tuscon Citizen, May 23, 2012, “President Obama: Out of Control Spending? Not Hardly,”
http://tucsoncitizen.com/baja-democrats/2012/05/23/president-obama-out-of-control-spendingnot-hardly/
Self appointed savior of free enterprise Mitt Romney recently attacked President Obama for “out
of control spending”, claiming he would lead us out of “spending inferno”. It took MarketWatch,
a division of that liberal bastion The Wall Street Journal (owned by Fox News parent News
Corp) to dispel that big fat lie.
Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending,
an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. But it
didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at
the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s. Even
hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.
Bolded emphasis is mine. Mitt Romney apparently subscribes to the Karl Rove tactic of “ If you
tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it ” (Even
though Karl Rove stole that idea from a guy named Joseph Goebbels). I subscribe more to the “a
picture is worth a thousand words” line of thought.
Big spender? That “severely conservative” Ronald Reagan leads the list. Bush the Wiser gave it
his old college try and far outspent Bill Clinton, but was far outdone by Bush the Lesser. But
President Obama? A clear lightweight when it comes to growth of federal spending. In the 2009
fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from
$2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell
1.8% to $3.46 trillion. Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from
$3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%. Numbers don’t lie,
unfortunately politicians do often. Republicans also love claiming that the national debt is
“exploding” under President Obama. It is true that the national debt has risen from $10.6 trillion
to $15.6 trillion under Obama’s watch, which makes for easy partisan attacks. But the vast bulk
of the increase was caused by a combination of revenue losses due to the 2008-09 economic
downturn as well as Bush-era tax cuts and automatic increases in safety-net spending that were
already written into law. Make no mistake, current deficits and increases to the national debt
are unsustainable. When we have fully recovered from the worst recession since the Great
Depression we must address deficit spending and pay down our debt. Like Bill Clinton did, like
GW Bush should have . Another saying I like is “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t
throw stones”. Mitt Romney should know a thing or two about “out of control spending”. During
his four years as governor of Massachusetts, state spending increased by 6.5% per year,
government jobs grew six times as fast as private sector jobs, taxes and fees went up by $750
million each year, and debt increased by 16%. In fact, he left Massachusetts with the largest percapita debt of any state in the country. Mitt Romney says he want the economy to be the focus of
his campaign. We say “bring it on”.
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Spending DA
Fiscal Discipline Shell
A. Uniqueness -- Fiscal discipline emerging now
Forbes, May 4, 2012, “The Time for Entitlement Reform is Now,”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougschoen/2012/05/04/the-time-for-entitlement-reform-is-now/
Both Democrats and Republicans alike were surprised when Senate Budget Chairman Kent
Conrad recently introduced the blueprint of the Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction plan as
a starting point for the Senate’s budget negotiations. Democrats expected Conrad to put
forward a Democratic budget that would have been the first detailed deficit reduction plan in
three years, if passed by the committee. Republicans claimed that this move was a stunt by the
Democrats, indicative that the Democrats were not willing to vote on any budget plan that could
expose them to political attacks before the November elections. And while Conrad himself
acknowledged that a vote is not likely to take place anytime soon, by putting forth the BowlesSimpson blueprint, named after the chairmen of President Obama’s 2010 bipartisan deficit
reduction commission, the issue of fiscal discipline and balancing the budget has been
brought back to the front of the national dialogue.
B. Plan will increase the deficit – deficit spending for transportation
infrastructure is normal means
The Transportation Politic, February 16, 2012, “Clearing it Up on Federal Transportation
Expenditures,” http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2012/02/16/clearing-it-up-on-federaltransportation-expenditures/
But the most important role of the federal government in transportation financing is to
ensure that funding is maintained during economic downturns. The Obama
Administration actually increased spending on roads and transit projects following
the 2008 recession, despite a decline in federal fuel tax revenues, because it was able
to use its power of deficit spending (an authority state and local governments do not
have**) to maintain investments when the country needed them.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
Fiscal Discipline Shell
C. Failure to maintain fiscal discipline causes economic decline
Washington Post, 1-7, 11, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010701826.html
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke laid out a dire scenario on Friday of what
could happen to the U.S. economy if the government cannot develop a plan to bring
down the budget deficit in the years ahead, even as he said that the economic recovery
appears to be gaining momentum. Bernanke began his testimony before the Senate
Budget Committee just an hour after the Labor Department reported that the
unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent in December - its lowest level since May 2009 from the previous month's 9.8 percent. The surprising decrease was tempered by news
from employers that showed weaker-than-expected job growth. Still, the sharp drop in
unemployment revealed a growing confidence in the nation's economic outlook. "We
have seen increased evidence that a self-sustaining recovery in consumer and business
spending may be taking hold," Bernanke said, according to prepared testimony. "Overall,
the pace of economic recovery seems likely to be moderately stronger in 2011 than it was
in 2010." But Bernanke also offered his strongest warning yet over the nation's high
deficit. If the United States does not set a fiscal course that is more sustainable, "the
economic and financial effects would be severe," he said. If federal debt were to rise at
the pace assumed in a plausible scenario analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office such as extending most of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as spending rises at a steady rate "diminishing confidence on the part of investors that deficits will be brought under
control would likely lead to sharply rising interest rates on government debt and,
potentially, to broader financial turmoil," Bernanke said. He added that the high
borrowing rate would limit private investment and push up the nation's foreign debt,
hurting U.S. incomes and standards of living. "Prompt adoption" of a plan to bring deficits
down in future years could improve the economic outlook today, Bernanke argued, by
helping keep interest rates low and increasing business confidence.
