CASE

ADVANTAGE ONE
1. Multiple alt causes to populism surging
Pinkas 5/15 — Alon Pinkas, MA in Government and Politics at Georgetown, was a foreign policy
advisor for Ehud Barak and political advisor to Shimon Peres (“America's Possible Return to Nationalist
Populism Sends Tremors Around the Democratic World,” Haaretz, Available Online at
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2023-05-15/ty-article/.premium/trumps-possible-return-should-
send-tremors-around-the-democratic-world/00000188-1fc9-df77-afe9-5fcdc84a0000, Accessed 07-14-
2023)

There are global political trends negatively affecting and straining democracies: the growing alienation
of people from the political system; resentment toward government policies and state institutions;
majoritarian and authoritarian parties fanning the flames; identity politics becoming a defining aspect of
identification; fear of modernization and technology that are perceived as discriminatory, thus
contributing to anti-elite fomentation.

2. Populism is no threat to democracy – multiple warrants

Weyland 21 (Kurt, is Mike Hogg Professor in Liberal Arts in the Department of Government, University
of Texas at Austin. 12-06-2021 “Why US Democracy Trumps Populism: Comparative Lessons
Reconsidered” https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/
D6EFD45DC709C4D27742C99992FF9417/S1049096521001876a.pdf/why-us-democracy-trumps-
populism-comparative-lessons-reconsidered.pdf pg.478-479)//BH-NB//

My comprehensive analysis of populist governments in Europe and Latin America showed that the risk
to liberal democracy was lower than many observers stirred up by Donald Trump’s stunning election
had feared (Weyland 2020). I define populism as a political strategy through which personalistic, typically charismatic leaders seek and
exercise power through unmediated, quasi-direct appeals and connections to an amorphous, heterogeneous, largely unorganized mass of
followers. Based on this definition, I theorized that personalistic plebiscitarian leadership suffocated democracy only when two types of
conditions intersected: (1) when institutional weakness created room for maneuvering by personalistic leaders; and (2) when conjunctural
opportunities, arising from severe and acute but resolvable crises or from hydrocarbon windfalls, allowed such leaders to obtain overwhelming
support. My wide-ranging analysis substantiated these arguments by examining 30 cases of populist chief executives. It is interesting that they
lined up along three paths in which a specific type of institutional weakness coinciding with a specific conjunctural opportunity led to
democracy’s asphyxiation in only six cases— namely, under Latin America’s Bolivarian populism in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador; in Latin
America’s neoliberal populism in Alberto Fujimori’s Peru; and under Europe’s ethno-national populism in Hungary and Turkey. My
investigations thus found that populism was less dangerous for democracy than many feared; only in
relatively few cases did personalistic plebiscitarian leaders manage to concentrate enough power to
smother democracy. This examination yielded the prediction that Trump would not destroy US
democracy. After all, a rigid constitution and resilient checks and balances provided institutional strength;
and, given the absence of a severe and acute yet resolvable crisis and a hydrocarbon windfall, the US
populist would not win overwhelming support. Trump’s defeat in 2020 seemed to corroborate these
arguments. Just when I thought that after 30 years in the profession, I finally had correctly predicted an outcome, López and Luna (2021)
challenged my findings. They claim that my analysis suffered from various flaws and omitted crucial factors that make US democracy appear
more precarious than I suggested. I appreciate these critics’ hard work in scrutinizing my analysis and trying to correct and improve it, and I
share their underlying concern to take populism’s threat seriously and avoid complacency. Moreover, I agree that US democracy faces serious
problems arising from various factors, including regional industrial decline, deepening urban–rural divisions, serious racial tensions, intensifying
cultural conflict, disproportionate power of money, and new challenges to expertise and rationality. All of these factors have fueled stark
polarization, which threatens liberal democracy. However, not all problems facing US democracy go together. For the
specific risk examined in my article—that is, democracy’s strangulation by populist chief executives— party
polarization arguably
limited the danger arising from Trump’s power hunger: Democrats rejected him as intensely as
Republicans supported him. Consequently, whereas Venezuela’s Chávez and Peru’s Fujimori achieved 70% to 80% backing and thus
gained overwhelming clout to strangle democracy, the US populist never reached 50%— far too little to do similar
damage. Therefore, although it is a major problem for US democracy overall, profound polarization actually hemmed in
the destructive force of Trump’s populism.

3. No solvency - Multiple UBI study’s prove they can’t solve inequality --- multiple
warrants
Coote 19 (Anne, is head of social policy for Nef - the New Economics Foundation. A leading analyst,
writer and advocate in the field of social policy, Anna is commissioner for health with the UK sustainable
development commission. 05-16-2019 “Universal basic income doesn’t work. Let’s boost the public
realm instead” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/06/universal-basic-income-
public-realm-poverty-inequality)//BH-NB//

A study of UBI trials concludes that making cash payments to all is no solution to poverty and
inequality A study published this week sheds doubt on ambitious claims made for universal basic income (UBI), the scheme that would give
everyone regular, unconditional cash payments that are enough to live on. Its advocates claim it would help to reduce poverty, narrow
inequalities and tackle the effects of automation on jobs and income. Research conducted for Public Services International, a global trade union
federation, reviewed for the first time 16 practical projects that have tested different ways of distributing regular cash payments to individuals
It could find no evidence to
across a range of poor, middle-income and rich countries, as well as copious literature on the topic.
suggest that such a scheme could be sustained for all individuals in any country in the short, medium or
longer term – or that this approach could achieve lasting improvements in wellbeing or equality. The
research confirms the importance of generous, non-stigmatising income support, but everything turns on how much money is paid, under what
conditions and with what consequences for the welfare system as a whole. From Kenya and southern India to Alaska and Finland, cash payment
schemes have been claimed to show that UBI “works”. In fact, what’s been tested in practice is almost infinitely varied, with cash paid at
different levels and intervals, usually well below the poverty line and mainly to individuals selected because they are severely disadvantaged,
with funds provided by charities, corporations and development agencies more often than by governments. Experiments in India and Kenya
have been funded, respectively, by Unicef and Give Directly, a US charity supported by Google. They give money to people on very low incomes
in selected villages for fixed periods of time. Giving small amounts of cash to people who have next to nothing is bound to make a difference –
and indeed, these schemes have helped to improve recipients’ health and livelihoods. But nothing is revealed about their longer-term viability,
or how they could be scaled up to serve whole populations. And there is a democratic deficit: people who get their basic income from charities
or aid agencies have no control over how payments are made, to whom, at what level or over what period of time. The Alaska Permanent Fund,
built from the state’s oil revenues, pays all adults and children a dividend each year – in 2018, it was $1,600 (£1,230). The scheme is popular
and enduring; it has been found to produce some positive impacts on rural indigenous groups, but it
makes no claim to sufficiency
and has done nothing to reduce child poverty or to prevent widening income inequalities. Finland
undertook a two-year trial, from January 2017 to December 2018, of modest monthly payments of €560 (£477) to 2,000 unemployed
people – but the government has refused to fund further expansion. It told us little about UBI except that,
when push comes to shove, elected politicians may balk at paying for a universal scheme. The cost of a
sufficient UBI scheme would be extremely high according to the International Labour Office, which estimates average costs equivalent to 20-
30% of GDP in most countries. Costs can be reduced – and have been in most trials – by paying smaller amounts to fewer individuals. But
there is no evidence to suggest that a partial or conditional UBI scheme could do anything to mitigate,
let alone reverse, current trends towards worsening poverty, inequality and labour insecurity . Costs may be
offset by raising taxes or shifting expenditure from other kinds of public expenditure, but either way there are huge and risky trade-offs. Money
spent on cash payments cannot be invested elsewhere. The more generous the payments, the wider the range of recipients, the longer the
scheme continues, the less money will be left to build the structures and systems that are needed to realise UBI’s progressive goals. As this
week’s report observes,
“If cash payments are allowed to take precedence, there’s a serious risk of crowding
out efforts to build collaborative, sustainable services and infrastructure – and setting a pattern for
future development that promotes commodification rather than emancipation.” This may help to explain why
UBI has attracted support from Silicon Valley tycoons, who are more interested in defending consumer capitalism than in tackling poverty and
inequality. The report concludes that themoney needed to pay for an adequate UBI scheme “would be better
spent on reforming social protection systems, and building more and better-quality public
services”. Redistributing the personal tax allowance and developing the idea of universal basic services (UBS) could offer a more promising
alternative. This calls for more and better quality public services that are free to those who need them, regardless of ability to pay. Healthcare
and education are obvious examples, and it is argued that a similar approach should be applied to areas such as transport, housing, social care
and information – everyday essentials that should be available to all. Collective provision offers more cost-effective, socially just, redistributive
and sustainable ways of meeting people’s needs than leaving individuals to buy what they can afford in the marketplace.

4. Turn - There are many jobs available, but UBI would lower the labor force, causing
a decline in economic growth.
Minogue 18 (Rachel, Senior Analyst on Supply Chain Resiliency, International Trade Administration,
“Five Problems with Universal Basic Income,” Third Way, 5/24/2018,
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/five-problems-with-universal-basic-income#:~:text=UBI%20has
%20the%20potential%20to,resulting%20in%20lower%20overall%20prosperity.)
Many of the most ardent UBI supporters believe the policy is an answer to a world where work is vanishing. This is a popular view in Silicon
Valley, where many predict widespread technological unemployment is just around the corner. 4 But there is almost no evidence that
work is ending. Instead, work is changing.
 The US economy employs more people today than ever, with 37 million jobs added since the introduction of Microsoft Windows in
1993 and 190,000 new jobs created per month over the last year on average. 5
 As Baby Boomers retire, the US working-age population will grow more slowly than the economy as a
whole. For that reason, the US is just as likely to experience a shortage of labor to fill growing jobs as it is to have a labor market
oversaturated with workers.6
 Many professions are rising in demand today, including those in health care, advanced manufacturing, skilled construction,
education, technology, hospitality, and business management.
 At this very moment, there
are 6 million job openings across the country, more than half of which are
middle-class jobs or better.7
While we may see a net gain in jobs over the coming years, disruption will still be rampant. These jobs will be in different locations, require
different skills, and offer different benefits. That’s why we need policies that help workers adjust to these new realities
—not surrender. Reinventing postsecondary education to create more options outside of a four-year college degree, as well as
redesigning worker pay and benefits, would do far more for the next generation of workers.
With a foundational, albeit limited, income under UBI, some Americans may choose to work part-time
instead of full-time. Others may leave the labor force for years when they would have otherwise
worked. Eduardo Porter writes that, as almost one quarter of US households make less than $25,000 a year, a $10,000 check each for two
parents could change their decisions on how to balance work, child care, and other obligations, resulting in less full-time
participation in the labor force.8
If people transition away from full-time work, the US economy would suffer. Macroeconomic theory holds that economic growth is
dependent on three factors: increases in capital, advances in technology, and growth of the labor force. UBI has the potential to
directly decrease the growth of the US economy, namely GDP growth, through reductions to labor force
participation. With GDP shrinking, tax revenues would fall. This would in turn mean fewer resources to
help the disadvantaged or to invest in the future, resulting in lower overall prosperity.

