debatenexus funding file

125
Funding Arguments Deficits DA Core Deficit Spending Shell.........................................1 2NC – Inflation Link Add-On .............................5 2NC – Trade Wars Impact Add-On ................6 2NC – Growth Impact Add-On .......................8 2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On ................9 Uniqueness Economy Going Up ......................................... 10 A2: Current Spending Proves False ............. 11 A2: Can’t Solve Deficit .................................... 12 Links Spending Snowballs ......................................... 13 Deficits Destroy Economy .............................. 15 US Key to World Economy .............................. 17 Impacts Collapse Causes Trade Wars ........................ 18 Collapse Causes War ...................................... 19 Deficits Turn Case ............................................. 20 Economy Key to Elections.............................. 21 Aff Answers Deficits Up Now................................................. 23 Can’t Solve Deficit ........................................... 26 Deficits Don’t Destroy Economy .................. 27 Spending Tradeoff DA Core NASA Spending Tradeoff Shell ...................... 29 2NC – The Big Link Extension.......................... 32 2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On ............. 34 2NC – Economy Impact Add-On ................ 36 Uniqueness NASA Is Funded Now....................................... 38 Fiscal Responsibility Now ................................ 39 A2: Iraq Spending Empirically Denies......... 40 Links Funding Trades Off ........................................... 41 NASA Gets Cut .................................................. 44 NASA Funding Key to Space Travel ............ 45 A2: Cuts are to Our Agency.......................... 46 Impacts Space Exploration Avoids Extinction ........... 47 Asteroid = Extinction ........................................ 49 Nano Coming Now.......................................... 52 Nanotech = Extinction .................................... 53 A2: Other Planets Uninhabitable.................. 56 A2: Deflect the Asteroid................................. 57 A2: No Planet-Killers Coming......................... 58 A2: We Never Get Hit ...................................... 60 A2: Businesses Solve Space ........................... 61 A2: China Relations.......................................... 62 Key to Hegemony ............................................ 63 Exploration Key to Economy ......................... 64 Aff Answers Space Exploration Bad ................................... 65 Asteroids not a Threat ..................................... 66 NASA Bad for Space........................................ 67 Critique of Taxes Neg Core Taxes Critique Shell ........................................... 70 Taxes Down Now .............................................. 71 Taxes Are Immoral ............................................ 72 Ends Don’t Justify Means ................................ 76 Aff Answers Taxation Isn’t Stealing...................................... 77 Taxes Increase Economy................................ 78 Lottery Counterplan Core Lottery Counterplan Shell ............................... 79 2NC – Organized Crime Net Benefit ........... 81 Solvency Lotteries Help the Economy .......................... 83 A2: Targets the Poor ......................................... 84 A2: Private Lotteries Better............................. 85 A2: Lotteries are Addictive............................ 86 A2: Lotteries Cause Bankruptcy ................... 88 A2: Unconstitutional ......................................... 89 Lottery DAs Empirically Denied ..................... 91 Aff Answers Lotteries Hurt the Poor..................................... 92 Lotteries are Immoral ....................................... 93 Lotteries are Addictive .................................... 94 Lotteries Destroy Federalism.......................... 95 A2: Decreases Organized Crime ................. 96 Franking Counterplan Neg Core Franking Counterplan Shell............................ 97 2NC – Incumbency Add-On ....................... 100 2NC – Constitutionality Add-On ................. 102 Incumbency Impacts .................................... 103 Aff Answers Franking Is Popular.......................................... 104 Franking Isn’t Unconstitutional .................... 105 Cigarette Tax Counterplan Cigarette Tax Counterplan Shell ................ 106 Taxes Decrease Smoking ............................. 109 Cigarette Taxes are Popular ....................... 110 Normal Means Normal Means = No Funding ...................... 111 Normal Means = Expensive......................... 112 Normal Means = Racist ................................. 113 Normal Means = Litigation........................... 114 Normal Means = No Clarify Intent ............. 115 Normal Means = Can Sever ........................ 116 Normal Means = No Severance................. 117 Normal Means = No Amendments ............ 118 F-Spec Theory Funding Specification .......................... 119 A2: Cross-X Checks ........................................ 120 A2: It’s Normal Means! .................................. 121 A2: 2AC Clarification..................................... 122 A2: Leads to Overspecification.................. 123

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By Debatenexus in 2003. (Nick Bormann and Zac Krebs and C. Caleb Jewett)

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Page 1: DebateNexus Funding File

Funding Arguments

Deficits DA Core

Deficit Spending Shell.........................................1 2NC – Inflation Link Add-On .............................5 2NC – Trade Wars Impact Add-On ................6 2NC – Growth Impact Add-On .......................8 2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On ................9

Uniqueness Economy Going Up ......................................... 10 A2: Current Spending Proves False ............. 11 A2: Can’t Solve Deficit .................................... 12

Links Spending Snowballs......................................... 13 Deficits Destroy Economy .............................. 15 US Key to World Economy .............................. 17

Impacts Collapse Causes Trade Wars ........................ 18 Collapse Causes War ...................................... 19 Deficits Turn Case ............................................. 20 Economy Key to Elections.............................. 21

Aff Answers Deficits Up Now................................................. 23 Can’t Solve Deficit ........................................... 26 Deficits Don’t Destroy Economy .................. 27

Spending Tradeoff DA

Core NASA Spending Tradeoff Shell ...................... 29 2NC – The Big Link Extension.......................... 32 2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On ............. 34 2NC – Economy Impact Add-On ................ 36

Uniqueness NASA Is Funded Now ....................................... 38 Fiscal Responsibility Now ................................ 39 A2: Iraq Spending Empirically Denies......... 40

Links Funding Trades Off ........................................... 41 NASA Gets Cut .................................................. 44 NASA Funding Key to Space Travel ............ 45 A2: Cuts are to Our Agency.......................... 46

Impacts Space Exploration Avoids Extinction........... 47 Asteroid = Extinction ........................................ 49 Nano Coming Now .......................................... 52 Nanotech = Extinction .................................... 53 A2: Other Planets Uninhabitable.................. 56 A2: Deflect the Asteroid................................. 57 A2: No Planet-Killers Coming......................... 58 A2: We Never Get Hit ...................................... 60 A2: Businesses Solve Space ........................... 61 A2: China Relations.......................................... 62 Key to Hegemony ............................................ 63 Exploration Key to Economy ......................... 64

Aff Answers Space Exploration Bad ................................... 65 Asteroids not a Threat ..................................... 66 NASA Bad for Space........................................ 67

Critique of Taxes

Neg Core Taxes Critique Shell........................................... 70 Taxes Down Now .............................................. 71 Taxes Are Immoral ............................................ 72 Ends Don’t Justify Means ................................ 76

Aff Answers Taxation Isn’t Stealing...................................... 77 Taxes Increase Economy................................ 78

Lottery Counterplan Core

Lottery Counterplan Shell............................... 79 2NC – Organized Crime Net Benefit ........... 81

Solvency Lotteries Help the Economy .......................... 83 A2: Targets the Poor......................................... 84 A2: Private Lotteries Better............................. 85 A2: Lotteries are Addictive............................ 86 A2: Lotteries Cause Bankruptcy ................... 88 A2: Unconstitutional......................................... 89 Lottery DAs Empirically Denied..................... 91

Aff Answers Lotteries Hurt the Poor..................................... 92 Lotteries are Immoral ....................................... 93 Lotteries are Addictive.................................... 94 Lotteries Destroy Federalism.......................... 95 A2: Decreases Organized Crime ................. 96

Franking Counterplan

Neg Core Franking Counterplan Shell............................ 97 2NC – Incumbency Add-On .......................100 2NC – Constitutionality Add-On .................102 Incumbency Impacts....................................103

Aff Answers Franking Is Popular..........................................104 Franking Isn’t Unconstitutional ....................105

Cigarette Tax Counterplan

Cigarette Tax Counterplan Shell................106 Taxes Decrease Smoking .............................109 Cigarette Taxes are Popular .......................110

Normal Means

Normal Means = No Funding ......................111 Normal Means = Expensive.........................112 Normal Means = Racist .................................113 Normal Means = Litigation...........................114 Normal Means = No Clarify Intent .............115 Normal Means = Can Sever ........................116 Normal Means = No Severance.................117 Normal Means = No Amendments............118

F-Spec Theory

Funding Specification .......................... 119 A2: Cross-X Checks ........................................120 A2: It’s Normal Means! ..................................121 A2: 2AC Clarification.....................................122 A2: Leads to Overspecification..................123

Page 2: DebateNexus Funding File

Funding Arguments

Deficit Spending Shell ...........................1 2NC – Inflation Link Add-On .................5 2NC – Trade Wars Impact Add-On.......6 2NC – Growth Impact Add-On ............8 2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On ......9 Economy Going Up ............................10 A2: Current Spending Proves False .....11 A2: Can’t Solve Deficit .......................12 Spending Snowballs............................13 Deficits Destroy Economy...................15 US Key to World Economy ..................17 Collapse Causes Trade Wars ..............18 Collapse Causes War .........................19 Deficits Turn Case ...............................20 Economy Key to Elections ..................21 Deficits Up Now ..................................23 Can’t Solve Deficit..............................26 Deficits Don’t Destroy Economy.........27 NASA Spending Tradeoff Shell ............29 2NC – The Big Link Extension ...............32 2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On ....34 2NC – Economy Impact Add-On .......36 NASA Is Funded Now ..........................38 Fiscal Responsibility Now.....................39 A2: Iraq Spending Empirically Denies .40 Funding Trades Off .............................41 NASA Gets Cut ...................................44 NASA Funding Key to Space Travel ....45 A2: Cuts are to Our Agency ...............46 Space Exploration Avoids Extinction ..47 Asteroid = Extinction ...........................49 Nano Coming Now ............................52 Nanotech = Extinction ........................53 A2: Other Planets Uninhabitable ........56 A2: Deflect the Asteroid .....................57 A2: No Planet-Killers Coming ..............58 A2: We Never Get Hit .........................60 A2: Businesses Solve Space ................61 A2: China Relations ............................62 Key to Hegemony...............................63 Exploration Key to Economy...............64 Space Exploration Bad .......................65 Asteroids not a Threat .........................66

NASA Bad for Space...........................67 Taxes Critique Shell .............................70 Taxes Down Now ................................71 Taxes Are Immoral ..............................72 Ends Don’t Justify Means ....................76 Taxation Isn’t Stealing .........................77 Taxes Increase Economy....................78 Lottery Counterplan Shell ...................79 2NC – Organized Crime Net Benefit ...81 Lotteries Help the Economy................83 A2: Targets the Poor ...........................84 A2: Private Lotteries Better ..................85 A2: Lotteries are Addictive .................86 A2: Lotteries Cause Bankruptcy..........88 A2: Unconstitutional............................89 Lottery DAs Empirically Denied ...........91 Lotteries Hurt the Poor ........................92 Lotteries are Immoral..........................93 Lotteries are Addictive .......................94 Lotteries Destroy Federalism ...............95 A2: Decreases Organized Crime ........96 Franking Counterplan Shell.................97 2NC – Incumbency Add-On............. 100 2NC – Constitutionality Add-On ....... 102 Incumbency Impacts ....................... 103 Franking Is Popular............................ 104 Franking Isn’t Unconstitutional .......... 105 Cigarette Tax Counterplan Shell ...... 106 Taxes Decrease Smoking.................. 109 Cigarette Taxes are Popular ............. 110 Normal Means = No Funding ............ 111 Normal Means = Expensive .............. 112 Normal Means = Racist ..................... 113 Normal Means = Litigation................ 114 Normal Means = No Clarify Intent .... 115 Normal Means = Can Sever ............. 116 Normal Means = No Severance ....... 117 Normal Means = No Amendments ... 118 Funding Specification....................... 119 A2: Cross-X Checks ........................... 120 A2: It’s Normal Means!...................... 121 A2: 2AC Clarification ........................ 122 A2: Leads to Overspecification ........ 123

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Deficit Spending Shell

A. Uniqueness – The US economy is going up, and will carry the rest of the world with it.

The Australian September 29, 2003 Riding on the wings of the US might send us into freefall by Zanny Minton Beddoes

THE evidence is still tentative, but the US economy seems to be gaining momentum. Consumers have stepped up spending; the housing market is still sizzling; even manufacturing is perking up. For months, Wall Street's number-crunchers have predicted the US's real gross domestic product growth will reach more than 4 per cent in the second half of this year. That figure now looks more like a forecast and less like wishful thinking.

As the signs of an upturn accumulate, the relief abroad is palpable. From Mexico to

Malaysia, the world is looking to the US to lead a global economic rebound. In a September 18 report, the International Monetary Fund put global GDP growth next year at 4.1 per cent.

B. Links First, the plan is expensive – implementing and enforcing any new environmental policy costs lots of money for hiring new people, finding new technology, and more. This all adds to the federal deficit.

[Insert any specific evidence here]

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Deficit Spending Shell Second, normal means for new spending is to have earmarks attached giving spending to other programs, which fuels the deficit even more. Omaha World Herald July 16, 2003, Squealing on pork Sen. McCain offers a plan to cut waste. Is America ready for the fiscal diet? Pork barrel spending: It's easily ridiculed but hard to address. Arizona Sen. John McCain, a long-time fiscal crusader, has introduced an innovative bill to help target the problem.

Senators grab money for their home-state projects by introducing "earmarks" onto other bills, which usually have nothing t o do with the pork barrel project. Projects are relatively easy to pass in this manner, since the entire spending bill would have to be killed in order to cut the earmarks. McCain's resolution would change the rules, so that senators could object to earma rks by raising a point of order. After that, an earmark would need 60 votes to remain in the spending bill. The resolution would thus force projects to undergo closer scrutiny and review.

Some projects introduced as earmarks are worthy expenditures: $ 500,000 included in the

fiscal 2003 budget for the Nebraska State Patrol for a methamphetamine drug use enforcement project, for example. Others seem clear frivolities: In the 2002 budget, Congress appropriated $ 273,000 to combat Goth culture in Blue Springs, Mo., and $ 50,000 for a tattoo removal program in San Luis Obispo, Calif. A review process may not weed out all undeserving projects, but it would certainly be a first step.

But most senators - like the citizens they serve - see all their projects as progress, not pork. They're protective of a system that wins money, and re-election votes, in their home states. So McCain's plan may be ill-fated, but he's right to try.

How many years, and how many more billions of debt, will the United States pile up before Congress, and America, are through pigging out?

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Deficit Spending Shell

C. The Impacts. First, Increasing deficits will push the economy over the edge into financial crisis. The Washington Post October 10, 2003, The Deficit Chicken Hawks by Robert J. Samuelson But the biggest misconception about deficits is that, by themselves, they threaten the economy's long-term vitality. Not

true. The real threat is rising government spending. The reason is simple. Government spending

must be paid for by either taxes or borrowing (a deficit). If spending rises too high, economic growth may suffer from either steeper taxes or heftier deficits. Spending is the real culprit. Consider the long-term budget outlook. Federal spending is now about 20 percent of GDP, w hich is roughly the average

since 1960. Homeland security and higher defense spending have undone much of the post -Cold War "peace dividend." Under present policies, aging baby boomers will raise spending to a new plateau. The Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will grow from 8 percent of GDP now to 14 percent of GDP by 2030. The increase equals almost a third of the existing budget. A Medicare drug benefit would make the increase even bigger.

It's true that trying to pay for this increased spending by borrowing might ultimately cause a financial crisis. The resulting deficits, as a share of GDP, would almost triple the present deficit (other

spending is assumed to remain constant as a share of GDP ). The amounts would be so large that investors might one day refuse to buy U.S. Treasury bonds. But it's also true that the needed tax increases might depress the economy by discouraging work and risk-taking. To pay for the baby boomers' retirement benefits would require a 36 percent increase in all federal taxes, or a 91 percent increase in the payroll tax or an 81 percent increase in the individual income tax.

The danger is that higher government spending -- however financed -- will trigger a vicious circle. A sluggish economy makes it harder for government to pay promised benefits. Pressures mount to raise taxes, increase borrowing or abruptly cut benefits. The first two choices

are self-defeating; the third is unfair. This is the death trap of the welfare state, here and in Europe and Asia.

The way to avoid the death trap is to minimize future spending increases. Some needed steps are obvious. Congress should gradually raise the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare to 69 or 70; make benefits less generous for the well-off elderly; fully tax all Social Security benefits; and eliminate unneeded or wasteful federal programs -- from Amtrak to farm subsidies. Even these steps would not likely reduce federal spending as a share of GDP. They would simply limit the increase. Such are the pressures of an aging society.

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Deficit Spending Shell Second, The world economy depends on America – any decline will cause a global recession. The Australian September 29, 2003 Riding on the wings of the US might send us into freefall by Zanny Minton Beddoes

But excessive reliance on the US is also the biggest problem facing the global economy today. As former US Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers once put it: "The world economy is flying on one engine." The statistics are startling. Since 1995 almost 60 per cent of the cumulative growth in world output has come from the US, almost twice the US's share of world GDP. The US's disproportionate contribution to global growth reflects an extraordinary rise in Americans' spending. Domestic demand has risen, on average, by 3.7 per cent a year since 1995 -- twice the pace of the rest of the rich world.

Just as flying on one engine is inherently risky, so is a one-engined world economy more likely to crash. Global prosperity depends overwhelmingly on US demand. If it were to drop significantly, the world would tumble into recession. Yet, for years Americans have been spending far beyond their means.

Third, economic collapse causes world war three. Walter Russell Mead August 30, 1998 (Senior Fellow, Council of Foreign Relations) Houston Chronicle. Forget suicide car bombers and Afghan fanatics. It’s the financial markets, not the terrorist training camps, that

pose the biggest immediate threat to world peace. How can this be? This about the mother of all global meltdowns: the Great Depression that started in 1929. U.S. stocks began to collapse in October, staged a rally, then the market headed south big time. At the bottom, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had lost 90 percent of its value. Wages plummeted, thousands of banks and brokerages went bankrupt, millions of people lost their jobs. There were similar horror stories worldwide. But the biggest impact of the Depression on the United States – and on world

history – wasn’t money. It was blood: World War II, to be exact. The Depression brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, undermined the ability of moderates to oppose Josef Stalin’s power in Russia, and convinced the Japanese military that the country had no choice but to build an Asian empire, even if that meant war with the United States and Britain. That’s

the thing about depressions. They aren’t just bad for your 401(k). Let the world economy crash far enough, and the rules change. We stop playing The Price is Right and start up a new round of Saving Private Ryan.

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2NC – Inflation Link Add-On

Runaway deficits will force the government to borrow more and cause inflation. The Record September 21, 2003 No free lunch; The ultimate cost of Bush's big deficit

The sad truth is that if we stay on the present course and the deficit continues to climb, all of the choices will be stark: reversing the tax cuts and increasing taxes; making Draconian cuts in domestic spending, such as medical research, education, farm subsidies, or environmental programs; cutting into Social

Security, Medicaid, or Medicare - and probably all three. The government is already dipping into Social Security surpluses (no "lock box" there). Will voters realize when they elect the next president a year from now that the social safety net in place for seven decades could be in great danger?

And if the president does nothing, worse dangers arise. The government would have to borrow more to pay off the deficit. Eventually, lenders might get concerned over the rate of borrowing and that would force Washington to pay higher interest rates. That, in turn, would force the government to borrow even more. Inflation - bad

inflation - would ensue. No matter what the US does to respond to increasing deficits, it will lead to a decrease in the world economy. United Press International September 18, 2003 Walker's World: Economy bounces back By MARTIN WALKER

These signs of revival overseas are crucial, because the biggest single danger to the U.S. economy would be to stagger on alone. The strain of being the world's market of last resort is beginning to tell. The huge U.S. budget deficit has to be financed from somewhere. There are three choices. If American investors do it by buying Treasury bonds, that will leave less money available for investing in industry -- and when there's competition for money, interest rates go up. If foreign investors finance the U.S. deficit, as they have been doing for years, that's fine, so long as Americans can live with the risk that the foreigners might suddenly get cold feet, sell off their American holdings, and watch the dollar collapse. The more foreigners own the U.S. debt, and they now own 6 percent of it, the greater the risk that they can derail the dollar. The big worry in recent months was that foreigners were running out of both money and appetite to finance American debts. In that sense, their recovery is coming just in time.

That is because the third option for Washington decision-makers would be to unleash the printing presses, to print more dollars, and see America's real debts shrink under a new wave of inflation. That's what governments usually try to do, in the hope that a mild dose of inflation will spare them having to make hard choices about raising taxes or cutting spending. Mild doses of inflation, however, have a nasty habit of becoming bigger and bigger doses.

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2NC – Trade Wars Impact Add-On

A. Economic problems will cause Bush to go protectionist against China, which will cause a trade war.

The Times September 23, 2003 The world gets poorer when all we trade are insults by Philippe Legrain

Even more worryingly, the breakdown of trade talks at the WTO -the Doha Round - increases the risk of a lurch towards protectionism. While governments are negotiating to free up trade, they are wary of giving in to the demands of protectionist interest groups that antagonise their negotiating partners and

jeopardise better export opportunities. But now that there is little hope of a WTO deal any time soon, governments will find it harder to resist protectionist pressures. And once one country acts to keep out foreign goods, others retaliate.

The US looks set to act first. Even during the internet boom, when unemployment had

virtually disappeared, American support for free trade was wafer-thin. Now that the economy has stumbled, the temptation to lash out at foreigners is greater . More than two million jobs have been lost since President Bush took office. America's trade deficit was a whopping $ 536 billion in the year to July.

And with his re-election chances looking trickier, Bush may try to buy votes by slapping duties on imports that are deemed to threaten US jobs.

Bush has protectionist form. When the steel industry spuriously complained that dastardly foreigners were to blame for its ills, he caved in to their demands for emergency import duties. The WTO has since ruled that the American action is illegal -and now that the Doha Round is on ice, the EU could decide to hit back with WTO-authorised sanctions on US imports. American farmers are also benefiting from Bush's largesse. They are gorging themselves on $ 190 billion insubsidies over ten years.

China is already in the firing line. Its crime: the Chinese spend some $ 100 billion less on American products than Americans do on theirs. John Snow, the US Treasury Secretary, accuses China of gaining an unfair competitive advantage by holding down its currency, making its exports artificially cheap and pricing American imports out of its market. The US wants China to abandon its dollar peg and let its currency float -upwards, of course -as well as lifting its capital controls. America secured limited support for its position at the meeting of finance ministers from the Group of Seven rich countries in Dubai at the weekend. Although the G7 statement did not finger China directly, it called for more flexible exchange rates to reduce global financial imbalances.

This is potentially dangerous. If China refuses to give in to America's demands, a trade war looms. The US Congress is already threatening to impose curbs on Chinese imports unless China adjusts its exchange rate. Beijing is hardly likely to take such aggression lying down.

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2NC – Trade Wars Impact Add-On

B. Trade wars cause world conflict. Spicer 96 (Michael, The Challenge from the East and the Rebirth of the West, 1996, p. 121) The choice facing the West today is much the same as that which faced the Soviet bloc after World War II: between meeting head-on the challenge of world trade with the adjustments and the benefits that it will bring, or of attempting to shut out markets that are growing and where a dynamic new pace is being set for innovative production. The problem about the second approach is not simply that it won't hold: satellite technology alone will ensure that he consumers will begin to demand those goods that the East is able to provide most cheaply. More fundamentally, it will

guarantee the emergence of a fragmented world in which natural fears will be fanned and inflamed. A world divided into rigid trade blocs will be a deeply troubled and unstable place in which suspicion and ultimately envy will possibly erupt into a major war. I do not say that the converse will necessarily be true, that in a free trading world there will be an absence of all strife. Such a proposition

would manifestly be absurd. But to trade is to become interdependent, and that is a good step in the direction of world stability. With nuclear weapons at two a penny, stability will be at a premium in the years ahead.

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2NC – Growth Impact Add-On

Increasing deficits kill economic growth. Leonard Silk Winter 1993 (Prof. of economics @ Pace U.) Foreign Affairs Strengthening America’s economic growth must be a top priority for the rest of the decade. Stronger growth will require eliminating the budget deficits that have undermined the nation’s savings rate and long-term investment. Unless remedied, America’s chronic and rising budget deficits and low national savings rate will act as a drag on its productivity growth and its ability to build any international cohesion on critical economic and political issues. Washington’s budget deficits will also continue to limit its ability to deal with social programs at home.

AND economic growth solves crime, famine, AIDS, war, and the environment. Leonard Silk Winter 1993 (prof. of economics @ Pace U.), Foreign Affairs Like the Great Depression, the current economic slump has fanned the fires of nationalist, ethnic and religious hatred around the world. Economic hardship is not the only cause of these

social and political pathologies, but it aggravates all of them, and in turn they feed back on economic development . They also undermine efforts to deal with such global problems as environmental pollution, the production and trafficking of drugs, crime, sickness, famine, AIDS and other plagues.

Growth will not solve all of these problems by itself. But economic growth – and growth alone – creates the additional resources that make it possible to achieve such fundamental goals as higher living standards, national and collective security, a healthier environment, and more liberal and open economies and societies.

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2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On

A. A strong economy is key to US leadership. Zalmay Khalilzad, 1995 (senior fellow at RAND institute) The Washington Quarterly “Losing the moment? The United States and the world after the Cold War The United States is unlikely to preserve its military and technological dominance if the U.S. economy declines seriously. In such an environment, the domestic economic and political base for global leadership would diminish and the United States would probably incrementally withdraw from the world, become inward -looking, and abandon more and more of its external interests. As the United States weakened, others would try to fill the vacuum.

