Inherency Status quo solves Obama is pushing for HSR.

TIME, 2/2011 (Michael Grunwald journalist for TIME Politics, Obamas Big, Bold Bet on High Speed
Rail, http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2047110,00.html) Six weeks ago, I warned that President Obama's much maligned high-speed-rail program was becoming a " high-stakes gamble." Well, the President just went all in. On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden announced a six-year, $53 billion plan to expand high-speed passenger trains, a surprisingly aggressive boost for Obama's fledgling effort to change the way we move around the country. Last year, the President requested just $1 billion for the program from a Democratic Congress; now that Republicans control the House and have vowed to slash spending in general and high-speed rail in particular , he's requesting $8 billion for next year. Judging from the reaction of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman, John Mica, who is actually one of the more supportive Republicans when it comes to rail, Obama shouldn't count his winnings yet. "This is like giving Bernie Madoff another chance at handling your investment portfolio," Mica said. Still, the announcement at Philadelphia's 30th Street Amtrak station a key link in the popular and profitable Acela line, which is America's closest current approximation of a bullet-train service made it clear that Obama intends to fight for one of his signature initiatives even though it's had a run of bad press. He announced in his State of the Union address that he wants high-speed rail to serve 80% of the population by 2025, as part of his new push for infrastructure investments to promote American competitiveness and help "win the future." But now he's really putting his money or at least his budget proposal behind the program. Biden, who has ridden Amtrak nearly 8,000 times between Washington and Wilmington, Del., predicted that a national network of faster trains would help create jobs, reduce dependence on foreign oil and relieve congestion in highways and airports, while upgrading the long-term efficiency and productivity of the U.S. economy. Just one day after Amtrak announced it was resurrecting a recently killed commuterrail tunnel to send more Acela trains into Manhattan, Biden said the Administration was proposing the largest rail investment since Abraham Lincoln began the intercontinental railroad and promised a similar impact. "If we don't seize this future, how will America ever have the opportunity to lead the world in the 21st century?" Biden asked. In 2009, Obama launched high-speed rail by slipping $8 billion into his stimulus package, even though few potential projects were shovel-ready enough to provide real stimulus. Eager governors from both parties made $55 billion worth of requests for the cash, a reflection of pent-up demand, and in last year's State of the Union, Obama described the program as a matter of not just mobility but also of national pride as well.

The Great Reset

Mega-regions arent a driver of economic growth Florida is wrong Krugman 8(Paul, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton, Mega Skepticism,
May 12, http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/12/mega-skepticism/) Interesting contrast. Yesterday I read Glaeser and Gottlieb, on what models of economic geography can tell us about appropriate government interventions. Their answer, in short, is not much: there are crosscutting effects, and simple ideas like help weak regions or promote density are poor guides. Today I read Richard Florida, who knows. Overall, Ill go with ignorance. Its not at all clear to me that world competition is between mega-regions. Id say that there are two things that arguably define an economic unit for the purposes of economic geography. One is labor mobility: a region over which theres high mobility of labor will be a region in which everyone with the same set of skills is paid more or less the same real wage (which may differ in money terms because of differences in the cost of living etc.). By that definition, the United States as a whole is the relevant unit: workers are as mobile between Chicago and Boston as they are between Baltimore and Boston. The other definition is the reach of spillovers positive externalities, for the econowonks. Thats probably much more localized: theres a reason investment bankers cluster in expensive Wall Street or City of London locations. But again, its hard to see that this makes the Northeast Corridor, as opposed to individual metro areas within the corridor, a relevant unit. So much as I might like to assert that I belong to a truly defining entity called Aceleland, I dont think thats a case you can make.