D. Economic decline causes nuclear war
Walter Russell Mead, a great American citizen, 2/4/2009, Only Makes You Stronger, The New Republic, p.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8&p=2
None of which means that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that
financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less
reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year
rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the
League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution;
the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list
of financial crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928,
but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the
current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow,
Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't
get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight.
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Spending DA
Link – Infrastructure Spending
Infrastructure costs increasing
Washington Post, March 21, 2012, “Why Can’t We just Leave Infrastructure Spending to the
States?,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-cant-we-just-leaveinfrastructure-spending-to-the-states/2012/03/21/gIQAjpYBSS_blog.html
Keep in mind that this is all happening at a time when infrastructure is getting increasingly
expensive to build — the CBO notes that the cost of building highways has tripled since
1980, far faster than inflation. States are spending the same, but getting less and less. Now,
maybe this would all be okay if we were keeping our roads and bridges and pipes in good
shape. But various experts and groups like the American Civil Society of Engineers seem
to think that we’re woefully under-investing in infrastructure of all sorts.
High infrastructure spending undermined Spain’s economy
Edward Glaeser, an economics professor at Harvard University, Bloomberg, February 14, 2012,
“Spending Won’t Fix What Ails US Infrastructure,” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0214/spending-won-t-fix-what-ails-u-s-transport-commentary-by-edward-glaeser.html
The spate of bridge and rail construction in China taps into American insecurities and leads
many to wonder whether we are falling behind because we aren’t building more.
Politicians understand the magical promise of bold new projects, like superfast trains
across California or missions to space, but that promise can be false. Spain’s current fiscal
woes owe much to its overly ambitious high-speed rail investments. Similar rail projects in
China have produced more allegations of corruption and safety problems than economic
transformation.
Investing in transportation infrastructure is costly
Economist, April 28, 2011, “Life in the Slow Lane,” http://www.economist.com/node/18620944
The rehabilitation of America’s transport network will be neither easy nor cheap. To make
the necessary repairs and upgrades, America will need to spend a lot more. In a deficitconscious environment, that will require new revenue.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
Link – Infrastructure Spending
Infrastructure spending plagued by massive cost overruns
De Rugy, ’11 [“FEDERAL INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING: NEITHER A GOOD
STIMULUS NOR A GOOD INVESTMENT,” Veronique, senior research fellow at the
Mercatus Center at George Mason University,
http://jec.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=f4587f88-b734-4954-a7986f5172203483]
Economists have long recognized the value of building highways, bridges, airports, and canals as
they are the conduits through which goods are exchanged and hence a source of economic
growth. This explains the general support for federally funded infrastructure on both sides of the
political aisle. Unfortunately, government funded infrastructure projects don’t often make
for good investments either. First, infrastructure spending by the federal government tends
to suffer from massive cost overruns , waste, fraud, and abuse. As a result, many projects
that look good on paper turn out to have much lower return on investments than planned.
A comprehensive 2002 study by Danish economists Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette K. Skamris Holm,
and Søren L. Buhl examined 20 nations on five continents and found that nine out of ten public
works projects come in over budget. 19 For rail, the average cost is 44.7 percent greater than
the estimated cost at the time the decision is made. For bridges and tunnels, the equivalent figure
is 33.8 percent, and for roads 20.4 percent.20 These cost overruns dramatically increase
infrastructure spending. On average, U.S. cost-overruns reached $55 billion per year.21 Even
if they lead to localized job growth, these investments are usually inefficient uses of public
resources. According to the Danish researchers, American cost overruns reached on average $55
billion per year. This figure includes famous disasters like the Central Artery/Tunnel Project
(CA/T), better known as the Boston Big Dig.22 By the time the Beantown highway project—the
most expensive in American history—was completed in 2008, its price tag was a staggering $22
billion. The estimated cost in 1985 was $2.8 billion. The Big Dig also wrapped up 7 years behind
schedule. Unfortunately, studies have shown that project promoters routinely ignore, hide, or
otherwise leave out important project costs and risks to make total costs appear lower.23
Researchers refer to this as the “planning fallacy” or the “optimism bias.” Scholars have
also found that it can be politically rewarding to lie about the costs and benefits of a project.
The data show that the political process is more likely to give funding to managers who
underestimate the costs and overestimate the benefits. In other words, it is not the best projects
that get implemented but the ones that look the best on paper.24 In addition, inaccurate estimates
of demand contribute to consistent underestimation of public projects: A study of 208 projects in
14 nations shows that 9 out of 10 rail projects overestimate the actual traffic.25 Moreover, 84
percent of rail-passenger forecasts are wrong by more than 20 percent. Thus, for rail, passenger
traffic averages 51.4 percent less than estimated traffic.26 This means that there is a systematic
tendency to overestimate rail revenues. For roads, actual vehicle traffic is on average 9.5
percent higher than forecasted traffic, and 50 percent of road traffic forecasts are wrong by more
than 20 percent.27 In this case, there is a systematic tendency to underestimate the financial and
congestion costs of roads.
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Spending DA
Link – Infrastructure Spending
Federal infrastructure spending is wasteful
Edwards, ’11 [“Infrastructure Projects to Fix the Economy? Don't Bank on It.,” Chris, director
of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, Cato Institute,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/infrastructure-projects-fix-economy-dont-bank-it]
For plenty of examples of the downside of federal infrastructure, look at the two oldest
infrastructure agencies — the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. Their
histories show that the federal government shouldn't be in the infrastructure business .