5. Turn - A UBI destroys democracy, concentrating power in the hands of a few

Harrington 6/5/23 [Mary Harrington is a contributing editor at UnHerd., 6-5-2023, "Universal basic
income will kill democracy," UnHerd, https://unherd.com/thepost/universal-basic-income-will-kill-
democracy/]//gbs-aarz
Are we on our way to universal basic income? A pilot scheme has been announced in two English locations, in which 30 people will be paid a lump sum of £1600 a
month without conditions for two years, and observed for the effect this has on their lives. This follows a slow but steady groundswell of calls for such a measure —
calls that have accelerated since “furlough” effectively trialled something similar during lockdown.

But while UBI may serve as a pragmatic response to increasing inequality, we should be alert to what such a measure implies: that the majority of
citizens are now passive , consumption-only participants in the economic order. And once this is acknowledged openly, expect it to
have knock-on effects in the political sphere as well.

One side-effect of industrialisation across the West was the widening of political participation. In England, a key group pushing for change was the 19th-century
Chartists, who called for the working-class franchise along with other reforms to rebalance the political order. The threat of unrest, combined with the sheer
practical necessity of having a relatively cooperative industrial workforce, ensured that many Chartist demands were eventually attained. In other words: the
working class got their voices heard, and formally acknowledged via the vote, because they were needed.

Today we are looking at the end of that era. The share of British GDP that comes from industry has shrunk from 30% in 1970 to around 10% today, largely replaced

by services. There is no longer enough industry to keep an industrial proletariat employed. And even if manufacturing
did get “re-shored”, much of it would likely be automated.

So, too, will many of the service roles that replaced industrial work, thanks to rapid developments in AI. As the futurist Yuval Noah Harari argues, new

technologies will replace most jobs , producing a new “useless class” of people whose work is simply no longer
needed. Others warn that the looming age of automation will accelerate inequality: in effect, a mass of the indigent and unemployable, offset by a small class of
fabulously wealthy tech plutocrats.

It is not a recipe for political stability. One solution, Harari suggests, might simply be to keep this “useless class” fed with handouts and occupied with drugs and
computer games. In more polite progressive terms, this means UBI: a solution to the inequalities now increasingly apparent in post-industrial society, opening the
scope for people to pursue individual fulfilment as they see fit. Perhaps echoing the pragmatic willingness of 19th-century British elites to reform institutions in line

with the changing political calculus, it’s often the tech super-rich who are UBI’s keenest advocates .

Harari notes that this presents a deep challenge to our belief in the dignity of all human life. This is true. It also presents a deep challenge to the
political order we have come to think of as settled. Had the industrial working class simply been passive recipients of handouts and consumers of
entertainment, it’s difficult to see what leverage the Chartists might have had for demanding the vote — or what reason elites might have had for granting it.

By the same token, should the base of net contributors to the Exchequer shrink to a handful of plutocrats, it’s reasonable to
expect that in practice, even if not in theory, the political views of those net contributors will weigh considerably more heavily than your average PlayStation-
addicted UBI recipient. If your tax base comprises, say, 100 oligarchs, then the departure of even one makes a big dent in the coffers — a threat that can be used to
shape policy a long way upstream of official politics.

On current inequality trends, then, it’s more than possible that universal basic income will become a reality. If it does, I predict that current electoral
rituals will be maintained — but will steadily lose leverage . (This has, in fact, arguably been under way for some decades.) No doubt, over time,
other means will be found for the masses to register their views. Or perhaps, like the 59% of American youth who would rather give up the franchise than their
access to TikTok, people simply won’t care.

Either way, in a UBI state we can expect the industrial-era democratic settlement to persist largely as a
toothless ritual, while real political power withdraws into the hands of the new lords and princes .

6. Populism won’t cause war

Niall Ferguson 16, Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Senior Fellow of the
Center for European Studies at Harvard University, and Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University in
Beijing, Autumn 2016, “Populism as a Backlash against Globalization - Historical Perspectives,”
https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/horizons-autumn-2016--issue-no-8/populism-as-a-backlash-against-
globalization

Despite their habitual insistence on narrow national self-interest, populists are nearly always part of a
global phenomenon. Globalization had been making enormous strides prior to 1873, with world trade, migration, and international capital flows growing
at unprecedented rates. But the crisis of that year generated a populist backlash against globalization that was itself global in its scope. Then, just as now, the
principal targets of the demagogues were immigration, free trade, and high finance. Just as the United States excluded immigrants and raised tariffs, so did
European countries by adopting similar discriminatory measures. In Bismarck’s Germany, populism was often antisemitic—as it was in the France of the Dreyfus
Affair—while in late Victorian Britain it was anti-Irish. Tariffs went up almost everywhere except in Britain. Populism
today has a similarly global
quality. In June, the British vote to leave the European Union was hailed by populists right across the
European continent as well as by Donald Trump in the United States and, implicitly, by Vladimir Putin in Russia. Yielding to the Complicators
Let me conclude with a note of qualified optimism. Because populism is not fascism, populist victories
should not be construed as harbingers of war—if anything, the opposite is true. In the 1870s and 1880s, populists did
achieve significant reductions in globalization: not only immigration restrictions, but also higher tariffs. But they did not form
many national governments, and they did not subvert any constitutions. Nor were populists much interested in starting
wars; if anything, they lent towards isolationism and viewed imperialism as just another big business
racket. In most countries, the populist high tide was in the 1880s. What came next—in many ways as a reaction to populism, but also as an alternative set of
policy solutions to the same public grievances—was Progressivism in the United States and socialism in Europe. Perhaps something similar will also happen in our
time. Perhaps that is something to look forward to. Nevertheless, we would do well to remember that World
War I broke out during the
progressive not the populist era. The world today is, as I observed at the outset, in much less turmoil than one
might infer from television news. Nevertheless, the economic and social consequences of globalization and the most
recent financial crisis sowed the seeds for the populist backlash that we now see. Populists are not fascists. They

prefer trade wars to actual wars; administrative border walls to more defensible fortifications. The maladies they seek to cure are not imaginary:
uncontrolled rising immigration, widening inequality, free trade with “unfree” countries, and political cronyism are all things that a substantial section of the
electorate have some reason to dislike. The problem with populism is that its remedies are wrong and, in fact, counterproductive. What
we most have
to fear—as was true of Brexit—is not therefore Armageddon, but something more prosaic: an attempt to reverse
certain aspects of globalization, followed by disappointment when the snake oil does not really cure the patient’s ills,
followed by the emergence of a new and ostensibly more progressive set of remedies for our current malaise. The
“terrible simplifiers” may have their day then. But they will end up yielding power to well-intentioned complicators, those more congenial to educated elites, but
probably every a bit as dangerous, if not more so.

7. Turn – A carbon tax hurts the poor more since they use more carbon due to less
access to renewables AND if they’re taxed $1k and they make $40k a year, it’s a
bigger impact than if Jeff Bezos is taxed $1m and he makes $64t.
 ADVANTAGE TWO
1. No Warming Impact – predictions are made by models that are at the absolute tail-
end of predictions and overstate the probability in the 2.5% percentile – it’s a constant
repetition with the IPCC and US agencies assuming unrealistic increases AND
empirically temperature is BAD but not
2. Even if everyone stopped all emissions today it wouldn’t solve warming

Cascio 19 – Jamais, a professional futurist who has been exploring the intersection of environmental,
technological, and cultural change for 25 years. Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of their Top 100 Global
Thinkers in 2009, Cascio specializes in plausible scenarios of the future. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute
for the Future, where he works on a wide array of projects. Cascio’s written work has appeared in both academic
and popular journals and collections. “The apocalypse: It’s not the end of the world”, Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, Vol. 75, No. 6, pg. 269-272, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00963402.2019.1680047?
journalCode=rbul20, 10-28-2019

There’s a 25- to 50-year lag between the emission of atmospheric carbon and its persistent impact on
temperature. This means the environmental disruption attributable to global warming we’re seeing now is the
we could cut off all carbon
result of carbon emissions up through the 1980s. It also means

emissions today, globally, and still see another generation of warming . Beyond the
environmental, economic, and human consequences, imagine the political impact of taking bold action that
produces no observable benefits for 20 years, or even longer .