Transportation isnt the key to mega-regions they simply arent feasible Berg 12(Nate, writer for the Atlantic Cities, Megaregions: Dont Hold Your Breath, Jan 3,
http://civicanalytics.com/megaregions-dont-hold-your-breath) But while I agree with the megaregion pundits about transportation and environmental planning, were not there yet on economic development, and, as Lang correctly notes, were nowhere close on related and equally important issues like (secondary) education. And Id add workforce development to that list. Costs for major transportation projects must be shared across cities and counties because they cant afford to go it alone. And fight it though we may, we resist regional cooperation on environmental concerns such as aquifer protection at our own peril. [Characterizing water availability as primarily an environmental issue is foolish in its own right, but that's an entry on communication for another time.] No individual city or county can afford to adequately protect a long-term water supply of regional significance. Cities and counties will maintain separate budgets for local transportation and environmental projects for as long as we have local government, but weve crossed the threshold where regional cooperation is no longer questioned in most places. City and county officials can work together on metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to lobby for projects that benefit their collective area within the region. Everybody in the regionor at least all usersbenefit from the investment, but their residents likely benefit more than people in other municipalities because of proximity and perception. Voters, to the extent they are paying attention, give credit to the local politicians for successfully navigating the regional decision-making process and everybody wins. Whats the counterpart for economic development? Most local economic developers participate in at least one regional effort of some type, such as regional partner programs at larger chambers of commerce funded by membership dues or economic development districts funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. However, while most local economic developers, especially in smaller communities, understand that acting regionally is the only way to compete effectively in the global economy, how many local politicians or voters give credit to their local economic developers for the

project that lands in the community next door? Some of your residents may get new jobs in that facility next door, and perhaps, if the project is large enough, a portion of the spinoff activity will add to your tax base, making the local politicians happy. But rarely do you see local economic developers standing together to explain, convincingly, how a regional win translates to tangible benefits for each individual community. Competition among local economic developers breeds a lot of innovation that pushes the entire field forward. This is not one of those cases. We need to do better. Pundits are right to point to the regional nature of how economies growbased on shared assets like DFW Airport and networks which form the basis of cluster approachesbut, as much as it pains me to say it, convincing data alone rarely changes behavior. Carrots and sticks change behavior, not academic arguments. Thankfully, weve seen more carrots than sticks lately with bottom-up approaches like the Jobs Accelerator at the federal level and the MPO-like process for economic development thats emerging in states such as New York and Ohio. But it will take some time to see if these new models are politically viable and capable of generating results that are significant enough to accelerate regional cooperation in places around the country where old habits die hard when it comes to economic development. Until I see evidence of that changing, Ill be skeptical of the megaregion argument.

Economic collapse doesnt cause instability Fareed Zakaria was named editor of Newsweek International in October 2000, overseeing all
Newsweek editions abroad, December 12, 2009, The Secrets of Stability, http://www.newsweek.com/2009/12/11/the-secrets-of-stability.html Others predicted that these economic shocks would lead to political instability and violence in the worst-hit countries. At his confirmation hearing in February, the new U.S. director of national intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, cautioned the Senate that "the financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging-market nations over the next year." Hillary Clinton endorsed this grim view. And she was hardly alone. Foreign Policy ran a cover story predicting serious unrest in several emerging markets. Of one thing everyone was sure: nothing would ever be the same again. Not the financial industry, not capitalism, not globalization. One year later, how much has the world really changed? Well, Wall Street is home to two fewer investment banks (three, if you count Merrill Lynch). Some regional banks have gone bust. There was some turmoil in Moldova and (entirely unrelated to the financial crisis) in Iran. Severe problems remain, like high unemployment in the West, and we face new problems caused by responses to the crisissoaring debt and fears of inflation. But overall, things look nothing like they did in the 1930s. The predictions of economic and political collapse have not materialized at all.