Rather, state governments and the private sector are best equipped to provide it. The Corps of
Engineers has been building levees, canals and other civilian water infrastructure for more
than 200 years — and it has made missteps the entire time. In the post-Civil War era, for
example, there were widespread complaints about the Corps' wastefulness and
mismanagement. A 1971 book by Arthur Morgan, a distinguished engineer and former
chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, concluded: "There have been over the past 100
years consistent and disastrous failures by the Corps in public works areas ... resulting in
enormous and unnecessary costs to ecology [and] the taxpayer." Some of the highest-profile
failures include the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. That disaster dramatically proved the
shortcomings of the Corps' approach to flood control, which it had stubbornly defended despite
outside criticism. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was like a dreadful repeat. The flooding was in large
part a man-made disaster stemming from poor engineering by the Corps and misdirected funding
by Congress. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Reclamation has been building economically dubious
and environmentally harmful dams since 1902. Right from the start, "every Senator ... wanted a
project in his state; every Congressman wanted one in his district; they didn't care whether they
made economic sense or not," concluded Marc Reisner in his classic history of the agency,
Cadillac Desert. The dam-building pork barrel went on for decades, until the agency ran out of
rivers into which it could pour concrete. Looking at the Corps and Reclamation, the first lesson
about federal infrastructure projects is that you can't trust the cost-benefit analyses. Both
agencies have a history of fudging their studies to make proposed projects look better,
understating the costs and overstating the benefits. And we've known it, too. In the 1950s,
Sen. Paul Douglas (D-Ill.), lambasted the distorted analyses of the Corps and Reclamation.
According to Reisner, Reclamation's chief analyst admitted that in the 1960s he had to "jerk
around" the numbers to make one major project look sound and that others were "pure
trash" from an economics perspective. In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter ripped into the
"computational manipulation" of the Corps. And in 2006, the Government Accountability Office
found that the Corps' analyses were "fraught with errors, mistakes, and miscalculations, and used
invalid assumptions and outdated data." Even if federal agencies calculate the numbers
properly, members of Congress often push ahead with "trash" projects anyway. Thensenator Christopher Bond of Missouri vowed to make sure that the Corps' projects in his state
were funded, no matter what the economic studies concluded, according to extensive
Washington Post reporting on the Corps in 2000. And the onetime head of the Senate committee
overseeing the Corps, George Voinovich of Ohio, blurted out at a hearing: "We don't care what
the Corps cost-benefit is. We're going to build it anyhow because Congress says it's going to be
built." As Morgan noted in his 1971 book, these big projects have often damaged both
taxpayers and ecology.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
Link – Sacred Cow
Guaranteed funding massively limits budget negotiations and constrains Enacting
sacred cows stops Debt reduction
March Goldwein, June 24, 2011, (http://crfb.org/category/document-type/policy-paper Budget
Path: How Feds Can Avert the Fiscal Crisis The Public Manager | June 24, 2011) Make no
mistake: … of those cuts.
Make no mistake: the United States is not immune from a debt crisis. We are already in
debt to the tune of 65 percent of our economy, a level higher than any time since the
Truman Administration. On our current path, that level will exceed 90 percent—a level
many economists consider as the danger zone—by the end of this decade. In fact, if you
account for state and local debt, we are nearly there already. At some point, our creditors
will lose faith in our ability to repay our debt. No one can know for sure when we will
reach this tipping point. But we do know that the bond markets are fickle and can turn
on us fast.
And turn on us they will. Without a plan to control the growth of entitlement
spending and make other tax and spending changes, our national debt will reach
levels that no country could possibly sustain. The choice before us isn’t whether (or not)
to cut spending or whether (or not) to increase taxes. The choice is whether to act now on
our own terms, or later when a crisis forces such action upon us.
Many experts have suggested that the political system will not be able to act before an
actual crisis occurs. I don’t accept this as an inevitability—not if our leaders can come
together and support a bold but balanced plan of spending cuts, entitlement changes, and
tax reforms. An ambitious plan to stabilize the debt can be enacted, and it can be done
in a way that is comprehensive, progrowth, and protects those truly in need.
The Fiscal Commission proved that such a plan is possible, and its recommendations
garnered the support of 11 out of 18 commissioners. This bipartisan supermajority
included five Democrats, five Republicans, and one Independent, ranging from Senator
Dick Durbin on the left to Senator Tom Coburn on the right.
The commission’s recommendations are now at the center of the deficit discussion in
Washington. Whether or not these deliberations and negotiations lead somewhere could
literally be the difference between prosperity and ruin.
Fiscal Commission Recommendations
The recommendations reported by the Fiscal Commission in December 2010 would
reduce the deficit by nearly $4 trillion through 2020, and put the debt on a stable and
declining path through at least 2035. The recommendations were quite comprehensive,
hitting nearly every area of the budget. This approach was necessary not only to
match the magnitude of the problem, but also to build a bipartisan coalition. No
member of Congress would put his or her sacred cow on the chopping
block without knowing that others would as well. And few members of the public are
willing to accept higher taxes, lower benefits, or fewer government services unless it is in
the spirit of shared sacrifice in which their fellow Americans are doing the same.
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Spending DA
Link – Sacred Cow
Sacred cows kill future negotiations
Susan Irving, Associate Director of Budget Issues, GAO, BUDGET ISSUES: CAP
STRUCTURE AND GAURANTEED FUNDING, GAO/T-AIMD-99-210, 1999, p. 6.