To sustain and improve its economic strength, the United States must maintain its technological lead in the economic realm. Its success will depend on the choices it makes. In the past, developments such as the agricultural and industrial revolutions produced fundamental changes positively affecting the relative position of those who were able to take advantage of them and negatively affecting those who did not. Some argue that the world may be at the beginning of another such transformation, which will shift the sources of wealth and the relative position of classes and nations. If the United States fails to recognize the change and adapt its institutions, its relative position will necessarily worsen.

To remain the preponderant world power, U.S. economic strength must be enhanced by further improvements in productivity, thus increasing real per capita income; by strengthening education and training; and by generating and using superior science and technology. In the long run the economic future of the United States will also be affected by two other factors. One is the imbalance between government revenues and government expenditure. As a society the United States has to decide what part of the GNP it wishes the government to control and adjust expenditures and taxation accordingly. The second, which is even more important to U.S. economic well-being over the long run, may be the overall rate of investment. Although their government cannot endow Americans with a Japanese-style propensity to save, it can use tax policy to raise the savings rate.

B. US leadership solves for democracy, regional conflicts, and nuclear war. Zalmay Khalilzad, 1995 (senior fellow at RAND institute) The Washington Quarterly “Losing the moment? The United States and the world after the Cold War Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision.

Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values - democracy, free markets, and the rule of law . Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S.

leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United

States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers,

including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership wou ld therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.

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Economy Going Up

The US economy has revived and is beginning to grow again. United Press International September 18, 2003 Walker's World: Economy bounces back By MARTIN WALKER

Old Faithful has done it again. The American economy has picked itself up, brushed itself down, and started growing again.

Well, so it darn well should. With the shift from a $200 billion budget surplus to a $400 billion deficit, the economy has been given the biggest stimulus the country has known since World War II -- the equivalent of 6 percent of GDP. And then there was the $1.5 trillion of extra liquidity that came from mortgage refinancing, not to mention the Fed's slashing of interest rates to unheard of lows.

The U.S. economy has been given a shot of amphetamine in its right arm, a dose of benzedrine in its left arm, intravenous glucose to both legs and electric shocks to the heart. A corpse would have sat up and braced under this kind of treatment. Unemployment is decreasing and the economy is going back up. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette October 7, 2003 SANTORUM WARNS JOB LOSSES MAKE REPUBLICANS VULNERABLE by RICHARD KEIL

U.S. businesses unexpectedly added workers for the first time in eight months in September , the Labor Department said Friday. But the increase of 57,000 nonfarm jobs, the first since January, wasn't enough to lower the 6.1 percent jobless rate, lingering near a nine-year high of 6.4 percent reached in Ju ne. Goldman's Dudley said last month the economy will need to add about 200,000 jobs a month on average to sustain the current pace of growth.

Bush said the economy is showing "positive signs" of growth and defended his tax cuts as necessary to encourage small businesses to buy equipment and hire workers.

"Things are getting better, but there's a lot of work to do," he said in a speech after meeting with small business owners in Milwaukee. "We've got a lot of manufacturers who are lagging."

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A2: Current Spending Proves False Bush’s current spending like tax cuts and the war have been economically responsible and the economy is recovering – the plan will break that trend. Washington Post September 28, 2003, Would You Buy This Idea?; Dear Matt: 2 Good 2 Be True

President Bush has correctly made fostering growth his number one economic priority. Faced with the triple threat from the collapse of the stock market and the technology economy in the final year of the Clinton administration, the launching of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the recession that same year,

the president responded in three ways. He offered a pair of pro-growth tax cuts, encouraged the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates, and used new spending to enhance homeland security and attack sources of terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It is true that his budget has produced deficits during a time of recession followed by economic sluggishness. But as Office of Management and Budget Director Josh Bolten said in an interview in the New

York Times, "The priority was properly placed on getting the economy back to growth. And if that meant larger deficits in the short run, well, if there was ever a time to run deficits, this is it."

And you have to admit, Matt, the results of that focus have been pretty good so far: A shallow

recession. A surge in productivity growth. Economic growth of 3.3 percent in the second quarter of this year. A recovery in the stock market. And now GDP growth that could top 5 percent for the rest of the year. Those of us working in the job-creating sector can see businesses investing again in equipment, replenishing depleted inventories and making new sales again. Unemployment appears to have peaked.

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A2: Can’t Solve Deficit If congress can limit it’s spending very slightly, we can get out of deficits. Edwin Feulner, June 19, 2003 (PhD, president of The Heritage Foundation, Balancing the Books, Yet even as they throw our money around, many lawmakers say they want to return to a balanced budget . Well, doing so means establishing priorities.

According to Riedl, all Congress has to do is limit the average annual growth of mandatory spending programs to 4.6 percent per year—instead of the 5.6 percent proposed

by President Bush —and freeze non-defense discretionary spending at the 2003 level, and we could have a balanced budget by 2008.

Some lawmakers will howl: “Cut 1 percent? Impossible.” Nonsense. They’ve done it before, when self-imposed budget caps forced them to do so, and they can do it again. (And let’s remember that we’re talking about cuts in the rate of growth, not actual cuts.)

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Spending Snowballs

Past examples prove – new spending bills become pork barrels for lawmakers to attach their spending to. Financial Times July 15, 2003, Federal funding bills to test ability of Republicans to restrain spending US BUDGET By DEBORAH MCGREGOR

Republicans in the US Congress are facing their first big tests on restraining federal spending, as the House of Representatives and the Senate race to pass annual bills to fund the federal government. In contrast to past years, the push to pass the 13 annual spending bills in the House and Senate has proceeded with lightning speed. Last week, Congress made progress on 10 of the spending bills, which provide funding for the fiscal year beginning on October 1.

But the road ahead is expected to be bumpy. Republican leaders in the House, where most action has so far been centred, have far more control over the annual exercise than their counterparts in the Senate. This

week's Senate debates on defence spending and one of the largest of the domestic spending bills - funding the departments of labour, health and education - is likely to be a bigger test of Republicans' ability to resist the usual avalanche of special interest and "pork barrel" projects that lawmakers like to attach to the bills.

Normal means for spending bills is pork barrel spending – political tradeoffs require it. Star Tribune July 28, 2003, Appropriations: Appropriate or pork barrel? by Rob Hotakainen; Andrew Pritchard He said the number of pork projects _ those including money that is earmarked for certain congressional

districts _ has risen more than 150 percent since 1994, going from 4,126 to 10,540. He called it an "evil unchecked." Coleman said it's an easy process to criticize. "In budgets which contain hundreds of billions of dollars worth of projects, it's easy to pick out a few things that somebody can look at and say somebody's feathering their own nest over there," he said.

Kline said members of Congress have little choice but to play the appropriations game and fight for their districts.

"Many of us have some ideological and philosophical objections to that," he said. "The fact of the matter is that it exists, and if your representative in Congress decides not to get in the fight, then you lose."

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Spending Snowballs Normal means for bills is inefficient and excessive spending. Fitts and Inman, 1992 (MICHAEL FITTS, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School, AND ROBERT INMAN, Professor of Finance and Economics, Wharton School June, 1992, Georgetown Law Journal POSITIVE POLITICAL THEORY AND PUBLIC LAW PART II: Controlling Congress: Presidential Influence in Domestic Fiscal Policy.) It is the congressional committee structure that has come in many cases to facilitate this informal, universalistic norm of reciprocity between the members of Congress. Early public choice models of Congress envisioned legislators coming

together in one omnibus bill covering all relev ant legislation. n28 However, because most legislation on individual areas is passed piecemeal, and because no legally binding contracting device between legislators can exist outside a constitutional amendment, such explicit deal making is ordinarily impossible. To fill this contracting void, members are thought to create [*1746] informal agreements through the committee structure: a general rule of deference to committee choices. This rule ensures reciprocity as each representative's pet project is forwarded to the floor. Committee autonomy is the coin facilitating the informal trade. n29 In David Mayhew's famous

description of a decentralized Congress, "if a group of planners sat down and tried to design a pair of American national assemblies with the goal of serving members' electoral needs year in and year out, they would be hard pressed to improve on what exists." n30

Unfortunately, as we show below, there is a cost to this system: there is no assurance that the projects being pushed by committees promote efficient allocations or redistribution . On the contrary, the incentives within universalism open Congress to strategic behavior by members and their committees to push for too expensive projects, and projects that benefit only their own constituents. Given the difference in distribution of benefits flowing from district-specific projects versus national programmatic legislation, which

is more likely to represent legislative collective goods, legislators have an incentive to emphasize the

former in their committee work and attempt to free ride on their colleagues' efforts for the latter. n31

The end result may be an economically inefficient and distributionally regressive domestic budget .

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Deficits Destroy Economy Increasing budget deficits in the US threaten the world economy. Agence France Presse September 19, 2003 IMF sees US deficits as greater worry than Europe's fiscal woes by GERALDINE AMIEL

As debate rages in the European Union over member states' high budget deficits, the International Monetary Fund appears far more concerned by twin US budget and current account deficits, which it warns are a looming menace for the health of the global economy. IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff has highlighted the long-term effects of the massive US budget deficit, but played down the repeated violations to Europe's Stability and Growth Pact, which oversees budget policy in the euro zone. The US budget gap is expected to reach a record 480 billion dollars in 2004, creating a looming problem for the world economy along with a current account deficit that amounted to 138.7 billion dollars in the second quarter this year. "The US is just charging ahead. The United States has the best recovery that money can buy," Rogoff said Thursday ahead of the IMF/World Bank annual meeting here on September 23-24. "It has very high fiscal stimulus, a huge current account deficit. It is borrowing a great deal in order to sustain this very high recovery," he added.

Rogoff said running those deficits were making a difference between the growth seen in the United States and Europe, but cautioned that "it comes at a cost of mortgaging growth further down the road."

Large federal deficits hurt the economy. Omaha World Herald September 30, 2003 Deficits darken budget picture Nebraskans in Congress on the deficit In the red By Jake Thompson Large sustained federal deficits eventually will drive up interest rates, which will increase home mortgage rates and constrict investment in new businesses, two principal ways to stimulate the economy.

That will reduce productivity, affecting jobs and incomes for millions of Americans, said Ernie Goss, a Creighton University economist.

If nothing is done, the government might have to impose large tax increases or deep spending cuts, or both, just to make interest payments and allow modest growth in government spending. The short -term options aren't much rosier. Among ideas that Goss said could be pursued are cuts in farm-subsidy payments, which would hurt rural economies.

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Deficits Destroy Economy

For recovery to be successful, spending will have to be carefully controlled. New York Times September 21, 2003, The Deficit Disappeared, but That Was Then By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM

In the five years from 1996 through 2000, economic growth averaged 4 percent a year; personal income rose by 25 percent. And the growth in income was enjoyed disproportionately by those in the highest tax brackets, on whom the Clinton tax increase was imposed. As a consequence, tax receipts in 2000 were $267 billion higher than the budget office had forecast for that year in 1992.

Also, spending was $290 billion lower than the forecast. The strong economy meant less money was needed for unemployment insurance and social programs. Projected outlays dropped for Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs. The fall of Communism allowed for less military spending. And low interest rates and reduced debt led to smaller interest payments.

To have a similar rebound, the economy would have to grow much faster than expected. The White House predicts average growth of 3.3 percent a year, well below the 4 percent average of the late 1990's, and the estimate by a consensus of private economists is no higher than the White House forecast.

It would help for some of the president's tax cuts to be repealed, or at least postponed, and for Congress and the president to agree to rigid spending discipline, neither of which seems likely to occur.

In addition, the stock market would have to explode again. The giant bonuses and stock-option

profits that executives enjoyed in the 1990's would have to reappear. The need for financing the military and

domestic security would have to diminish.

Fiscal irresponsibility affects markets and depresses the economy. Times-Picayune October 14, 2003 Bush deficit plan not enough, many say By Miles Benson

"But the effects could be far more severe," he warned. If markets smell a government attempt to inflate its way out of deficits rather than deal with them through fiscal discipline, "then the markets will almost surely pile on an additional increase in interest rates."

Even more threatening, large deficits "could become a symbol in people's minds . . . and can have a significant adverse impact on consumer confidence and on business confidence," Rubin said. The magnitude and duration of the nation's fiscal problems "are such that they are not going to be solved through a one-shot deal or through measures that gore only someone else's ox," said Urban Institute President Robert Reischauer, who directed the Congressional Budget Office when Democrats controlled Capitol Hill. That means tax increases, spending restraint and cuts in Social Security and Medicare are unavoidable, in his view.

"We're going to need sacrifice on many fronts -- on the revenue front, on the discretionary spending front and on the entitlement front ," Reischauer said.

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US Key to World Economy If faith in the United States economy wavers, it will destroy the entire world economy. The Washington Post September 26, 2003, Please, Lend Us Less by Robert J. Samuelson Concerning the United States, the language of global finance is backward. It is said that we "borrow" abroad and "need to attract foreign capital." In truth, foreigners are eagerly lending to us, mainly for their own reasons. In an accounting sense, their lending covers a big part of the U.S. budget deficit. But in ways that matter more -- in an economic and social sense -- their lending costs us, because it reduces domestic production and employment in the United States. Some Americans gain from inexpensive imports, while others lose through eliminated jobs and reduced profits.

This was not always so. The dollar plays a unique role in the global economy. It serves as the world's main currency for trade and cross-border investment. The need for dollars -- by foreign companies, banks and governments -- partly explains routine U.S. trade deficits since the early 1980s. This demand has kept the dollar's exchange rate too high to produce a trade balance. By itself, a modest trade deficit is

unthreatening; when the U.S. economy is at "full employment," extra imports may curb inflation. But in recent years, weak foreign economies and conscious currency strategies have held the dollar at excessive levels. The result: Despite a faltering U.S. economy, the broadest U.S. trade deficit (the "current account") has expanded to 5 percent of gross domestic product. The huge foreign investments in U.S. Treasuries are one outgrowth.

They are more than a freak fact of global finance. They symbolize a dangerous and potentially destabilizing dependency by the rest of the world on the American economy. The threats to stability are plain. If the United States loses too many jobs

abroad -- through imports and outsourcing -- then the U.S. economic recovery might stumble. Or if some event shook faith in the United States, foreign owners of U.S. stocks, bonds and Treasury securities might try to unload their American investments, triggering a financial panic. Neither possibility is inevitable; both are conceivable.

The US and international economies are linked. Rental Equipment Register February 2003 GOOD OLD TIMES ARE PAST Internationally, the global markets are influenced to some extent by the U.S. economy. As the U.S. economy improves, so will most of the international economy. Big growth will continue in China and we plan to be a part of this with our MQ - China operation that we

should see open during the first half of this year. Latin America should show signs of improvement, as should some of the other Asian countries. Europe may be a little flat, but

not bad. All in all, I anticipate a reasonably healthy world economy for the near term. Unknown developments such as terror, war, and more corporate malfeasance could of course alter all of this quickly.

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Collapse Causes Trade Wars Economic problems cause the US to resort to protectionism to save jobs. The Toronto Star October 8, 2003 Protectionism won't work in new economic order by David Crane Whether or not the world will face a "major dislocation" over the next 10 years, as Intel Corp. CEO Craig Barrett predicted

recently, there is no doubt that the future of jobs in the rich countries of the Western world is becoming a significant worry. It's best illustrated in the United States, where concern over a jobless recovery,

despite a blip of an upsurge in U.S. employment reported last week, has sparked a massive protectionist frenzy in both the Republican and Democratic parties, largely directed at China and India. <<continues>> Protectionism, of course, will not solve anything, at least not for long. Rich countries have to rethink their growth strategies by becoming more innovative and creative. Manufacturing will not disappear from the rich countries, but it will be different. As well, the share of manufacturing in employment will shrink further as we become, even more, service economies.

Many of the West's problems today are self-inflicted. In the United States, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan allowed a costly stock market bubble to take off, when he could have slowly punctured it by gradual rate increases and by reducing the amount of shares investors could buy on credit. And the U.S. Congress made matters worse by, in the midst of a stock market bubble, cutting capital gains taxes.

Since then, the Bush administration and the Republican-led Congress have pursued a reckless fiscal policy, driving up the U.S. budget deficit by irresponsible tax cuts for the rich. In Europe, growth has been hobbled by a misguided European Central Bank, which has p ursued an excessively tight monetary policy while individual European countries have been slow to enact domestic reforms. And Japan has mismanaged its economy for more than a decade.

The pressure from China, India, Brazil and other emerging market economies will continue. As Deborah Davis of Yale University has written, "China is a country with substantial 'software advantages' that promise to sustain growth and create prosperity." These advantages are based on education and health, creating a more highly skilled population, not the value of the Chinese currency. "Given the excellent core curriculum across the country, China is therefore well-positioned to continue to upgrade its human capital over the next decade," she says. In 1998, about 85 per cent of 12- to 14-year-olds were attending high school and 80 per cent graduating. In 1990, about 3.4 per cent of those 18-24 attended post-secondary institutions. By 2000, it was 11.5 per cent and the target for next year is 15 per cent. Indeed, China now graduates more engineers than the United States. Similar developments are taking place in India.

Rather than resorting to protectionism, the rich economies of the West have to rethink their sources of economic growth. A major challenge for the new Martin government will be to rethink where Canada fits in this new global economic order. And the word is global, not North American.

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Collapse Causes War

Economic decline leads to wars of all kind

Bernardo V. Lopez, September 10 1998 BusinessWorld

Certainly, global recession will spawn wars of all kinds. Ethnic wars can easily escalate in the grapple for dwindling food stocks as in India-Pakistan-Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Indonesia. Regional conflicts in key flashpoints can easily erupt such as in the Middle East, Korea, and Taiwan. In the Philippines, as in some Latin American countries, splintered insurgency forces may take advantage of the economic

drought to regroup and reemerge in the countryside. Unemployment worldwide will be in the billions. Famine can be triggered in key Third World nations with India, North Korea, Ethiopia and other African countries as first candidates. Food riots and the breakdown of law and order are possibilities. <<continues>>

Unemployment in the US will be the hardest to cope with since it may have very little capability for subsistence economy and its agrarian base is automated and controlled by a few. The riots and looting of stores in New York City in the late '70s because of a state-wide brownout hint of the type of anarchy in the cities. Such looting in this most affluent nation is not impossible.

The weapons industry may also grow rapidly because of the ensuing wars. Arms escalation will have Primacy over food production if wars escalate. The US will depend

increasingly on weapons exports to nurse its economy back to health. This will further induce wars and conflicts which will aggravate US recession rather than solve it. The US may depend more and more on the use of force and its superiority to get its ways internationally.

Economic collapse causes nuclear conflict. Mead, 1992 (Walter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, World Policy Institute, 1992)

Hundreds of millions – billions – of people have pinned their hopes on the international market economy. They and their leaders have embraced market principles – and drawn closer to the west –

because they believe that our system can work for them. But what if it can’t? What if the global economy

stagnates – or even shrinks? In that case, we will face a new period of international conflict: South against North, rich against poor. Russia, China, India – these countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to world order than Germany and Japan did in the 30s.

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Deficits Turn Case New spending on the environment leads to pork barreling of EPA funding, which destroys current environmental standards and turns the case. The Washington Post September 14, 2003, Superfund Faces Struggle for Room in the Budget; With Industry Tax Expired, Money for Toxic Waste Cleanups Must Come from General Revenue by Eric Pianin Senate and House Democratic aides defended the lawmakers' decision, noting that appropriators were forced to shift resources within the EPA's overall $ 8 billion budget to restore administration cuts in programs important to members. For example, they said, Bush tried to cut $ 500 million from a popular Clean Water State Revolving Fund and millions more in grants for specia l projects earmarked by individual lawmakers. Members of Congress from both parties joined to restore those funds, partly at the expense of the Superfund program.

"There's more money in the House and Senate by a long shot for EPA activities, and real increases over last year," a House Democratic aide said. "But within the details of the bill, we did not agree with all the administration's priorities." An aide to Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (Md.), ranking Democrat on the appropriations subcommittee that oversees EPA spending, said: "Sen. Mikulski was disappointed we couldn't do more . . . but it was the best they could have done under the circumstances. Of course the Democrats wanted to see more [for Superfund], but a $ 500 million cut from clean water programs in real terms . . . had to be remedied."

"Today, EPA is a rudderless bureaucracy," said PEER executive director Jeff Ruch. "Without strong intervention by an as yet indifferent administration, the nation's basic environmental safety net may be ripped apart by hundreds of short knives carving out pork barrel projects."

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Economy Key to Elections

Increasing deficits make Bush look bad – if they continue, he’ll lose the election. The Business Times Singapore October 14, 2003 Termination in store for Bush next year? By Leon Hadar In Washington Most problematic from the perspective of the American public and Congress is the fact that while War President Bush wants more guns, demanding a huge government expenditure to spend on the military

and the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, Economy President Bush also wants more butter. After raising spending for homeland security, agriculture subsidies and federal medical insurance programmes, not to mention pushing through Congress two rounds of tax cuts, Bush has failed to offer a plan to pay that tab for Iraq with either tax increases or spending cuts in other parts of the budget. Instead, the US $87 billion will be borrowed, leading to a historically high deficit of US $540 billion for the upcoming year - which is the equivalent of more than US$4,000 per American tax-paying household, with each household including at least one voter.

The voters, as the electoral drama in California has demonstrated, are very, very angry. And the reason for that anger has to do with local governments that are facing mounting budget deficits and don't have the money to pay for basic services like schools, clinics and roads.

With the US federal budget deficit set to increase next year from 4.2 per cent of GDP to around

4.7 per cent, the California experience could be replicated on a national level and produce a populist backlash against President Bush - which would be exploited

not by another Hollywood actor but by a Democratic presidential candidate, who would pledge to be a more cost -effective War and Economy President. Deepening deficits will allow Democrats to retake the Senate. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette October 7, 2003 SANTORUM WARNS JOB LOSSES MAKE REPUBLICANS VULNERABLE by RICHARD KEIL

Still, the tax cuts have yet to generat e job growth even as they help drive up the federal budget deficit, which is forecast to reach a record $401 billion for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Bush also is seeking an $87 billion supplemental spending package for Iraq.

Democrats, emboldened by Bush's declining approval ratings on the Iraq war, say his performance on the economy gives them a chance to regain control of Congress. At a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill last week, political strategist Robert Shrum and pollster Mark

Mellman told Democratic senators the Republicans are vulnerable. "We are looking at George Bush in serious trouble, and we are looking at a real capacity to take back the Senate," Shrum said in an interview after the meeting.

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Economy Key to Elections Lack of economic growth is hurting Bush and other republican efforts at reelection. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette October 7, 2003 SANTORUM WARNS JOB LOSSES MAKE REPUBLICANS VULNERABLE by RICHARD KEIL "The top issue continues to be the economy/jobs," Santorum, the third -ranking Republican in the Senate, wrote to his party's 50 other lawmakers in the upper house. During the August recess, Santorum toured Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh in the west to rural Somerset County in the south. The message he heard from constituents was: "What are we going to do to get this economy going?" he said in an interview. Santorum is among Republicans in Congress who are concerned about the 2.6 million jobs lost since President Bush took office after they supported Bush's $1.7 trillion in tax cuts as the antidote to unemployment. Three White House aides who work on economic matters say a consensus is growing among their colleagues that unless sustained employment gains kick in by February, Bush risks losing his re-election race next year.

"The Bush administration is seeing the worst job-creation performance of any administration since Herbert Hoover " during the Great Depression, said William Dudley, chief economist

at Goldman, Sachs & Co. "We see him slipping in the polls, and the lack of job growth is a reason why." More than 8.9 million people are out of work, and 2.1 million of the jobs lost on Bush's watch came after he signed his first 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut into law in July 2001.

That's put pressure on Republicans, who championed Bush's tax reductions and are seeking to retain control of Congress, where they have a 51-49 edge in the Senate and a 229-205 advantage in the House. "We're not seeing the job growth we want to see," said Rep. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and House Republican leaders' liaison with the White House.

"If the economy doesn't pick up, it will certainly have an impact on the elections," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Delaware County.

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Deficits Up Now The US already has a massive budget deficit. Scotland on Sunday September 21, 2003, OUTLOOK: WAKE-UP CALL ON BUDGET DEFICITS by Bill Jamieson The economy that is really moonstruck is the United States. Recovery here has been slow in coming and has still to show sufficient strength to yield a fall in unemployment . Given the widespread anxiety to see this recovery strengthen and broaden out, few are much minded to look at the finger: a plunge into a budget deficit far faster than occurred in the 1990-91 recession. The unmistakable crack of a wake-up call came last week in a speech from David Walker, head of the US General

Accounting Office, the financial watchdog of the US Congress. He warned that the country's fiscal outlook is seriously out of kilter and challenged the assumption that economic recovery will solve the problem painlessly. The Congressional Budget Office now projects deficits of dollars 401bn this year, dollars 480bn in 2004 and dollars 1.5tn over the decade. But these numbers seriously understate the scale of the deficit balloon. They do not include the pressure from both Democrats and Republicans for a dollars 400bn, 10-year expansion of Medicare to provide prescription drug benefits. They make no allowance for the campaign by Republicans for another round of tax cuts - at a cost of more than dollars 100bn over 10 years. And they do not include the extra dollars 87bn for which President George W Bush has asked to fund military reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Indeed, the CBO projection assumes that discretionary spending - including defence - will grow no faster than inflation, rather than the typical 7.7 per cent annual increase over the past five years.

Add in these costs and the projected annual deficits rise to between dollars 600bn and dollars 700bn through most of the decade. The lower estimate works out at some 5.25 per cent of US GDP, way beyond the latest OECD projection.