Heg causes terrorism

Layne 06 Associate Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M
University (Christopher The Peace of Illusions (p. 190-191)
The events of 9/11 are another example of how hegemony makes the United States less secure than it would

be if it followed an offshore balancing strategy. Terrorism, the RAND Corporation terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says, is "about power: the pursuit of power, the acquisition of power, and use of power to achieve political change."86 If we step back for a moment from our horror and revulsion at the events of September 11, we can see that the attack was in keeping with the Clausewitzian paradigm of war: force was used against the United States by its adversaries to advance their political objectives. As Clausewitz observed, "War is not an act of senseless passion but is controlled by its political object."88 September 11 represented a violent counterreaction to America's geopolitical-and cultural-hegemony. As the strategy expert Richard K. Betts presciently observed in a 1998 Foreign Affairs article: It is 'hardly likely that

Middle Eastern radicals would be hatching schemes like the destruction of the World Trade Center if the United States had not been identified so long as the mainstay of Israel, the shah of Iran, and conservative Arab regimes and the source of a cultural assault on Islam.89 U.S. hegemony fuels terrorist groups like al Qaeda and fans Islamic fundamentalism, which is a form of "blowback" against America's preponderance and its world role.90 As long as the United States maintains its global hegemony-and its concomitant preeminence in regions like the Persian Gulf-it will be the target of politically motivated terrorist groups like al Qaeda. After 9/11, many foreign policy analysts and pundits asked the question, "Why do they hate us?" This question missed the key point. No doubt, there are Islamic fundamentalists who do "hate" the United States for cultural, religious, and ideological reasons. And even leaving aside American

neoconservatives' obvious relish for making it so, to some extent the war on terror inescapably has overtones of a "clash of civilizations:' Still, this isn't-and should not be allowed to become-a replay of the Crusades. Fundamentally 9/11 was about geopolitics, specifically about U.S. hegemony. The United States
may be greatly reviled in some quarters of the Islamic world, but were the United States not so intimately involved in the affairs of the Middle East, it's hardly likely that this detestation would have manifested itself in something like 9/11. As Michael Scheurer, who headed the CIA analytical team monitoring Osama bin

Laden and al Qaeda, puts it, "One of the greatest dangers for Americans in deciding how to confront the Islamist threat lies in continuing to believe-at the urging of senior U.S. leaders-that Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than for what we do."91 It is American policies-to be precise,
American hegemony-that make the United States a lightning rod for Muslim anger

Terrorism Causes Extinction Sid-Ahmed, political analyst 04 (Mohamed, Managing Editor for Al-Ahali, Extinction! August 26September 1, Issue no. 705, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm)
What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.

Heg makes war with China inevitable- withdrawal key Layne June 2012 (Chris, professor and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A & M
Universitys George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service, The Global Power Shift from West to East, The National Interest, lexis) Certainly, the Chinese have not forgotten. Now Beijing aims to dominate its own East and Southeast Asian backyard, just as a rising America sought to dominate the Western Hemisphere a century and a half ago. The United States and China now are competing for supremacy in East and Southeast Asia. Washington has been the incumbent hegemon there since World War II, and many in the American foreign-policy establishment view Chinas quest for regional hegemony as a threat that must be resisted. This contest for regional dominance is fueling escalating tensions and possibly could lead to war . In geopolitics, two great powers cannot simultaneously be hegemonic in the same region. Unless one of them abandons its aspirations, there is a high probability of hostilities . Flashpoints that could spark a Sino-American conflict include the unstable Korean Peninsula; the disputed status of Taiwan; competition for control of oil and other natural resources; and the burgeoning naval rivalry