(MHDRG/D645)
Like the caps, a guaranteed minimum funding level limits the range of trade-offs.
However, it also raises some additional issues. Its impact depends on the design of the
guarantee. For example, if a guaranteed minimum funding level for area X is carved out of
the general discretionary cap - and that cap is not increased - then the remaining activities
within that cap must compete for what is left.
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Spending DA
Uniqueness – General
Congress will balance the budget now
Washington Post, May 9, 2012, “Top Senate Democrat Reid Stands
Behind Automatic Defense Cuts to Pressure GOP on Budget,”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/top-senatedemocrat-reid-stands-behind-automatic-defense-cuts-to-pressuregop-on-budget/2012/05/09/gIQArAcMDU_story.html
President Barack Obama’s top Democratic ally in the Senate said
Wednesday that he won’t block much-feared automatic spending cuts
to the Pentagon and Medicare providers from taking effect unless
Republicans show more flexibility on cutting the budget deficit.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that $110 billion in
automatic cuts coming due in January were designed to force both
Republicans and Democrats to bargain over a “balanced approach” —
including tax increases — to tackling trillion dollar-plus deficits. That
hasn’t happened yet, Reid said, and he’s unwilling to let lawmakers off
the hook.
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Spending DA
Uniqueness – Infrastructure Spending
Federal infrastructure spending decreasing, costs increasing
Congressional Budget Office, November 17, 2010, “Public Spending on Transportation and
Water Infrastructure,” http://www.cbo.gov/publication/21902
Between 2003 and 2007, real (inflation-adjusted) public spending on transportation and
water infrastructure declined by $23 billion, or 6 percent. That decline, which reflects a
decrease in real capital spending, especially by the federal government, stands in contrast
to the fairly steady increase in spending for such infrastructure during the previous two
decades. In particular, real capital spending on highways, mass transit, and aviation fell
markedly even as capital spending on other types of infrastructure—such as rail and water
transportation, water resources, and water supply and wastewater treatment—remained
stable or rose. The drop in real capital spending for highways, mass transit, and aviation
between 2003 and 2007 was primarily the result of a sharp increase in prices for materials
used to build such infrastructure—an increase that outpaced the growth of nominal
(current-dollar) spending on those types of infrastructure.
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Spending DA
Fiscal Discipline Key to Investor Confidence
Keynesian defenses of deficit spending are antiquated the capacity of our economy means
discipline is the vital internal to confidence and stable interest rates
Summers 2000 [Lawrence H., Former Secretary of Treasury“THE CASE FOR FISCAL
DISCIPLINE", May 3 2000 http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/ls605.htm]
This Keynesian idea, that budget deficits could be used to stimulate demand in an economy
producing well short of its capacity, still captures a very important truth about certain economies at
certain times. It was surely the right prescription for the economy of the 1930s and, indeed, for Japan's
economy of today. And it was the right response to the unused economic capacity in the U.S.
economy of the late 1950s and early 1960s.Since my days as an undergraduate, however, experience
has shaped our understanding of fiscal policy: First, we now place much greater emphasis on the
importance of supply factors for long-term growth, and the danger that by crowding out investment,
budget deficits can slow productivity growth and lead to a vicious cycle as higher public borrowing
leads to higher interest rates, lower investment and economic growth, and still higher budget
deficits. And we have come increasingly to appreciate that in an economy close to full capacity,
excessive stimulus can increase inflationary pressures, raise risk premiums, and lead to higher
interest rates.
Second, financial markets have become more forward-looking, and more sensitive to changes in the
outlook for fiscal policy. As a result, a change in the outlook for the budget is likely to provoke a more
aggressive and immediate offsetting response from financial markets. This was powerfully demonstrated
by the stimulative impact of deficit reduction in the 1990s, as increased investment demand resulting in a
lower cost of capital more than outweighed any demand losses to the economy that resulted from lower
government spending.It bears emphasis that these changes in understanding have not taken place in
isolation. Globally, there has been a widespread recognition of the importance of fiscal discipline, the
benefits of crowding in the private sector rather than crowding it out, and the important role that
confidence can play in ensuring the long-term success of economic policies. The idea that fiscal
discipline would help an economy expand by promoting confidence and crowding the private sector
in rather than out, used to be considered theoretical. In that sense our fiscal policies in 1993 had an
experimental element. Today the results of that experiment are in: the link between fiscal discipline
and higher growth has been demonstrated.
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Spending DA
Fiscal Discipline Key to Investor Confidence
Fiscal discipline is key to ensuring stable rates and confidence
Sinai, Orszag, and Rubin 2004 [Allen, Chief Global Economist, and Peter R. Senior Fellow, and Robert, Office of the Chairman , “AEANAEFA Joint Session, Allied Social Science Associations Annual Meetings, The Andrew Brimmer Policy Forum, ""National Economic and Financial Policies for
Growth and Stability"" January 05, 2004 http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/orszag/20040105.htm]
The loss of investor and creditor confidence, both at home and abroad, may cause investors and creditors to
reallocate funds away from dollar-based investments, causing a depreciation of the exchange rate, and to
demand sharply higher interest rates on U.S. government debt; The increase of interest rates, depreciation of
the exchange rate, and decline in confidence can reduce stock prices and household wealth, raise the costs of
financing to business, and reduce private-sector domestic spending; The disruptions to financial markets
may impede the intermediation between lenders and borrowers that is vital to modern economies, as longmaturity credit markets witness potentially substantial increases in interest rates and become relatively illiquid, and
the reduction in asset prices adversely affects the balance sheets of banks and other financial intermediaries; The
inability of the federal government to restore fiscal balance may directly reduce business and
consumer confidence, as the view of the ongoing deficits as a symbol of the nation's inability to address its
economic problems permeates society, and the reduction in confidence can discourage investment and real
economic activity; These various effects can feed on each other to create a mutually reinforcing cycle; for
example, increased interest rates and diminished economic activity may further worsen the fiscal imbalance, which
can then cause a further loss of confidence and potentially spark another round of negative feedback effects.