3. Doesn’t solve – you tax someone then give the money back to them, no incentive to
reduce emissions
4. Linking the tax to UBI is bad. It creates a perverse incentive to continue fossil fuel
use to fund the UBI. AND, it runs out.
1AC Howard 17, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maine, USA. He is Co-Editor of Basic
Income Studies, and Coordinator of the US Basic Income Guarantee Network. (Michael, “A Carbon
Dividend as a Step toward a Basic Income in the United States: Prospects and Problems,”
https://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2017/07/05/a-carbon-dividend-as-a-step-toward-a-basic-income-in-
the-united-states-prospects-and-problems/)//BB

There are two concerns about carbon fees and dividends that are specific to the question of whether
they constitute a step toward a basic income. First, a carbon dividend by design will fade away. As the
price of carbon rises, demand will fall. Eventually, the declining demand effect will surpass the rising
price effect, and the dividend will begin to decline. The policy is driven primarily by the environmental
problem, and the dividend is one use of the revenue, motivated by considerations of justice and political
feasibility. (In fact, it is conceivable that if the dividend were to become more important than the
environmental tax that funds it, it could lead to perverse efforts to reduce the environmental impact in
order to prolong and maximise the dividend. It would be useful to see some modelling of this
possibility.) Once the environmental problem is solved, there is no longer a compelling reason to provide
a dividend. Thus, viewed as a basic income, a carbon dividend is only a temporary fix.
5. No climate impact.
Mark Bucknam 23, professor and the Director of Research and Writing at the National War College,
Ph.D. from King’s College London, 3/10/2023, “Climate Change and National Security,” Comparative
Strategy, Vol. 42, Issue 2, pp. 187-226, https://doi.org/10.1080/01495933.2023.2182108
Evidence of a Non-crisis

One of the main reasons the science remains unsettled and that more and more scientists appear comfortable bucking the prevailing narrative
is the failure of the observed climate to conform to so many dire projections. For more than three decades, a chorus of
environmentalists, geologists, and climate scientists have warned that mounting levels of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere

were leading to extreme weather events, including more numerous and more severe hurricanes, more numerous and extreme tornadoes, more
frequent and intense heatwaves, more continuous and ferocious wildfires, more widespread droughts and floods, and more rapidly melting glaciers and rising sea
levels. Fortunately, the reality of all these weather-related events is far from alarming, notwithstanding what one might hear on
the nightly news or read in newspapers. As Dr. Koonin explains in Unsettled, “ record
high temperatures in the US— they’re no more
common today than they were in 1900,” nearly a century’s worth of observations shows “human influences
haven’t caused any observable changes in hurricanes,” “the global area burned by fires each year has declined by 25
percent since observations began in 1998,” and while “sea levels…have been rising over the past many millennia…the current rate of rise (about one

foot per century)…explain[s] why it’s very hard to believe that surging seas will drown the coast any time
soon.”26 When discussing these claims, Koonin is careful to note: “Those statements are not my science. They’re not my spin on the science. They’re
what’s there in the [IPCC and US government] reports, although sometimes buried and you’ve got to read them carefully.”27 And, citing
the work of Yale’s Nobel Prize winning climate economist William Nordhaus, even if global temperatures were to go up 6 degrees
Centigrade by the year 2100—four times the target limit sought under the Paris Climate Accord and an added fivefold increase above the 1 degree Centigrade
increase since the mid-1800s—the impact on US and global GDP would be on the order of a few percent—hardly a catastrophe.28
While Koonin may be the latest, most prestigious, and impeccably credentialed scientist to point to the gaping discrepancies between terrifying claims and the
unalarming physical record, he is far from being the only respected scientist or expert to call out these inaccuracies.29 Other
researchers and
commentators such as Bjorn Lomborg, and Alex Epstein point to the stunning worldwide drop in deaths caused by
severe weather—99 percent over the past century.30 The more detached from reality the claims of climate crisis have become, the more that contrarian
experts are speaking up, even though their well-founded skepticism risks their being branded as “deniers.”31 Predictions of climate catastrophe due to human
greenhouse gas emissions have been made for nearly 35 years, and yet Earth’s
climate stubbornly refuses to lend evidence of a
“climate crisis” or the “existential risk” claimed in the Biden administration’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance and 2022 National
Security Strategy. 32 The scary projections are always based on models, not observed trends in the climate, and those

models have proven unreliable.33

Contrary to the prevailing narrative of climate doom, Earth’s warming is mild and largely beneficial—mostly
moderating cold temperatures in northernmost latitudes and at night; there are no climate-caused dangerous trends
in global weather such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, or wildfires; human deaths attributed to extreme weather events
have declined over 99 percent over the past century; increasing levels of CO2 are a net positive—enabling photosynthesis using less water and
greening the planet; coral reefs are not threatened by warming or increased CO2; polar bear populations are

increasing; the Antarctic ice sheet is growing; the IPCC says the Greenland ice sheet under all scenarios would take centuries if not millennia to
melt; the Arctic will remain decidedly frozen in winter even if it becomes ice-free in summer—a phenomenon that would have almost no impact on sea levels as
Arctic ice is already floating on the ocean; with some natural variation, sea
levels continue to rise at the same slow rate as they
have for 5,000 years—less than a foot per century; the oceans are and will remain markedly alkaline— burning all of the
coal, oil, and natural gas on Earth would not change that—and studies show marine life adapts well to changes in pH; and, finally, there is no

evidence of mass species die-offs or a coming great extinction. These claims are so starkly counter to what everyone “knows” that it
would take a book or several books to explain and document their veracity. Fortunately, such books have been written by scientists and researchers who
understand that Earth’s climate is constantly changing and who acknowledge the planet has warmed just over 1 degree Centigrade over the past 170 years and that
CO2 and other human produced greenhouse gases contributed something to that warming. These are serious, intelligent people who have studied the evidence and
cannot be dismissed as "deniers.” The
enormous gap between the unscary reality of climate change and the dire
statements and radical, multi-trillion-dollar policies of those pushing to “fix” the climate has led critics of the climate
hype to brand it as dishonest, unscientific, and immoral.34

6. Can’t solve warming.

A. It doesn't reduce enough emissions.
Marlo Lewis 21, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He writes on global warming,
energy policy, and public policy issues. Ph.D. in government from Harvard, "Why Carbon Taxes Are Anti-
Growth, Anti-Consumer, and Politically Dangerous for Conservatives," 12/01/2021,
https://cei.org/studies/why-carbon-taxes-are-anti-growth-anti-consumer-and-politically-dangerous-for-
conservatives/

Even a CO2 tax set at the politically-infeasible levels of $300 and $450 per ton would avert only about
0.1°C of global warming and one centimeter of sea-level rise by 2100, according to standard U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) climate modeling.[7] All the economic pain would produce no
detectable effects on weather patterns, crop yields, polar bear populations or any other environmental
condition people care about. The climate benefits from now to 2035 would be even more miniscule.

B. Leakage and can’t calculate sources of carbon emissions.

Jeffrey Miron 21 is vice president for research at the Cato Institute and the director of graduate and
undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and Pedro Aldighieri,
"What Should Policymakers Do about Climate Change?," Nov 30 2021 https://www.cato.org/briefing-
paper/what-should-policymakers-do-about-climate-change NL

A further complication is that if only some countries adopt carbon taxes (a virtual certainty, especially
after one accounts for noncompliance with treaties), thereby raising their own production costs,
carbon‐intensive activities may shift to countries with lower or no such taxes, a problem known as
“leakage.” In fact, production using relatively low‐carbon natural gas could move to areas that use relatively high‐carbon coal, such as China, thus increasing
emissions on net. An ideal carbon tax must therefore be harmonized across countries, which is a challenging political feat. A possible remedy is for countries that want to go it
alone is to tax imports based on their carbon footprint and subsidize exports based on carbon taxes elsewhere, then foreign and domestic goods would face the same carbon tax rates. Ideally,
country A imposes carbon taxes on imports from country B only to reflect the difference between country A’s carbon taxes and country B’s. Keeping track of all regional and international
carbon duties is no easy task. And duty drawbacks—that is, tax refunds on goods to be reexported—could allow for rerouting of goods through intermediary countries, making accurate net
duty accounting all but impossible.39 Since we care about net emissions, moreover, these border taxes should apply only to emissions that have not been offset through carbon capture and
storage or similar methods. Taxing net emissions, however, is hard. One could devise a subsidy that mirrors the carbon tax for carbon offsetting. To work, this would require transferring tax
credits from carbon emitters to carbon capturers, adding compliance and monitoring costs.40 If only gross emissions are taxed, this might discourage carbon offset, even if offsetting emissions

Identifying sources of carbon emissions is not an easy task, either. In many cases, one could add
is more efficient than preventing them.

carbon emissions may result from

carbon taxes to ordinary sales taxes, according to the carbon intensity of the goods being transacted. But in other cases,

activities that do not immediately translate to market transactions, such as grazing cattle or
deforestation, thus making it hard for governments to correctly identify these sources of emissions.
 ADVANTAGE THREE
1. Turn
A. Dependence on China is critical to emissions reductions and bilateral trade.
Cheng Li and Ziuye Zhao 6/14, Cheng Li is the director of the John L. Thornton China Center and a
senior fellow in the Foreign policy program at Brookings. Xiuye Zhao is the Director for Asia Operations
at the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, “Renewable energy should not be the next semiconductor
in US-China competition,” https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2023/06/14/renewable-
energy-should-not-be-the-next-semiconductor-in-us-china-competition/amp/

Climate Agenda and Global Public Goods

Global efforts to combat climate change are at a critical juncture. Preventing U.S.-China clean tech
collaboration from turning into the “next semiconductor” is vital for the fate of a planet facing
increasing climate challenges. Properly handled, U.S.-China collaboration in clean tech could further
drive carbon reduction of the top two emitters, build trust, and put a floor under the deteriorating
bilateral relationship. If framed as yet another battleground for zero-sum competition, however, mutual
hostility in the form of trade restrictions and technology decoupling will disrupt global supply chains
and torpedo the climate agenda worldwide.

B. U.S.-China collaboration is key to stopping conflict. The aff just accelerates

competition and conflict.
Imran Khalid 6/15, master's degree in international relations from Karachi University, "The critical
minerals supply chain is the new front line of US-China rivalry,"
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3223969/critical-minerals-supply-chain-new-front-
line-us-china-rivalry

To counter China’s dominance in critical mineral supply chains, the US and its allies have adopted a two-
pronged strategy – seeking to bolster cooperation among themselves to facilitate increased mining
efforts while simultaneously expediting the construction of processing units.

Through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the US has formed minilateral alliances in the Indo-Pacific.
In March last year, a group of US senators introduced the Quad Critical Minerals Partnership Act while
Australia, India and Japan formed the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative. Then in July, Australia and
India launched a Critical Minerals Investment Partnership. In a similar vein, Japan and India as well as
South Korea and Australia have established separate collaborations.