between the two powers. These rising tensions were underscored by a recent Brookings study by Peking Universitys Wang Jisi and Kenneth Lieberthal, national-security director for Asia during the Clinton administration, based on their conversations with high-level officials in the American and Chinese governments. Wang found that underneath the visage of mutual cooperation that both countries project, the Chinese believe they are likely to replace the United States as the worlds leading power but Washington is working to prevent such a rise. Similarly, Lieberthal related that many American officials believe their Chinese counterparts see the U.S.-Chinese relationship in terms of a zero-sum game in the struggle for global hegemony. An instructive historical antecedent is the AngloGerman rivalry of the early twentieth century. The key lesson of that rivalry is that such great-power competition can end in one of three ways: accommodation of the rising challenger by the dominant power; retreat of the challenger; or war. The famous 1907 memo exchange between two key British Foreign Office officialsSir Eyre Crowe and Lord Thomas Sandersonoutlined these stark choices. Crowe argued that London must uphold the Pax Britannica status quo at all costs. Either Germany would accept its place in a British-dominated world order, he averred, or Britain would have to contain Germanys rising power, even at the risk of war. Sanderson replied that Londons refusal to accommodate the reality of Germanys rising power was both unwise and dangerous. He suggested Germanys leaders must view Britain in the light of some huge giant sprawling over the globe, with gouty fingers and toes stretching in every direction, which cannot be approached without eliciting a scream. In Beijings eyes today, the United States must appear as the unapproachable, globally sprawling giant.

Conflict with China goes nuclear

Glaser 2011 (Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the Institute for
Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, Will China's Rise Lead to War? Subtitle: Why Realism Does Not Mean Pessimism, Foreign Affairs, March/April, lexis) ACCOMMODATION ON TAIWAN? The prospects for avoiding intense military competition and war may be good, but growth in China's power may nevertheless require some changes in U.S. foreign policy that Washington will find disagreeable -- particularly regarding Taiwan. Although it lost control of Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War more than six decades ago, China still considers Taiwan to be part of its homeland, and unification remains a key political goal for Beijing. China has made clear that it will use force if Taiwan declares independence, and much of China's conventional military buildup has been dedicated to increasing its ability to coerce Taiwan and reducing the United States' ability to intervene. Because China places such high value on Taiwan and because the United States and China -- whatever they might formally agree to -- have such different attitudes regarding the legitimacy of the status quo, the issue poses special dangers and challenges for the U.S.-Chinese relationship, placing it in a different category than Japan or South Korea. A crisis over Taiwan could fairly easily escalate to nuclear war, because each step along the way might well seem rational to the actors involved. Current U.S. policy is designed to reduce the probability that Taiwan will declare independence and to make clear that the United States will not come to Taiwan's aid if it does. Nevertheless, the United States would find itself under pressure to protect Taiwan against any sort of attack, no matter how it originated. Given the different interests and perceptions of the various parties and the limited control Washington has over Taipei's behavior, a crisis could unfold in which the United States found itself following events rather than leading them. Such dangers have been around for decades, but ongoing improvements in China's military capabilities may make Beijing more willing to escalate a Taiwan crisis. In addition to its improved conventional capabilities, China is modernizing its nuclear forces to increase their ability to survive and retaliate following a large-scale U.S. attack. Standard deterrence theory holds that

Washington's current ability to destroy most or all of China's nuclear force enhances its bargaining position. China's nuclear modernization might remove that check on Chinese action, leading Beijing to behave more boldly in future crises than it has in past ones. A U.S. attempt to preserve its ability to defend Taiwan, meanwhile, could fuel a conventional and nuclear arms race. Enhancements to U.S. offensive targeting capabilities and strategic ballistic missile defenses might be interpreted by China as a signal of malign U.S. motives, leading to further Chinese military efforts and a general poisoning of U.S.Chinese relations.

Air Pollution
TurnHSR would use coal powered electricity, that increases air pollution, this turns the case.