Although it is impossible to know at what point market expectations about the nation's large projected fiscal
imbalance could trigger these types of dynamics, the harmful impacts on the economy, once these effects were in
motion, would substantially magnify the costs associated with any given underlying budget deficit and
depress economic activity much more than the conventional analysis would suggest. Indeed, the potential
costs and fallout from such fiscal and financial disarray provide perhaps the strongest motivation for
avoiding substantial, ongoing budget deficits. 3 Conventional analyses of budget deficits also do not put enough
emphasis on three other related factors: uncertainty; the asymmetries in the political difficulty of revenue increases
and spending reductions relative to tax cuts and spending increases; and the loss of flexibility in the future from
enacting tax cuts or spending increases today. Budget projections are inherently uncertain, but such uncertainty does
not provide a rationale for fiscal profligacy. The uncertainty surrounding budget projections means that the
outcome in the future can be either better or worse than expected today. Such uncertainty can actually
increase the incentive for more saving ahead of time—in other words, for more fiscal discipline. In addition, it
is much harder for the political system to reduce deficits than to expand them. As a result of this asymmetry,
enacting a large tax cut or spending increase today is costly because it reduces the flexibility to adjust fiscal
policy to future events. Therefore, large tax cuts or spending increases today carry a cost typically excluded from
traditional analysis: They constrain policy-makers' flexibility to respond to unforeseen events in the future. Thus,
in our view, to ensure healthy long-run U.S. economic performance, substantial changes in fiscal policy are
needed to deal preemptively with the risks stemming from sustained large budget deficits and the economic
imbalances they entail. The political system, however, seems unwilling to address the threat posed by future
deficits and to make the necessary choices to put the nation on a sustainable fiscal course.4 Failing to act sooner
rather than later, though, only makes the problem more difficult to address without considerable instability,
raises the probability of fiscal and financial disarray at some point in the future, and runs the risks of further
constraining policy flexibility in the future.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
High Deficits Destroy the Economy
Deficit spending like the plan will lead end the economic recovery and lead to collapse
-Inflation
-Entitlement programs
-Dollar
-Interest rates
Oxford Analytica 6/24/09
6/24/9. “Swelling Deficit Could Slow Recovery.” http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/24/deficiteconomy-obama-business-oxford-analytica.html.
In the midst of the worst U.S. economic recession in the post-war period, President
Barack Obama in February presented Congress with a budget blueprint that packaged
an exceptionally expansionary policy with the rhetoric of fiscal responsibility.
However, the prospect of the budget deficit remaining in excess of $1 trillion per year
over the next decade raises a number of concerns about longer-term interest rates and
the value of the dollar. 1. Inflation danger. The prospective rise in the federal debt-toGDP ratio to 82% by 2019 raises the likelihood of high long-term interest rates that
would be harmful for longer-term economic growth.
2. Entitlement program concerns.
The projected trajectory of the deficit over the next decade is likely to deepen concern
about the major challenges to the U.S. public debt outlook in the decades ahead due to the
unfunded nature of U.S. social security programs as the baby boom generation reaches
retirement. In the absence of policy changes, Social Security (the state pension) and
Medicare (government health care for the elderly) outlays will together increase from 8.5%
of GDP today to 12.5% of GDP by 2030. 3. Pressure on the dollar. The prospective
large public-sector borrowing requirements over the next decade are likely to raise
concerns for the dollar.
. 4. Interest rates.
The prospect of large budget deficits is undermining the Federal Reserve's efforts to
reduce long-term interest rates as a means to stimulate the economy and stabilize the
housing market.
Large public borrowing requirements would require the Federal Reserve to follow a more restrictive
monetary policy approach to contain inflation, while a large rise in the public debt-to-GDP ratio could put the U.S. government's AAA debt rating in jeopardy.
Already foreigners finance close to 50% of the U.S. budget deficit (lumping together central banks, foreign wealth funds, non-U.S. pension and investment funds and non-U.S. corporations) and
hold over $3 trillion in U.S. government paper. It would seem implausible to expect foreigners to indefinitely fund such large deficits, especially when they are already voicing concerns about fiscal sustainability
In March, after having reduced the federal funds rate to a range between zero and 0.25%, the Fed indicated that it would try to reduce long-term interest rates by: --increasing its purchases of mortgage-backed securities
by up to $1.45 trillion; and --purchasing up to $300 billion in long-dated Treasury bonds. However, since the Fed's March announcement, 10-year Treasury bond yields have increased from around 3% to 3.75% as markets have become increasingly concerned about the
potential long-run inflationary affect of high public deficits. Of course, some of this rise may have been due to a reduction in risk a version as markets anticipated a rapid return to global growth--a sentiment that is now weakening. The Fed's present dilemma is that any
indication that it will make further bond purchases to bring down long-term interest rates could be counterproductive, since markets might interpret such action as a signal that large prospective government deficits will be monetized in a manner that fuels inflation. Remedial
measures. In a recent report, the International Monetary Fund urged the administration to consider the early outline of corrective fiscal policy measures that would put the long-run U.S. budget deficit on a more sustainable path. The IMF's recommended remedial measures
If widening federal
shortfalls drives up long-term interest rates, they will undermine both current efforts
to stimulate the economy and U.S. trend growth potential. Therefore, the Obama
administration is likely to unveil a medium-term plan to assuage market concerns
about the sustainability of U.S. public finances--involving entitlement reform-perhaps as soon as this as this fall.