What is inflating this huge deficit? A slow growing economy, tax cuts and defence spending have all played a part. But we are also seeing the largest domestic spending spree since the days of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Mandatory spending will reach 11.1 per cent of GDP this year, its highest ever.

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Deficits Up Now

There is already massive spending and increasing deficits now. Insight on the News September 1, 2003, Wasteful Spending Thwarts Recovery By Vanessa Pierce Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office supported ATR's findings when it presented the likely economic consequences of President George W. Bush's 2004 budget proposals. It found that Bush tax cuts wou ld spur economic

growth, but that Bush spending initiatives would thwart or slow the growth resulting from the tax cuts.

That "yes, yes, yes" to spending has resulted in a record $22.5 billion in pork-barrel expenditures for 2003, a political bonanza brought on both by Republicans and Democrats. This year the 2003 pork alone roughly equals the gross domestic product of North Korea as listed in the CIA World Factbook. Here's where some of your tax dollars went to work: $250,000 to implement the National Preschool Anger Management Project; $500,000 for catfish health in Stoneville, Miss.; $4 million for the International Fertilizer Development Center; $6.2 million for wood-utilization research; $7.7 million for the Alaska-Wide Mobile Radio Program; and a whopping $33 million for the National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa, which tops the annual Pig Book list of the watchdog Citizens Against Government Waste [CAGW]. At the press conference for Cost of Government Day, CAGW President Tom Schatz said that pork larded into the military-construction bill by Sen. Ted Stevens [R-Alaska] included "e $1.4 million for a new working-dog kennel at Elmendorf Air Force Base. So you could say that our tax dollars are already going to the dogs this year." CAGW cites Stevens as the Senate's master of pork, followed by Sens. Daniel Inouye [D-Hawaii] and Robert Byrd [D-W.Va.].

Some of the federal spending increases result from wartime costs and the military buildup, according to Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation, but that only accounts for one-third of the spending increases. There have been "massive spending increases for farm subsidies, highways, education, health research and dozens of lower-priority programs that most taxpayers have never heard of," Riedl says.

The deficit is already running out of control from Bush’s irresponsible policies. Times-Picayune October 14, 2003 Bush deficit plan not enough, many say By Miles Benson But spending restraint does not apply to the Department of Homeland Security, where Secretary Tom Ridge predicts "significant increases overall" in his budget. Nor does it apply to the Education Department, where Secretary Rod Paige describes the president as "incredibly aggressive in protecting the investment."

With the Pentagon also sacrosanct, and Bush seeking $87 billion more for Iraq, the major work of bringing the budget back toward balance shifts largely to economic growth.

But even a robust and long-running recovery will not produce enough revenue to erase the $5 trillion deficit that forecasters, including the Congressional Budget Office, say will accumulate in the next 10 years under Bush's policies. On that rising sea of red ink, interest rates will float upward, retarding economic growth and pushing the nation toward the brink of bankruptcy, critics warn. In the face of these harsh facts, even some Republicans are beginning to suggest that Bush must reverse course on tax cuts.

"The deficit is clearly out of control," said former Rep. William Frenzel, R-Minn., a Bush backer who served in the House for 20 years and led House Budget Committee Republicans.

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Deficits Up Now

There is already a huge variety of federal spending, which is driving up the deficit. Edwin Feulner, June 19, 2003 (PhD president of The Heritage Foundation, Balancing the Books, http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed061903a.cfm) It’s true that we’re facing a record budget deficit . That’s partly because of the brief recession

that began just as President Bush was taking office. But the major reason is one that lawmakers don’t want to

talk about: Their own out-of-control spending. My Heritage Foundation colleague Brian Riedl has found that the federal government will spend more than $21,000 per household this year—a record amount in peacetime. In fact, Washington will spend $520 billion more this year than it did in 1999. That’s a lot more money than the recently enacted tax cut so many lawmakers attacked as being “too expensive.” Where is the money going?

Almost a quarter of the new spending is funding big increases in federal agriculture subsidies (the farm bill), federal health programs (other than Medicare and Medicaid),

federal directives on education (“no child left behind”) and unemployment compensation. Another fifth is being spent on defense. And while that seems reasonable in the post-September 11 world, relatively little of that spending is directly linked to the war on terrorism. Tens of billions more are pouring into a series of small- and medium-sized programs that already receive more than their fair share of government dollars.

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Can’t Solve Deficit

Deficits are coming from mandatory spending like defense and debt payments – policies like the plan don’t contribute to the deficit. Times-Picayune October 14, 2003 Bush deficit plan not enough, many say By Miles Benson And while spending restraint is always needed, experts agree, the options on this front are limited. Of the federal government's discretionary spending, where restraint would theoretically apply, 94 percent of all growth in the past three years has come in defense, homeland security and other costs related to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

Just 6 percent of all discretionary growth came in categories such as education, law

enforcement, agriculture, environmental protection, commerce, energy, veterans benefits and the space program. The figure will be even lower next year, said Josh Bolton, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The remainder of the budget consists of interest payments on the national debt and mandated spending of $1.2 trillion, mainly for entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.

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Deficits Don’t Destroy Economy

Their arguments are empirically denied – we have run deficits for the last 40 years, and the economy has continued to grow. The Washington Post October 10, 2003, The Deficit Chicken Hawks by Robert J. Samuelson

A favorite pastime of politicians and pundits is to denounce big federal budget deficits. Just recently former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin (1995-99), former senator Warren B. Rudman (1981-93) and former Commerce secretary Peter G. Peterson (1972-73), among others, held a press briefing doing precisely that. They brandished charts and tables contending the immediate deficit outlook is worse than official projections. This is probably true; it is also not the country's biggest budget challenge.

Almost everything you think you know about budget deficits is probably wrong or misleading. For starters, they don't automatically cripple the economy. If they did, America would be a much poorer country. Since 1961 the federal government has run deficits in all but five years (1969, 1998-2001). Over the same period, the economy's output (gross domestic product) has expanded by almost a factor of four, the number of jobs has grown by 72 million and per-capita incomes have increased about 150 percent. Higher deficits will help the economy. The Washington Post October 10, 2003, The Deficit Chicken Hawks by Robert J. Samuelson

Indeed, rising deficits are sometimes helpful. They are now . It is possible to dislike parts of

President Bush's tax cuts -- and to see the White House's budget rhetoric as hypocritical -- but it is not possible to think that on balance these policies have hurt the economy. From fiscal 2000 to 2003, the budget has moved from a surplus of 2.4 percent of GDP to a deficit of 3.7 percent of GDP; the shift is worth about $ 650 billion annually. Tax cuts didn't cause all of this swing. Still, the massive stimulus helped offset the depressing effects of the

stock market, Internet and telecom bubbles. Higher deficits didn't raise interest rates. In 2000, rates on 30-year mortgages averaged 7.5 percent; this year, they've been under 6 percent.

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Deficits Don’t Destroy the Economy Deficits will be good for the economy and help us get out of the recession. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette September 21, 2003 BUSH'S FISCAL SURRENDER by STEVEN MUFSON Actually, if ever there were a time to run a deficit, this year would qualify. Deficits can stabilize the economy during recessions, when tax revenues dip and demands for programs such as Medicaid and welfare rise. And certainly the economy is still struggling to get out of recession.

Balancing the budget this year would only make matters worse.

Deficits can also help finance wars. U.S . troops have invaded two countries in two years. And we are spending to bolster security at home. The United States has significantly increased its national debt as a portion of GDP five times. With one exception -- the Reagan years -- those have been times of war. And some argue that the Cold War contributed to 1980s spending.

Economists note that deficits shift burdens to future generations -- and in wartime that's a good thing. World War II secured freedom for many countries in 1945, but later generations enjoyed the fruits of that.

Similarly, in developing countries which for political reasons may have trouble attracting private investment, public debt can help cover investments in railroads, canals, technology infrastructure and roads that will spur faster growth in the future.

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NASA Spending Tradeoff Shell

A. New spending in the budget will trade off with other spending – the plan takes money from other policies.

NORM ORNSTEIN February 5, 2003 Roll Call CONGRESS INSIDE OUT The answer is not to prune back on space flights and research. We need a bold new plan for NASA, one that expands funding and moves aggressively toward an orbital space plan and the next generation of shuttle vehicles as part of a long-term plan for space exploration. Doubling the budget over a decade, as we have done for the National Institutes

of Health, should be the goal. The president’s budget does many things, but among them is to force a serious confrontation over our national priorities. For the first time since the Reagan era, we are considering the appropriate role of government. For the most part, I fear we will conduct the debate badly, not really confronting the ballooning costs of entitlements as they crowd out the rest of government, not considering the entrenched and growing costs of defense and entitlements — the so-called uncontrollables — and the tax base needed just to accommodate them, not acknowledging the needed government role as a safety net, pushing more unfunded

mandates onto states that are ill-equipped to handle them. We will get off onto sideshows about largely symbolic elements of government spending that bypass the larger issues. We will get into a tough, zero-sum game over discretionary domestic spending, pitting one program against another over relative scraps in the budget.

B. NASA’s funding is on the chopping block – the plan destroys it. The Houston Chronicle August 24, 2003, Congress counts down to report on Columbia; Fiscal battle looms before Tuesday release by KAREN MASTERSON

But bringing the space shuttle program forward, by prying tens of billions of dollars in new spending from a federal budget already running enormous annual deficits, will require strong participation from the White House and a political strategy that outmaneuvers fiscal conservatives who favor tax cuts over spending increases. "It's still very unclear how they're going to move forward," said David Goldston, chief of staff of the House Science Committee, which next year will rewrite the laws guiding NASA's policies.

"Obviously, this stuff is going to take more money in all sorts of ways," he said of the shuttle

program. "This is a pivotal time. The path set now will determine the direction of the agency."

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NASA Spending Tradeoff Shell

C. NASA needs funding or human space travel is gone forever. Patricia Reaney September 9 2003 Reuters ET Scientist: NASA Funding Key to Future Space Travel http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=8&u=/nm/20030909/sc_nm/space_funding_dc MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - NASA's budget needs to be doubled to ensure the future of human space travel, a leading scientist said on Tuesday. NASA has set the launch of the first space shuttle since the Columbia disaster for March but Andre Balogh, a professor of space physics at Imperial College London, said space travel should not be taken for granted. If the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which analyzed the reason for the accident, are not fully implemented and work on a replacement is not started it will not happen, he says. "The only way that a positive future will be guaranteed is to increase the NASA budget to something like twice its present size," Balogh told the British Association science conference. Seven astronauts were killed when the Columbia disintegrated in February over Texas on its return journey. Loose insulation foam that hit its wing shortly after takeoff was cited as the cause of the accident. But the accident board also blamed the management and culture at NASA and said budget and schedule constraints contributed to the problem. It also called for changes in how the space agency monitors safety.

Balogh said pressure to get shuttles into space and cost -cutting measures should not undermine safety. NASA has promised to make the shuttle safer and to improve how safety concerns are reported at the agency. Engineers' worries about the safety of the Columbia were either missed of ignored.

"Going to the moon or going to Mars is really science fiction at the moment until we have learned to master the safety and the safe operation and exploitation of lower-Earth orbit ," said Balogh.

But he believes that in the not too distant future, if all goes well, people will be able to book their flights for space travel. "Let's hope that the USA will make the first essential steps to get us back into space safely," Balogh added.

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NASA Spending Tradeoff Shell

D. There’s a moral obligation to go to space to avoid an asteroid strike that could come at any time and solve overpopulation and the environment.

Carl Sagan 1994 (American astronomer, planetologist, biologist) “A Pale Blue Dot” Random House There are many threats to mankind, which only expansion into space can fend off. The most spectacular of them is the possible collision of Earth with some celestial

body - comet or asteroid. Depending on the size of such a body, the consequences may be different, including extinction of humanity as a species, as well. Astronomical observations and current space research clearly confirm that

such cosmic collisions are not rare exceptions within geological timescale; on the contrary, they are a norm. It suffices to look through ordinary binoculars at the surface of the Moon, pockmarked with thousands of impact craters. Many such collisions happened also on Earth in the past; one of them caused the extinction of dinosaurs and

many more species of plants and animals. It is also certain that similar collisions will happen in the future. Only, we do not know when - possibly after thousands of years - possibly just next year. Therefore, every year of delay may turn out to be the critical one. Earth also becomes overpopulated. Nothing indicates that the number of its inhabitants may undergo any significant decrease - except as a result of some severe war or global cataclysm, which could endanger the whole

Earth's biosphere. Expansion into space offers here a possibility for a peaceful and gentle unburdening of the natural environment , while, at the same time, making survival of our species and civilization possible, even if the damage turns out to be irreversible.

The civilization which crosses the space barrier and makes its existence independent of the fate of a particular planet will survive. Others are doomed. Unfortunately, in recent times, the understanding of that fact by people diminishes. Yet, it suffices to look at the night sky full of stars to become aware that our native planet is only an almost imperceptible speck of dust within the vast world - a world which does not at all end at the border of Earth's atmosphere. Lately, people seem not to look at the sky, and even when looking, they do that mindlessly. Our civilization, with its attention turned only toward mundane everyday affairs and without broader perspective in its actions, suffers from shortsighted self-absorption and lacks bold visions and brave experimenters. The people fond of taking risks waste their time bungee-jumping with a rubber rope tied to their leg, instead of following the example of people like Columbus, Amundsen, or the Apollo astronauts to discover and conquer new worlds for Mankind. There is a growing lack of comprehension that one cannot stop in midcourse. The lack of that comprehension affects most of all the scientific and technological disciplines connected with space exploration, which p uts into disuse the existing technological capabilities and slows down the development of new ones. Infrequent space projects are still ventured thanks to enthusiasm and determination of people engaged in space research and astronautics. But this is by all means too little as compared both with possibilities - so forcibly shown long ago by human landings on the Moon - and with needs. The world suffers from the lack of social support for space exploration. And the time runs out... But then, if the humanity is going to survive and get a chance of further development, its expansion into space is inevitable. Over the next few centuries the human civilization must spread throughout the Solar System. The opening of space to humanity and the ensuing creation of a new branch of human civilization should be done by all of humanity, but in fact it only will be done by those nations who actively choose to participate. If we think that our nation should not consign itself to the sidelines of history; if we think that our people should have accomplishments celebrated in newspapers and not just museums; if we feel that our country and culture holds things that are precious

and should be passed on as part of the heritage of humanity's New World, then it is our responsibility to do whatever we can to get our country involved in space exploration , either on its own or teamed with others.

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2NC – The Big Link Extension

First is supplementary spending.

A. The plan is supplementary spending, or spending added in the middle of a fiscal year.

OMB Watchers, February 29 2000 (www.ombwatch.org/ombwatcher/ombw20000229.html) The yearly budget process requires working on budgets far in advance. Biennial budgeting wou ld increase this forecasting, quite possibly leading to decisions that are outdated. Appropriations for the second year of the budget

cycle would be decided well more than two years in advance. For instance, economic changes could require an adjustment of fiscal policy; normal oversight findings on various government programs could indicate the need for more or less resources; or epidemics, social issues, or international crises could arise that

weren't contemplated when the budget was prepared. The budget would then have to be adjusted mid-stream, leading to more, rather than less, careful deliberation, and more, rather than

less, emergency and supplemental appropriations, making for a messier budget decided in an ad hoc fashion.

B. Normal means for supplementary spending is for it to be funded by cutting other programs – they trade-off.

Chippen 1999 (Dan, Director Congressional Budget Office, July 30, Congress Test The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 created the rescission process as a Congressional

check on unilateral action by the President to impound appropriated funding. More recently, however, rescissions have been used to accommodate changed priorities, helping to offset new spending with cancellations of funding previously made available. In that respect, the rescission process can promote fiscal discipline and help to limit spending. Under the provisions of the 1974 act, the President can propose to rescind spending authority provided by the Congress. The Congress has 45 days of continuous session to approve the President's request, but it does not have to act on his proposals. During the 45-day period, the President can withhold the funds proposed for rescission. Once that period has expired, however, the funds must be made available for obligation. The Congress can also initiate rescissions. Between 1990 and 1999, rescissions initiated by the Congress accounted for more than 60 percent of all rescinded budget authority and resulting first-year outlays.

Rescission proposals generally fall into two categories. Most enacted rescissions are included in supplemental appropriation acts and are explicitly intended to offset the spending contained in those acts (see Table 1). The other general type of rescission is enacted in regular appropriation acts for a variety of purposes. (All of the rescissions shown in Table 1 cancel either discretionary budget authority or contract authority.)

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2NC – The Big Link Extension Second is funding scarcity.

A. Bush will use all his power to avoid spending any more money – funding will have to come from existing budgets.

Business Week Online September 11, 2003 The Neatest Thing about That $87 Billion; Bush and congressional leaders plan to treat the Iraq spending as if it were off-budget, pretending they're not creating red ink by Howard Gleckman Here's how: For fiscal year 2004, which begins on Oct. 1, Bush has insisted that Congress hold discretionary spending -- that is, all expenses except for programs such as Social Security, Medicare,

Medicaid, and interest on the debt -- to $784.7 billion, and not a penny more. From now until Thanksgiving, the White House and Congress will do battle over every cent. VETO THREATS. Lawmakers will try to squeeze as much extra spending as possible into that target. And the President will insist that exceeding his cap by just one dollar will jeopardize the nation's economic future. Said the Office of Management & Budget on Sept. 4: "Only within such a fiscal environment can we encourage increased economic

growth and a return to a balanced budget." Expect veto threats and perhaps even veiled warnings of a government shutdown if that $784.7 billion spending cap isn't met .

B. That puts the aff in a double bind – either they link to our disad by taking funding for the plan, or they have no money to enforce it and the plan has no solvency.

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2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On A. Uniqueness – Bush has declared that he will dedicate himself to continuing US leadership in the world. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution January 29, 2003 With Iraq and joblessness, Bush faces higher hurdles

In a strong and somber State of the Union address, President Bush last night laid out an ambitious agenda for the nation that he leads, ranging from reform of basic programs such as Social Security and Medicare

to the transformation of our energy future and the creation of a global peace under U.S. leadership. "This country has many challenges," he told the nation. "We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, other presidents and other generations. We will confront them with focus, and clarity and courage." In many ways, however, the president found himself covering much of the same ground as he did in the same speech a year ago. Today, the threat posed by Iraq, North Korea and Iran --- the "axis of evil," as Bush labeled them a year ago --- is perhaps more stark than ever.

B. The link – Whoever controls space controls the world – to maintain leadership, the United States has to do space exploration. The Guardian December 5, 2001 by Rob Gowland Getting the right stuff right When the USSR launched the first space craft, Sputnik, on October 4, 1957, it was a scientific and technological achievement that was hailed around the world. In the most powerful capitalist country, however, it was viewed a little differently. To the military-industrial complex formed by the

Pentagon, the government of the USA and the largest corporations, it was axiomatic that whoever controlled space would control the world. They set out to regain the initiative in space and to ensure that they retained control over it for ever more.

But to achieve mastery in space was going to require a huge investment of public money. Truly enormous profits were going to be made b y a bunch of corporations, but the US as a nation would be impoverished. While the Commie countries sought to develop their space programs while striving to maintain universal health care, free education and full employment, the unfettered US sought victory in the "space race", that race that it was oh so important for the US to "win". <he continues> To keep this money pouring in from Congress to NASA's coffers (and from

them into the coffers of the aero-space industry), NASA and its corporate lobby sell its "technological marvels", its prestigious assertion of "US genius" (even though the scientists

come from many countries), and its affirmation of US leadership of the world as we "reach out to the stars".

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2NC – Hegemony Impact Add-On C. Brink – India is about to go to space – if they do, it will destroy US leadership in space and decrease our hegemony. We have to get to space before them. The Guardian (London) January 30, 2003 India limbers up for space race as prime minister asks for the moon: Shuttle astronaut inspires New Delhi to challenge China's lofty ambitions by Luke Harding in New Delhi It is more than 30 years since the American astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt wandered around the surface of the moon, scooped up several large chunks of rock, and flew home. Since their last epic Apollo mission in December 1972, no one has been back.

But if India's prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has his way, the next astronaut to leave footprints on the moon's ghostly cratered surface could well be Indian. Earlier this month, Mr Vajpayee told a stunned science conference in Bombay it was time for India to achieve its dream of putting a man on the moon. "Our scientists are now talking of sending a man into space. It is time to make our dreams come true," he said. Now India's national research space agency has unveiled an ambitious plan to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon by 2007. The 350kg probe would map a previously obscure part of the moon's surface and collect data. The orbiting craft might even answer one of the solar system's trickier questions: did the moon originally break off the earth, or was it pulled into the earth's orbit from elsewhere? Although Indian scientists admit a lunar landing is at least a decade away, they are now actively contemplating the

previously unthinkable: to boldly go where only the United States has been before, not very recently.

D. Finally the impact – US leadership solves for democracy, regional conflicts, and nuclear war. Zalmay Khalilzad, 1995 (senior fellow at RAND institute) The Washington Quarterly “Losing the moment? The United States and the world after the Cold War Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global riv al or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision.

Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values - democracy, free markets, and the rule of law . Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S.

leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United

States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers,

including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.

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2NC – Economy Impact Add-On A. The world economy is in danger of collapse now.

The Australian September 29, 2003 Riding on the wings of the US might send us into freefall by Zanny Minton Beddoes

The global economy is clearly in trouble. Morgan Stanley chief economist Stephen Roach says the world faces its toughest array of macro problems since the end of World War II. The risks of a dollar crash or a serious global recession are not insignificant, and a period of sluggish growth and currency volatility seems all too likely.

For the past few years, politicians have done little more than hope the US engine carries on working. But this is no longer good enough. Policy-makers need to act to make a crash less likely and avert protectionist threats. A good first step would be to acknowledge the size of the problem.

B. Space exploration helps all parts of the economy with tourism, mining,

and energy production, guaranteeing economic growth. The Nation (Thailand) March 23, 2001 Beam 'em up, Scottie! They're ready to pay

THE "space economy" may spark the next cycle of the global economic boom, or

more specifically the next US boom, following the collapse of the digital economy. Billions of people around the globe are waiting for the moment the Russian space station Mir falls back to Earth today.

For a moment at least, they will be able to forget the economic slowdown in the US and Japan, and the fading of the information technology revolution that brought robust economic growth to the US and, to varying degrees. the rest of the world. <<continues>>

Many believe tourism is a potentially lucrative segment of the space industry. Virginia-based LunaCorp wants to give people a chance to explore the Moon without leaving Earth. According to WWW.discovery.com, the company is trying to raise $100 million to land two robotic vehicles on the Moon. LunaCorp's Rovers will be equipped with panoramic video cameras and sophisticated software that will enable them to transmit 360-degree images back to Earth, along with data on everything from the lunar temperature to the roughness of the terrain. The Rovers will provide realistic special effects for moon rides in theme parks and science centres.

Another idea that has been put forward is to mine the Moon and asteroids, which some believe will yield precious stones. Former astronaut Jack Schmidt, a geologist, has proposed

mining lunar soil and heating it to extract Helium 3 , an isotope difficult to obtain on Earth. Theoretically, there's enough on the Moon to generate 10,000 times as much energy as the Earth's entire remaining reserves of fossil fuel. Others want to manufacture semiconductors in space, believing the zero-gravity conditions and other factors would produce better products than those manufactured on Earth. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are eager to try making drugs in space.

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2NC – Economy Impact Add-On C. Growth solves crime, famine, AIDS, war, and the case. Leonard Silk Winter 1993 (prof. of economics @ Pace U.), Foreign Affairs Like the Great Depression, the current economic slump has fanned the fires of nationalist, ethnic and religious hatred around the world. Economic hardship is not the only cause of these

social and political pathologies, but it aggravates all of them, and in turn they feed back on economic development . They also undermine efforts to deal with such global problems as environmental pollution, the production and trafficking of drugs, crime, sickness, famine, AIDS and other plagues.

Growth will not solve all of these problems by itself. But economic growth – and growth alone – creates the additional resources that make it possible to achieve such fundamental goals as higher living standards, national and collective security, a healthier environment, and more liberal and open economies and societies.

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NASA Is Funded Now

A bill to fully fund NASA is passing through Congress now. Aerospace Daily July 23, 2003 NASA funding bill advances, shuttle crew measure blocked by Marc Selinger

The House Appropriations Committee late July 21 approved the fiscal 2004 NASA appropriations bill, clearing the way for the full House to consider the legislation as early as the end of the week. Separately, the Republican majority on the House Science Committee July 22 blocked a Democratic proposal that would have required NASA to solicit concepts for increasing the crew survivability of the space shuttle.

The appropriations bill, which the House Appropriations Committee's NASA subcommittee approved July 15

(DAILY, July 16), fully funds the Bush Administration's FY '04 budget request for the shuttle, International Space Station, Orbital Space Plane and Next Generation Launch Technology. But committee members likely will propose changes when the legislation heads to a House-Senate conference committee, which is not expected to convene until after the board investigating the Columbia shuttle disaster issues its final report Aug. 26.

There is support in Congress for increasing NASA’s funding. Virginian-Pilot October 4, 2003, Virginia Senator Says He Will Try to Preserve Funding for NASA Programs By Allison Connolly

HAMPTON, Va.--U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., traveled to NASA Langley Research Center Friday to assure employees that he will try to preserve funding for their programs, despite a bleak budget outlook. The meeting was closed to the public and the media was not allowed to attend or ask employees questions, per NASA Langley rules.

However, Warner said afterward that he had announced plans to propose a 10 percent increase in funding for NASA programs, particularly the NASA Engineering and Safety Center that is slated to open at NASA Langley on Nov. 1. The center will be responsible for safety and engineering assessments for the entire agency. Warner said employees voiced concern about potential budget cuts. "There's always a bit of apprehension about job security when there's a fluctuation in budgets and a shift in priorities," Warner said.