States/Delegation Cplan 1NC

Text: The United States federal government should narrowly delegate authority over national inter-city and inter-state high-speed passenger rail to state governments, appropriate territories, and multi-state compacts related to corridors and hub networks. The state governments, appropriate territories, and multi-state compacts related to corridors and hub networks should substantially increase investment in a national network of inter-city and inter-state high-speed passenger rail including dedicated shared fund agreements that collectively matches the total of Affirmative allocations. ( ) States solve best. They can coordinate and, once in charge, would improve HSR efficiency. Chicago Tribune 1
(Let states drive high-speed train, Dec 24, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-1224/news/0112240192_1_high-speed-rail-investment-high-speed-train-high-speed-rail) Amtrak--the money-losing operation that poses as a national passenger railroad in the U.S.--is taking the lead in the development of a high-speed train network in the Midwest, comparable to the European trains that zoom by at more than 150 m.p.h. High-speed rail service in the Midwest is an interesting prospect--the market, as well as environmental, energy conservation and other concerns, may justify it. But putting Amtrak in charge and expecting the feds to pay for most of it certainly is a recipe for waste and bad planning. For the Midwest, at least, a frequent, comfortable and reliable high-speed rail system would be a new concept. It ought to be designed and operated as such, according to market demand, with a rigorous bottom-line approach . In other words, everything Amtrak is not. According to plans being circulated in Congress and promoted by several local groups, Chicago would be the hub of a series of high-speed rail lines zipping out to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Cleveland and other major urban areas, with stops at some smaller cities like Springfield, Ill., and Madison, Wis. New trains would run on upgraded freight tracks at estimated speeds of 110 m.p.h. The initial phase would be funded by approximately $4 billion, the Midwest's share of the $12 billion High Speed Rail Investment initiative, under consideration by Congress. Individual states have pledged smaller amounts to the effort, including Illinois' $50 million. A reverse logic animates this project: Instead of determining there is urgent demand--and then seeking funding--Midwestern supporters seem to be saying, "The pot of money is there, so we might as well get our share." That's not the way to build a new railroad, but to extend Amtrak domain which, torn by the incompatible demands of politics, public service and profitability, has evolved into anything but an efficient train system. States ought to take the lead in the high-speed rail effort, and contribute a substantial amount of the money. Perhaps the federal government could pay for the start-up infrastructure improvements, as it did to build the original interstate highway system in the 1950s. Then an independent multi-state agency could purchase the trains and turn over operations to a private concern. Such high stakes and strong participation by the states would lead to a far tougher analysis of what service is needed than the

pinata-style planning at play here. Built modestly and incrementally, high-speed rail could work and even make money, at which time full privatization would be the next step. A Chicago-to-St. Louis line, running on relatively underutilized freight tracks through Normal and Springfield, could be a key test. Run efficiently, it could compete favorably with airlines on speed of downtown-to-downtown service, and certainly on roominess and comfort. Regional high-speed service has caught on in California and in the Northwest, and it may well do so here. Although Amtrak's math is complicated, the agency projects that, when fully operational, its high-speed Acela line on the Northeast will make about $180 million in annual profit Are there enough commuters and are they willing to give up their cars or airline seats in favor of high-speed trains? If it's their own money on the line, state officials, planners--and taxpayers-would make sure the project makes sense before any money is invested. High-speed train service in the Midwest is a prospect worth investigating, on the right terms.

First Unique-link: High Speed Rail violates fiscal federalism it coerces States Governments Greve 12
Michael S. Greve is the John G. Searle Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. High-Speed Federalism Goes Off the Rails Jan 17th http://libertylawsite.org/2012/01/17/high-speedfederalism-goes-off-the-rails/ The Washington Post reports that federal-state plans for a high-speed train connecting San Francisco with Los Angles and points in-between may never come off the ground. In the face of public resistance, the state may have to decline some $3.5 billion in federal stimulus funds dedicated to an initial segment of the line, connecting the thriving metropolises of Bakersfield and Merced. We may be witnessing an outbreak of fiscal and institutional sanity. Federal funding programs replicate, on a daily basis and an increasingly alarming scale, a debility that Alexander Hamilton identified as a constitutional problem . State officials, he wrote in Federalist 1, will seek to maximize to the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the state establishments. Officials time horizon extends over their expected tenure (at most, their lifetimes); thus, they would never support a Constitution that is calculated to produce long-term collective gains. They would have to be beaten, as mercifully they were. Federal grants programs systematically exploit state officials constricted time horizon for the expansion of government at all levels. So long as federal grants promise immediate electoral gains, state officials will discount even ruinous long-term costs to zero: Take the money and run (often, for higher office) is the rational course of action. From the smallest earmark to the Medicaid monster (which consumes over 20 percent of states budgets), our entire fiscal federalism operates on this principle. California Governor Jerry Brown is still committed to the highspeed train fantasy. However, his failure to explain where the estimated $100 billion for the project might come from has generated public resistance. California seems bound to do what Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida have already done: say no to the federal funds. This epidemic of good sense has an obvious source: unsustainable debt levels at all levels of governmentin no small measure, a consequence and legacy cost of federal transfer programshave produced a more realistic calculus. The issuance of yet more state debt tends to alarm voters, and assurances that the feds will agree to make up any future shortfalls or even make good on their commitment produces guffaws: they dont have the money. Our officials have driven fiscal federalism into a wall. A few have begun to walk away from the wreck, and thats a start. What the country needs is a stampede.