include: --broadening the tax base by reducing the deductibility of corporate debt and mortgage interest; --introducing a federal consumption tax; --hiking energy taxes; and --improving tax compliance.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
Page 17 of 25
Spending DA
High Deficits Destroy the Economy
High deficits increase interest rates, killing the recovery
Press-Enterprise 9
“Deficit Danger.” 6/3/9.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/editorials/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_S_op_04_ed_bernan
ke1.45dd83a.html.
Keeping U.S. finances afloat in coming decades requires thinking beyond the immediate
financial crisis. The federal government cannot borrow and spend its way out of the
long-term fiscal challenges it faces. And those issues will only become more
intractable unless Congress and the president restrain the nation's expanding budget
deficits. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday urged legislators to
start crafting a plan to bring the federal budget back into balance. The Obama
administration projects this year's deficit will hit $1.8 trillion, thanks in large part to federal
"stimulus" and bailout spending. But such deficits cannot continue without risking
serious damage to the nation's economy, Bernanke warned. "Unless we demonstrate a
strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither
financial stability nor healthy economic growth," he told the House Budget Committee.
The Fed chief has good reason to worry. Bernanke noted that large federal deficits were
one reason that interest rates had climbed in recent weeks. That trend could drive up
the cost of both public and private borrowing, and potentially undercut an economic
recovery.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
Page 18 of 25
Spending DA
A2: Spending Good For Economy
Spending is bad for the economy – it can’t help
RIEDLE 08 Grover Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in Thomas A. Roe Institute
for Economic Policy Studies @ Heritage Foundation
(Brian, , Backgrounder #2208, “Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic
Growth”, 11-12, http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/bg2208.cfm)
Most government spending has historically reduced productivity and long-term economic growth due to: [3]
1. Taxes. Most
government spending is financed by taxes, and high tax rates reduce incentives to work, save, and invest—resulting in a less
motivated workforce as well as less business investment in new capital and technology. Few government expenditures raise
productivity enough to offset the productivity lost due to taxes; 2. Incentives. Social spending often reduces in-centives for
productivity by subsidizing leisure and unemployment. Combined with taxes, it is clear that taxing Peter to subsidize Paul
reduces both of their incentives to be productive, since productivity no longer determines one's income; 3. Displacement. Every
dollar spent by politicians means one dollar less to be allocated based on market forces within the more productive pri-vate
sector. For example, rather than allowing the market to allocate investments, politicians seize that money and earmark it for
favored organizations with little regard for improve-ments to economic efficiency; and 4. Inefficiencies. Government provision
of housing, education, and postal operations are often much less efficient than the private sector. Government also distorts
existing health care and education markets by promoting third-party payers, resulting in over-consumption and insensitivity to
prices and outcomes. Another example of inefficiency is when politicians earmark highway money for wasteful pork projects
rather than expanding highway capacity where it is most needed. Mountains of academic studies show how gov-ernment
expansions reduce economic growth:
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
A2: Spending Good for the Economy
No evidence government spending boosts the economy
Brian Riedl is Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs at the Heritage
Foundation , The Washington Times, January 19, 2011 Economic Watch: Spending-
cut myths can be dispelled by facts, p. 2
Myth 4: Spending cuts will jeopardize the recovery.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, some still cling to the myth that government
spending drives economic growth. Yet if Keynesian economists' assertion that $1 in
deficit spending brings $1.50 in economic growth was true, then the recent $1 trillion
surge in deficit spending would have created a $1.5 trillion burst of new wealth,
overheating the economy. Instead, the recovery has been weak by historical
standards.
The basic reality is that every dollar Congress injects into the economy must first be
taxed or borrowed out of the economy. Government spending doesn't create new
demand, it redistributes existing demand.
Therefore, a $200 billion government spending cut means $200 billion more for the
private sector to spend rather than lend to Washington. And it's quite likely that the
private sector will spend that $200 billion more efficiently than Washington politicians
would have anyway.
There is no correlation between rising government spending and economic growth, and no
economic reason to fear spending cuts.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
Page 20 of 25
Spending DA
A2: Spending Good for the Economy
Countries with low government deficits have the highest growth rates
Investor's Business Daily, January 18, 2011,
Put Off Badly Needed Budget Cuts? Austerity Doesn't Mean No Growth, p.
A15
The trouble is that procrastination is never a credible plan. If Congress avoids doing even a
little budget pruning right now, why expect it to do much more later? Promises to do
something unpopular in the future could easily be undone by a future Congress, just as
Congress repeatedly undoes the supposedly credible "doctor fix" (an absurd pledge to slash
Medicare payments to physicians).
The Times' argument has another big hole: If spending borrowed money is really as
effective a "stimulus" as they assume, why are countries with the biggest budget
deficits doing so much worse than those with the smallest?
