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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
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Arizona Sen. John McCain, a long-time fiscal crusader, has introduced an innovative bill to help target the problem.
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 mostsenators - 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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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.
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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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.
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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.
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.
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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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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.
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.
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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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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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.
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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 Senatedebates 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, A ND 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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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.
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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.
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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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.
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.
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"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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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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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.
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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.
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 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.
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
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 arobust 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.”
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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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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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.
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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.
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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"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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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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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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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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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.
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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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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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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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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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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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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
environment al 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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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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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.
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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 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.
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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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
On average, about two meteorites a day come down somewhere in
hit Earth.
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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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 securit y 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.
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The Federal Governmentreceives 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.
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Taxes are down in the status quo, props to Bush and Company
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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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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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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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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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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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.
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.
First, we have all the same solvency as the plan because we do exactly the
same thing – we just change the funding mechanism.
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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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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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.
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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.
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.
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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Money put into lotteries gets put back into the economy.
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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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.
http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM
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Private lotteries are too easily corrupted – the government must control all
lotteries.
http://www.nmlottery.com/Miscellaneous/CRITIQUE.HTM
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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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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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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 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.
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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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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 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).
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Gambling is one of the few government programs left to the states – the plan
destroys federalism.
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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Observation Four: the net benefit is democratic participation.
<<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.
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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.
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Incumbency Impacts
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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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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.
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.
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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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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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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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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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.
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.
8. They still don’t justify their own failure to specify, so you still vote neg.
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