And, delegation to States key to reviving federalism. Transportation policy distinctly important to federalisms return. Horowitz 12
Daniel Deputy Political Director at The Madison Project and Contributing Editor, Legislative Writer at Red State Red state Jan 19th http://www.redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2012/01/19/devolvetransportation-spending-to-states/ One of the numerous legislative deadlines that Congress will be forced to confront this session is the expiration of the 8th short-term extension of the 2005 surface transportation authorization law (SAFETEA-LU). With federal transportation spending growing beyond its revenue source, an imbalance between donor and recipient states, inefficient and superfluous construction projects popping up all over the country, and burdensome mass transit mandates on states, it is time to inject some federalism into transportation spending. Throughout the presidential campaign, many of the candidates have expressed broad views of states rights, while decrying the expansion of the federal government. In doing so, some of the candidates have expressed the conviction that states have the right to implement tyranny or pick winners and losers, as long as the federal government stays out of it. Romneycare and state subsidies for green energy are good examples. The reality is that states dont have rights; they certainly dont have the power to impose tyranny on citizens by forcing them to buy health insurance or regulating the water in their toilet bowels to name a few. They do, however, reserve powers under our federalist system of governance to implement legitimate functions of government. A quintessential example of such a legitimate power is control over transportation and infrastructure spending. The Highway Trust Fund was established in 1956 to fund the Interstate Highway System (IHS). The fund, which is administered by the DOTs Federal Highway Administration, has been purveyed by the federal gasoline tax, which now stands at 18.4 cents per gallon (24.4 for diesel fuel). Beginning in 1983, Congress began siphoning off some of the gas tax revenue for the great liberal sacred cow; the urban mass transit system. Today, mass transit receives $10.2 billion in annual appropriations, accounting for a whopping 20% of transportation spending. Additionally, the DOT mandates that states use as much as 10% of their funding for all sorts of local pork projects, such as bike paths and roadside flowers. As a result of the inefficiencies and wasteful mandates of our top-down approach to transportation spending, trust fund outlays have exceeded its revenue source by an average of $12 billion per year, even though the IHS the catalyst for the gasoline tax has been completed for 20 years. In 2008, the phantom trust fund was bailed out with $35 billion in general revenue, and has been running a deficit for the past few years. Congress has not passed a 6-year reauthorization bill since 2005, relying on a slew of short-term extensions, the last of which is scheduled to expire on March 31. Short-term funding is no way to plan for long-term infrastructure projects. In their alacrity to gobble up the short-term money before it runs out, state and local governments tend to use the funds on small time and indivisible projects, such as incessant road repaving, instead of better planned long-term projects. Its time for a long-term solution, one which will inject much-needed federalism and freemarket solutions into our inefficient and expensive transportation policy. It is time to abolish the Highway Trust Fund and its accompanying federal gasoline tax. Twenty years after the completion of the IHS, we must devolve all transportation authority to the states, with the exception of projects that are national in scope. Each state should be responsible for its own projects, including maintenance for its share of the IHS. Free of the burden of shouldering special interest pork projects of other states, each

state would levy its own state gas tax to purvey its own transportation needs. If a state wants a robust mass transit system or pervasive bike lanes, let the residents of that state decide whether they want to pay for it. That is true federalism in action.