Beyond the Quad, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity championed by the White House
has prioritised the securing of access to critical minerals to counterbalance China’s dominance. The
Biden administration has also initiated the Minerals Security Partnership, a comprehensive multilateral
endeavour to strengthen critical mineral supply chains through strategic partnerships.

Such US-led initiatives invariably collide with China’s interests in securing mineral resources for its own
industrial advancement.
Beijing has not pursued a dedicated alliance for critical mineral supply chains but it is aware of its own
dependence on mineral imports and security vulnerabilities. Natural resources minister Wang
Guanghua recently said the country was launching a new round of domestic strategic mineral mining
operations while investing in efforts to bolster reserves to enhance long-term security.

While the US and its allies seek to diversify supply chains and reduce their reliance on China, Beijing
remains determined to protect its interests and maintain its dominance. The inevitable result is a new
area of US-China tensions and as the battle for control over the critical mineral supply chains unfolds,
expect bouts of intense global politicking.

2. No Taiwan War – 10 warrants

Adlakha ’23 [Hemant Adlakha, 1-20-2023, "10 Reasons Xi Won’t Attack Taiwan Anytime Soon," The
Diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/10-reasons-xi-wont-attack-taiwan-anytime-soon/, St.
Mark's School of Texas, Ashrit Manduva '24]

However, seven months earlier in March 2022 during the annual “Two Sessions,” namely the
simultaneous convening of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Taiwan was mentioned only briefly, in reference to the “one
China” policy. Both in the government work report presented by the outgoing Chinese Premier Li
Keqiang to the NPC on March 5 and in the CPPCC work report presented by its chairman Wang Yang the
previous day, the Taiwan issue, including unification, was downplayed in a surprisingly uncharacteristic
manner. This deemphasizing was particularly significant when viewed in light of the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, which had started just a week before the convening of the Two Sessions.
Remember, within days of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, the media and many observers globally started arguing that Taiwan could be the next Ukraine, with China playing the role
of Russia. Interestingly, the cross-strait affairs analysts in Taiwan did not agree.

Most Taiwanese analysts were down-to-earth and realistic in interpreting the rhetoric coming from the 2002 Two Sessions. The Two Sessions were absolutely forthcoming in that China did not
consider Taiwan and Ukraine comparable. On March 7, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi further dismissed the comparison between the Taiwan question and the Ukraine issue as “baseless
speculation.” Second, and perhaps related, compared to previous years, the Two Sessions in March 2022 were remarkable for downplaying the discussion on Taiwan.

Internationally respected IR professor Hamada Koichi , who once served as special advisor to former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo of Japan, also observed that Xi is well aware that the forceful
subjugation of Taiwan could well end up backfiring. “At a time when China is under severe economic pressure and growth is slowing sharply, this is the last thing it [the Chinese Communist
Party] needs,” Hamada opined.

It’s undeniable that the unification of Taiwan with mainland China has been an integral component of Xi’s signature “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” goal. Yet some scholars maintain
Beijing has no intention of forcing unification now or anytime soon. One recent commentary with a focus on the escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait put it plainly: “We have simply
forgotten the number of times when the Xi Jinping administration has threatened to reunify China and Taiwan, even by use of force, if necessary. But one thing is clear – China won’t invade
Taiwan.”

According to Professor Deng Yuwen, a council member of China’s Reform and Development Institute, rather than launching an invasion, “China will choose to put pressure on Taiwan using a
combination of methods to promote unification… It may launch more preferential policies and try to initiate discussion on a ‘one country, two systems’ framework with Taiwan’s ruling and
opposition parties.”

Here are 10 practical constraints making it highly unlikely that China will resort to using force.

First, a war between even a small country and a big power today is not only expensive but also not an easy walkover for the
bigger side, as Russian President Vladimir Putin is finding out. With the war in Ukraine soon to
complete one year of fighting, what is notable is that Ukraine has been able to sustain itself despite
having a much smaller GDP and a weaker military than Russia.

Second, with China’s export markets drying up in Europe and the United States, the Chinese real estate
crisis deepening further, the World Bank and the IMF predicting a gloomy economic growth outlook of
1.7 percent and 2.7 percent respectively, the immediate key priority for the Chinese leadership is not to
use force in the Taiwan Strait but to strengthen the economy. China’s economy is struggling in the
midst of a pressure campaign waged against it by the United States. At the same time, the Chinese
economy is also slowing down sharply under the mounting pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic,
especially following the CCP regime’s reversal of the zero COVID policy. Under such circumstances, it
would be foolhardy on the part of Xi, or the CCP, to burden the national economy by taking on the
enormous expense of a war.

Third, regardless of the fact that Xi has locked down a third five-year term, his goal to consolidate a
power base within the party is far from accomplished. It is often the case that more control only breeds
more paranoia among authoritarian leaders. The fear of being unable to keep forced unification a short-
term exercise might be acting as a potent deterrent for Xi – especially as Putin has already paid a heavy
political price for the war in Ukraine.

Fourth, though Xi will be in favor of waging a quick war on the cheap, that may not be within his
control. There is always a risk that conflict will escalate into “total war” – a phrase that became popular
to describe the situation in World War II, as each side used every possible resource to destroy their
opponent.

Fifth, Taiwan and Ukraine cannot be compared in military strength – Taiwan is armed to the teeth.
Unlike Ukraine’s steppe-like fertile plains and plateaus, Taiwan consists of over 100 islands. Taiwan’s
outer islands are dotted with missiles, rockets, and artillery guns. In addition, Taiwan’s granite hills are
home to tunnels and bunker systems.

Sixth is the possibility of U.S. involvement in. While officially Washington maintains “strategic
ambiguity” on the question whether it would defend Taiwan militarily if needed, none other than
President Joe Biden himself has repeatedly answered directly in the affirmative. Amid the China-U.S.
competition it seems more and more likely that Washington cannot afford to allow Beijing a free hand
in any military campaign against Taiwan.

Seventh is the Japan dimension. The current Japanese government under Kishida has followed up on
signals from the late Prime Minister Abe that Tokyo would help to defend Taiwan. Abe once said, “A
Taiwan contingency is a contingency for Japan.” The Kishida government’s push for a more muscular
defense role in the region is believed to be in part motivated by the potential for a Taiwan contingency.

Eighth, according to a Hong Kong-based expert on Chinese politics, Xi will be well aware of the West’s
solidarity during the Ukraine crisis The European Union is China’s major trading partner. Running afoul
of it, as well as the United States and Japan, would be dangerous for a leader who knows he must raise
living standards at home.

Ninth, Taiwan may not have been included in a series of recent U.S. multilateral security and trade
initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region but the island is perceived as integral to defense mechanisms such
as the Quad, AUKUS, etc. For example, the Quad insists on maintaining the status quo in the Indo-
Pacific region. Hence, not only Japan but India and Australia might come to the rescue of Taiwan. In
such a scenario, China might not want to risk facing three big military powers together.

Last but not least is the ASEAN factor. ASEAN has emerged as China’s largest trading partner and their
bilateral trade is set to achieve the target of $1 trillion in a couple of years. Yet Southeast Asian
governments are growing wary of China too. In a recent speech, the former Singapore foreign minister
George Yeo said: “No country in ASEAN is going to turn down opportunities that come their way in
China, but every country worries that too great a dependence on China will constrain our autonomy of
action.” It is highly unlikely Beijing would resort to an action that will force countries in Southeast Asia
to see China as an enemy.

Claims that “Xi wants to complete the task within his term of office” may be true. But there is no doubt
that all of Xi’s predecessors – from Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao – also
wanted to complete unification. All of them ultimately decided the internal and external conditions
were not right. Xi, so far, has come to the same conclusion.

3. China won’t restrict supply

Foss & Koelsch, 22 --- *Fellow in Energy, Minerals and Materials at Rice University’s Baker Institute
for Public Policy, AND **Research Associate, J.A. Green & Company and Former Research Intern, Center
for Energy Studies (December 19, 2022, Michelle Michot Foss, Jacob Koelsch, “Of Chinese Behemoths:
What China’s Rare Earths Dominance Means for the US,”
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/chinese-behemoths-what-chinas-rare-earths-dominance-
means-us, SRB)

Chinese officials are highly conscious of the geopolitical advantage they derive from their REE
dominance. The 2010 incident over REE shipments to Japan was a wake-up call to import-dependent
customers. Almost a decade later in 2019, threats of restricted supply returned.[65] Xi’s visit to a REE
magnet production facility in Ganzhou in 2019 was widely regarded as a sign that restricting REE supply
is on the table.[66] A week later, the People’s Daily posted an article explicitly threatening that if “the
U.S. side wants to use the products made by China’s exported rare earths to counter and suppress
China’s development,” the U.S. should not “underestimate the Chinese side’s ability to safeguard its
development rights and interests.”[67] The more recent MIIT draft controls list proposed in January
2021 also suggests that international policy responses significantly influence Chinese domestic policies
toward rare earths.[68] Officials in Beijing are particularly focused on how quickly the U.S. would secure
alternatives if REE were included on the control list.

Therein lies a paradox: China’s state-supported rare earth enterprises remain at the behest of
international market dynamics. Overburdening policy changes and perceived supply insecurity would
push buyers away from Chinese suppliers. Any restrictive moves would likely spur proactive value chain
restructuring away from Chinese REE. Therefore, Chinese officials would be unlikely to directly restrict
trade for political reasons and calls for such are primarily just sword rattling to disguise domestic
policies and production controls that bear a more long-term effect on supply coming out of China.

4. Carbon dividends bad – magnifies economic disruption in the short and long term
Roumeen Islam, January 19, 2022, "what a carbon tax can do and why it cannot do it all”,
https://blogs.worldbank.org/energy/what-carbon-tax-can-do-and-why-it-cannot-do-it-all, Roumeen
Islam is Economic Advisor for the Infrastructure Global Practice, which covers digital development,
energy and extractives, transport and logistics, and disruptive technologies. She has worked in countries
in multiple regions, the most recent being the Europe and Central Asia Region. She also served as lead

economist in the Development Research Group, in the office of the Chief Economist.///SMS MA 😊
 Letting market prices of fossil fuels rise immediately to reflect social costs may not be
desirable for other reasons too. The carbon tax on fuel aims to restructure economies by raising the cost of a critical resource- the juice
that makes them run. But restructuring takes time as people, capital and other resources do not flow

seamlessly into new sectors. During the transition, resources can be unemployed for
long periods, and the larger the immediate price increase, the larger the potential
disruption in the short term. Some of the resources used in other sectors will flow into the renewable energy and supporting sectors where
both investment and jobs will increase. Yet, this too, will not automatically and immediately make up for disinvestment in fossil fuels, as is already evident.