The table in the next column divides countries into two groups. Those with the
smallest budget deficits (less than 4% of GDP) are classified as practicing "fiscal
austerity," while those with the largest deficits (more than 7.5% of GDP) are
practicing what the Times calls "fiscal stimulus."
According to the conventional Keynesian creed, it would be foolhardy for countries in
the fiscal stimulus camp to make the slightest effort to emulate the fiscal austerity
countries. Yet it doesn't require an advanced degree in statistics to see that economies
of countries with smaller deficits have grown more rapidly over the past year than
economies with larger budget deficits.
Champions of fiscal stimulus will insist this comparison is unfair, because small budget
deficits in the fast-growing economies are the result of rapid economic growth. That is
surely true, up to a point, which highlights the importance of minimizing tax and
regulatory impediments to progress.
But to argue that countries with small deficits were somehow magically blessed with rapid
economic growth begs the question of how such economies managed to grow so rapidly
without guzzling the Keynesian Kool-Aid.
If government spending boosted the economy, the US economy would be booming
Investor's Business Daily, January 18, 2011,
Put Off Badly Needed Budget Cuts? Austerity Doesn't Mean No Growth, p.
A15
If fiscal stimulus worked, the U.S. economy should have been booming while the fiscal
austerity countries lagged behind. Contrary to Keynesian doctrine, however, countries that
explicitly shunned such "fiscal stimulus" schemes are outperforming the U.S.
Unemployment has fallen to 7.5% in Germany and 7.1% in Sweden, for example.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
Page 21 of 25
Spending DA
Terminal Economy Impacts -- War
Economic collapse causes extinction
Kerpen 8
Phil, National Review Online, October 29, , Don't Turn Panic Into Depression,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/29/opinion/main4555821.shtml
It’s important that we avoid all these policy errors - not just for the sake of our
prosperity, but for our survival. The Great Depression, after all, didn’t end until the
advent of World War II, the most destructive war in the history of the planet. In a world of
nuclear and biological weapons and non-state terrorist organizations that breed on
poverty and despair, another global economic breakdown of such extended duration
would risk armed conflicts on an even greater scale. To be sure, Washington already
has stoked the flames of the financial panic. The president and the Treasury secretary did
the policy equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater when they insisted that Congress
immediately pass a bad bailout bill or face financial Armageddon. Members of Congress
splintered and voted against the bill before voting for it several days later, showing a lack
of conviction that did nothing to reassure markets. Even Alan Greenspan is questioning
free markets today, placing our policy fundamentals in even greater jeopardy. But after
the elections, all eyes will turn to the new president and Congress in search of
reassurance that the fundamentals of our free economy will be supported. That will
require the shelving of any talk of trade protectionism, higher taxes, and more restrictive
labor markets. The stakes couldn’t be any higher.
Economic collapse will cause global wars
FORBES 10 – 29 – 08 Presidential Candidate, Editor in Chief of Forbes Magazine
(Steve, 1996, CNS News, “Steve Forbes Predicts Six Months of Recession”,
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=38291)
Steve Forbes: “Well, this is a critical thing: the geopolitical fallout. It’s not just our own
economy. It’s not just facing the prospect of more unemployment and people
losing their businesses, as shattering though that is. It has geopolitical consequences.
It gave windfall revenues, weakening the dollar. But higher oil prices gave hundreds of
billons to some of the worst characters in the world - the lunatic running Venezuela, the
murderous mullahs running Iran. Russia began to act very belligerent in foreign policy. So
it had fall out from that. And, at the same time, it weakened the United States’
economy, which is not a good thing for the world. “And you can look at the past.
Look at what happened in the 1930s, went through the Great Depression and the
hideous things that resulted from that. The Nazis never would have come to
power in Germany if it hadn’t been for the Depression, which led to a second
World War. In the 1970s, when we had this wild inflation, America looked weak, and we
withdrew from the world, and Communists took over in Nicaragua. The mullahs took
over in Iran, and so you can see the same pattern is starting again.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
A2: Economy Resilient
Panic will spread quickly – collapse the economy
Kaletsky 8
9/15/8, Economist @ Times Online, Lexis
The main explanation for the gap between financial and economic performance, here
and in the United States, lies in the dominant role of expectations and regulation in
financial markets. Because financial markets anticipate economic reality instead of
simply responding to events, they are inherently prone to self-reinforcing cycles of
euphoria and panic.
No supports left in the economy
The Frontrunner, August 26, 2010, p. online
The AP (8/25, Wagner, Zibel) reports, "It's starting to feel like another
recession. Businesses are ordering fewer goods. Home sales are the
slowest in decades. Jobs are scarce, and unemployment claims are rising."
And "perhaps most worrisome, manufacturing activity, which had been
one of the economy's few bright spots, is faltering." Mark Zandi, chief
economist at Moody's Analytics, said, "The odds of a double-dip are
rising and uncomfortably high. ... Nothing else can go wrong. There is no
cushion left."
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
Page 23 of 25
Spending DA
A2: US Not Key to World Economy
The U.S. is the key to the global economy
David Caploe 2009 (David Caploe is CEO of the Singapore-incorporated American Centre for
Applied Liberal Arts and Humanities in Asia., “Focus still on America to lead global recovery”,
April 7, The Strait Times)
While superficially sensible, this view is deeply problematic. To begin with, it ignores the fact
that the global economy has in fact been 'America-centred' for more than 60 years. Countries China, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and so on - either sell to the US or they sell to
countries that sell to the US. This system has generally been advantageous for all concerned.