Nations model US federalism decisions demonstrates viability of dual sovereignty Bogen 3

(David, Professor of Law and T. Carroll Brown Scholar, University of Maryland School of Law. Hastings Law Journal, 55 Hastings L.J. 333) In short, Congress has sufficient power to deal directly or indirectly with every form of national problem. The decisions of the Court, however, demand that Congress demonstrate that the problem is a national one when its scope is not obvious. This demand, and the need to use less direct instruments such as the spending power, force Congress to confront the institutional issue as to which level of government can best deal with the problem. It also makes state sovereignty a practical reality, so that most problems will be understood as state responsibility. There are at least three advantages to maintaining federalism and not interpreting the privileges and immunities clause to confer a general congressional power to legislate on personal security and property rights: it maximizes popular satisfaction, it promotes experimentation, and it provides a model on the international level to reconcile national factions. The utilitarian argument for federalism is that it maximizes satisfaction. A rule that satisfies the majority in each of the fifty states will be a much larger number than a rule that satisfies the national majority but overrides local state majorities. The wrinkle is the weight to be assigned the desire of persons in one state to have their rule adopted in a neighboring state where there is no significant commercial effect on the first state from such an adoption. Congressional power should be sufficient to enable a national majority to overcome local majorities when that desire is at a high level, but the stumbling blocks that the Court has [*397] raised to preserve federalism may help preserve local preferences where the national interest is low. The states have always been famed as the laboratories of experimentation. 332 With respect to individual rights, the slow expansion of laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender orientation suggests that states may be even more progressive than the national government, a government whose laws often preempt local attempts to grapple with issues. It may well be that the huge amounts of financing necessary to run for national office create a polarization that does not well reflect a majority. Raising money is easier for the more ideological candidates on each side, and this promotes more strife and less cooperation in the national legislature. 333 Local campaigns are cheaper and need not be as ideologically divisive. That creates the possibility of legislatures more amenable to working together on problems and creating new solutions. Finally, American federalism has been a model throughout the world for bringing together diverse peoples under a larger governmental structure. 334 The utility of a national economic policy and a national foreign policy is apparent, but the tug of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds makes this difficult. The breakaway republic of Chechnya in Russia and the fear of separate status for Kurds in Turkey suggest the problems nations may have with significant internal groups with different interests. The lack of autonomy for Tibet gives the Republic of China on Taiwan pause about uniting with the Peoples Republic on the Mainland. If the warning of the anti-federalists comes true, that states cannot maintain their separate sovereignty under a national government, the United States will no longer be the beacon on the hill that gives hope for resolving this kind of international problem. A viable federalism is therefore important, not just for the internal purposes of maximizing popular satisfaction and fostering experimentation, but to demonstrate to a fractious world that dual sovereignty is a viable form of government.