Supply- demand mismatches will happen in the short run. Add to this substantial uncertainty
regarding several economic variables, such as the size of fuel reserves, the size of
stranded assets, the harshness of winter, the future direction of climate policy, the pace
of innovation in the renewables sector, or demand risk, and it is clear how economic
disruption may be magnified.
 OFF
Interpretation – aff plan must increase progressive transfers and progressive taxes
Hicks 86 [Alexander Northwestern University; 1986; “CLASS INFLUENCE ON REDISTRIBUTIVE POLICY:
THE CASE OF U.S. STATE GOVERNMENTS, 1951-1961*”; Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Vol.
14; University of Kansas Libraries, JSTOR]
The present redistributive policy focus is on a particular type of government redistribution that may be
called direct fiscal redistribution to the poor (hereafter DFRP). Fiscal redistribution refers here to
redistribution of money and in-kind income among strata of households by means of both
government spending and taxing (i.e., fiscal) activities. For example, increased generosity in public
assistance payment levels and reliance upon progressive income as opposed to regressive sales taxes
can provide positive fiscal redistribution. Direct fiscal redistribution refers to that part of such
redistribution that can be accounted for in terms of government's relatively direct and immediate
give-and-take of expenditures and taxes to and from income strata of households. Current
evidence suggests that such redistribution is considerable in advanced capitalist political democracies,
especially vis-à-vis the poor (e.g., Reynolds and Smolensky, 1977; Hicks and Swank, 1984b). During the
1970s DFRP apparently augmented the "pre-fisc" income share of poor households in the U.S. by over
100 percent (see Reynolds and Smolensky, 1977: 74 on the U.S.; and Hicks and Swank, 1984b on
advanced capitalism).

Violation the carbon mechanism isn’t progressive. it assessed regardless of income

Prefer
1) Ground – regressive mechanisms make the topic bidirectional - and no link or turn
core neg disads / K links that rely on either progressive transfers or taxes, and we lose
counterplans to test them preventing best possible policy options.
2) Limits – they double the number of affs via regressive distributions
Voter for fairness and education – evaluate under competing interps to set the best
norm for future debates
 OFF
The 1AC’s framing of redistributing carbon tax subsidies is a wolf in sheep’s clothing in
that it relies on a crony-capitalist strategy of propagating “the solution to climate
change” to mask neoliberal protectionism – that causes retaliation from WTO allies
which turns the case
Holtz-Eakin 2/9(Douglas Holtz-Eakin is the President of the American Action Forum, 2-9-2023, "Crony
Capitalism and Protectionism in Climate Policy Clothing," AAF,
https://www.americanactionforum.org/daily-dish/crony-capitalism-and-protectionism-in-climate-policy-
clothing/)//BRownRice
**Set up for this in cross – ask about the specifics of the tax based on what the ev says
Back to basics. The research literature shows that the most effective policy to reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases (GHGs) is an economy-wide, revenue-neutral, upstream carbon tax. Economy-wide means that all carbon consumption is taxed
and done so at the same rate – no demonizing coal, lambasting petroleum, or other uneven policies. Revenue-neutral means that the proceeds of the carbon tax are
used to reduce or eliminate other taxes on capital and labor that would be a detriment to growth. A carbon tax is not
a way to grow a larger
government. It is a way to reduce the corporation income tax, payroll tax, and so forth. Finally, upstream
means that carbon is taxed at the first point it enters the economy – at the wellhead or mine and so
forth.
Producers subject to the tax would be forced to pass the tax along in their prices. That is, of course, the
point. GHG-intensive products would become less attractive, forcing their manufacturers to reduce the GHG content through efficiencies, substitution, and
innovation. The carbon is the price signal the guides production, innovation, employment, and consumption in a cleaner direction. Eakinomics has zero
doubts that a well-designed carbon tax would simultaneously support vigorous economic growth and
reduced GHG emissions.
There are two
additional important footnotes to “well-designed.” First, the carbon tax is sufficient as a
mitigation strategy and everything else should go away, including the vast, burdensome regulatory
morass under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and dozens of other pieces of
legislation. Keeping those regulations wouldn’t help with emissions and will burden growth.
Second, some imports are not subject to GHG restrictions and are perceived to put domestic producers
at a competitive disadvantage, which proponents say could cause carbon leakage (carbon-intensive production
moved overseas to avoid the tax). To prevent this, the carbon tax should be imposed on imports . It is this notion of a carbon
border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) that is the subject of Tori Smith’s U.S. Carbon Border Adjustment Proposals and World Trade Organization Compliance. She
notes that the European Union has announced a transition to implementing a CBAM in 2023, and by 2026 “importers will need to purchase CBAM certificates, the
price of which will be determined by the Emissions Trading System (ETS). The EU’s approach is not a traditional border adjustment, however, because it does not
include rebates for exporters.”

As she reviews, there have already been proposals in the United States to tax imports based on their carbon content . But
there is a big difference. The EU already has in place carbon pricing in member countries. The CBAM is an expansion of Europe’s existing system. The
United States does not have a domestic carbon price. Indeed, instead of making carbon-intensive products relatively more
expensive, the Biden strategy (as passed in the Inflation Reduction Act) is to throw taxpayer money at cleaner activities
in an uncoordinated, willy-nilly, inefficent fashion.
That’s not a climate strategy. It’s giving taxpayer subsidies to your friends, aka crony capitalism. And adding a
carbon tariff to the mix doesn’t make it a CBAM – it’s just protectionist industrial policy . So, it isn’t a strategy for the
coexistence of progress on climate and rising standards of living. Even worse, Smith points out that it is likely to be illegal
under our agreements with the World Trade Organization (WTO).
“Uncertainty about the permissibility of CBAMs should give U.S. policymakers considering such a policy
pause, because neglecting WTO rules could leave the United States open to retaliation by its trading
partners. In recent years, U.S. trade policy and legislation, most recently with the Inflation Reduction Act, has disregarded WTO rules. The Biden Administration
is currently engaged in yet another trade dispute with allies over its neglect of WTO rules in implementing the IRA. While debate among scholars remains, there do
seem to be three principles to follow to have a “reduced risk of violating WTO law” when considering a CBAM: (1) the carbon tax must apply to domestic goods and
imports; (2) imports from all WTO members must be treated the same; and (3) rebates for exports cannot exceed the carbon tax.”

Beware crony, protectionist proposals dressed up as climate policy.