He believes he will have support from Congress for funding increases for Langley's programs because safety has become such a critical issue since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He also said funding for innovation is necessary because the U.S. aviation industry is facing stiffer competition from Europe and Asia. Last month, the Senate appropriations committee recommended a $ 15.3 billion budget for NASA for fiscal year 2004, roughly the same as fiscal year 2003. The House has proposed a $ 15.5 billion budget. Both will be debated in the coming months. NASA spokesman Keith Henry said NASA Langley is optimistic about the funding because Warner has been able to restore NASA's budget in the past. "We always appreciate Sen. Warner's support," he said.

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Fiscal Responsibility Now

Conservatives are pushing for fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget – Bush will hold down extra spending. The Bulletin's Frontrunner September 30, 2003 DeLay Promises Conservatives A Vote On Balanced-Budget Amendment. The Hill (9/30, Bolton) reports, "House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R- Texas) has promised House conservatives a vote on a balanced-budget amendment next year. While his offer avoids an internal political headache in the near future, it also makes the Republicans more vulnerable to Democratic attacks in the coming election year." DeLay "and other House Republican leaders had resisted such a vote. They felt it could be politically awkward to have such a tally at a time when the Bush administration is racking up record federal

deficits." But "conservatives say a dose of such medicine would help the GOP in the long run by showing its base that it is still the party of fiscal responsibility." The Hill adds,

"Conservative Republicans and Democrats have agitated for a vote on amending the Constitution to force a balanced budget . The initiative comes in the face of a soaring national debt of $6.8 trillion and a federal deficit that is projected to exceed $450 billion for the current fiscal year, which ends today."

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A2: Iraq Spending Empirically Denies

Spending for the war was covered up by Bush – however, the plan will still be held to existing funding. Business Week Online September 11, 2003 The Neatest Thing about That $87 Billion; Bush and congressional leaders plan to treat the Iraq spending as if it were off-budget, pretending they're not creating red ink by Howard Gleckman

There's just one problem. While Bush and Congress are fighting over every dollar, they're going to pretend the $87 billion in Iraq money doesn't count as part of the discretionary budget ceiling, even though every thing else the Pentagon does is included. This is an accounting gimmick that would shame even Enron. "We will hold down spending," Bush and

GOP leaders on Capitol Hill will say. But next to that boast will be a little imaginary asterisk that says, "For everything, that is, but Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a fistful of trust funds, and the war in Iraq." In truth, the government will spend more than $1.3 trillion next year -- close to twice the discretionay-spending target -- on stuff that doesn't count in Washington's debates over fiscal responsibility. REAL DEBT. Watch for Bush to cla im by the end the year that he held discretionary outlays to a 4% hike, even though

spending will go up by close to 15%. The White House and Congress will just pretend it didn't happen. And how will Uncle Sam pay for all these extra burdens? With real money that Treasury will have to borrow , creating real debt that your kids will be paying off for the rest of their lives.

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Funding Trades Off

Current spending will require tradeoffs for any new programs. The Washington Post February 03, 2002, Bush Budget A bout to Show Its Darker Side; Deep Cuts in Some Programs Planned by Eric Pianin, Washington Post Staff Writer For weeks, Bush and members of his Cabinet have touted most of the president's biggest spending initiatives pegged to the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism and the recovery from an economic recession,

including a near doubling of spending on homeland security and a 14 percent boost in defense outlays that would dwarf the Reagan-era military buildup. Yet the administration has been less forthcoming about how it plans to do that. With war expenditures, the economic

downturn and a major tax cut eliminating the once-projected budget surplus, Bush plans to cut or freeze spending in many parts of the government and to dip into Social Security and Medicare funds that previously were off limits, according to administration officials, congressional aides and special interest groups.

These trade-offs and the way in which the administration is choosing to reshape the federal government will become evident for the first time on Monday when Bush releases his budget plan for the coming federal spending year. The president began promoting his agenda in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. "To achieve these great national objectives -- to win the war, protect the homeland and revitalize our economy -- our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term, so long as Congress restrains spending and acts in a fiscally responsible manner," he said.

Bush is trying to hold down congressional spending to free up money for his tax cuts. The Baltimore Sun May 9, 2003 White House economic team changes players, not priority; Newcomers push to cut taxes instead of deficits by Julie Hirschfeld Davis But in a disciplined White House where the political message seldom wavers, no one expects the economic policy

direction to shift with the changing of the guard . Bush will continue to advocate a substantial tax cut that he says will boost the economy and create jobs, lawmakers and budget experts say, while pressuring Congress to hold down spending.

"Fiscal discipline was high on my agenda, and therefore, anybody that works for me will place a premium on fiscal discipline," Bush said Tuesday. Urging Congress to pass his tax cut, Bush added: "The bigger the package, the more likely it is that people are going to find a job here."

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Funding Trades Off Spending increases on domestic issues will require tradeoffs with other programs. The New York Times February 4, 2003, THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSAL: DOMESTIC DEFENSE; Ridge Says Request for Homeland Security Is Enough By PHILIP SHENON

But according to the figures released today by the White House, the budget for all domestic defense programs, including those within the Pentagon and the Department of Health and Human Services, would increase by about 10 percent next year, to $41.3 billion, a figure that includes the budget of the Homeland Security Department. Several private analysts said that the budget requested by the White House reflected only a modest increase in spending on the domestic war on terrorism. "It's largely flat," said Steven M. Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "To be fair to the administration, it's not clear that the kind of massive increases we had seen over the last couple of years would be

necessary again next year, but it does raise concerns about whether there will have to be a trade-off between domestic security and other government priorities." New spending is being kept to a minimum now. U.S. Newswire May 22, 2003 Trimming the Fat: Congress Strives to Cut Waste, Fraud, Abuse in Budget, Says Council for Citizens Against Government Waste The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) applauded House Republican leaders for launching a new initiative to cut mandatory government spending by rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal budget. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) included in the fiscal 2004 budget resolution instructions for each committee chairman to find at least one percent of savings in mandatory spending -- about $10 billion -- with a goal of promoting fiscal responsib ility and balancing the budget. "Representatives DeLay and Nussle should be commended for focusing the attention of Congress on wasteful government spending," CCAGW President Tom Schatz said. "The most overlooked issue in the current fiscal debate is the reckless amount of government outlays that continue to spiral upward. It is the insatiable appetite of Congress for new spending that is to blame for the looming budget deficit. It is long past due for members of Congress to address this issue."

Bush is keeping the budget tight – there won’t be extra money for the plan. The New York Times January 22, 2003, Bush Plans Little More Money For Bulk of Federal Programs By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM

The budget President Bush plans to propose to Congress early next month calls for the smallest increase in years in spending for most government programs and little new money at all except for domestic security and the military, the White House said today.

Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the president's budget director, told reporters that Mr. Bush wanted discretionary spending, which involves all federal outlays except spending for automatic benefit programs like Social Security and

Medicare, to grow by only 4 percent , or about $30 billion, in the fiscal year 2004, which begins Oct. 1.

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Funding Trades Off Current funding levels for programs are frozen – no more cash is coming. That means in order to get money, the plan has to cut funding from other budgets. Chattanooga Times November 25, 2002 At a Nov. 15 White House meeting, the president rejected an appeal from several senior GOP

lawmakers for modest increases in the fiscal 2003 budget , raising the possibility that a spending showdown could be the first order of business – and the first test for the GOP-led Senate and House – when the 108th

Congress convenes in January. Since the current fiscal year began on Oct. 1, federal agencies other than the Pentagon have been operating under a “continuing resolution,” which funds then at last year’s level until Congress approves new spending bills.

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NASA Gets Cut

NASA is properly funded – however, new funding risks getting it cut. ALLISON CONNOLLY October 4, 2003, The Virginian-Pilot Sen. Warner tells NASA Langley that he’ll seek boost in budget http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=60617&ran=212901 HAMPTON — U.S. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., traveled to NASA Langley Research Center Friday to assure employees that he will try to preserve funding for their programs, despite a bleak budget outlook. The meeting was closed to the public and the media was not allowed to attend or ask employees questions, per NASA

Langley rules. However, Warner said afterward that he had announced plans to propose a 10 percent increase in funding for NASA programs, particularly the NASA Engineering and Safety Center that is slated to open at NASA Langley on Nov. 1. The center will be responsible for safety and engineering assessments for the entire agency.

Warner said employees voiced concern about potential budget cuts. “There’s always a bit of apprehension about job security when there’s a fluctuation in budgets and a shift in priorities,” Warner said.

NASA is typically cut to fund new programs. The Washington Post July 10, 2003, Panelist Faults NASA Cutbacks; Shuttle Report Will Note Funds Shifted From Safety Efforts by Eric Pianin, Washington Post Staff Writer

"When you start adding up the overall NASA budget picture and the shuttle budget picture over the past decade, it's rather clear the shuttle had disproportionately taken budget cuts to fund the space station, to fund Russian participation in the station ," Logsdon said. "The shuttle program has served as sort of a cash cow."

Between 1993 and 2000, the space shuttle's operating budget was slashed by more than $ 1 billion a year as a result of policy decisions by NASA, the White House and Congress to cancel two major

shuttle upgrades and to shift money to help finance the construction of the space station and to reduce a government-wide budget deficit.

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NASA Funding Key to Space Travel

If NASA doesn’t get enough funding, they won’t be able buy fuel to get into space. Aviation Week & Space Technology June 9, 2003 Losing Thrust by Frank Morring, Jr. Congress is hearing that inadequate government support for research into space launch technology threatens reliable U.S. access to Earth orbit in general, even as key members worry that NASA's plans for human spaceflight rely too heavily on keeping aging space shuttles in operation. While the chairman of one NASA authorizing committee on Capitol Hill worried that NASA hasn't produced a clear plan

for replacing the shuttle fleet, a counterpart in the other congressional chamber was warned last week that the space agency may be paying too much attention to in-space propulsion without devoting adequate resources to the continuing problem of getting to space in the first place.

"Propulsion is the long pole in the tent for any new space program, and while we debate our direction we need to maintain our competency for future propulsion needs before we lose it completely," said Byron Wood, vice president and general manager of Boeing

Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power. He warned that the three major liquid propulsion companies in the U.S. are "on the verge of going out of business" in the face of foreign competition and the collapse of the commercial satellite launch market.

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A2: Cuts are to Our Agency

Other budgets are raided to pay for new programs – tax cuts and Social Security prove. The Irish Times February 5, 2002 Bush to increase defence budget and cut tax for rich By JULIAN BORGER, (Guardian Service) The tax cuts, critics argue, disproportionately favour corporations and the wealthiest citizens. To help pay for them, Democrats argue that the administration is raiding revenues which would otherwise have been set aside for social security funds to help care for the baby-boom generation as it retires. Senator Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, referring to the failure to prepare for those future needs, warned the

Bush administration: "You're playing a very risky game." The other big losers in the budget are the Labour department and its various job training schemes for impoverished areas, and the environmental protection agency, whose budget is cut by 2 per cent. Overall spending on non-defence government programmes would increase by only 2 per cent.

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Space Exploration Avoids Extinction Hawking says we have to go to space to avoid extinction from bio-weapons –

space travel is practical, and it’s our only hope. The Scotsman October 17, 2001, DEADLY VIRUS WILL DESTROY LIFE ON EARTH Alastair Dalton

HUMANS will have to move to other planets to survive a biological catastrophe that will hit the Earth within the next 1,000 years, Professor Stephen Hawking warned yesterday. The world's most famous physicist said he was more worried about a virus than nuclear weapons destroying life and said future generations would have to face living in space. Prof Hawking said he was optimistic life would continue, but warned the danger of extinction remained because of man's aggressive nature. Other leading scientists agreed that humans would have to take action to avoid being wiped out like previous dominant Earth species, such as the dinosaurs, but said there was no need for any immediate panic. Prof Hawking, who is due to discuss his new book, The Universe in a Nutshell, at a press conference in Germany today, said the terrorist attacks on the United States last month were less of a threat than biological weapons. He said: "Although 11 September was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do. But in the long term, I am more worried about biology.

"Nuclear weapons need large facilities but genetic engineering can be done in a small lab. You can't regulate every lab in the world. "The danger is that, either by accident or design, we create a virus that destroys us."

He added: "I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet ." Prof Hawking, the chair of mathematics and theoretical physics at Cambridge University since 1979, said: "I think humans will have to learn to live in space," but added that all hope was not yet lost. He said: "One has to live on the basis that life will continue, and I think there is a good chance it will."

Prof Hawking said a Star Trek-type warp drive should not be ruled out as a possible future means of reaching distant habitable planets. It would cut out the tedium of using spaceships travelling slower than light.

And he added that genetic engineering could be used to "improve" humans so they were better suited to cope with long-distance space travel.

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Space Exploration Avoids Extinction

We have to get off the rock to avoid extinction. World News Forecast February 5 2003 For the growing number of people who have decided Earth is not a safe domicile since Sep 11, a symposium on space

colonization is long overdue. The widespread fears of bioterrorism and general mood of insecurity since the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon have given new life and urgency to the notion of living in space. The 1st Symposium on Space Colonization is one of five related space symposia at a conference-cum-trade show organized by the Space Technologies and Applications International Forum. The event brings together representatives of the world's space agencies, militaries and private concerns to swap ideas and explore collaboration opportunities. The other symposia cover nuclear propulsion, human space exploration, next generation space transportation, thermophysics and microgravity.

The gloomiest of the supporters of space colonization see it as a means of escaping Armageddon on Planet Earth. Their view holds that the end could arrive gradually from the accumulation of nuclear wastes and atmospheric pollution, or suddenly because of a nuclear cataclysm or a genetically-engineered virus. Special interest groups see space colonization as a means of escaping anything they find unpalatable on earth. The Artemis Project, for one, is a private venture to establish a permanent, self-supporting community on the Moon. Both groups believe governments are moving too slowly to bring space colonization within reach.

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Asteroid = Extinction

There are hundreds of asteroids out there that we don’t know about, which could hit us at any time. Collisions are common. Courier Mail March 18, 2000 Final frontier yields secrets of life Rodney Chester IT is a rock the size of Bribie Island travelling through space. And if it were to hit the Earth, it would mean the end of human life on the planet . Fortunately, it is 245

million kilometres from Earth and is not on a collision path, unlike an estimated 700 yet -to-be-discovered "near-Earth asteroids", any of which could be heading straight for us without our knowledge. This asteroid called Eros is the centre of man's efforts to understand the rocks that threaten the planet from the depths of space. NASA has spent $325 million on a mission to study this 33km-long, peanut-shaped rock for two reasons. An asteroid like Eros could one day wipe out human life in the same way that an asteroid's impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. And it is probably asteroids and comets that carried the building blocks of life to Earth.

Asteroids are the primary threat to human survival – even small ones have huge destructive potential equal to 15 nuclear weapons. Sydney Morning Herald October 18, 1999 Judy Wilkinson The Day The Earth Was Hit PERHAPS Ronald Reagan's Star Wars theory wasn't so loony after all. This program provides a convincing argument that

life on Earth is one stray meteorite away from extinction . It tracks the cataclysm that unfolded in the early hours of June 20, 1908, in Tunguska, Siberia. Survivors say they saw a fireball screaming through the sky towards them. Thinking it was the end of the world, they prayed into a night which was

illuminated as if it were day. The events at Tunguska have been described as the largest of Earth's encounters with cosmic objects, and the jury is still out on whether it was an asteroid, a comet or something else. The confusion surrounding this event was caused by the a bsence of a crater. Yet the man who developed the hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller, says there is a phenomenon called "big effect, no crater". Ninety years on, scientists are still baffled over the cause, despite more than 150 theories being put forward. One fact

they all agree on is that at 15 megatonnes, the explosion that laid flat 2,000 square kilometres of forest, incinerated thousands of reindeer and vaporised homes, was about 1,000 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb. It was so great that a shock wave, travelling at the speed of a passenger jet, spread out as far as Britain.

Many astronomers, scientists, explosion experts and even NASA officials say the events at Tunguska expose an underestimated threat to our existence. The nearest source of danger is the main asteroid belt the planet travels through every 300 years. And some scientists believe it was matter from this "cosmic shooting gallery" that hit Tunguska.

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Asteroid = Extinction

Asteroids are an urgent threat – a big one would cause extinction, smaller hits would kill 500,000 people. The Times (London) September 19, 2000 Asteroids could shut down Earth plc Mark Henderson

Urgent international action is needed to reduce the risk of a large asteroid striking the Earth, a government panel of experts said yesterday. The danger of a catastrophic impact is so great that any private company incurring comparable risks would fail British safety standards, the Near Earth Objects Task Force said.

A collision with even a medium-size asteroid would put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk from the initial energy blast, tidal waves and a "nuclear winter" effect ,

the task force found. At worst, an impact could destroy all human life: a similar event 65 million years ago is believed to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. International co-operation to track potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, and research into ways of deflecting them from the Earth, is the only answer to the threat, the report concluded. Britain should take the lead in the construction of a powerful new telescope as a key component of a "spaceguard" early-warning system, it advised. The panel, which was chaired by Harry Atkinson, a former chairman of the European Space Agency, was set up in January by Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the Science Minister. Other members were Sir Crispin Tickell, a former British Ambassador to the United Nations, and David Williams, Professor of Astronomy at University College London. Lord Sainsbury is expected to respond to the findings by the end of the year. Estimates of the total cost of the recommendations range from Pounds 15million to Pounds 70million. None of the asteroids and comets that are known to astronomers will pose a threat in the next 50 years but new

objects are being discovered every day, leaving the Earth at a definite risk. The probability of a devastating collision is low , Dr Atkinson said, but the effects of a medium-size asteroid made present levels of risk "intolerable". An asteroid 0.6 miles across, which strikes the Earth every 100,000 to 200,000 years, would cause a "nuclear winter" effect, killing up to 1.5 billion people. Smaller objects, which strike at an interval of 70,000 years, could kill as many as 500,000 people. Under the panel's proposals, a 9ft telescope would be built in the southern hemisphere in partnership with other countries to search for medium-size objects to complement a Nasa initiative. A second European telescope should then be dedicated to tracking the orbits of objects found by both projects. A national centre should also be established to co-ordinate British research into near Earth objects, the report said. Lembit Opik, the Liberal Democrat MP who has campaigned for action to counter the threat from asteroids, urged swift

implementation of the recommendations.He said: "The risk of dying from an asteroid impact is 750 times higher than the chance of winning the Lottery. I'm determined to change that."

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Asteroid = Extinction

A big asteroid would cause human extinction. Here’s how it goes down… Michael Paine November 5 1999 How an Asteroid Impact Causes Extinction http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/asteroid_paine_october.html Imagine: NASA scientists announce they have detected a 10-mile-wide asteroid on a collision course with the Earth. They calculate it will hit Southeast Asia in two weeks. There is no chance of Bruce Willis being sent on a beefed-up space shuttle to blow up the asteroid. Earthlings willhave to ride out the impact. The world economy grinds to a halt as people take to the hills. Anarchy sets in, civilization breaks down. Accusations fly over the lack of warning -- where was Spaceguard, the proposed international search effort for large asteroids? People in Brazil feel less vulnerable than most of the world's pop ulation. They are on the opposite side of the Earth from

the predicted impact point. But one hour after the impact Brazilians notice some brilliant meteors. Then more meteors. Soon the sky gets brighter and hotter from the overwhelming number of meteors. Within a few minutes trees ignite from the fierce radiant heat. Millions of fragments of rock, ejected into space by the blast, are making a fiery return all over the planet. Only people hiding underground survive the deadly fireworks display. Within three hours, however, massive shock waves from the impact travel through the Earth's crust and converge on Brazil at the same time. The ground shakes so violently that the ground fractures and molten rock spews from deep underground. Maybe Brazil wasn't the best place to be after all.

The survivors of the firestorms, tsunami and massive earthquakes emerge to a devastated landscape. Within a few days the Sun vanishes behind a dark thick cloud -- a combination of soot from the firestorms, dust thrown up by the impact and a toxic smog from chemical reactions. Photosynthesis in plants and algae ceases and temperatures plummet. A long, sunless Arctic winter seems mild compared to the new conditions on most of the planet. After a year or so the dust settles and sunlight begins to filter through the clouds. The Earth's surface starts warming up.

But the elevated carbon dioxide levels created by the fires (and, by chance, vaporization of

huge quantities of limestone at the impact site) results in a runway greenhouse effect. Those creatures that managed to survive the deep freeze now have to cope with being cooked. Many species of plants and animals vanish. The few hundred thousand human survivors find themselves reverting to a Stone Age existence.

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Nano Coming Now

There are already plans for a computer based on nanotechnology. Plain Dealer January 3, 2000 HEWLETT-PACKARD TEAM LOOKS AT NANOTECHNOLOGY FOR THE NEXT LEAP FORWARD Stan Williams is convinced that the future of the computer is just a few atoms wide. Williams, a researcher at Hewlett-Packard, heads a team developing a new kind of computer memory using nanotechnology, the art of manipulating material on a molecular scale. The memory, in the form of crisscrossing wires, will be just 100 nanometers across (a nanometer equals one-billionth of a meter, or about the width of two atoms). It will hold 16 bits of data. That is not much - just enough to hold a couple of words. But if it works, it could presage a quantum leap in the speed and power of all kinds of computer chips, including microprocessors. "Nanotech should make it possible to build computers 1 billion times as powerful as they are now," said Williams.

There will be nanotech assemblers in 20 years. The Age March 1, 2002 THE NEXT Frontier by Sean Nicholls In Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan, a handy device called a "maker" sits neatly in the corner of people's apartments. It's the size of a dishwasher or a bar fridge, and will manufacture just about anything you want - from clothing to food - at the issue of a couple of voice commands.

Scientists are working on their own version of a maker today, only they're calling it a Santa Claus machine.

Using molecular nanotechnology they expect - some

say within 20 or 30 years - to be able to manufacture most things from the first atom upwards, absolutely free of charge. Mind you, it's likely someone will quickly develop a payment model soon afterwards.

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Nanotech = Extinction

Even a single mistake with nanotechnology could cause the complete destruction of the biosphere and destruction of all life on earth. Drexler ’86 (K. Eric, Research Fellow @ Institute of Molecular Manufacturing “Engines of Creation” http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html)

Genetic evolution has limited life to a system based on DNA, RNA, and ribosomes, but memetic evolution will bring life-like machines based on nanocomputers and assemblers. I have already described how assembler-built molecular machines will differ from the ribosome-built machinery of life. Assemblers will be

able to build all that ribosomes can, and more; assembler-based replicators will therefore be able to do all that life can, and more. From an evolutionary point of view, this poses an obvious threat to otters, people, cacti, and ferns - to the rich fabric of the biosphere and all that we prize. The early transistorized computers soon beat the most advanced vacuum-tube computers because they were based on superior devices. For the same reason, early assembler-based replicators could beat the most advanced modern

organisms. "Plants" with "leaves" no more efficient than today's solar cells could out-compete real plants, crowding the biosphere with an inedible foliage. Tough, omnivorous "bacteria" could out-compete real bacteria: they could spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days. Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stop - at least if we made no preparation. We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.

Among the cognoscenti of nanotechnology, this threat has become known as the "gray goo problem." Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be gray or gooey, the term "gray goo" emphasizes

that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be "superior" in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable. We have evolved to love a world rich in living things, ideas, and diversity, so there is no reason to value gray goo merely because it could spread. Indeed, if we prevent it we will thereby prove our evolutionary superiority.

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Nanotech = Extinction In the hands of irresponsible states, nanotechnology will cause arms races, oppression, and World War 3. Drexler ’86 (K. Eric, Research Fellow @ Institute of Molecular Manufacturing “Engines of Creation” http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html) Throughout history, states have developed technologies to extend their military power, and states will no doubt play a dominant role in developing replicators and AI systems. States could use replicating assemblers to build arsenals of advanced weapons, swiftly, easily, and in vast quantity. States could use special replicators directly to wage a sort of germ warfare - one made vastly more practical by programmable, computer-controlled "germs." Depending on their skills, AI systems could serve as weapon designers, strategists, or fighters. Military funds already support research in both molecular technology and artificial intelligence.

States could use assemblers or advanced AI systems to achieve sudden, destabilizing breakthroughs. I earlier discussed reasons for expecting that the advent of replicating assemblers will bring relatively sudden changes: Able to replicate swiftly, they could become abundant in a matter of

days. Able to make almost anything, they could be programmed to duplicate existing weapons, but made from superior materials. Able to work with standard, well-understood components (atoms) they could suddenly build things designed in anticipation of the assembler

breakthrough. These results of design-ahead could include programmable germs and other nasty novelties. For all these reasons, a state that makes the assembler breakthrough could rapidly create a decisive military force - if not literally overnight, then at least with unprecedented speed. States could use advanced AI systems to similar ends. Automated engineering systems will facilitate design-ahead and speed assembler development. Al systems able to build better AI systems will allow an explosion of capability with effects hard to anticipate. Both AI systems and replicating assemblers will enable states to expand their military capabilities by orders of magnitude in a brief time.

Replicators can be more potent than nuclear weapons: to devastate Earth with bombs would require masses of exotic hardware and rare isotopes, but to destroy all life with replicators would require only a single speck made of ordinary elements. Replicators give nuclear war some company as a potential cause of extinction , giving a broader context to extinction as a moral concern.