Airline Tradeoff

The U.S. aerospace industry is recovering now

Center for Aviation 12 1/3/12 (2012 marks beginning of next chapter in US airline industry, CAPA, Accessed online at http://www.centreforaviation.com/analysis/2012-marks-beginning-of-next-chapterin-us-airline-industry-65485, Accessed on 6/23/12) While downturn is rife in the airline industry, the US industry will do relatively well , with IATA expecting the US industry to post USD2 billion in earnings in 2011 and USD2.9 billion in 2012 as US carriers limit capacity growth, keeping load factors high. Within the US there was a higher than expected consumer retailing at the end of the year, and while unemployment is still high it has shown a steady decrease since the last half of 2011. There are an increasing number of travel surveys concluding leisure travel will rise this year. Despite last summers angst, when fears of a double dip recession were high, the economy picked up nicely in 2011 growing faster than expected each quarter, with the fastest growth expected in the fourth quarter. Unemployment applications have been halved from the 650,000 in March 2009 although admittedly still too high to create a robust turnaround. Small businesses are hiring and consumer inventories at retailers are rising, up 8.7% in October year-on-year. Housing starts have also risen, up 9% in November compared to October. Trans- and intercontinental bookings are already up for Asia, Australia and Europe, according to a travel agent survey which indicated clients plan to spend the same or more for travel in 2012. The survey also supported suppositions that the advanced booking window will stretch as travellers try to squeeze every dollar out of their trips. Leisure travellers are already at eight weeks or more but business travel windows are expected to rise as well. United has already reported a 3.7% increase in advanced domestic bookings between mid-December and February. Fares were up 22.4% domestically in 2Q2011 compared to 2009, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). While this is good news, it comes as inflation-adjusted fares are still 15.8% lower than in 2Q1995. Expect fares to continue their upward trajectory and more fare increase attempts to stick this year. We have passed the time when airlines will be consistent money losers, as evidenced by the fact that they were profitable in 2011 despite higherfuel prices than in 2008, when losses were common. It is difficult to visualise a circumstance when that would change failing another travel-related terrorist attack.

HSR decimates the airline industrysteals half their market.

Jaffe 12 (Eric, Eric Jaffe is a contributing writer to The Atlantic Cities and the author of The King's Best Highway: The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route That Made America, "What the Eurostar's Success Means for California HSR", Jan 13 2012, http://m.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/01/what-eurostars-success-means-california-hsr/938/) Behrens and Pels found that frequency, travel time, and distance to the point of departure were major determinants of travel behavior in the corridor, in addition of course to fares. The total travel time on Eurostar (which includes getting to the station) is relatively long compared to flights: roughly 3 hours 20 minutes in 2003, dropping to 2 hours 50 minutes after the move to St. Pancras, against 1.5 or 2 hours for airlines. But the train's on-time arrival was 95 percent, much higher than that of its competitors, and by 2009 its frequency had grown to twice that of major airlines, with 119 weekly trips. First-class fare is also cheaper on the Eurostar, and since 2007 its coach fare has been cheaper than fares on the three main air alternatives, according to the report. The researchers used their models of the Paris-London corridor to consider the potential success of high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Behrens and Pels made several notable assumptions similar passenger behavior in the United States as in Europe, for instance, and a rail fare that costs only 80 percent of air travel still their findings will come as some encouragement to American high-speed rail supporters. At a travel time of roughly 3 hours, which is about what California's high-speed rail authority expects , the train would capture about 30 percent of business travelers and 40 percent of the leisure market , according to Behrens and Pels. In the unlikely chance the fast train can achieve a travel time of 2 hours 25 minutes, it could win about half the market share of leisure travelers:

HSR causes more pollution than competing airlinesTurns case

Feigenbaum 12 (Baruch, policy analyst at Reason Foundation, a non-profit think tank advancing free minds and free markets. He specializes in transportation policy. "California High-Speed Rail Will Increase Pollution", Reason Foundation, June 14 2012, http://reason.org/blogs/mass-transit-and-light-rail The latest development in the California high-speed rail disaster concerns pollution. University of California-Berkeley professor Arpad Hovath explains that construction of the train will produce 10 million metric tons of Carbon Dioxide per year. Electricity for the California trains will come from coal fired power plants leading to more pollution. In order to negate this pollution, the train would need extremely high ridership in the Central Valley something that would be nearly impossible to achieve. California HSR will likely be more polluting than air travel. Further according to federal biologists and as reported in the Los Angeles Times: Eleven endangered species, including the San Joaquin kit fox, would be affected, according to federal biologists. Massive emissions from diesel-powered heavy equipment could foul the already filthy air. Dozens of rivers, canals and wetlands fed from the rugged peaks of the Sierra Nevada would be crossed, creating other knotty issues. Among the most difficult issues will be air quality, which is regulated across eight counties by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution

Control District. The district worries that the construction project would exacerbate already problematic levels of nitrogen oxides, particulates and volatile compounds.