Capitalism makes extinction inevitable; vote neg to “open up new space for non-
capitalist becomings”
Fletcher 23 Fletcher, R. Robert Fletcher is Associate Professor of Sociology of Development and Change
at Wageningen University. He is the author of Romancing the Wild: Cultural Dimensions of Ecotourism
and a coauthor of The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas for Saving Nature beyond the
Anthropocene. (2023). Failing Forward: The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Conservation. Univ of California
Press. pp. 210-220. ut-ac
This conclusion responds to a growing call within the social sciences for researchers to move beyond
merely critiquing “things that they do not like” (Igoe and Brockington 2007: 445) and instead also contribute
to formulating practical proposals for positive future directions. In the process, it also helps to advance
discussion of the more intimate (both intra- and interpersonal) aspects of the transformation needed for
degrowth to become possible. Thus far, growing discussions of the potential for degrowth have largely
neglected in-depth attention to how this potential resonates at the level of (inter) personal subjectivity ,
notwithstanding notable exceptions pointing in this direction.1 Yet psychological perspectives, most
prominently psychoanalysis, have long explored how a demand for infinite growth can be seen to inhere
at both personal (Žižek 1989) and societal levels (Kapoor 2015; Bjerg 2016). The following discussion
builds on these insights to explore how they might also help chart a path toward embrace of a post-
capitalist transformation in pursuit of degrowth as well. The Critique of Critique Calls for critical
researchers to move beyond mere critique are of course not wholly novel. Foucault, for instance, was
himself frequently criticized for merely deconstructing dominant discourse rather than providing alternative
proposals for progressive collective action. In responding to such criticism, he claimed that this strategy
was intentional, asserting: “I am not looking for an alternative; you can’t find the solution of a problem in
the solution of another problem raised at another moment by other people. You see, what I want to do is
not the history of solutions, and that’s the reason why I don’t accept the word ‘alternative’” (1984b: 343).2
The point of critical analysis, Foucault maintained, was to highlight the relations of power with respect to
which alternatives must be organized. As he explained: “And if I don’t ever say what must be done, it isn’t
because I believe that there’s nothing to be done; on the contrary, it is because I think that there are a
thousand things to do, to invent, to forge, on the part of those who, recognizing the relations of power in
which they’re implicated, have decided to resist or escape them” (Foucault 1991b: 174). From this
perspective, Foucault claimed that his intention was not to pronounce “that everything is bad, but that
everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we
always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper- and pessimistic activism”
(Foucault 1984b: 343). Yet many social theorists, even those working in the Foucauldian tradition, have
become increasingly uncomfortable with this stance. Bruno Latour (2004), for instance, became self-
critical of his own role as one of the most trenchant and incisive critics of Western science, observing that
rather than providing an opening for progressive social movements, his work may have been most
influential in actually providing support for the “post-truth” politics of the reactionary right. Hence, he worried
“that a certain form of critical spirit has sent us down the wrong path, encouraging us to fight the wrong
enemies and, worst of all, to be considered as friends by the wrong sort of allies” (Latour 2004: 231).
Such critique of critique has only multiplied in recent years in the face of the increasingly daunting range
of social and environmental problems confronting us.3 Yet one must also remain careful not to move too
quickly down the path from defining and analyzing problems to prescribing solutions. Despite his expressed
opposition to this latter position, even Foucault could not resist the temptation at times, as exemplified by
his curious if fleeting celebration of the progressive possibilities of the 1979 Iranian Revolution (e.g.,
Foucault 1999). With hindsight, it is easy to understand the seduction of this stance. At that historical
moment, standing on the brink of the neoliberal onslaught he himself so presciently foretold (Foucault
2008), having witnessed the bitter failure of previous efforts to cast the Soviet Union in a progressive light
as well as dissipation of the ’68 euphoria, it must have appeared, as it did to Horkheimer and Adorno
(1998: xi) some three decades earlier in the midst of World War II, that humankind “instead of entering
into a truly human condition, [was] sinking into a new kind of barbarism” once more. At that point, it would
have been difficult not to succumb to the siren song of any movement that might offer a ray of hope in the
gathering darkness. Similarly misplaced optimism has afflicted otherwise even-keeled critical analysts time and
again, from disavowal of Soviet atrocities by Cold War communist sympathizers to Žižek’s (2008) praise of
Chavez’s Venezuela despite growing evidence of that regime’s mounting totalitarian impulses. Dynamics
like these warn us to be wary in our eagerness to start celebrating ostensive alternatives too quickly. Pushing
back against this growing trend, Konings, for instance, echoes Foucault in asserting: A major factor luring
progressive intellectuals into the game of making policy proposals is the tyranny of “what is your
alternative?”—that is, the notion that public intellectuals only behave responsibly if they do not only offer
criticism but also put forward alternative policy proposals. However, in situations where we find ourselves
at many removes from the levers of public authority, to prescribe policy alternatives is bound to be either
presumptuous and pointless (because the political actors that we would like to carry our programs are
nowhere to be found) or conservative in its political implications (because after many radical calls in the
desert we learn to ratchet our ambitions down to a level where they can easily be taken up by existing
agencies). Once we buy into the game of making policy proposals we can only sound ridiculous and
irrelevant or end up participating in the legitimation of prevailing relations of power. We may be able to
find a trade-off between these two extremes, but we will have structurally hobbled our capacity for the
production of critical knowledge. (2009: 355) Rather than succumb to this lure, Konings follows Hegel via
Žižek (1993) in advising us to “tarry with the negative,” suggesting that, “For the time being, the most
productive role that progressive intellectuals can play is to . . . trace and publicize the inconsistencies
between prevailing practices of power and their idealized representation in the official institutions,
narratives and symbols of our polity” (2009: 356). I agree that this type of critical analysis has utility in its
own right, and that to be effective it must be followed through to the point that one is certain one has fully
understood the contours of the problem at hand—what Haraway (2016), as previously noted, calls
“staying with the trouble.” But I also agree with Haraway that we need not stop at that point; we can instead
attempt to tread the “fine line between acknowledging the extent and seriousness of the troubles and
succumbing to abstract futurism and its affects of sublime despair and its politics of sublime indifference” (2016:
4). While avoiding Konings’ twin pitfalls of either vacuous utopian fantasizing or outlining politically
pragmatic proposals—or alternately pursuing a diluted “trade-off between these two extremes”—we can, I
believe, still continue to point toward the type of more radical change that would get us closer to the sort of
world we truly want to inhabit. In the passage (quoted in full in note 6 of chapter 2) made famous by
Klein’s (2007) analysis of his perspective as a “shock doctrine,” Milton Friedman claimed that the “basic
function” of his cohort of neoliberal ideologues was “to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them
alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable” (Friedman 2002: xiv). In
pointing to this function, Friedman highlighted the interrelationship between ideational and material
dimensions of social change, asserting, “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When
that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around” (2002: xiv). It is
astounding how prescient this prognosis now appears, looking back upon the neoliberal ascendance
Friedman himself helped to orchestrate: how the 1973 accumulation crisis indeed created the space for
Friedman and colleagues to promote the ideas they had been nurturing for decades prior as the basis of
the new world order, and in this way transforming a philosophy that had indeed seemed “politically
impossible” only a short time before into what has now been able to assert itself as the inevitable outcome
of a teleological development. In a parallel yet opposite strategy, therefore, we might follow Friedman’s
lead in our own promotion of “vital alternatives” (Dressler et al. 2014) to neoliberal conservation.4 For the
reality, as outlined in chapter 8, is that there is already a wealth of alternative “transition discourses” in
development throughout the world, via both on-the-ground practice and more abstract conceptualization.
The main current impediment to fully realizing these is that, from the perspective of a persistent neoliberal
hegemony, they do appear politically infeasible at present. Yet as Friedman among others has taught us,
such perceptions can be subject to dramatic transformation over time (see also Yurchak 2013). After all, one
of the main functions of hegemony, noted in chapter 1, is precisely to “define . . . what is realistic and
what is not realistic, and to drive certain aspirations and grievances into the realm of the impossible, of
idle dreams” (Scott 1990: 73). A main strategy of both socialist and anarchist politics has thus been to make
“impossible demands” of the current social order so as to challenge this hegemony and sustain the idea that,
as the World Social Forum asserts, another world is possible beyond the impoverished horizons of neoliberal
capitalism. In addition to highlighting already existing alternative practices and proposals and helping to
flesh out the contours of the alternative world(s) to which they point—the focus of the previous chapter—
another productive role for critical scholarship beyond critique may be to explore the conditions of possibility
that would allow such alternatives to become first imaginable and then realistic. This is my aim in the
following. What Is Critique Today? To the extent that critique remains useful in its own right, however, a
Lacanian perspective reminds us that it must be approached in a particular way. Acknowledging the
implications of the public secrecy dynamic discussed in previous chapters, Žižek echoes Taussig in
cautioning that “we must avoid the simple metaphors of demasking, of throwing away the veils which are
supposed to hide the naked reality. We can see why Lacan, in his seminar on The Ethic of
Psychoanalysis, distances himself from the liberating gesture of saying finally that ‘the emperor has no
clothes’” (1989: 25). Rather, Žižek suggests, the aim of critique must be “to detect, in a given ideological
edifice, the element which represents within it its own impossibility” (1989: 143), to undertake a “symptomal
reading” that seeks to “to discern the unavowed bias of the official text via its ruptures, blanks, and slips”
(1997: 10). Or as Kapoor (2005: 1205) paraphrases, “this means tracking and identifying ideology’s Real—its
slips, disavowals, contradictions, ambiguities.” In other words, this Lacanian stance challenges the
conventional approach to critique often termed the “education model of social change,” entailing a
conviction that provision of more facts concerning the realities of a situation will lead to greater awareness
of the problem and, in turn, more effective action (cf. Weintrobe, 2013a). Yet a growing body of research
in behavioral economics, social psychology, and related fields demonstrates what psychoanalysts have
long asserted, namely that human behavior deviates substantially from this ideal and hence that rather
than developing greater awareness and commitment to action, subjects often react to new information by
becoming more firmly entrenched in their existing perspective (see Lakoff 2009). For psychoanalysts, this
is explained by the fact that attachment to the status quo is commonly cemented by the promise of
jouissance that it offers. While this jouissance, as previously noted, is rarely unequivocally pleasurable,
rather offering pleasure and pain in equal measure, the fleeting pleasure it does provide reinforces
commitment via the fantasy that the pain can be overcome and pure pleasure eventually attained.
Breaking attachment to ideology, therefore, requires loss of both this fantasy of total fulfilment and the
limited jouissance actually experienced. Facing this loss requires a process of mourning, entailing
acceptance of both the pain of separation and deprivation of pleasure. To avoid this pain, subjects tend to
retain attachment at all costs, or when forced to endure loss, to turn away from and repress the suffering,
in which case mourning is replaced by melancholia, a state of low-level depression precipitated by the
inability to mourn and therefore dissipate the negative affect (Freud 1925). Melancholia is characterized
by the movement from desire to drive in that one continually relives failure to attain the object in question.
It is supported by a variety of defense mechanisms, one of the most significant of which is disavowal,
allowing subjects to half-acknowledge their pain while simultaneously denying its full significance.
Manifest as “perversion,” this entails, paradoxically, a (largely unconscious) “‘choice’ to feel pain rather
than suffer the painful truth” (Layton 2009: 309). One of psychoanalysis’s most important insights is that
this dynamic occurs even with respect to circumstances we consider negative and may explicitly claim to
want to end. In short, psychoanalysis suggests, as Žižek phrases it in the epigraph to this conclusion, that
attaining “freedom hurts.” To pursue such freedom nonetheless, the quintessential Lacanian injunction is
to encourage subjects to “traverse the fantasy.” As Brearley (2013: 160) summarizes this process, “the
task of the ego is to wean itself away from its early reliance on magical and wishful thinking and painfully
attempt to represent to itself what really is the case.” With respect to neoliberal conservation, this would
entail fully acknowledging the Real of capitalism as a self-destructive system driving us toward the brink of
ecological catastrophe. And to break the cycle of melancholia and perversion, this would, of course,
require consciously confronting the pain resulting from both the loss of attachment to a capitalist society
of enjoyment and the recognition of the environmental devastation this society has wrought. As Mishan
asserted some time ago: “The psychic cost of such a move into recognition is the cost of the move from
the paranoid-schizoid toward the depressive position. The cost is the psychic pain of guilt at damage
done, and the necessity of mourning of our grandiose fantasy of self-sufficiency and immortality. Without
such a move we risk eco-catastrophe, because we cannot assess the true threat” (1996: 65). Disavowal of
Death While within neoliberal conservation discourse it may indeed be easier to imagine the end of the world
than the end of capitalism, this seeming acknowledgment of the grave existential threat posed by our
mounting environmental crisis—which has in fact been interpreted as portending a sixth global extinction
event or even “biological annihilation” altogether (see, e.g., Ceballos et al. 2017)—may not be so
substantial as it appears at first blush. Rather, the dominant policy response to this acknowledgment
embodied in neoliberal conservation and similar approaches, understood in Žižek’s terms as considering
the current situation “catastrophic but not serious,” suggests something far more ambivalent at work here.
For psychoanalysts, such ambivalence calls to mind what is considered a common human tendency to
avoid acceptance of one’s own future death (Becker 1973). As Becker (1973) explains, all people are
ostensibly aware of the inevitable fact that they will eventually die, yet this fact, and the existential fear it
provokes, are usually suppressed in the course of everyday life. Zilboorg describes this stance as follows:
In normal times we move about actually without ever believing in our own death, as if we fully believed in
our own corporeal immortality. . . . A man [sic] will say, of course, that that he knows he will someday die,
but he does not really care. He is having a good time with living, and he does not think about death and
does not care to bother about it—but this is a purely intellectual, verbal admission. The affect of fear is
repressed. (1943: 468–471) Rather than wholesale denial, this description speaks more to the presence
of disavowal, as conceptualized in previous chapters. What analysis in these terms suggests, therefore, is
that a particular form of ambivalent disavowal that the environmental crisis wrought by capitalism
represents an existential threat to humanity as well as other forms of life on Earth serves to shield us from
the fear of death that a deep awareness of this reality might otherwise provoke. Unable to receive full
acknowledgment and expression, such fear may instead manifest itself in the growing “ecological anxiety
disorder” that Robbins and Moore (2013) diagnose among environmentalists. This disavowal of death
may partly explain our widespread failure to truly appreciate and hence act on knowledge of the reality of
the impending biological annihilation we face—and thus to take refuge instead in fantasies of future
salvation via neoliberal conservation. The End of Hope Requisite to the process of both facing our
existential fear and mourning for loss of attachment to the status quo, consequently, may be abandoning
all hope for redemption within the bounds of a capitalist political economy. In The Courage of
Hopelessness, Žižek (2017) draws on the example of a smoker who promises to quit in the future to illustrate
the problem of a politics based in hope. As he explains this dilemma, “My awareness that I can stop
smoking any time I want guarantees that I will never actually do it—the possibility of stopping smoking is
what blocks the actual change; it allows me to accept our continuous smoking without bad conscience, so
that the end of smoking is constantly present as the very source of its continuation” (Žižek 2017: ix). It is
this promise of future change, in other words, that allows one to disavow one’s inability to actually change
in the present. In a similar way, neoliberal conservation can be seen to offer hope for capitalism’s
eventual transformation into a sustainable form, allowing us to continue to engage in (inevitably)
unsustainable capitalist practices in the (continually extended) here and now by reassuring ourselves that
these will be compensated for in a “net zero” future. As with Žižek’s smoker, then, in neoliberal conservation
“the possibility of change is evoked to guarantee that it will not be acted upon” (2017: x). In addressing this
dilemma, Žižek contends, “It is only when we despair and don’t know any more what to do that change
can be enacted—we have to go through this zero point of hopelessness” (2017: x). Hence, he concludes
that “true courage is to admit that the light at the end of the tunnel is probably the headlight of another
train approaching us from the opposite direction” (Žižek 2017: xi–xii). The train in this case, I have argued,
is neoliberal capitalism; hence, escape from the tunnel is only attainable by traversing the neoliberal fantasy
entirely in pursuit of a wholly different social reality. More than a lack of practicable alternatives, the
preceding discussion suggests, it may be a largely unconscious attachment to the contemporary capitalist
order that helps to hold it in place (McGowan 2017). This raises the sobering prospect that many of us may
not be nearly as willing to make the dramatic changes we know are necessary to develop a just and
sustainable world as we would like to believe. From the psychoanalytic perspective advanced in this
book, achieving effective change therefore requires generating the desire for pursuit of a new situation
sufficient to motivate subjects to face the painful emotions and undergo the process of mourning
necessary to break attachment to present circumstances and the cycle of drive it precipitates. This is the
strategy Lacan captured in his famous maxim, “Don’t compromise your desire!” (see de Vries 2007). As
Rustin phrases this dilemma, “Moving out of the paranoid-schizoid into more depressive ways of thinking
and feeling can be found too painful to endure, if there are no internalized good objects to sustain a belief
in the existence of good objects outside the self ” (2013: 175). Several commentators contend that many
members of the political left have indeed largely compromised their desire for radical progressive change
over the past several decades (Brown 1999; Dean 2012; Fisher 2012). Thus, Dean suggests that a
prominent strain of leftist thought has given way on the desire for communism, betrayed its historical
commitment to the proletariat, and sublimated revolutionary energies into restorationist practices that
strengthen the hold of capitalism. This Left has replaced commitments to the emancipatory, egalitarian
struggles of working people against capitalism—commitments that were never fully orthodox, but always
ruptured, conflicted, and contested—with incessant activity (like the mania Freud associates with
melancholia) and so now satisfies itself with criticism and interpretation, small projects and local actions,
particular issues and legislative victories, art, technology, procedures, and process. . . . For such a Left,
enjoyment comes from its withdrawal from responsibility, its sublimation of goals and responsibilities into the
branching, fragmented practices of micropolitics, self-care, and issue awareness. (Dean 2012: 173–174) To
counter this trend, Dean asserts, requires a “refusal to give way on desire and wallow in melancholia”
(2012: 183). And for this to happen, Fisher contends, “the libidinal attractions of consumer capitalism
need to be met with a counterlibido, not simply an anti-libidinal dampening” (2012: 134). Yet if this new
post-capitalist desire is merely for further unfulfillable fantasies, nothing will have been gained (McGowan
2017). After all, abstract notions of an idealized communist—or degrowth—future can become just as
phantasmic as the promises of capitalist redemption they contest. And as Dean (2012) points out,
perpetual failure to enact such a future can become just as much an object of attachment as the failure to
redeem capitalism via neoliberal conservation that I have highlighted in this book. In dynamics such as these,
consequently, post-capitalist desire may transform into a drive pursuing continual failure to attain the
object in question, in a manner quite similar to the capitalist drive to which it ostensibly stands opposed.
Hence, the aim must be to instead stimulate novel forms of “postfantasmatic” enjoyment (Byrne and
Healy 2006) capable of traversing attachment to fantasy. As Gibson-Graham qualify, what is envisioned
here is not a truly post-fantasmatic condition (since fantasy is the mode of integration of the subject into
the symbolic order and the anchor of identification), but a more distanced and reflective relation to
fantasy. . . . This new positioning brings a different relationship to both identity and desire—less trapped
and invested, more aware of and open to possibilities of change. . . . Desire is set in motion again, though
with somewhat less force, and disappointment is distanced from disillusion. (2006: 237) In pursuit of post-
capitalism, such post-fantasmatic enjoyment must be connected to a vision of “a world without
exploitation; a world characterized by equality, justice, freedom, and the absence of oppression; a world
where production is common, distribution is based on need, and decisions realize the general will” (Dean
2012: 203–204). And given that “capitalist subjectification, the desire it structures and incites, is
individual,” Dean asserts that post-capitalist desire, by contrast, “can only be collective, a common relation to a
common condition of division” (2012: 191). In other words, post-capitalist desire can be understood as
essentially “a collective desire for collectivity” (Dean 2012: 158), or what Gibson-Graham (2006) calls a
desire for “being-in-common.” Gibson-Graham (2006: 239) outline a variety of initiatives “aimed at
mobilizing desire for noncapitalist becomings” in their diverse community economies. As they explain,
these were projects intended to provide participants with “opportunities to encounter each other in pleasurable
ways— creating multiple spaces of engagement, offering activities and events that promoted receptivity. What
took place in these spaces was the awakening of a communal subjectivity and a faint but discernible yearning
for a communal (noncapitalist) economy” (2006: 239). This strategy can be understood as endeavoring to
cultivate what Durkheim (1995) called a “collective effervescence” generated by group interaction, a
dynamic also evoking Freud’s (1962) famous “oceanic feeling” that can be further related to a more recent
body of research exploring such experiences as a state of “flow” or “transcendence.”5 Such a state is
experienced as intrinsically enjoyable (Csikszentmihalyi 1974) and hence encourages pursuit of further
experiences promising a similar affective payback.
 OFF
The United States federal government should shift funding and operational authority
for a universal basic income to state governments and United States territories, and
impel the institution of a substantial border-adjusted carbon tax and providing a
universal basic income
Federal programs fail, States solve poverty better by tailoring to state needs
Tanner ’22 [(Michael D Tanner; 12-15-2022; Former Senior Fellow at the CATO Institute,
headed research on domestic policy regarding poverty and social welfare "Welfare Reform,"
Cato Institute, https://www.cato.org/publications/welfare-reform#)//IshMonkey]