Despite their potential as engines of destruction, nanotechnology and AI systems will lend themselves to more subtle uses than do nuclear weapons. A bomb can only blast things, but nanomachines and AI systems could be used to infiltrate, seize, change,

and govern a territory or a world. Even the most ruthless police have no use for nuclear weapons, but they do have use for bugs, drugs, assassins, and other flexible engines of power. With advanced technology, states will be able to consolidate their power over people. Like genes, memes, organisms, and hardware, states have evolved. Their institutions have spread (with variations)

through growth, fission, imitation, and conquest. States at war fight like beasts, but using citizens as their bones, brains, and muscle. The coming breakthroughs will confront states with new pressures and opportunities, encouraging sharp changes in how states behave. This naturally gives cause for concern. States have, historically, excelled at slaughter and oppression.

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Nanotech = Extinction Nanotechnology could be used as a weapon by rogue states or terrorists. Chicago Sun-Times April 18, 2000, New science of smallness holds both promise, danger BY LAURENT BELSIE It's this incredibly small scale that fuels the hope -- and hype -- surrounding nanotechnology. Theoretically, engineers will one day be able to rearrange materials at the atomic level to create almost anything they want within the constraints of chemistry. A car body that's as hard as diamonds and lighter than steel? No problem, according to the visionaries. A space vehicle that's cheap to launch? Make way for hand-size satellites with several components shrunk to nanoscopic scale. And no need to take up scientists' valuable time assembling all those atoms. Just make tiny robots -- nanobots -- to make other nanobots. Once you've assembled 1 million of them, turn them loose to build whatever you can dream up. It's these self-replicating nanobots that fuel most of the futuristic fears. What if they got loose? Or a terrorist set them free in a large city? All the fears now bound up with the spread of biological weapons ride on the back of future nanotechnology robots. Bill Joy, co-founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, writes in this month's edition of Wired magazine, "I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals." It's not just nanotechnology that scares Joy. It's the combination of genetic engineering and robotics brought to the nanoscale that feeds his apprehension that human beings could build machines that replace them.

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A2: Other Planets Uninhabitable

New information found shows that there are other planets like earth out there that we could live on. The Hamilton Spectator January 31, 2003 A plethora of planets; Discoveries coming so fast that textbooks are outdated Alexandra Witze Just last week, scientists added the 105th entry to their list of planets beyond the solar system. These are bizarre places: big, gassy balls like Jupiter, including at least one orbiting so close to a star that it's hot enough to vapourize iron. Even Klingons wouldn't want to live on these worlds. But scientists can't wait to find out more about them.

New discoveries, including the recent announcement of the most distant planet known, are helping astronomers understand the weird new worlds. Soon , scientists think, they may even achieve the long-sought goal of discovering a small, rocky planet like our own. "We stand on the verge of being able to find planets like Earth," Melissa McGrath, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said during a recent meeting in Seattle. For centuries, scholars have wondered whether planets orbit the billions of other stars in the Milky Way. Today, planet discoveries are flooding in so quickly that textbooks are constantly outdated.

<she continues>

Seager predicted that by 2010, astronomers will have found the first Earthlike planets and enter a new wave of understanding. "These," she says, "are very exciting times."

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A2: Deflect the Asteroid An asteroid would cause extinction and there’s no way to deflect them. The Times June 4, 1998, “Saving the Earth could be trickier than we thought” by Nigel Hawkes, Science Editor SAVING the Earth from being hit by an asteroid may be harder than believed - although anyone who has seen the film Deep Impact might believe that it was hard enough. Some asteroids are so loosely put together that they could soak up the blast of a nuclear explosion without much effect, according to calculations by Erik Asphaug, of the University of California in Santa Cruz, and colleagues. The threat to

Earth from asteroids is being taken seriously by some astronomers. A direct hit from a big asteroid could kill billions of people. Such an impact is said by many to have caused the demise of the dinosaurs 64 million years ago. If spotted soon enough, asteroids could be shifted away from the Earth or broken up by crashing another object into them, or exploding nuclear warheads near by. But, in an analysis in Nature , Dr Asphaug casts doubt on how easy this would be.

The nature of many asteroids, loosely assembled piles of rubble held together by gravity, means that they could dampen the shock waves from an explosion, limiting its effectiveness. "It's a lot more difficult to nudge these asteroids around than we had thought ," Dr Asphaug said. "More work needs to be done before we can decide whether nuclear warheads provide a viable deterrent." To determine the effects, astronomers need to know a lot more about asteroids' internal structure, he says. "In case we ever identify an asteroid or comet on a collision course, it would be best to know our enemy."

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A2: No Planet-Killers Coming

Even if there aren’t any asteroids big enough to cause extinction, there are many smaller ones which we DON’T KNOW ABOUT, and would have the same impact as a nuclear weapon. Toronto Star July 21, 2002 No big asteroid threat for centuries Terence Dickinson So far, the searches have identified all the 10-kilometre-class asteroids, the so-called global-extinction objects, and none of them will come close to the Earth for the next few hundred years at least.

"What we worry about are the smaller ones, one to two kilometres in diameter, that we haven't identified yet ," said asteroid expert Brian Marsden of Harvard University. Marsden was speaking at a recent conference on space objects that threaten the Earth held in Washington D.C. He noted that about half of the estimated 1,200 one-kilometre-or-larger asteroids that come near enough to Earth to be potentially dangerous have been identified so far. He expects that 90 per cent of them will be found and tracked by the end of the decade.

The explosion from the impact of an asteroid one kilometre wide would be powerful enough to incinerate a city the size of Toronto and to do severe damage over a much broader area. That's why astronomers want to id entify all of these objects as soon as possible.

And then there are the thousands of smaller asteroids out there. Just last month, for instance, a "small" asteroid 100 metres across whizzed midway between the Earth and the moon . It's the largest space boulder ever recorded that close to Earth. The disturbing aspect of that incident is that the asteroid, now designated 2002MN, was not discovered until three days after it passed its closest point to Earth. This is because it approached us from an astronomical blind spot in the same general direction as the sun.

On a cosmic scale, the Earth is a very small target. But from time to time renegade chunks from the asteroid belt do score a direct hit. It happened on June 30, 1908, when a 30-metre asteroid (about the size of a 10-storey building) plunged into the atmosphere over central Siberia, broke apart and

exploded before reaching the ground. Known as the Tunguska event, the explosion had the force of a 10-megaton nuclear blast and levelled more than one million hectares of Siberian forest.

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A2: No Planet-Killers Coming Even a small asteroid hitting would be like a nuclear blast, which could lead to a miscalculation and nuclear war. Richard Stenger October 3, 2002 Asteroid could start nuke war

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/10/03/asteroid.hearing/index.html Scientists estimate that near the Earth's orbital path are slightly more than 1,000 asteroids 1

kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter or larger that could cause global catastrophes if they hit their mark. NASA expects to conclude a census of such large near-Earth objects, or NEOs, in 2008 and has already identified almost half of the predicted population. Collisions with such monster rocks take place only once every 1 million years or so. Better to worry a bout those the size of cars, which hit every few weeks, or those the size of whales, which hit every few centuries, said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon Worden.

An asteroid 5 to 10 meters in diameter exploded in June over the Mediterranean Sea, releasing as much energy as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II , Worden told the House Committee on Science.

"Imagine that the bright flash accompanied by a damaging shock wave had occurred over India or Pakistan," said Worden. He noted that at the time the two countries were near the brink of war and that either could have mistaken it for a surprise attack. 'Nuclear horror'

"The resulting panic in the nuclear-armed and hair-triggered opposing forces could have been the spark that ignited a nuclear horror we have avoided for over a half century."

And, he said, if a space boulder in the 100-meter range detonated over a major city, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people might die.

His point was that it wouldn't take a so-called "dinosaur killer" asteroid to cause a major catastrophe.

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A2: We Never Get Hit Collisions on a smaller scale are common and a planet killer could come by at any time. Courier Mail March 18, 2000 Final frontier yields secrets of life Rodney Chester Asteroids are to be found at the start of life, and at the end. It is not unusual for bits of asteroids, known as meteorites, to

hit Earth. On average, about two meteorites a day come down somewhere in Australia. Fortunately, large impacts are not as common. About every 100 years, an object, either a comet or an asteroid, measuring about 50m smacks into the Earth causing major but local damage. A comet about 60m wide destroyed a 40km patch of a Siberian forest in 1908, and would have caused thousands of casualties had it hit a city rather than an uninhabited zone. Earth is hit by an object bigger than 350m about every 15,000 years, with the impact likely to destroy an area the size of south-east Queensland. Every 250,000 years, an object bigger than 1700m in diameter hits, wiping out an area at least the size of Queensland. A recent study downgraded the chances of a catastrophic collision, but still estimated a 1 percent chance that an asteroid would cause global catastrophe in the next 1000 years. The object that sent the world into a global winter and wiped out the dinosaurs was probably about a third of the size of Eros.

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A2: Businesses Solve Space

Privatization causes more accidents and deaths from space travel. National Post February 4, 2003 Go further, faster without NASA Terence Corcoran This is not to suggest that space exploration run by a competitive private sector would be free of tragedy and death.

There would be, one must assume, even more deaths and setbacks in a privatized space industry. As more companies, explorers, scientists and adventurers take up the challenge and launch new

experiments, the risks will increase. Because NASA is a giant state institution, it takes on giant and obsessive preoccupations. NASA's expanding projects

commandeer huge multi-billion-dollar appropriations that draw more political scrutiny. As the scrutiny intensifies, the agency develops an obsessive and excessive preoccupation with safety. NASA officials stop just short of claiming that their objective is zero tolerance for human casualties, an absurd concept in something as inherently risky as space exploration. Almost as many people died in the routine business of building high -rise condos in downtown Toronto over the past year as perished in the sensational destruction of the Columbia.

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A2: China Relations

China supports space exploration – they won’t oppose the results of it. XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE February 2, 2003 Chinese expert deeply regrets tragic incident of Columbia

BEIJING, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chen Maozhang, member of Chinese Academy of Engineering, on Sunday

deeply regretted the tragic incident of US space shuttle Columbia, saying such incident would not shake the mankind's space exploration program.

Chen, who also serves as professor of Beihang University (the original University of Aeronautic and Astronautic Science

and Technology in China), told Xinhua that the mankind's space exploration is a great cause that would suffer various setbacks. "But the mankind will not give up the dream of space exploration. Facing the setbacks, the mankind need to find out the cause of the accident and make improvement," he added. US space shuttle Columbia broke apart into flames as it streaked over Texas toward its landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, killing all seven astronauts. Six Americans and the first Israeli astronaut were on board. Four of the seven astronauts were on their first shuttle flight.

China isn’t a threat – they can’t challenge the US military. CATO January 16 2003 “CATO HANDBOOK FOR CONGRESS POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE 108TH CONGRESS” p://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb108/hb108-57.pdf China is a normal, albeit sometimes difficult, rising great power. China’s behavior can sometimes pose challenges, but the country is not a dangerous threat to U.S. security. China’s military spending is a tiny fraction of U.S. defense spending. It will take decades before China can even come close to current U.S. spending levels. (China officially spends $19 billion on defense, but the actual figure is somewhere between $40 billion and $60 billion. In contrast, U.S. defense spending for fiscal year 2003 is $397

billion.) China’s weapons systems are no match for those of the United States—although China is making a serious effort to modernize its armed forces.

China will try to get along with the rest of the world – they won’t go to war. CATO January 16 2003 “CATO HANDBOOK FOR CONGRESS POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE 108TH CONGRESS” p://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb108/hb108-57.pdf Painting China as an economic and military adversary is dangerous and misguided. Free trade is mutually beneficial—both China and other countries gain from trade liberalization. There is no doubt that, as the Chinese economy grows, so will the Chinese military budget. But that is not unusual for a large nation-state, and thus far China’s military spending and its military modernization effort have been relatively modest. It is true that no one can be certain how the PRC will behave on security issues in the future. Unlike Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, however,

the PRC is not a messianic, expansionist power; it is a normal rising (or

reawakening) great power. At times, that can be difficult for other countries to deal with, but such a country does not pose a malignant security threat .

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Key to Hegemony

Improved space technology is key to U.S. leadership. Los Angeles Times August 17, 2002 A New Space Race Is on the Launch Pad PETER PAE In a competition worth as much as $40 billion over the next 20 years, archrivals Boeing Co. and Lockheed The continued reliance on the old rocket technology has cost the U.S. leadership in the commercial launch business in the last decade, as Western European nations, China and Russia have moved aggressively into the market. In recent decades, the Pentagon and NASA have faltered in efforts to create advanced -technology space launchers

that would dramatically reduce costs. Former NASA chief Dan Goldin lamented to Congress in 1996 that the space community "should hang its head in shame" over its failure to protect U.S. leadership in space. After many false starts, the U.S. finally has two new rocket models, both boasting more power than any rocket developed since the Saturn V launched three men to the moon more than three decades ago. The rockets' launch costs would range from $100 million to $150 million, significantly less than the current generation of vehicles.

The Air Force would use the new rockets to launch satellites for spying, weather forecasting, communications, navigation and other experimental purposes. Although the rockets are funded by the military for its own missions, commercial versions could help the U.S. recover business that has been lost to Arianespace, a European aerospace company.

Permanent space colonies are key to continued U.S. leadership. The Houston Chronicle May 3, 1992 Permanent space station vital for U.S. leadership The U.S. House of Representatives acted with foresight in killing a proposal by freshman Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., to cut off next year's funding for the Space Station Freedom, the centerpiece

of the American space program. There should be no doubt that this country needs a permanently manned space station to maintain its edge in space technology. On the local level the vote saves thousands of jobs a nd millions of dollars for the Houston community. But more

importantly, it keeps the United States in the running to be at the forefront of scientific leadership in the next century. Thursday's 254-159 vote prevented the $ 2.25 billion requested by NASA for Freedom in next year's budget from being diverted to other purposes.

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Exploration Key to Economy

A strong space program is key to US hegemony and economy. Aerospace America June, 1998 Space Commercialization: Pushing Ahead in Congress The worldwide commercial space sector has been growing by at least 20 percent annually for the past several years, making it one of the largest industries in the world. The entire space industry recorded revenues of nearly $ 77 billion in 1996 and employed an estimated 835,900 people.

Clearly, U .S. leadership and increased growth in the booming global market depends on a commitment to enhance the competitiveness of our industry. The federal government should step up efforts to promote competition and remove obstacles to industry growth and leadership in launch vehicles and space applications such as satellite communications, navigation, and Earth observations as well as in space-related services, information, and other products.

For forty years, a strong U.S. civil space program has been a key element in economic competitiveness, international prestige, national security, and humanitarian and disaster relief efforts. However, new elements have been introduced in national civil space policy, including tighter constraints on federal budgets and an increasing demand for some form of economic return on federal investments. In short, a cooperative relationship between the government and industry should be the cornerstone of any policy. The government invests in science and technology in support of the "public good." On the other hand, industry's main role is to develop and exploit the opportunities for opening new markets generated by the growth of space activities. When presented with an opportunity to earn a reasonable return on investment at a reasonable level of risk, industry will provide the capital, manpower, and business, technical, and marketing expertise needed to establish and maintain commercial operations.

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Space Exploration Bad

Space exploration trades off with nature conservation, which is key to prevent mass species extinction and biodiversity loss. The Guardian (London) February 24, 2000 'Silver bullet' to stem extinction; Paul Brown Huge numbers of species threatened with extinction could be saved if 25 carefully selected 'hot spots' covering just 1.4 per cent of the earth's surface were preserved, according to researchers from Oxford and Washington.

Writing in the scientific magazine Nature, the researchers say today that the number of species facing extinction far outstrips the resources needed to preserve them, and the situation is likely to become rapidly worse. By looking after the 'hot spots' 44 per cent of the world's plants and 35 per cent of animal species would be protected, giving the greatest possible return on investment in conservation. Norman Myers, from Green College, Oxford, describes this as a 'silver bullet' strategy by conservation planners.

On present estimates between one-third and two- thirds of all the world's plants and animals will disappear in the foreseeable future.

For pounds 300 million a year, twice the cost of a single mission to Mars to search for extraterrestrial life, mankind could avoid a huge impoverishment of the earth which would take millions of years to rectify through the evolution of new species. That is a longer period than Homo sapiens has been on the planet, the paper says.

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Asteroids not a Threat

Asteroids large enough to do severe damage are rare, and we already know where all the big ones are – they won’t hit us. Los Angeles Times November 21, 2002 Asteroid Danger to Earth Downgraded Charles Piller An analysis of once-secret satellite data indicates that asteroids capable of causing catastrophic damage strike the Earth only about once every 1 ,000 years -- far less frequently than previously thought . Using eight years of data collected for national security purposes by the departments of Defense and Energy, researchers disputed long-held assumptions that asteroids about 50 meters in diameter (about 55 yards across) enter the atmosphere once every 200 to 300 years. The last 50-meter asteroid to hit Earth exploded above Tunguska River Valley in Siberia in 1908, flattening 700 square miles of remote forest land. Scientists blame a far larger asteroid, that struck the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago, for

profound climatic changes that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Data from the new study suggest that if a Tunguska-sized rock hits every 1,000 years, a city is likely to be destroyed no more than every 30,000 years given that most of the Earth is ocean and much of the land mass is sparsely populated, said David Morrison, a space scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center. The study, published in today's issue of the journal Nature, ex amined 300 small asteroids that exploded in the air. "For the first time, this gives us an accurate estimate for the rate of impact of bodies hitting the Earth in the 1-to-10-meter-size range," said Peter Brown, an astronomer from the University of Western Ontario, and lead author of the paper. By comparing that information with observations of larger space rocks viewed using ground-based telescopes, the researchers discovered a consistent way to calculate the rate of Earth collisions for asteroids of all sizes. Until recently, most information on "near-Earth" asteroids and comets has been gathered by telescopes that can reliably find only objects 1 kilometer or larger in diameter. A direct hit by such a gigantic rock would cause drastic environmental damage, if not global apocalypse.

About 650 of an estimated 1,000 such large objects have been tracked. None will hit the Earth in the foreseeable future, Morrison said. Most of the rest should be cataloged by 2008.

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NASA Bad for Space

NASA blocks private companies, which do exploration better than NASA does. Edward L. Hudgins accessed January 31, 2003 director of the Washington, D.C., office of the Objectivist Center and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute Is NASA lost in space? For years, private enterprise has been poised to explore outer space and deliver benefits to people on earth--from perfecting new life-saving medicines to

creating new food crops and operating floating factories for high tech innovations. But NASA’s bureaucracy has been floundering, erecting legal and regulatory barriers to entrepreneurs wishing to take advantage of operating in space. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. At that time, most Americans found it difficult to imagine that the vision presented in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey would not be in our future. Many thought that by 2001 there would be regularly scheduled commercial flights to orbiting hotels, but no such flights have materialized. In fact, fewer than 500 human beings have ever ventured into space. And the International Space Station is billions of dollars over budget and radically scaled back from its initial design. What has happened in the past three decades to delay mankind’s full exploitation of sp ace? The cause of the problems is found in public policy. Civilian space efforts have been dominated by NASA, a

bureaucratic agency that has retarded activities in space as much as it has facilitated them. Yet, at the same time that NASA has been lost in space, entrepreneurs on earth have given birth to the computer and to telecom and Internet revolutions. Private markets are the answer.

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NASA Bad for Space NASA is bloated and inefficient – private companies solve best. Edward L. Hudgins FEBRUARY 2, 1995 RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING NASA director of the Washington, D.C., office of the Objectivist Center and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute NASA's lunar successes were possible in part because the adverse effects of government programs often take time to develop . By analogy with individuals, a man with a work ethic sixty years ago was unlikely to become indolent because he received a few federal aid checks while temporarily unemployed any more than he would if he received help from private charity. But raise three generations on government welfare and you have the decimated families and inner cities of America today.

Ask scientists quickly, by a certain date, sparing no expense to make an atomic bomb or put a man on the Moon, and they likely will perform well. But while many of its personnel still are competent and hardworking, today NASA as an organization has become the agency equivalent of a welfare recipient. From exploration to freight hauling. In the early 1970s, as the bills for Vietnam and the welfare state skyrocketed, NASA saw Moon landings curtailed and Moon bases ruled out. Thus, like any government agency, it sought to preserve big budgets and staffs. Its new big ticket project, the Space Shuttle, was sold to policy makers as a reusable and thus cheaper way to put payloads in orbit than expendable launch vehicles. In effect, NASA's mission went from science and exploration to freight hauling.

If at that time NASA had begun to turn over space activities to the private sector, space stations and Moon bases might be a reality today. Market competition usually brings down the real price of goods and services. For example, the revenue, and thus price, for airline travel in constant dollars since the late 1960s has dropped by around 40 percent. Shipping costs for oil dropped by 75 percent in constant-dollars. In 1981 the first IBM personal computer came with 64 kilobytes of memory and sold for $3,000, or around $46,000 per megabyte. Today a megabyte of memory can be had for less than $4. And in area of communications satellites, the space enterprise sector that has been the domain principally of the private sector, costs have dropped in real terms.

By contrast, as near has can be determined from impenetrable NASA accounting, the cost of putting payloads into orbit has gone up in real terms over the past decades. David Gump in his book Space Enterprise estimates the cost in constant dollars went from $3,800 per pound under Apollo to $6,000 with the Shuttle. If the market had reduced space flight costs by, say, 50 percent, the cost of putting a pound in orbit today would be under $2,000. Alex Roland of Duke University estimates that the cost of a Shuttle flight, including development and capital costs, is not the $350 million claimed by NASA but closer to $2 billion. This would raise the cost per pound to about $35,000.

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NASA Bad for Space

NASA won’t make life on other planets possible – private companies are needed for space colonization. The Economist November 16, 2002 Too farsighted The only good reason for NASA to be involved in human space-flight is to lay the ground for opening space up for everybody. It takes a vast leap of imagination to detect this reason in NASA's present strategy. Fleeting visits to the moon (or, one day, to Mars)

would turn the agency into little more than an elite travel agent. But for decades there has been a huge pent-up demand for flights into space. Although the private sector is finally making some

progress towards this, NASA should have been there years ago. What is still needed is research and

development on economical and safe space transport for the public at large. Space, like the Wild West, can be truly opened up only by the private sector . NASA's central goal in human space flight should be to make that possible.

Until NASA swaps its destination-driven thinking for a science-based approach focused on such objectives, the post -1960 generation that has grown up hoping to travel or even live in space will continue to feel betrayed. Several years ago, an organisation called the Space Frontier Foundation observed bitterly: "Thirty-six years after sending John Glenn into orbit, NASA has finally achieved the capability to send John Glenn into orbit." NASA must find a more practical reason for the human space-flight programme. Sending people to eat all those soya beans cannot be it.

NASA blocks private investors and hurts development of space. National Post February 4, 2003 Go further, faster without NASA Terence Corcoran

There's no news in space exploration because the business is in the grip of a giant government bureaucracy. As Edward Hudgins notes in his new book for the Cato Institute in

Washington, access to space is dominated by NASA, a classic Big Government bureaucracy "that has retarded as much as facilitated activit ies in space." The NASA bureaucracy performs all the

functions one expects of a state monopoly: It dominates space spending, hogs development, lobbies for bigger and bigger mega-projects, and squeezes out the private sector. The result is an industry -- and that's what it should be, an industry -- with no competition, no small players, few entrepreneurs. In short, space exploration suffers from a shortage of the dynamic entrepreneurial burble that generates news. For more on Mr. Hudgins' call for a private space project, see the excerpts from Space: The Free Market Frontier on this page today and tomorrow.

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Taxes Critique Shell

A. The link – taxes are the normal means for getting revenue – the plan is funded by taxes.

US Treasury, 2003 (United St ates Department of the Treasury, http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq/budget/us-budget.html)

The Federal Government receives money to fund its operations from many sources. The major source of revenue is from individual income TAXES. Other revenue is received through social insurance TAXES and contributions, excise TAXES, trust funds, estate and gift TAXES, and Customs DUTIES. Finally, the Government receives earnings from the Federal Reserve System's lending to financial institutions, fees for permits and regulatory and judicial services, and from gifts and contributions.

B. Taxes are sugar-coated slavery – the plan is a result of an immoral system and must be rejected on-face.

Muriithi, 99 (Andrew Muriithi, November 30, 1999, The Libertarian Enterprise, Number 60, http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe60-19991130-05.html accessed: 7/9/2003) Consider what taxation is all about at its most basic level. A group of people (who we call the government)

prints fiat money (currency or bonds) and, through state inst itutions, spends it on public programs--welfare, warfare, "whatever-fare". This group then compels the public (the group of

people who are not the government) to "volunteer" a percentage of their lifetime at wage-labor or business to pay back what was never owed in the first place, and with interest . If anyone opts not to volunteer, they are stripped of as much as 100 percent of their assets, or imprisoned where 100 percent of their time belongs to the state. Now this is arguably a form of slavery. This last statement is astounding. If you are a defender of the status quo, it would be reasonable to expect you to

dismiss the above argument as nonsense. Surely, slavery is the most atrocious form of evil one individual can perpetrate on another, short of murder. But those days are long gone and we are all

free. But are we? There is no better slave than one who thinks he is free, so goes a wise saying. The absence of whips and scourges doesn't mean coercion is absent; nor does it mean that we are free to control our means and destiny as we please, for we still have to make provision for the government in most, if not all our personal economic decisions. Taxation is slavery--fractional or partial perhaps--but slavery nonetheless. However covert or clever, there is nothing benign or voluntary about taxation, and if you doubt the fact, I challenge you to withhold your taxes. Sooner or later, you will spot the gun in your face.