America gained certain historically unprecedented benefits, but the system also enabled
participating countries - first in Western Europe and Japan, and later, many in the Third World to achieve undreamt-of prosperity. At the same time, this deep inter-connection between the US
and the rest of the world also explains how the collapse of a relatively small sector of the US
economy - 'sub-prime' housing, logarithmically exponentialised by Wall Street's ingenious
chicanery - has cascaded into the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. To
put it simply, Mr Obama doesn't seem to understand that there is no other engine for the world
economy - and hasn't been for the last six decades. If the US does not drive global economic
growth, growth is not going to happen. Thus, US policies to deal with the current crisis are
critical not just domestically, but also to the entire world
A US collapse would trigger a global depression
The World Today 2008 [July 18, “IMF warns on inflation threat
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2307691.htm]
EMMA ALBERICI: As concerns about the health of the US economy deepen, the
International Monetary Fund has issued a fresh warning about the country's rising
inflation. While the IMF is slightly more optimistic about global economic growth, it's lifted
inflation forecasts in both advanced and emerging economies because of spiralling food and
crude oil prices. The IMF is also worried about the impact of America's housing slump
internationally but says the subprime mortgage contagion is moving at a slower pace than first
thought. Here's our business editor, Peter Ryan. PETER RYAN: Back in April, the IMF
warned there was a 25 per cent chance that world growth would stagnate because of an
increasingly fragile US economy. Today in an update to its world economic outlook, the
IMF said a global recession led by the American economic demise remained a possibility.
SIMON JOHNSON: After a remarkable five year span of strong growth and lower inflation, the
global economy is facing its most difficult set of circumstances in many years. PETER
RYAN: The IMF's chief economist Simon Johnson pointed the current pressure on the mortgage
companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which with 50 million customers guarantees six trillion
dolslars of American home mortgages. Mr Johnson underlined declarations in recent days that
the US is now facing its biggest economic shock since the Great Depression. SIMON
JOHNSON: In the recent past the global economy has managed to take large shocks in
stride, but we think its capacity to absorb them is being increasingly challenged.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
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Spending DA
A2: US Not Key to World Economy
The US is the world’s economic engine
Brooks 2006 [Peter, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, “Why they need us: Imagine a
world without America” July 4, 2006
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed070406a.cfm]
The United States is the world's economic engine. We not only have the largest economy,
we spend 40 percent of the world's budget on R&D, driving mind-boggling innovation in
areas like information technology, defense and medicine. We're the world's ATM, too,
providing 17 percent of the International Monetary Fund's resources for nations in fiscal
crisis, and funding 13 percent of World Bank programs that dole out billions in
development assistance to needy countries. And what does Uncle Sam get in return? Mostly
grief, especially from all the ungrateful freeloaders who benefit tremendously from the global
"public goods" we so selflessly provide with our time, effort, blood and treasure. How easily and conveniently - they forget . . . unless they need help, of course.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance
Page 25 of 25
Spending DA
A2: Empirically Denied
Further economic decline causes civil conflict and war all over the planet
Michael Klare, February 25, 2009, Prof. Peace and World Security Studies @ Hampshire
College
(Five College, Pin Hills News, “Economic Crash Will Fuel Social Unrest”,
http://thepinehillsnews.com/wp/2009/02/25/economic-crash-will-fuel-social-unrest/)
The global economic meltdown has already caused bank failures, bankruptcies, plant closings, and foreclosures and will,
in the coming year, leave many tens of millions unemployed across the planet. But another perilous consequence of the
crash of 2008 has only recently made its appearance: increased civil unrest and ethnic strife. Someday, perhaps, war may
follow. As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to
erupt into violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their plight, including government officials, plant
managers, landlords, immigrants, and ethnic minorities. (The list could, in the future, prove long and unnerving.) If the
present economic disaster turns into what President Obama has referred to as a “lost decade,” the result could be a global
landscape filled with economically-fueled upheavals. Indeed, if you want to be grimly impressed, hang a world map on
your wall and start inserting red pins where violent episodes have already occurred. Athens (Greece), Longnan (China),
Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Riga (Latvia), Santa Cruz (Bolivia), Sofia (Bulgaria), Vilnius (Lithuania), and Vladivostok
(Russia) would be a start. Many other cities from Reykjavik, Paris, Rome, and Zaragoza to Moscow and Dublin have
witnessed huge protests over rising unemployment and falling wages that remained orderly thanks in part to the presence
of vast numbers of riot police. If you inserted orange pins at these locations — none as yet in the United States — your
map would already look aflame with activity. And if you’re a gambling man or woman, it’s a safe bet that this map will
soon be far better populated with red and orange pins. For the most part, such upheavals, even when violent, are likely to
remain localized in nature, and disorganized enough that government forces will be able to bring them under control
within days or weeks, even if — as with Athens for six days last December — urban paralysis sets in due to rioting, tear
gas, and police cordons. That, at least, has been the case so far. It is entirely possible, however, that, as the economic
crisis worsens, some of these incidents will metastasize into far more intense and long-lasting events: armed rebellions,
military takeovers, civil conflicts, even economically fueled wars between states. Every outbreak of violence has its own
distinctive origins and characteristics. All, however, are driven by a similar combination of anxiety about the future and
lack of confidence in the ability of established institutions to deal with the problems at hand. And just as the economic
crisis has proven global in ways not seen before, so local incidents — especially given the almost instantaneous nature of
modern communications — have a potential to spark others in far-off places, linked only in a virtual sense.