Consolidate and decentralize federal welfare programs; move to cash transfers; emphasize individual control
Given the failure of more than 50 years of federal welfare policy to significantly reduce poverty or
increase economic mobility, it should be apparent that the federal government does not know best. Nor have we
demonstrated that we know enough about how to reduce poverty to impose a one‐size‐fits‐all policy throughout the
country. Five decades of failure should have taught us to be modest.

Wherever possible, Congress should shift both the funding and operational authority for welfare and other
anti‐poverty programs to the states. The “laboratories of democracy,” as Justice Louis Brandeis described
them, should be the primary focus of anti‐poverty efforts, not an afterthought. That means more than simply giving
states the authority to tinker with programs as they exist today. It means federal funding, even in block grant form,
should not be accompanied by federal strings. Instead, states should be given control over broad
categories of funding, with the ability to shift funds freely between programs at their discretion, but within
a framework in which their efforts are rigorously evaluated and held accountable for achieving results . Some states may wish to
emphasize job training or public service jobs. Others may feel that education provides the biggest bang
for the buck. In some states, housing may be a priority; in others, the need for nutrition assistance may
be greater. Some may wish to impose strict eligibility requirements, while others may choose to
experiment with unconditional benefits, even a universal basic income.

Moreover, states that have successfully reduced poverty while also reducing the number of people on the welfare rolls
should be allowed to shift funds to other priorities entirely. Success should be rewarded. States that fail to achieve results,
after accounting for factors beyond their control, should have their funding reduced, with any shortfall made up from state
funds. Failure should not be subsidized.