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Taxes Down Now

Taxes are down in the status quo, props to Bush and Company

Beach, October 10 2003 (William W. Beach, the Heritage Foundation, John M. Olin Senior Fellow in Economics and director of the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/HL799.cfm)

It is most interesting to me that both men are responding to their deficits in a generally similar way. Prime Minister Raffarin's approach will rely principally on spending reduction and small tax cuts. President Bush will continue to combine spending restraint with tax cuts and tax reform. While I have no insight into the reason the French government is pursuing this strategy, the Bush Administration is using these two fiscal policy tools to boost the level of economic activity while keeping the dead-weight losses associated with government spending in check. I say "continue" because George Bush came to the presidency in 2001 with substantial tax cut legislation ready to go, and he has seen two additional and major tax bills pass since then.

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Taxes Are Immoral

Taxes are simply stealing – there is no moral justification, period. Muriithi, 99 (Andrew Muriithi, November 30, 1999, The Libertarian Enterprise, Number 60, http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe60-19991130-05.html accessed: 7/9/2003) Now, there are perhaps some who agree marginally that taxation is an evil, but a necessary one. There are poor people who need shelter, clothing, education, health care etc. and without taxation, they would languish or perish. Those who hold this "necessary evil" position must necessarily also believe that the end justifies the means--if the end is noble, the means, however evil, are justified. There are obvious philosophical and moral problems with this utilitarian view, and not enough space to accommodate them here. But to illustrate them in simple fashion, consider David Kelley's pristine logic.

He writes that in our personal lives, we know that people sometimes suffer through no fault of their own. We recognize a place in life for generosity and mutual aid. If a stranger is hurt in the street, we call the ambulance and see to his needs. If a neighbor's house burns down, we do what

we can to help. But we choose to do so voluntarily (emphasis added), weighing such needs against the

other demands on our resources, and we expect some measure of gratitude in recognition of our help. If a stranger appeared at our door demanding a place to live, or help with his medical bills, or a contribution to his retirement fund or to his kids' education--if he demanded it as a matter of right, regardless of

whether we were willing and able to help , and without any obligation to thank us for helping--we would take offense. We would recognize it as a monumental act of presumption. If the stranger demanded it with gun in hand, we would find it grossly unjust and punishable. Taxation does precisely the same thing. Through the coercive mechanism of government, one group of individuals puts claims on the public coffer--and thus on the wealth of productive members of society who pay taxes--without considering the latter's willingness or ability to pay and without any obligation to be grateful. We rarely challenge these claims as illegitimate or unjust. Usually, we go by the assumption that the rights of the claimants supersede those of the producers of the wealth. But this is the exact same assumption that the armed stranger above makes when he dispossesses you of your money by force. The government,

by taxation, steals from productive memb ers of society. Remember, the government doesn't produce anything and, therefore, has no right to people's income. It merely robs Peter to pay Paul--what we euphemistically call wealth redistribution. And while it shifts wealth around, it pinches some off to pay the people whose job it is to shift it (the people we call bureaucrats). So then, if the government commits the same

crime in effect as a common thief, why aren't the government people in jail? Because the government legalizes this theft for itself. A common Robin Hood doing the same thing, however noble his intentions may be, would be incarcerated. Economist Walter Williams asks in a recent column, if an act done by one person is immoral, does it become moral when done collectively, namely by the government? Without doubt, the distinction between legalized or "official" theft and common theft is not a meaningful difference --both are immoral. An injustice by any other name is still an injustice.

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Taxes are Immoral Taxes are property taken by force, which is thievery – this is immoral. D’Souza 2002 (Dinesh D’Souza, Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution, “Letters to a Young Conservative”, October 25th 2002, http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20021025-80756896.htm) From 1987 to 1988, D'Souza was senior domestic policy analyst at the White House during the Reagan administration But this is not true of big government. Let me illustrate with an example, which I have drawn from the African-American

economist Walter Williams. The federal government has a program called Social Security that is intended to help me save for my retirement. What if I were to say: "I appreciate the gesture, folks, but no thanks. I don't want to be part of this program. I am not going to pay any Social Security taxes, and I forgo any future claim on benefits. When I am old and cannot support myself, I will draw on my private savings, or rely on relatives and friends, or appeal to private charities. And if all of these measures fail, I will endure my fate." How would the government respond to this?

The government would, of course, respond by killing me. This may seem like paranoid speculation on my part, so let's explore the hypothesis further. I refuse to pay Social Security taxes. The government sends me notices and imposes fines. I ignore the notices and refuse to pay the fines. Federal agents then come to seize my property. I, taking my gun out of my desk drawer, make whatever attempts I can to protect what is mine. Since I am a poor shot and there are many more of them, the outcome can be told in advance. They will win, and I will be dead.

The purpose of this anecdote is to show that what distinguishes the government from the private sector is the power of coercion. In some ways the most insignificant government bureaucrat — the parking meter attendant, the IRS examiner, the guy at the Department of

Motor Vehicles, the immigration official — has more power over me than the CEO of Dell Computer or General Electric. And this power of coercion, which is inherent in the nature of government, fundamentally undermines the claim that the government is doing a moral thing by helping people. But see what happens if the government gets involved. The government takes my sandwich from me by force. Consequently, I am a reluctant giver. The government then bestows my sandwich on the hungry man. Instead of being thankful to me, however, the man feels entitled to this benefit. In other words, the involvement of the state has utterly stripped the transa ction of its moral value, even though the result is exactly the same.

Now let's keep the same scenario but change the outcome. I am approached by the hungry man, as before, but this time, instead of agreeing to share my sandwich, I refuse to do so. Along comes a third man, who pulls out a gun, points it at my head, and forces me to hand over my sandwich to him, upon which he gives it to the hungry guy. What is the moral quality of the gunman's action? I think most people would consider him an unscrupulous thug who should be apprehended and punished. Yet when the government does precisely the same thing — forcibly

seizing from some in order to give to others — the liberal insists the government is acting in a just and moral manner. This is clearly not t rue.

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Taxes are Immoral Taxes are the opposite of civilization – they use force to steal money from unconsenting individuals, which is immoral. Weber, 2001(Kurt. T Weber, Vice President, Cascade Policy Institute, April 2001, http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:vpfy-AdAgv8C:www.cascadepolicy.org/..%255Cpdf%255Cmisc%255C2001_14.pdf+coercion+taxes+means+ends+%22using+tax+money%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) Like clockwork, April 15 generates vigorous discussions about taxes and tax re-form. However, I invite pause and

reflection on a related issue: what kind of society do you want to live in. Do you want a civil society based on voluntary interaction, or a political society where coercion is the social cement? Simplistic debates about taxes-too high or too low, fair or unfair-aren't enough. Above the IRS building entrance in Washington, D.C. are Oliver Wendell Holmes' infamous words, "Taxes are what we pay for a

civilized society." That's a curious statement because tax collection is backed by force, and civilization is a refutation of the use of force. Cato Institute president Ed Crane responds, "I think

Holmes got it precisely wrong. In fact, I would argue that the level of taxation and of government regulation is a measure of our failure to civilize our society." Crane notes, "There are only two basic ways to organize societal affairs: coercively, through government mandates, and voluntarily, through the private interaction of individuals and associations...All the political `isms' boil down to a single question...Who is going to make decisions about your life, you or somebody else?" He continues, "In a civil society you make the choices about your own life. In a political society, someone else makes those choices."

The growth of government is really about losing control over our lives and the decisions we make. Government must utilize force, or the implied threat of force, to collect its revenue. The bigger government becomes, the more force that exists in society. Americans' "voluntary compliance" with income tax laws has been lauded by IRS officials. However, no amount of Orwellian whitewash can change what lies behind the taxation curtain. Seizure of your property, jail, or both, is the price you'll pay if you withhold payment from the government.

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Taxes are Immoral

Taxes force the views of the government onto the people through force, which is criminal and morally unjustifiable. Schwartz, 1995 (Brian Schwartz, Common Sense, Swarthmore College, May 1995, http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~schwartb/writing/politics/The-Invisible-Fist.html) Governments procure funds through taxation. Taxation is crime, regardless of how many people vote for it, how the money is spent, and whether the victims receive compensation . How? A criminal asks for his victim's property. Without the victim's consent, the criminal will procure the goods by initiating force on the victim. Big time criminals, mobsters, demand protection money from their "customers." If the customers pay, they get protection; if they don't, the mob will initiate force on them.

Look at taxation. If I refuse to pay taxes, the government will initiate force on me (put me

in prison), and take my money. It will leave me alone if I pay taxes (read "protection money"). Hence, a tax form is just a ransom note with good type-setting. The government has a legal monopoly on organized crime.

Criminals force people act according to their values. They impose their values on others. If, at the point of a gun, I try to pursue my highest values, the criminal will initiate force on me. If I refuse to pay my taxes, the

government will initiate force on me. In this sense, the government is the criminal. There is a difference between economic power and political power. The government uses political power. It has a monopoly on the legal use of initiating physical force. In this country, it is illegal not to pay taxes. These taxes support education, science research, and corporate welfare, and to the poor. Hence, if someone chooses not to contribute to what bureaucrats deem worthy, the bureaucrats initiate force upon him. I find it rather odd that abstaining from certain actions is illegal. I thought laws were made to protect people's rights, which are violated through someone's action of initiating force upon another. Political power is achieved through the use of force.

But we are human beings, i.e., rational animals. To live as humans, we need freedom to (from

coercion imposed by others) to use our rational faculty, our minds, to pursue values. I am not advocating moral

relativism. All individuals have the right do wrong. They do not have the right to force others to act according to their beliefs. Such force is a violation of another's rights. No action is moral if it is coerced. A moral action implies that the actor chose it. I can come to conclusions

about morality. One of this is that even if someone is doing something wrong, it is immoral for anyone to force this person to do what they think is right. It is immoral to impose, through physical force or the threat of it, one's values upon another . Free minds entail free markets.

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Ends Don’t Justify Means No matter what good the ends are for society, using taxes as the means will never be justified. Marco den Ouden 1996 The Newsletter of the Greater Vancouver Libertarian Association Volume 16, # 3 - April 1996 http://www.spinnaker.com/WCLF/wcl/wcl16-3.html The process works differently with income taxes. When people pay their income taxes (or have them

withheld at work) to the Internal Revenue Service, that payment is not voluntary. If they stop paying their income taxes, the IRS comes after them and in a very violent and vicious, terrifying and terrorizing way. Criminal prosecutions. Jail. Fines. Seizures. Levies. Liens. Foreclosures.

You all have created a corrupt grab-bag system that has turned people against people, families against families, states against states, communities against communities. People are doing their best to get into everyone else’s pocketbook … while at the same time doing their best to protect their own pocketbook from the IRS. In the words of the 19th-century French free-market legislator Frederic Bastiat, the state has become the fiction by which people are trying to live at the expense of everyone else. The old saw says "nothing is certain but death and taxes", but the Income Tax was introduced during World War I as a temporary measure. If it was never intended to be permanent, why can it not be repealed? In fact, there is no logical reason why taxes cannot be abolished. We cling to them out of force of habit, resignation and a widespread belief that taxes accomplish some good.

Libertarians have long argued the opposite, that taxes not only do not accomplish any good, but in fact, are evil and immoral. We argue that taxation is the moral equivalent of theft . Nay, more than that! We argue that taxation is theft.

While appreciating that many of the things Todd lists are good in themselves, I mean, who can gainsay the benefits of good hospitals and roads, nevertheless he misses an important ethical point here. The things Todd lists are all ends to be aimed at.

The point Todd (and other government apologists) miss is whether ends are the determining factor of ethical behavior. For instance, it may be argued that supporting one's family is a good thing. But there is a vast difference between supporting one's family by working or by stealing. Both methods have the same end in mind - supporting the family, but few of us would hesitate to condemn stealing as immoral. We would argue that the means by which one supports one's family determines whether the action is ethical or not. There might be a rejoinder from the Todds of the world that governments are different than individuals. Governments are the people acting collectively and so can do things individuals can't. Libertarians dispute this. We argue that the state is nothing more than a collection of individuals. Actions that are immoral for an individual to do, such as stealing, are immoral for the state to do. Might does not make right.

Those who would persuade the state to support some pet cause with tax money, be it the opera, a football stadium or a political lobby group are, in fact, demanding that the state perform acts that they themselves would not do because they are immoral and they know it.

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Taxation Isn’t Stealing

Taxes are part of the social contract – you use public goods, so you pay for them with taxes. Steve Kangas 1993, editor of Liberalism Resurgent http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/L-taxestheft.htm Taxes are part of a social contract, an agreement between voters and government to exchange money for the government's goods and services. Even

libertarians agree that breach of contract legitimates a police response. So the real question is not whether a crime should b e met with "men with guns," but whether or not the social contract is valid, especially to those who don't agree with it or devote their allegiance to it.

Liberals have two lines of argument against those who reject the idea of the social contract. The first is that if they reject it, they should not consume the government's goods and services. How they can avoid this when the very dollar bills that the economy runs on are printed by the government is a good question . Try to imagine participating in the economy without using public roads, publicly funded communication infrastructure, publicly

educated employees, publicly funded electricity, water, gas, and other utilities, publicly funded information, technology, research and development -- it's absolutely impossible. The only way to avoid public goods and services is to move out of the country entirely, or at least become such a hermit, living off the fruits of your own labor, that you reduce your consumption of public goods and services to as little as possible. Although these alternatives may seem unpalatable, they are the only consistent ones in a person who truly wishes to reject the social contract. Any consumption of public goods, no matter how begrudgingly, is implicit agreement of the social contract, just as any consumption of food in a restaurant is implicit agreement to pay the bill.

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Taxes Increase Economy

High taxes empirically increase the economy. Steve Kangas 1993, editor of Liberalism Resurgent http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/L-taxgrowth.htm Even so, examining this issue is important, because conservatives see growth as an economic goal, and tax cuts as the best way to achieve that goal. So we should study tax cuts for their efficacy in achieving desirable outcomes.

A review of American history makes the opposite case that conservatives would like it to make: high growth usually coincides with high taxes. During both world wars, taxes soared to record heights. And the supercharged economies that resulted produced high growth for decades afterwards. World War I was followed by the Roaring 20s; World War II was followed by the boom times of the 50s and 60s. The reason why wars are good for the economy is a matter of controversy -- one likely theory is that war compels government to inv est heavily in manufacturing. Whatever the reason, the point is that these economic boosts occur during a period of unusually high

taxation. Hate taxes though they may, people resort to them when their survival is on the line.

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Lottery Counterplan Shell

Text: the United States federal government should

[insert affirmative plan text here] with funding through a national lottery. One ticket can be purchased for one dollar. The winner will receive a prize of 20%, and the rest will go to funding the plan. Any remaining money will be spent through normal means. Observation One: It’s non-topical. Lotteries aren’t an ocean policy. Also, once the affirmative chooses their plan, everything else becomes negative ground and is functionally non-topical. Observation Two: it competes. First through net benefits – we avoid disadvantages that link to the plan. Second, it’s mutually exclusive – any perm will be severance because they’d have to change their specification of the funding mechanism. Observation Three: it solves. First, we have all the same solvency as the plan because we do exactly the same thing – we just change the funding mechanism. Second, lotteries are popular and generate billions of dollars.

Ammann ‘02 Chattanooga Times Free Press, Melinda Ammann, 7.28.2002, http://www.timesfreepress.com/2002/jul/28jul02/gamblingAmmann7-28.html

The Georgia lottery, like state lotteries around the country, has generated huge dividends for education. In 2000, $1.3 billion was allocated to HOPE scholarships for higher education, $1.38 billion to a prekindergarten program and $1.6 billion for capital outlay and technology for primary and secondary schools. The state Legislature has concluded that gambling is good for Georgia. That is, so long as it's state-sponsored gambling.

Some lawmakers see 37 other states and the District of Columbia making billions through their lotteries and want to get in on the action . Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia all have lotteries.

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Lottery Counterplan Shell

Third, Lotteries improve the economy and can pay for protection of natural resources.

Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997

http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

Benefits. North America lotteries provide funding for education, economic development,

natural resource protection , elder care programs, and more. They have contributed over $100 billion in annual wagering, lotteries directly or indirectly provide over 250,000 jobs. Over 240,000 retailers sell lottery products in North America. Last year they were paid over $3 billion in

commissions.

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2NC – Organized Crime Net Benefit

A. If the government doesn’t do lotteries, organized crime will. Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997 http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

In certain instances where "daily numbers" games are sold in large metropolitan areas

from St. Louis east, there exists a cultural anomaly where lower-income blue-collar workers play the game in distinctly higher proportions that their white-collar counterparts. Data will show that this

particular game has a lower-income following. The game was sold by organized crime for generations. Government lotteries in Washington D.C., Boston, Baltimore, New York, and elsewhere

took almost all of that business away from organized crime. Proving that this phenomenon is a cultural rather than an economic bias is the fact that the same game, sold by lotteries to the same economic demographic west of St. Louis, has resulted in relative consumer rejection and virtual failure. Cities west of St. Louis developed into urban areas later and were devoid of the criminal numbers running tradition. The game is a cultural preference.

If lotteries were to remove this game with such significant demand from eastern metropolitan areas, organized crime would again fill the void. Since experiments with

prohibition have failed, government has but one choice – sell the game and capture the profits or let crime bosses have them.

B. More money for organized crime gives them funds to do nuclear blackmail and supplying for terrorists.

Office of Technology Assessment, 77 (http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk3/1977/7705/770501.PDF, June 1977, Nuclear Proliferation and Safeguards) Organized Crime as a Potential Nuclear Non-State Adversary In this discussion, organized crime means an organization dedicated to illegal activities; its existence transcends any single act; the organization survives its members. Organized crime should be distinguished from individual groups of criminals that organize themselves to carry out specific crimes. Whether organized crime should be considered a likely nuclear non-state adversary remains a matter of debate. Several studies and commentaries on the subject are summarized in appendix 111 of

volume II. L. Douglas DeNike concludes that it is credible that organized crime would engage in nuclear activity: “Armed with plutonium or high level waste, organized crime might demand Federal assurances of non-interference with their operations. Punishment for non-cooperation might be the loss of Washington, D. C., as a habitable center. Nuclear thieves could demand large sums of cash, control over policy or special concessions from national governmerits.” 5 Considering the possibility of theft of nuclear material, the MITRE study concludes: “They (organized crime) are interested solely in acquiring more money and power for themselves. , . They are involved in almost all the hijacking that goes on in the United States, and have been able to exert considerable control over substantial parts of industry, labor, and government. Their business is often international and they have longstanding and secure links in Europe, the Middle

East, Latin America, and the Far East. There is little question that, for a sufficient amount of

money, members of organized crime would take a contract to acquire special nuclear material for another party.”6

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2NC – Organized Crime Net Benefit

C. This turns case as well – organized crime destroys the environment through endangered species trade, ozone destruction, and toxic waste dumping.

Porteous, 98 (Samuel Porteous, Porteous Consulting, Public Works and Government Services of Canada, http://www.sgc.gc.ca/Publications/Policing/1998orgcrim_e.asp)

In Canada in the area of environmental crime there have been three main areas of concern: illicit trade in ozone depleting substances (ODS), illicit hazardous waste treatment and disposal and illicit trade in endangered species.

Trade in Endangered Species

Interpol estimates the illegal trafficking in endangered species to be a market worth $US 6 billion annually with profit margins second only to the illegal drug trade. Canada's activity to counter the illicit trade in endangered species stems not so much from direct threat to Canadian species but from wider concern with the global environment of which Canada is part and recognition of our duty as a good international citizen.

Ozone Depleting Substances

Canada purportedly supplies a substantial portion of the US black market in chloroflurocarbons with most of the rest being supplied from Mexico.

Hazardous Waste

It is estimated there are some 3,200 substances including mining waste, biomedical waste, chemical waste and metal scrap that are potentially hazardous waste. Canada produces approximately 5.9 million tonnes of these substances each year and 3.2 million tonnes are sent to off-site disposal facilities for specialized treatment and recycling.

The treatment and disposal of hazardous waste is a highly profitable sector and one that is exceptionally vulnerable to fraudulent practices engaged in by OC groups. The existence of OC in the hazardous waste disposal industry has been acknowledged internationally for some time. The head of Interpol states that this is a serious OC activity that is "increasing dramatically". American analyses have revealed a link between organized crime and the illicit movement and disposal of hazardous waste. It is highly likely that organized criminals are involved in the Canadian industry as well. Typically, this involvement consists of OC groups setting themselves up as 'treaters' and 'traders' in toxic waste.

However, once the hazardous waste is in the hands of an OC group the necessary treatment is rarely if ever performed, and the toxic waste is either dumped illegally in Canada or taken out of the country and dumped elsewhere.

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Lotteries Help the Economy

Money put into lotteries gets put back into the economy.

Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997

http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

Lotteries have a positive impact on the economy. Some economists have asserted that the money wagered on lotteries is taken out of the economy and isn’t used for goods and services that support employment

or meaningful activity. Their analysis is shallow. Money spent on lottery ticket s gets parceled several ways:

• Commissions to retailers • Fees to companies for services • Advertising • Satellite uplinks, television studios, rents, vehicle fleets, accounting firms, data processing, drawing machined,

ticket printers. Lottery revenues are channeled into the economy the same as the revenues of an average business.

• There are profits that go to the government . Those profits take the place of higher taxes and are used to deliver goods and services like other money circulating through the economy.

• What’s left? Only prize money. It does get redistributed to those who win from those who don’t. Those who don’t win can’t buy chocolate bars, gum, or rent movies but the winners can buy toasters, scholarships, new cars, and houses, or start their own b usinesses. So the real economic drawback must be the really big winner who can’t spend money fast enough and must stuff it into a mattress or keep it in the basement, where it does no one any good. I do know of those big winners who have spent money on lawyers and accountants. I know that some idle winnings go into the bank or into a brokerage account - economists must say that’s okay. Where are the overstuffed mattresses?

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A2: Targets the Poor

Bottom line is that people can choose whether or not to play – the poor aren’t uniquely taken advantage of.

Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997

http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

Lotteries don’t take advantage of the poor . Poor people are allowed to vote, get married, and sign contracts. Society in the U.S. and Canada does not usurp rights and privileges

based on socioeconomic status. Why then, do those less prosperous needs to be protected from making a one-dollar decision?

Lotteries don’t discriminate among their customers. They sell to tall, short, rich and poor. If there is something inherently wrong with allowing less prosperous people the choice to buy a ticket, then the protectionists should seek legislation to prohibit low-income citizens from taking a chance. Why haven’t they? Because the folly of their self-righteous protectionism would be exposed.

That isn’t a significant social problem – middle income individuals statistically play the lottery more than the poor.

Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997

http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

It has been alleged that lower-income people spend a higher percentage of their income on lottery products. Obviously such is true for any product with a fixed price, whether it is bread, clothing, shampoo or a movie ticket. Whatever price is chosen for a product, divide it by a lower income and

you get a higher percentage. If this issue were really socially significant, government could issue gaming stamps like food stamps to low income customers and give a discount on tickets that would negate the issue…but it would not negate the critics. Obviously, a person making $10,000 a year will spend a higher percentage of his or her salary on a $1 ticket than a person making $100,000 per year. That fact, however, does not support the hypothesis that low -income persons are lottery customers or

that they are targets of marketing campaigns. The logic is faulty and numerous studies have concluded that middle-income persons are the lottery’s principal customers.

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A2: Private Lotteries Better

Private lotteries are too easily corrupted – the government must control all lotteries.

Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997

http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

Private lotteries were prevalent in the nineteenth century until corruption couldn’t be controlled and congress made all interstate lottery activities illegal. Most state constitutions enacted after 1890 followed suit. State lotteries weren’t authorized again until 1963. The evolution of technology has made it easier to catch some cheaters, but it has also made more opportunities to cheat. Congress provided state lotteries exemptions from taxes and restrictions not afforded to private gaming entitles. How much can legally be in private hands supervised by a state is a question not yet tested in the courts. The important issue of security

is also at stake. Unlike casinos with all of their operations within the confines of a building, lotteries by their nature require thousands of vendors at diverse retail locations and deal with millions of players at these diverse locations. Only a government agency can have the regulatory powers to assert jurisdiction over so many independent entities. Simple employer/employee relationships are not applicable. Policing vendors through priv ate licensing agreements, as is dome for trademarks and patents on a civil

basis, is not adequate. Only government authorities have the criminal enforcement ability to deal with such widespread opportunity for fraud. Therefore, significant government involvement to preserve lottery integrity will always be essential. However, the opportunities for private entitles to contribute technology toward the secure and efficient operation of those state entitles will continue to increase.

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A2: Lotteries are Addictive

Lotteries aren’t uniquely addictive, and without lotteries there will be other betting that gambling addicts will do instead anyway.

Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997

http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

Lottery tickets can be addictive. The degree of addiction is different for various games. Video lottery problems, although confined to only a few states, are the most pronounced. The problems must be acknowledged. The lottery industry must support treatment and keeping the problems in perspective. Every human being that frequents heroin will become an

addict. Between 2% and 4% of the general population has a propensity to become compulsive gamblers. Some new research suggests that compulsive behavior is the result of a chemical or biological problem that manifests itself by excessive gambling, drinking, drug use, sex, fanatical religion, or something else, implying that gambling itself is not the problem. More conventional thinking suggests that if lottery tickets a re the only available gambling

product, 20% to 40% of the 4% with a propensity for problem gambling could become lottery addicts. But cards, sports betting (legal or illegal) and commodity markets are available everywhere. In a state like Iowa, where other forms of gaming are available, there are good statistics on the contributions of the lottery to problem gambling. Last year nearly 3,700 urgent calls were placed to the Iowa Department of Public Health on the Gambling Treatment Helping. It’s an 800-toll free number. It is printed on every Iowa lottery ticket, lottery terminal, lottery vending machine, play station and brochure. It does not appear on every slot machine or blackjack table – although it can be found on a poster somewhere in a 50,000 square foot casino. Last year 6% of all the calls on these lines were from people who had played lottery games. That means that 94 % of the callers did not have a problem with lottery games. Also remember that the 6% who did account for 0.12% of the adult population. There is a credo that dictates even one problem is too many. But is it fair to restrict the activities of 99.7% of the adult population to shield the other 0.3%? Since the leading cause of death other than by disease is vehicle accidents, should cars, trucks, and buses be outlawed? Lottery tickets don't cause death! Restrictions may need to be enacted to protect people from other people. Assistance should be provided to people who may otherwise hurt themselves – but there should be moderation in protectionism lest the living be buried in a coffin of fear and overreaction.

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A2: Lotteries are Addictive

Studies show lotteries aren’t addictive.

Savannah Morning News 2000 Dave Williams 4.1.00

The increasing availability of legalized gambling in recent years has greatly reduced illegal betting , according to a report released Friday by a study commission made up primarily of state government officials.

At the same time, the number of Americans who have gambled at least once or within the past year is up, presumably a reflection of the popularity of lotteries.

The commission's chairman, Florida state Sen. Steven Geller, said the study also concluded that lotteries do not increase the number of "pathological" gamblers. He said only about 1 percent of Americans are compulsive gamblers, a far lower percentage than are alcoholics or drug abusers.

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A2: Lotteries Cause Bankruptcy

More people have gone bankrupt from playing the stock market than playing lotteries.

Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997

http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

History has documented relatively few people who have risked so much on lotteries that they lost house and home. History has documented relatively many people who have risked so much on the stock market, commodities, and farming that they did lose house and home. There is only one medicine to prevent these afflictions.

It’s called moderation. Obviously the risk on lottery tickets is lower than the risk on most other gambles, even though the potential reward with the lottery could be higher. Still, moderation in all things – "play with your head not over your head." Don’t bet the farm and don’t buy lottery tickets on credit, even though credit is commonly used when gambling on stocks and pork bellies (margin).

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A2: Unconstitutional

The Writers of the Constitution Used and Accepted Lotteries

New Mexico Lottery 97 http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/facts_myths.htm

By one source, there were about half a dozen respectable lotteries operation in each in the 13 colonies prior to the American Revolution.

The Continental Congress saw lotteries as a means of financing a Revolutionary Army to make them independent of England- ironic since to was "taxation without representation" that was a key complaint of the colonies. Apparently they didn’t see lotteries as a tax.

Benjamin Franklin sponsored a lottery to raise money for cannons to defend Philadelphia against the British.

It was proceeds from the United States Lottery 1777 that paid for the provisions for Washington’s troops.

Lotteries allowed the constitution to be written in the first place – no way are they unconstitutional.

Edward J. Stanek, Ph.D. September 29, 1997 http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM

Remember "No taxation without representation?" It was proceeds from the United States Lottery in 1777 that brought provisions for Washington’s troops that made it possible for U.S. coins and bills to bear images or presidents instead of queens and kings.

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A2: Lotteries are a Tax

Lotteries aren’t a tax – people have a choice whether or not to play. New Mexico Lottery 97 http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/facts_myths.htm

People are forced to pay taxes; no one is forced to play the lottery. You can go to jail or lose your home for not paying taxes. You won’t go to jail for not playing lottery games. You just won’t have a chance to win cash and other prizes!

Some people say the lottery is an implicit tax, because it has relatively higher administrative costs and is less efficient way of raising money for, say, education than taxes, but its revenues go for education just as other tax money does. Playing the lottery depletes the player’s discretionary income from availability for other purchases, but so do going to the movies, ballgames, or other form of entertainment.

"Lottery agencies are not tax collectors in any normal sense but rather are state enterprises producing and selling a product to the public…Viewed as a state enterprise striving to make money, state lotteries appear remarkably su ccessful. Product innovations and aggressive promotions have generated extraordinary growth, and their legal monopoly position has made possible a high rate of profit on sales." ("Selling Hope" by Charles T. Clotfelter and Philip J. Cook, 1991, A National Bureau of Economic Research Book, p. 219)

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Lottery DAs Empirically Denied

National lotteries are historical and have been used many times

Brunelle, 2003 (Jim Brunelle, May , 2003, Blethen Maine Newspaper, http://news.mainetoday.com/indepth/casinos/030509brunelle.shtml accessed: 7/10/2003)

The idea of using gambling profits for public purposes dates back at least to the time of Caesar. The Hun Dynasty in China devised keno to pay for construction of the Great Wall of China. Queen Elizabeth I established England's first national lottery in 1567 and a couple of centuries later a lottery was used to establish the British Museum.

England exported this money-raising device to its colonies and came to regret it. Benjamin Franklin used lotteries to finance cannons for the Continental Army.

Early American lotteries built roads, canals, port facilities and colleges. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia were all funded that way.

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Lotteries Hurt the Poor

Lotteries takes money from the poor and give it to the rich – they’re socially regressive. Heberling, 2002 (Michael Heberling is president of the Baker College Center for Graduate Studies in Flint, Michigan. The Independent Review, v.VI, n.4, Spring 2002, ISSN 1086-1653, Copyright © 2002, pp. 597–606.) Although state governments go to great lengths to sugarcoat the lottery by calling it “voluntary,” this characterization does not change the fact that its effects resemble those of a highly regressive tax . (By the same logic, a case might be made that a state sales tax is not really a “tax” because it is borne only by those who “voluntarily” purchase

the goods and services on which it is levied.) Every study of the lottery has shown that its burden falls disproportionately on the poor and that most of the benefits go to those who are well off. Redistribution of wealth is offensive when it rewards the poor at the expense of the rich, but it is even more egregious when it works in the

opposite direction. Instead of operating as a Robin Hood tax, the lottery is more akin to a Sheriff of Nottingham tax because it takes from the poor to give to bureaucrats, politicians, and the rich (Thornton 1999).

Lotteries condemn the poor with a government-sponsored defeatist message Heberling, 2002 (Michael Heberling is president of the Baker College Center for Graduate Studies in Flint, Michigan. The Independent Review, v.VI, n.4, Spring 2002, ISSN 1086-1653, Copyright © 2002, pp. 597–606.) Government should seek to bring out the best in citizens by promoting the value of education, hard work, initiative, responsibility, perseverance, and saving and investment. Instead, our state governments send the message that luck is all that counts and that our country is permanently divided into “haves” and “have-nots.” Unless you were born wealthy, everything is stacked against you. On your own, you will never get anywhere or amount to anything, so why even bother trying to improve yourself or your family? Outside of winning the lottery, life is hopeless. Our government’s defeatist message appears to be gaining acceptance. A Consumer Federation of America/Primerica poll in October 1999 found that a majority of Americans believe it is easier to get rich by winning the lottery than by saving and investing (Markels and Slivinski 2000).

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Lotteries are Immoral

Government lotteries justifies state-sponsored prostitution. Heberling, 2002 (Michael Heberling is president of the Baker College Center for Graduate Studies in Flint, Michigan. The Independent Review, v.VI, n.4, Spring 2002, ISSN 1086-1653, Copyright © 2002, pp. 597–606.) What are we to make of our government’s ambivalent attitude toward gambling? We are bombarded with public-service announcements telling us that Internet gambling is the road to ruin, yet at the same time gov ernment-sponsored advertisements encourage lottery gambling. Many in the liberal and libertarian camps declare that the government ought not to dictate morals to its citizens. Fair enough. But does this position apply only when the government attempts to p romote positive morals? If the morals being pushed are negative, is government promotion any less obnoxious?

Gambling is not just legal; the government aggressively promotes it. Our government has crossed the moral Rubicon by using a vice allegedly for the public

good. Why stop with gambling? Why not adopt state-sanctioned, state-run, and

state-promoted prostitution as well? This vice, too, is a victimless crime that will take place with or without government approval. As in the lottery, all proceeds might be earmarked “for the children,” and participation would, of course, be “strictly voluntary.” We might even save money on the marketing expenses by recycling some of the existing lottery advertisements. How about: “All you need is a Franklin ($100) and a fantasy” (New York); or “Don’t forget to play around every day” (Pennsylvania); or “How to get to easy make street” (Illinois)?

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Lotteries are Addictive Government lotteries cause addiction and are funded by addicts Heberling, 2002 (Michael Heberling is president of the Baker College Center for Graduate Studies in Flint, Michigan. The Independent Review, v.VI, n.4, Spring 2002, ISSN 1086-1653, Copyright © 2002, pp. 597–606.) One of the initial major selling points of the lottery was that it was not really “gambling”

in the traditional sense. That claim now appears to be false. Yes, some people will gamble with or without a lottery, but many people never would have begun to gamble but for the government’s prodding. Ronald Reno states that Clotfelter and Cook have estimated

that the government trappings of legitimacy help to entice 25 percent of the lottery players from the ranks of nongamblers (Reno 1998). Interestingly, in states with a lottery, the rate of participation in other forms of gambling is higher (Reno 1996). The National Helpline for problem gamblers (1-800-GAMBLER) has been tracking

calls since 1983. Lottery-gambling problems are usually the second most common reason for calling (behind casino gambling). In 1998 and 1999, 54 p ercent and 44 percent, respectively, of the Helpline callers indicated that the lottery was no longer just a game (O’Neill 2000). In addition, the National Opinion Research Center estimates that

problem gamblers generate 14 percent of total U.S. lottery revenues (Houser 1999). In other words, with regard to the lottery, our government actually wears three hats: it is the regulator, the promoter, and the enabler of self-destructive gambling behavior.

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Lotteries Destroy Federalism

Gambling is one of the few government programs left to the states – the plan destroys federalism.

Lynch 1998 (Timothy Lynch, CATO institute, July 23,1998, http://www.cato.org/dailys/7-23-98.html)

One of the few areas of American life the federal government has largely left alone is gambling. But a quiet effort is under way to promote broad-based federal intervention. In a few years there may be a whole new regulatory agency that will oversee gambling operations across America.

Gambling regulation has always been considered the province of state and local government. Historically, gambling has been frowned upon and generally prohibited. Nevada, of course, has been the exception. Over the last 25 years, however, many states have liberalized their rules on gambling. In the 1970s, Atlantic City, N.J., legalized gambling, and state lotteries became popular. More recently, a patchwork of states has allowed "river-boat" gambling. The public has responded in droves.

The call for federal intervention should be resisted for several reasons. First and foremost, the Constitution does not authorize the federal government to involve itself in gambling. In the landmark case of Maybury vs. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall observed that the powers of Congress "are defined and limited." A cursory examination of the Constitution by any educated person would show that the powers of Congress are spelled out explicitly in Article I, section 8. The 10th Amendment was later added to make it clear that the powers not delegated to the federal government were to be "reserved to the states."

Federal gambling regulation would be the antithesis of respect for the 10th Amendment and of individual choice about how to spend one's own money. Will the Republican Congress respect the Constitution and resist the impulse to meddle? The odds are about even.

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A2: Decreases Organized Crime

Government involvement increases lottery involvement and hurts people just as much as organized crime lotteries would. Heberling, 2002 (Michael Heberling is president of the Baker College Center for Graduate Studies in Flint, Michigan. The Independent Review, v.VI, n.4, Spring 2002, ISSN 1086-1653, Copyright © 2002, pp. 597–606.) For certain activities, such as law enforcement and national defense, the government should have a monopoly. “Running a numbers game,” however, is not such an

activity. In fact, a strong case might be made that the government should not even be in this vice business at all. If the government’s link to the lottery were severed, many people might become more reluctant to play: private enterprises are often viewed as motivated by corporate greed in pursuit of obscene profits, whereas government

enterprises are generally not so perceived. Rightly or wrongly, many people view democratically elected governments as honorable institutions even though, as their operation of lotteries attests, they are as capable of using predatory marketing practices

and raking in obscene profits as private enterprise.

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Franking Counterplan Shell

Text: the United States Federal Government should

[Insert Aff plan here]

with funding by cutting all privileges for free postage to Congress-members. Franking will be gone. We’ll be happy to clarify in Cross-X. Observation One: It’s non-topical. Cutting franking is not prot ection of marine resources, and after the aff chooses their plan, the rest of the ground is negative and functionally non-topical. Observation Two: it competes. First, by net benefits. Funding through cutting franking has advantages over the aff plan and avoids the disadvantage. Second, they’re mutually exclusive. Their funding was given out of the 1AC, and we changed that part of the plan. For them to perm it, they’d have to cut out that part of their plan, which is severance and destroys our ground. Don’t let them do it. Observation Three: it solves. First, we have the same solvency as case. Everything is done the same, just with different funding. Second, franking is very expensive – there’s more than enough to fund their plan. Gregory Bresiger April 11, 2002 (business writer and editor “Real Junk Mail” http://www.lewrockwell.com/bresiger/bresiger13.html) How much money is spent on these "newsletters?" Actually, it's not easy to decipher, says a congressional staffer who

works for the Congressional Commission on Franking. He doesn't want to be quoted by name. Members of the House each receive a $1 million annual allowance for staff and offices. A large part of that

can be spent on franking and no one seems to be too picky about the amounts, the staffer says. "How much each member spends on these newsletters is difficult to say," the unidentified Congressional staffer says. In

other words, "There is no congressional oversight on this," says Ed Sepp, a staffer with the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) in Alexandria, Virginia. "Congress won't change this. Only public exposure and outrage will change anything," he adds. It is Sepp who notes the uselessness of this so-called watchdog franking commission: "No citizen can file a complaint with this commission about franking by a member of Congress. You can file a complaint if you're running for Congress. However, most people don't run for Congress so it's not worth much," Sepp says. (Oh, no, Mr. Sepp, I think! You're being cynical. I have nothing better to do than run for Congress. As a middle-class person here in the Rancid Apple, I never have to worry about costly things like taxes. All middle class people here have plenty of time and would love to run against someone like Weiner, who has hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend in this safe Democratic district. In almost 13 years of living here in central Queens, I have yet to see or actually hear of a Republican candidate running for Congress in this district. This is a district in which Jesus Christ, if he ran on the Republican line, would be badly beaten in a race with my beloved Slick or Chuckles the Clown if he had the Democratic line.) Congress's leadership, obviously, doesn't want to discuss this unpleasant subject called newsletters, but the NTU estimates

that the average member of the House and Senate spends about $50,000 a year on franking, which comes to about a $25 million bill for the taxpayers. But aren't there any limitations on what these pols can put in these "newsletters"? They are very few.

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Observation Four: the net benefit is democratic participation. First, franking gives incumbents a monetary advantage that lets them completely block out challengers, which hurts democratic competition. Raskin and Bonifaz 1993 (Jamin, Associate Professor of Law, Washington College of Law at the American University and John, Staff Attorney for the Center for Responsive Politics Yale Law & Policy Review FOCUS ON: RESTORING FAITH IN GOVERNMENT: Equal Protection and the Wealth Primary) But there is at least one category of congressional spending which, by pervasive social consensus, now qualifies as a clear political self-subsidy in almost every case: the unsolicited mass franked mailing of newsletters to district constituents. This widespread practice abuses the congressional franking [*291] privilege, which permits members to send direct mail

to constituents using their signatures in place of stamps. Between January 1991 and September 22, 1992, three-fourths of the House, or 310 members, "spent more on franking in this election cycle than the $ 108,506 spent by the average challenger on his entire campaign in 1990." n103 House members spent almost $ 75 million on postage in this time period and sent out more than 500 million pieces of franked mass mail, comprised primarily of newsletters to voters. n104 On average, each representative spent $ 171,809 on total postage and sent out more than 1.1 million mass-mailed pieces of literature. n105 Fifty-eight representatives sent out more than two million pieces of mass mail, and 246 sent out more than a million. n106 Although

the franking privilege undoubtedly has legitimate uses, n107 these mass-mailed newsletters generally boast of the member's legislative and constituent service accomplishments, and can fairly be described as taxpayer-sponsored campaign literature.

<<they continue>>

The wall of money enclosing incumbents has fatal consequences for political competition . With their public funds and private warchests, incumbents scare off serious opposition and dry up most potential sources of campaign money for potential rivals. If we use the helpful analysis provided by Common Cause, we can see that four out of five House incumbents face either no challenger at all or a challenger with so little money as not to be deemed in any way a plausible electoral threat . Common Cause defines "financially unopposed" races as ones in which an incumbent faces a challenger who raises less than $ 25,000; "financially noncompetitive" races as those in which challengers raise more than $ 25,000 but less than fifty percent of the funds raised by the incumbent; and "financially competitive" races as ones in which the challenger has raised at least half the money the incumbent has. n111 Applying this definition to the 1992 elections, we find that of the 339 House incumbents running in the general election, n112 279--or eighty-two percent--of them were unopposed, financially unopposed, or in financially noncompetitive races. All of the 279 incumbents with such lopsided fundraising advantages won. n113 Only sixty incumbents were in "financially competitive races," even under Common Cause's extremely generous definition. n114

It comes as no surprise, then, to find that nearly nine out of ten incumbents seeking reelection win their races. In 1992, the alleged year of the outsider, [*293] when anti-incumbent feeling was at an extraordinary high in the country, 325 of 363 incumbents seeking reelection to the House of Representatives won their races, for an astonishing reelection rate of 89.5%. n115 In the U.S. Senate, twenty-four of twenty-eight incumbents seeking reelection were returned to office, for a reelection rate of 85.7%. n116

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Second, democratic participation is key to the forming of the individual – there’s a moral imperative to protect it. Gary Chartier Winter, 2001 (Lecturer in Business Ethics, La Sierra University) Washburn Law Journal “Civil Rights and Economic Democracy” Democracy is crucial to the fulfillment of the civil rights vision , both substantively and instrumentally. Instrumentally, it is a precondition for the achievement of political change. Substantively, it embodies the civil rights vision's promise of full inclusion in the life of our society. Democracy is necessary if civil rights are to be achieved. It is not logically necessary, of course. After all, it is conceivable that a benevolent dictator could impose measures furthering racial justice on an unwilling population, and of course this is what some southerners maintained, effectively, that Lyndon Johnson had done. But it seems at least initially plausible to maintain that if social institutions are to be responsive to the needs of all people, the odds are greater that they will do so in a democratic political order. Growing Afro-American representation in national and state legislatures does not ensure that the interests of black and other marginal people will be respected, but it raises the odds considerably. The democratization of other social institutions can only increase the capacity of minority group members to influence policy outcomes in ways that are likely to contribute to inclusiveness and justice.

But democracy is not simply a means of affecting other goals. Democratic participation is an end in itself. Our institutions, from the national government to our workplaces and neighborhoods, are places where we are formed, where our identity is constructed. To participate in decision making in our social institutions is not simply, perhaps not even primarily, a means of furthering the interests of the various groups to which we belong. It is a matter of belonging, inclusion, overcoming alienation: only if I participate in the decisions that affect me can I reasonably regard myself as part of the institutions that shape my life. To the extent that belonging to an authentic national community was an underlying concern of the civil rights movement, democratic participation must be seen not only as a means to the movement's ends but as itself among those ends.

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2NC – Incumbency Add-On

The new internal link – dominance of incumbent office holders. First, franking gives a monetary advantage to current office-holders that lets them shut out new opponents. BLAIR T. O'CONNOR FALL, 1994 Valparaiso University Law Review WANT TO LIMIT CONGRESSIONAL TERMS? VOTE FOR "NONE OF THE ABOVE" The powerful monetary advantage of incumbents provides them with a host of other benefits. Incumbents can hire large staffs of loyal supporters and can recruit a glut of campaign workers to obtain access to the local press and media and to court influential people from the district. n59 Incumbents can also exploit the financial perks of office. In addition to their salary, members of Congress receive travel, office, staff and communication allowances amounting to a budget of over one million dollars for the two-year House term, all of which can be used to increase candidate visibility in the home district. n60

Another significant perk of the office is the franking privilege, which allows incumbents to blanket their districts with voluminous free mailings that are essentially thinly disguised campaign endorsements. n61

Second, a system where incumbents always win destroys democratic participation and must be opposed. Andrew C. Geddis Summer, 2000 (Lecturer in Law, University of Otago, New Zealand Journal of Law & Politics, Campaign Finance Reform After McCain-Feingold: The More Speech-More Competition Solution)

concern over the health of the electoral process in America. For the problems with the vote in Florida pale by comparison with the basic, nationwide failure of electoral competition for congressional office, and the apathetic cynicism that this lack of choice is breeding amongst the public. Without the opportunity for a real voter choice at the ballot box, the election process in America has become a mere ritual in which the sitting incumbent enjoys a virtual sinecure over his or her position in all but the rarest of cases. Given our nation's historical commitment to a vibrant, open democracy, the death of competition at the ballot box has to be the most worrisome effect of the way elections are currently functioning - or failing to function. We need a new way of addressing these problems. The truly important issue for us to confront in the aftermath of the 2000 election contest is the declining opportunity for involvement in politics by voters, groups, and contestants for office. To remedy that, we need a solution that makes possible more speech, and particularly more debate, on political issues. At present, the primary obstacle to this goal is the one-sided funding of incumbents, which either dissuades challengers from running, or makes it hard for those who do to attract the funds needed to run creditable campaigns. To attack this problem, I have proposed a "More Speech--More Comp etition" model of publicly financing elections. Such a scheme would provide greater resources to challengers, and ensure that a wider range of candidates is able to make its views

known to the voters. Through addressing squarely the issue of incumbent advantage, we can achieve both more electoral speech, which everyone should want, and a solution to the lack of competition, debate, and involvement, which everyone should regret.

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2NC – Incumbency Add-On Third, removing franking privileges will help new challengers against incumbents. Johnathan Mansfield 1993 Cornell Law Review A CHOICE APPROACH TO THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF TERM LIMITATION LAWS

Short of a constitutional amendment, the most viable solution n202 to the incumbency problem might be laws that attempt to [*996] nullify the inherent advantage incumbents have in a campaign. n203 These anti-advantage laws would aim to level the political playing field so that voters can exercise choice more effectively. Anti-advantage laws could potentially address two principal criticisms of incumbency. The first criticism is that because incumbent legislators have direct access to the political process (i.e., they make the laws) they are able to provide themselves with advantages that give them a material edge over challengers. n204 The second criticism is that incumbent legislators receive the advantages of "political inertia." n205 Voters are more likely to have information and positive attitudes about incumbents than they are about a challenger. n206 Therefore, a challenger must expend much more money and time to overcome this advantage than if both candidates were running for the first time. There are two possible types of anti-advantage laws, each aimed at a different criticism of incumbents. A passive anti-advantage law would address the first criticism by removing the advantages that incumbents have acquired through

their access to and manipulation of the political process. For example, members of Congress have traditionally had a franking privilege. n207 This allows them to send out certain types of mail at the taxpayer's expense, giving them a financial advantage over challengers who must pay for their own mailings. n208

Under a passive anti-advantage approach, regulations would remove the franking privilege or other privileges that give incumbents an advantage over challengers.

Active anti-advantage laws would actually provide challengers with certain resources so that they can overcome the political inertia [*997] that benefits incumbents. These laws ca n function as a political handicap on incumbents. An example of an active anti-advantage law is a differential public campaign financing bill that allots more money to a challenger than to an incumbent. The allocation differential would be set at a proportion equivalent to the advantage that the incumbent enjoys due to her incumbency. n209

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2NC – Constitutionality Add-On

Exemptions for Congress-members is beyond the Constitution and is a violation of states’ rights. David P. Currie Winter, 1996 (Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Northwestern University Law Review THE CONSTITUTION IN CONGRESS: THE SECOND CONGRESS, 1791-1793)

In a preview of the argument over franking, some argued that an exemption for members of Congress was forbidden because the Constitution contained an exclusive list of their privileges, others that it was required to ensure legislative independence. n215 Exemptions for those engaged in federal business are easy; they are necessary to the functioning of the

gov ernment. n216 Exemptions for anyone else, Bloodworth argued, had to be left to the states, n217 and most of them were. But exempting seamen and pilots from militia duty was arguably (like lighthouses) necessary and proper to the conduct of interstate and foreign commerce. n218 More generally, by analogy to the case of franking, the power to determine who would be in the militia surely included the power to say who would not; n219 but whether it was for Congress to decide who should serve was the most disputed issue of the entire debate.

There’s a moral obligation to personally resist violations of the Constitution. Roger Pilon 1998, vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute, “The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United St ates of America” The Declaration and the Constitution, together, address mankind’s most basic political questions. Resting on a firm moral foundation, they articulate the first principles of political organization. Thus, they were meant to serve not simply the 18th century but generations to come, which would face those same basic questions, whatever their particular circumstances, whatever their state of material progress. Because the principles the Founders articulated transcend both time and technology, they will serve us well as we move through the 21st century, if only we understand them correctly

and apply them well. In the end, however, no constitution can be self-enforcing. Government officials must respect their oaths to uphold the Constitution; and we the people must be vigilant in seeing that they do. The Founders drafted an extraordinarily thoughtful plan of

government, but it is up to us, to each generation, to preserve it for ourselves and for future generations. For the Constitution will live only if it is alive in the hearts and minds of the American people. That, perhaps, is the most enduring lesson of our experiment in ordered liberty.

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Incumbency Impacts Having a system where incumbents usually win destroys the value of democracy in America. Andrew C. Geddis Summer, 2000 (Lecturer in Law, University of Otago, New Zealand Journal of Law & Politics, Campaign Finance Reform After McCain-Feingold: The More Speech-More Competition Solution) If America really is committed to the notion of popular government, then the current non-competitive state of American democracy has to be of concern. For

without the opportunity for real choice at the ballot box , n77 democracy in America has become something of a shell game in which the incumbent representative is able to maintain their position in all but the rarest of cases. The

figures are worth repeating. For the last two elections, over 98 per cent of incumbents in the House were returned to office. n78 We can say "returned to office" rather than "won re-election" because, for a great proportion of representatives, there was in reality no election to win. In 2000, 59 incumbent members of the House of Congress faced no major party challenger. The 1998 election was even worse from the point of view of democratic competition: in that year, 95 members - almost a quarter of all the incumbents facing reelection - had no major party challenger. n79 Added to these non-contests, in over a further quarter of the "races" in both of these elections the incumbent member faced a challenger who had less than $ 25,000 in resources to spend - in other words a challenger who had no [*594] effective chance of winning the race. n80 Thus in both of America's most recent elections, voters in many of the Congressional districts were faced with what was essentially a one-party system. In turn, those few seats that could be in any way described as "contested" were those in which either the challenger had adequate financial resources to compete with the incumbent, or where no incumbent was currently sitting and the contestants had roughly

equal campaign resources. n81 We seem truly to be in a state of affairs where a candidate must first win a "wealth primary" before they even have a shot at winning election, n82 and it is the results in those few seats where two candidates can pass this money test that will then be determinative of which party controls the Congress.

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Franking Is Popular

Any policy that would reduce benefits to incumbents will be hugely unpopular in Congress. Andrew C. Geddis Summer, 2000 (Lecturer in Law, University of Otago, New Zealand Journal of Law & Politics, Campaign Finance Reform After McCain-Feingold: The More Speech-More Competition Solution) [*636] The purported political unfeasibility of the More Speech--More Competition proposal arises not only from the costs involved in putting it into place, but also from the fact that it will require incumbent elected officials to institute a

system that will make their jobs less secure. There is no way, it may be claimed , that those who hold political power will institute a system that gives a significant boost to candidates seeking to challenge them. One response to this might be that it is not only challengers who stand to see some benefit from public financing. Incumbent members may also see an advantage in the scheme, in that it will free them from the time demands of the incessant money chase required by the current system of campaign finance regulation. That being said, it certainly would be foolish to rely on the good will of legislators in trying to introduce the

More Speech--More Competition proposal. A large groundswell of public pressure and support will be required to push incumbent legislators to act. It is an as yet moot point whether sufficient political pressure can be generated to accomplish this goal, but there are causes for hope. The public response to the messages of John McCain and Bill Bradley during the Presidential primaries of the 2000 election shows that campaign finance is an issue that does have some traction with voters, and public opinion polls show that the majority of voters are generally favorable to the idea of public financing. n214 Whether this sentiment can be converted into concrete political change, especially at a time when the sitting President has declared himself to be hostile to the idea of the public financing of elections, n215 will remain to be seen.

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Franking Isn’t Unconstitutional

Franking helps the people and is within the Constitutional powers of Congress. David P. Currie Winter, 1996 (Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Northwestern University Law Review THE CONSTITUTION IN CONGRESS: THE SECOND CONGRESS, 1791-1793)

There were vehement objections, however, to section 19 of the statute, which authorized free delivery of mail to and from a variety of federal officials, including members of Congress. n162 The Constitution, said Jeremiah Wadsworth of Connecticut, carefully listed the privileges of senators and representatives, and franking was not among [*634] them. n163 Defenders of the privilege argued that

franking was for the benefit of the people, not of the members, since it facilitated the exchange of information , the right of petition, and the intelligent exercise of political rights. n164 Gerry's fears that omission of the privilege threatened freedom of the press (because congressmen were in the habit of sending newspapers to their constituents) came close to suggesting that the First Amendment entitled publishers to a subsidy, which the language of that provision did not support. n165 But the

argument against "privilege" was a red herring. The power to establish a post office implied, as the

statute recognized, authority to set postal rates; n166 the power to set rates includes the power to set them at zero. n167 To put it another way, the power to establish a post office is the power to carry the mail, for a fee or for nothing, and in any event free carriage of the mail to and from government offices is plainly necessary and proper to their operation . n168

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Cigarette Tax Counterplan Shell Text: the United States Federal Government should

[Insert Aff plan here]

with funding by placing a new 10% tax on cigarettes and tobacco products. Observation One: It’s non-topical. Cigarette taxes are not an ocean policy, and after the aff chooses their plan, the rest of the ground is negative and functionally non-topical. Observation Two: it competes. First, by net benefits. Funding through a new tax has advantages over the aff plan and avoids the disadvantage. Second, they’re mutually exclusive. Their funding was given out of the 1AC, and we changed that part of the plan. For them to perm it, they’d have to cut out that part of their plan, which is severance and destroys our ground. Don’t let them do it. Observation Three: it solves. First, we have the same solvency as case. Everything is done the same, just with different funding. Second, cigarette taxes are a common and popular way of raising funding – there’s enough money for the plan. Warner, Schelling and Entin ’98 (Kenneth E. Warner, Richard D. Remington Collegiate Professor of Public Health University of Michigan Thomas C. Schelling, Political Economy, Emeritus Distinguished University Professor University of Maryland Stephen J. Entin Executive Director and Chief Economist Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation “Increasing the Federal Cigarette Tax: A Means of Reducing Consumption?” Friday, April 3, 1998 http://www.nhpf.org/pdfs_ib/IB717_FedCigTax_4-3-98.pdf) In recent years, political leaders have repeatedly turned to the tobacco tax as a means of financing health policy initiatives. In 1994, President Clinton relied on increased tobacco tax revenues as a means of financing his proposed comprehensive national health insurance program. Last year, in enacting the State Child Health Insurance Program to cover uninsured indigent children, congressional leaders zeroed in on an increase in tobacco taxes as a means of underwriting the program in the out years. And, while the settlement reached last June 20 did not incorporate tax increases per se, it would result in an estimated 62 cent increase per pack. Subsequently, a number of bills have been introduced in Congress building on the settlement by increasing taxes.

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Observation Four – the decreased smoking advantage. First, the current cigarette tax is very low compared to historical levels. National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, January 2, 2002 The Federal Cigarette Tax Is Far Lower Than Historical Levels http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0092.pdf The federal excise tax on cigarettes is currently 39 cents per pack, after a five-cents increase

that went into effect on January 1, 2002. After adjusting for inflation, the new federal cigarette tax is still lower than historical levels. It is also much lower as a percentage of overall cigarette prices. In fact, the federal cigarette tax rate is currently even lower than the cigarette tax levels that existed before the first Surgeon General's report on smoking in 1964, when the federal government and the public first began to understand the enormous harms and costs caused by

smoking. Restoring the federal cigarette tax to its 1960 levels would require additional federal tax increases of at least 9 t o 80 cents per pack. And, higher priced cigarettes reduce smoking. The National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, August 28, 2001 “INCREASING THE FEDERAL CIGARETTE TAX REDUCES SMOKING” http://tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0021.pdf Numerous economic studies in peer-reviewed journals have documented the impact of cigarette tax increases and other price hikes on both adult and underage smoking. The general

consensus from these studies is that every 10 percent increase in the real price of cigarettes will reduce the prevalence of adult smoking by approximately three to five percent and reduce teen smoking by about seven percent .3 This research indicates that raising federal cigarette taxes to produce a 10 percent increase in cigarette prices would reduce the number of current youth smokers by more than 350,000. Research studies have also found that: · Cigarette price and tax increases work even more effectively to reduce smoking among males, Blacks, Hispanics, and lower-income smokers.4 · Higher taxes on smokeless tobacco reduces its use, particularly among young males.5

Cigarette price increases not only reduce youth smoking but also reduce both the number of kids who smoke marijuana and the amount of marijuana consumed by continuing users.

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Third, smoking is the #1 preventable cause of death in the United States – it kills 400,000 every year. Warner, Schelling and Entin ’98 (Kenneth E. Warner, Richard D. Remington Collegiate Professor of Public Health University of Michigan Thomas C. Schelling, Political Economy, Emeritus Distinguished University Professor University of Maryland Stephen J. Entin Executive Director and Chief Economist Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation “Increasing the Federal Cigarette Tax: A Means of Reducing Consumption?” Friday, April 3, 1998 http://www.nhpf.org/pdfs_ib/IB717_FedCigTax_4-3-98.pdf) To understand the ramifications of the settlement and any tax increase, it is important to examine patterns of cigarette consumption. Cigarette consumption has been a focus of public policy since 1964, when the U.S. surgeon general first indicated a causal link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer among men.3 Twenty-four surgeon generals’ reports later—each cautioning the public of the dangers of smoking— cigarette smoking remains the primary preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Over 400,000 individuals die prematurely of smoking related illnesses each year. Following decades of 4 public information on the adverse consequences of smoking, the number of adult smokers in America declined from 51 million Americans in 1988 to 47 million Americans in 1995, the most recent year a national survey was conducted on smoking prevalence.5

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Taxes Decrease Smoking Increasing cigarette taxes decreases smoking. The National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, August 28, 2001 “INCREASING THE FEDERAL CIGARETTE TAX REDUCES SMOKING” http://tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0021.pdf The big cigarette companies have opposed tobacco tax increases by arguing that raising

cigarette prices does not reduce smoking. But the companies’ internal documents, disclosed in

the tobacco lawsuits, show that they have known for decades that raising cigarette taxes is one of the most effective ways to prevent and reduce smoking, especially among kids. In 1982, for

example, an RJR tobacco company document stated that: “If prices were 10% higher, 12-17

incidence [the percentage of kids who smoke] would be 11.9% lower .”1 A 1993 Philip Morris internal document stated that "A high cigarette price, more than any other cigarette attribute, has the most dramatic impact on the share of the quitting population. . .price, not tar level, is the main driving force for quitting."2 The companies have even publicly admitted the effectiveness of tax increases to deter smoking in their required filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Cigarette Taxes are Popular The public accepts taxes on cigarettes. Warner, Schelling and Entin ’98 (Kenneth E. Warner, Richard D. Remington Collegiate Professor of Public Health University of Michigan Thomas C. Schelling, Political Economy, Emeritus Distinguished University Professor University of Maryland Stephen J. Entin Executive Director and Chief Economist Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation “Increasing the Federal Cigarette Tax: A Means of Reducing Consumption?” Friday, April 3, 1998 http://www.nhpf.org/pdfs_ib/IB717_FedCigTax_4-3-98.pdf) Even before the settlement was reached, however, there was consensus on one point: it is time to increase federal excise taxes on tobacco products. The magnitude of the increase remains open to debate. At a time when talk of increased taxes generally seems to be the kiss of death for politicians, the American public seems reconciled to increased tobacco taxes. In part, this is because they have long been inclined to accept “sin taxes” like those on consumption of alcohol and tobacco products. In addition, both inflation and political inertia have undercut the force of the federal cigarette tax, which now stand at 24 cents per pack. Between 1951 and 1982, however, the federal tax stood at 8 cents per pack; just to accommodate inflation since 1951, the tax would now have to stand at 47 cents. Moreover, U.S. tobacco taxes are lower than that of any other developed nation.

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Normal Means = No Funding Normal means for Congress is to not give any funding at all. Sara Sun Beale December, 2000 (Professor of Law, Duke University Boston University Law Review FEDERALIZING HATE CRIMES: SYMBOLIC POLITICS, EXPRESSIVE LAW, OR TOOL FOR CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT?) One might respond that this situation will generate its own limitations, since Congress will have no incentive to play the federal crime card so frequently that it loses its impact. The difficulty with this analysis is that there may be perverse incentives at work. There may be a political incentive to introduce anti-crime initiatives, even at the point when they have become so common that they have lost much of their novelty and significance, because a vote against such a proposal may leave a member of Congress vulnerable to the accusation that she is soft on crime. Additionally, when symbolic anti-crime legislation is proposed, the absence of constraints that affect many other types of legislative

proposals will undoubtedly affect the political dynamic. Most legislation imposes costs on the federal government , and those costs constrain Congress to a lesser or greater degree. Congress has a tremendous incentive to enact federal legislation that does not carry a federal price tag, such as unfunded mandates and purely symbolic legislation, even if it is not otherwise the best means of achieving the goals in question.

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Normal Means = Expensive Normal means for bills is inefficient and excessive spending. Fitts and Inman, 1992 (MICHAEL FITTS, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School, AND ROBERT INMAN, Professor of Finance and Economics, Wharton School June, 1992, Georgetown Law Journal POSITIVE POLITICAL THEORY AND PUBLIC LAW PART II: Controlling Congress: Presidential Influence in Domestic Fiscal Policy.) It is the congressional committee structure that has come in many cases to facilitate this informal, universalistic norm of reciprocity between the members of Congress. Early public choice models of Congress envisioned legislators coming

together in one omnibus bill covering all relevant legislation. n28 However, because most legislation on individual areas is passed piecemeal, and because no legally binding contracting device between legislators can exist outside a constitutional amendment, such explicit deal making is ordinarily impossible. To fill this contracting void, members are thought to create [*1746] informal agreements through the committee structure: a general rule of deference to committee choices. This rule ensures reciprocity as each representative's pet project is forwarded to the floor. Committee autonomy is the coin facilitating the informal trade. n29 In David Mayhew's famous

description of a decentralized Congress, "if a group of planners sat down and tried to design a pair of American national assemblies with the goal of serving members' electoral needs year in and year out, they would be hard pressed to improve on what exists." n30

Unfortunately, as we show below, there is a cost to this system: there is no assurance that the projects being pushed by committees promote efficient allocations or redistribution . On the contrary, the incentives within universalism open Congress to strategic behavior by members and their committees to push for too expensive projects, and projects that benefit only their own constituents. Given the difference in distribution of benefits flowing from district-specific projects versus national programmatic legislation, which

is more likely to represent legislative collective goods, legislators have an incentive to emphasize the

former in their committee work and attempt to free ride on their colleagues' efforts for the latter. n31

The end result may be an economically inefficient and distributionally regressive domestic budget .

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Normal Means = Racist

Normal legislation contains hidden racist bias which increases discrimination. Laura A. Wytsma Summer, 1995 (George Mason University School of Law, Juris Doctor Candidate, George Mason Law Rev iew PUNISHMENT FOR "JUST US"--A CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE CRACK COCAINE SENTENCING STATUTES) It is not surprising that it is extremely difficult for a defendant challenging the sentencing disparity to overcome the

burden of proving discriminatory intent. Most legislation , carefully drafted by astute legislative counsel in

Congress, does not contain overtly racist references due to the avoidance of the slightest allusion

to racial factors in the words of the legislation itself. Yet, "even when laws and procedures are self-consciously written to exclude overt bias, their very drafting, enactment, and enforcement are carried out by social actors whose behaviors are shaped by personal beliefs and values." n158 Therefore, despite the fact that a law may [*497]

be racially neutral on its face, there still may be racist influences that permeate the legislative process. n159 It is reasonable to believe that legislative decisions are not entirely free from the influence of this country's legacy of racial subordination and discrimination.

Racism outweighs all. We must dismantle it in every instance to prevent self-destruction. Barndt 1991 (Joseph, co-director of Crossroads, a ministry to dismantle racism, "Dismantling Racism: The Continuing challenge to White America," p. 155-6.) To study racism is to study walls. We have looked at barriers and fences, restraints and limitations, ghettos and prisons.

The prison of racism confines us all, people of color and white people alike. It shackles the victimizer as well as the victim. The walls forcibly keep people of color and white people separate from each other; in our separate prisons we are all prevented from achieving the human potential God intends for us. The limitations imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and powerlessness are cruel, inhuman, and unjust; the effects of uncontrolled power, privilege, and greed, which are the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us as well.

But we have also seen that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not

condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism.

The danger point of self-destruction seems to be drawing even more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of

overconsumption and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of no return. A small and predominantly

white minority of the global population derives its power and privilege from the sufferings of vast majority of peoples of all color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue.

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Normal Means = Litigation

Most laws lead to litigation. Lisa A. Lavelle 1991 University of Notre Dame The Duty to Accommodate: Will Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act Emancipate Individuals with Disabilities Only to Disable Small Businesses? [*1135] The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), n1 signed into law on July 26, 1990, has been heralded by its proponents as the "Emancipation Proclamation" n2 for individuals with disabilities, and criticized by its opponents as the "Lawyer's Employment Law." n3 The ADA's opponents fear that it will flood the courts with litigation and impose financial

burdens which will destroy small businesses. n4 The duties imposed under Title I of the ADA will undoubtedly have an impact on small businesses, and the terms of the Act are likely to result in litigation, as have all civil rights laws, and indeed most legislation . Yet, these worries have been to some degree exaggerated n5 and are outweighed significantly [*1136] by the benefits of the ADA. n6

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Normal Means = No Clarify Intent

The idea of legislative intent is being broadly rejected – there’s no such thing anymore. Seth A. Metsch Fall, 1997 (Legislative Assistant to U.S. Congressman Ackerman Fordham Environmental Law Journal TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING: PROBLEMS WITH LEGISLATIVE HISTORY IN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW) The term "legislative intent" is itself an oxymoron. n1 A collective legislative intent cannot exist in the minds of national legislators in Congress. n2 If Congress' collective intent could be determined readily, the relevance of legislative history would be obvious and its use would engender little controversy. "The real difficulty is not that the intent is irrelevant but that the intent is [*182] often undiscoverable, especially when the passer of statutes is . . . a representative assembly." n3 Nonetheless, at present, United States Federal Courts often utilize legislative history to decipher the intent of Congress. n4 Judges' attraction to legislative history is understandable; it may often assist in explaining the intended interpretation of statutory text. n5 However, as judicial attention to legislative history has increased, so has the amount of legislative history of marginal worth. n6 The problem is that courts often lack the tools to make this value determination. Consequently, the use of legislative history has become the subject of considerable controversy in all three branches of the federal government. n7 Much of the literature on statutory interpretation "seems transfixed by the notion of treat [*183] ing legislatures holistically, even when fallacy and sloppy thinking are pointed out." n8 This literature "is rich in references to the 'intent' or 'purpose' of the legislature, terms suggesting that a legislature may have subjective attitudes and drives such as those possessed by a human being." n9 "It is unrealistic to talk about legislative intent because the notion of 'the law maker' is fictional; there is no such person." n10 Making legislation "is a group activity and it is impossible to conceive a group mind or cerebration." n11 "Congress may be unanimous in its intent to stamp out some vague social or economic evil; howev er, because its Members may differ sharply on the means for effectuating that intent, the final language of the legislation may reflect hard fought compromises." n12 "Invocation of the 'plain purpose' of legislation at the expense of the terms of the statute itself takes no account of the processes of compromise and, in the end, prevents effectua [*184] tion of congressional intent." n13 Thus, use of "legislative intent is an internally inconsistent, self-contradictory expression", n14 because it erroneously presumes that viewing the pieces selectively can fairly represent the whole puzzle.

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Normal Means = Can Sever

For most legislation, Congress will pass it even if part has to be severed. John Copeland Nagle November, 1993 (Attorney, United States Department of Justice, North Carolina Law Review SEVERABILITY) The empirical realities of the legislative process also support a rule favoring severability. I submit that in most cases the legislature prefers to save as much of a statute as possible. The regularity with which legislatures include severability clauses in statutes, and the infrequency with which they include nonseverability clauses, bears witness to this preference. n235 For example, there has long been a reluctance to hold tax statutes nonseverable. n236 Likewise, in areas where the legislature chafes at constitutional restrictions on its power, it is often apparent that the legislature intended a statute to remain operative to the extent constitutionally permissible. n237 Moreover, the way Congress writes legislation implies that [*252] it normally expects statutes to be

severable. Congress' proclivity to enact multititle, omnibus acts covering a host of matters supports the presumption that Congress does not intend the invalidation of one part of a statute to invalidate the entire act . n238

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Normal Means = No Severance

Congress is all-or-nothing on most legislation – if part is severed, the entire law is rejected. John Copeland Nagle November, 1993 (Attorney, United States Department of Justice, North Carolina Law Review SEVERABILITY) The contrary empirical argument for a rule favoring nonseverability is that most legislation is a bundle of compromises, so that the legislature generally prefers all or nothing in order to prevent

the quid from being separated from the quo. n239 Certainly, there are instances in which severance of an unconstitutional statutory provision threatens the result achieved during the drafting of a statute. Legislative vetoes are the most prominent example. Many have argued that when Congress delegates power to the executive but establishes a legislative veto to allow further legislative review of the executive use of that power, the invalidation of the veto without also invalidating the delegation upsets the compromise. n240 Likewise, the dissent in Ontario Hockey Association argued that conditioning the general prohibition on sex discrimination by restricting its application to amateur hockey was an essential part of the legislative compromise. n241

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Normal Means = No Amendments

Most legislation is passed through so fast there is no time for amendments.

Rigel C. Oliveri 1998 Stanford Law School, candidate for J.D, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism Crossing the Line: The Political and Moral Battle Over Late-Term Abortion As discussed above, the anti-Ban strategy was, at least temporarily, successful. Advocates made the decision to focus on the compelling stories of women who had the D&X procedure done after fetal viability because of severe health problems. n108 (I will call these women "Group 1," as opposed to the women of "Group 2" who have the D&X procedure done prior to viability on an elective basis.) This could be seen as an intelligent tactical move given the limitations

placed on the debate itself. In Congress, anti-Ban activists did not have a lot of time - the floor debates were restricted, with only one hour allowed in the Senate for debate over the Boxer Amendment. Like most legislation , HR 1833's progress was manipulated through committees and rules, meaning that amendments were not even presented, much less debated, in the House. Most significantly, the powerful narratives of Group 1 may have been the only way for activists to counter the emotional and disturbing accounts of the procedure offered by the Ban's supporters. Anti-Ban lobbyists recognized that the media would be more receptive to stories with a compelling personal "hook," than to technical and complex constitutional and medical arguments.

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Funding Specification

A. The affirmative doesn’t specify where the funding for their plan comes from, i.e. general federal revenue, spending cuts, we don’t know.

B. That’s bad.

1. Destroys negative ground – we can’t run any arguments linking to their

funding mechanism, like spending, enforcement, or economy impacts, because they don’t tell us what it is. That ground is key to a predictable negative strategy and fair debate.

2. Moving target – if we did claim a link to a certain type of funding, the

affirmative could just specify out of it, which makes them a moving t arget so the negative has nothing to run and we always lose.

3. It means they have no solvency – if they don’t specify where the funding

comes from, there’s no way to know if it exists at all. Without funding the plan can’t be enforced – because the funding is uncertain their solvency is probabilistic at best.

C. It’s a voting issue. 1. Ground –they robbed us of arguments that are key to our ground. 2. Potential abuse and strategy skew – we had to modify our strategy to

prevent them from shifting out of our links, which puts us at a disadvantage for the rest of the round and warrants a negative ballot.

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A2: Cross-X Checks 1. It may check in some cases, but obviously not in this one, because we still

couldn’t find out what their funding was. That’s enough reason to vote neg.

2. It’s not our job to get them to tell us what the plan does – it should be in

the 1AC. Cross-examination should be to find flaws in the case, not make up for the 1AC’s lack of specification.

3. No one flows cross-x, and people may disagree on what was said – the

only certain thing within the round is the plan text, which is where the specification should be.

4. We need cross-examination time for other things, like finding author

qualifications or getting evidence. We shouldn’t have to wast e time doing the 1AC’s job for them.

5. We need cross-x time to prepare as well – we shouldn’t have to take the

time to ask, because the 1NC can’t start preparing their speech until after they know what plan does, and the aff will always know what plan does better than the neg.

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A2: It’s Normal Means!

1. Sure, but what’s that mean? We still don’t know exactly where their funding comes from.

2. That’s an unfair standard, because then we have to debate over what

normal means to get a link when it’s the aff’s job to define it out of the 1AC.

3. Normal means can be defined differently by different authors, so it’s

totally unpredictable and we can’t get any research on it.

4. That’s another moving target by redefining another part of the plan after the 1AC, which destroys even more of our ground and makes the abuse even worse.

5. Still too late – it wasn’t in the 1AC and our ground has already been

skewed. Our 1NC is key to our strategy for the rest of the round, and we can never get that back. The damage has already been done.

6. That encourages spiking out of arguments by just redefining normal

means, which destroys even more of our ground.

7. Failure to specify normal means is just like failure to specify the Funding – they get to be a moving target and get out of our arguments. That’s an independent voter for ground.

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A2: 2AC Clarification

1. It’s too little, too late. The damage has already been done, because we based our strategy off what we heard in the 1AC and now all we have left are rebuttals, so we can’t make up for the skew.

2. That’s even worse – first they destroy our 1NC strategy through failure to

specify, then they specify in the 2AC to get rid of funding, one of our last viable arguments, which proves the abuse even further.

3. The plan text is key to the round, because it’s the only written declaration

of aff advocacy. That should be the only determining factor, and the 2AC can’t change their plan.

4. Changes to plan are always bad, because it let’s them shift out of disads

or case arguments or even run an entirely new case in the 2AC. Make them stick with the 1AC advocacy.

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A2: Leads to Overspecification

1. Not so – we just ask that they specify their funding and where it comes from. That’s not overspecifying.

2. There’s no ground basis to specify beyond the funding – we get all we

need from that. More specification won’t result, because negative’s won’t have any arguments that depend on it.

3. It’s a slippery-slope fallacy – just because you vote for specification in this

instance doesn’t mean you’ll vote for it in every instance.

4. If we lead to infinite regression, so do they – they specify what type of resource protection they give, which is effectively no different from specifying the funding. That’s a turn.

5. Literature checks – we asked them to specify the funding so we could run

some specific positions, but there aren’t positions that would require specifying beyond that.

6. You’re a judge in this round only – you can’t predict everything that will

happen in the future. Vote them down for being abusive in this round.

7. Turn – overspecifying is good, because it narrows down the debate and increases education.

8. They still don’t justify their own failure to specify, so you still vote neg.