While shifting funds from the

federal government to the states represents a good first step, the states should
go even further by moving away from in‐kind benefits and to direct cash payments. While it is reasonable for
taxpayers to seek accountability for how their funds are used, this paternalism may be both unnecessary and self ‐defeating. For starters,
arguments that the poor can’t be trusted with cash are too often based on erroneous and racially biased stereotypes rather than on sound
evidence. In fact, studies from states that drug‐test welfare recipients suggest that the use of drugs is no higher among welfare recipients
than among the general population. 14 And numerous studies have shown that even when welfare recipients are given totally unrestricted
cash, they do not increase their expenditure on “temptation goods” like tobacco or alcohol. 15

Furthermore, cash benefits can allow the poor to decide for themselves how much of their income should be allocated to
rent, food, education, or transportation. They might also choose to save more or invest in learning new skills that will help
them earn more in the future. A 2015 Financial Industry Regulatory Authority report found that 53 percent of American
households with incomes less than $25,000 had no investment accounts, compared to just 1 percent of households making
over $150,000 a year without investment accounts. We can’t expect people to behave responsibly if they are never given
16

any responsibility.
Cash benefits also could encourage mobility, helping to break up geographic concentrations of poverty that can isolate the
poor from the rest of society and reinforce the worst aspects of the poverty culture, especially if those benefits are received
early in life. Armed with money instead of vouchers redeemable only at certain locations, the poor could escape bad
neighborhoods the same way vouchers and tax credits allow children to escape bad schools. Doing so can produce
tremendous results: Chetty et al. (2016), for example, found that families that moved into low ‐poverty areas before their
children entered their teen years saw the children go on to earn 31 percent more later in life than did comparable children
who remained in high‐poverty areas. Beyond higher earnings, children from families that moved saw a wide range of other
positive outcomes. They were more likely to attend college, less likely to be single parents, and more likely to live in better
neighborhoods when they grew up and left home. 17

Any cash payment system should be designed to help low‐income Americans solve their immediate problems without becoming ensconced
in the welfare system. Thus, Congress could encourage states to expand existing cash‐diversion programs,
which provide lump‐sum cash payments in lieu of traditional welfare benefits. 18 Currently in use in 32 states and DC, these programs
are designed to assist families facing an immediate financial crisis or short‐term need. The family is given
a single cash payment in the hope that if the immediate problem is resolved, there will be no need for going on welfare. In exchange for
receiving the lump‐sum payment, welfare applicants in most states—but not all—give up their eligibility for TANF for a period ranging from
a couple of months to a year.19 Several studies indicate that for individuals who had not previously been on welfare, diversion programs
significantly reduced their likelihood of ending up there .
Studies also suggest that diversion participants are
subsequently more likely to work than become traditional recipients of welfare .20

Finally, Congress should reform the EITC to turn it into a pure wage supplement. Benefits should be available to childless adults and should
not rise with the number of children in a family. Payments should arrive monthly rather than in an annual lump sum. Any additional cost
due to expansion should be paid for by reductions in other welfare programs.

Reforms to federal, state, and local policy will ensure that workers have the compensation, flexibility, and benefits that meet their diverse
needs.

Provision of public welfare to at least some people may be justified, according to certain ethical viewpoints, but is insufficient and
We should not judge the success of our efforts to end
counterproductive to effectively deliver human flourishing.
poverty by how much charity the state redistributes to the poor , but by how few people need such charity in the
first place.

Truly improving the lives of the poor is not a question of spending slightly more or less money, tinkering
with the number of hours mandated under work requirements, or rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.
We need a new debate, one that moves beyond our current approach to fighting poverty to focus on
what works rather than noble sentiments or good intentions—a system built on work, individual
empowerment, and Americans’ philanthropic impulse.

Congress should therefore

-consolidate all current welfare and anti‐poverty programs;
-shift remaining welfare programs to the states with as few strings as possible ;
-encourage states to transition from in‐kind benefits to cash grants;
-encourage states to make greater use of welfare diversion (lump‐sum cash) programs; and
-transform the EITC into a pure wage supplement linked to work rather than family size/composition.
State governments should—
-transition from in‐kind benefits to cash grants;
-review benefit levels; phaseout ranges and asset and income tests to reduce “welfare cliffs” and disincentives to work, savings,
and family formation;
-avoid arbitrary and punitive restrictions on the use of benefits;
-expand the use of diversion programs and lump‐sum payments in lieu of traditional benefits; and
-make greater use of federal waivers to experiment with different ways to deliver benefits, combine
programs, and change program incentives.
 OFF
The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal
redistribution in the United States by instituting a substantial border-adjusted carbon
tax and providing a corporate tax cut

CP solves advantage 2 and 3, and plan decreases GDP but CP boosts it.
Pomerleau 19 [Kyle Pomerleau, Elke Asen "Carbon Tax and Revenue Recycling: Revenue, Economic, and
Distributional Implications" November 6, 2019] [thiele]
[https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/carbon-tax/] [Pomerleau = resident fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies federal tax policy, MPP in economic and social
policy from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and a BA in history and political
science from the University of Southern Maine]
Carbon Tax and Lump-Sum Dividend The first proposal would enact a $50 per metric ton carbon tax and
rebate the additional federal revenue to each household as a lump-sum payment or “dividend.” We
estimate that a carbon tax of this size would be able to fund a dividend of $1,057 per individual (each tax
filer) and a dividend equal to half that for each dependent. We estimate that in the long run the carbon tax
and dividend proposal would have roughly the same economic impact as a carbon tax in isolation. GDP
would be 0.4 percent lower and hours worked would decline by 421,000 full time equivalent jobs. This is
because the lump-sum dividend would not alter taxpayers’ incentives to work, save, or invest. As a result,
taxpayers would simply face the increased marginal tax rate on work from the carbon tax. In contrast to a
carbon tax in isolation, a carbon tax and dividend would be progressive. After-tax income would increase
for taxpayers in the bottom three quintiles. Those in the bottom quintile (0% to 20%) would see a 6.8
percent increase in after-tax income. Taxpayers in the top 20 percent would face a net tax increase as
their expected carbon tax burden would be larger than the rebate. Taxpayers in the top 1 percent would
see a 1.3 percent decline in after-tax income. Carbon Tax and Payroll Tax Cut This proposal would use
the revenue from a $50 per metric ton carbon tax to reduce the employee-side of the Old Age, Survivors,
and Disability Insurance (OASDI) payroll tax. We estimate that the net revenue from a carbon tax of this
size could reduce the payroll tax by 2.24 percentage points from the current 6.2 percent to 3.96 percent.
We estimate that using carbon tax revenue to reduce the employee-side of the OASDI payroll tax by 2.24
percentage points would increase the long-run size of the economy. On net, this swap would reduce the
marginal effective tax rate on labor income, resulting in an increase in hours worked equal to 102,000 full
time equivalent jobs. A carbon tax paired with a cut to the employee-side OASDI payroll tax would make
the tax code slightly more progressive on net. We estimate that taxpayers in the bottom four quintiles (0-
20%, 20%-40%, 40%-60%, and 60%-80%) would see a slight increase in after-tax incomes, between 0.2
percent and 0.4 percent. High-income taxpayers would face an additional burden on both their labor
income and capital income. Under current law, the OADSI payroll tax only applies to the first $138,000
and completely exempts capital income. The carbon tax would apply to labor income above that cap and
to super-normal returns to capital income. As a result, taxpayers in the top 5 percent and top 1 percent
see reductions in after-tax income of 0.5 and 0.8 percent respectively. Carbon Tax and a Corporate Tax
Cut This proposal would use carbon tax revenue to reduce corporate income taxes through both a
reduction in the rate and acceleration of cost recovery, or the speed at which companies can write off
their investments. We estimate that a $50 per metric ton carbon tax would raise enough revenue to
reduce the corporate income tax rate to 11 percent, make 100 percent bonus depreciation permanent,
and cancel the amortization of research and development costs scheduled to occur in 2021. This swap
would raise the effective marginal tax rate on labor earnings, but also reduce the cost of capital, leading to
a larger capital stock. The larger capital stock would boost labor productivity and lead to 0.5 percent
higher wages. However, the higher marginal effective tax rate on labor would slightly reduce hours
worked, leading to 198,000 fewer full-time equivalent jobs. On net, we estimate that this swap would
boost output (GDP) by 0.8 percent. While this swap would provide the largest boost to output, it would
make the tax code less progressive overall. The carbon tax would place an additional burden on
taxpayers of all income levels. At the same time, the corporate tax cut would primarily boost after-tax
income for taxpayers in the top 10 percent of income earners. On net, the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers
would see reductions in after-tax income between 0.4 percent and 1 percent, and taxpayers in the top 1
percent would see a 3 percent increase in after-tax income.

GDP decline risks war

Dr. Mathew Maavak 21, PhD in Risk Foresight from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, External
Researcher (PLATBIDAFO) at the Kazimieras Simonavicius University, Expert and Regular Commentator
on Risk-Related Geostrategic Issues at the Russian International Affairs Council, “Horizon 2030: Will
Emerging Risks Unravel Our Global Systems?”, Salus Journal – The Australian Journal for Law
Enforcement, Security and Intelligence Professionals, Volume 9, Number 1, p. 2-8

Various scholars and institutions regard global social instability as the greatest threat facing this
decade. The catalyst has been postulated to be a Second Great Depression which, in turn, will
have profound implications for global security and national integrity. This paper, written from a broad
systems perspective, illustrates how emerging risks are getting more complex and intertwined; blurring
boundaries between the economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological taxonomy used
by the World Economic Forum for its annual global risk forecasts. Tight couplings in our global systems
have also enabled risks accrued in one area to snowball into a full-blown crisis elsewhere. The
COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic fallouts exemplify this systemic chain-reaction.
Onceinexorable forces of globalization are rupturing as the current global system can no longer be
sustained due to poor governance and runaway wealth fractionation. The coronavirus pandemic is also
enabling Big Tech to expropriate the levers of governments and mass communications worldwide. This
paper concludes by highlighting how this development poses a dilemma for security professionals. Key
Words: Global Systems, Emergence, VUCA, COVID-9, Social Instability, Big Tech, Great Reset
INTRODUCTION The new decade is witnessing rising volatility across global systems. Pick any random
“system” today and chart out its trajectory: Are our education systems becoming more robust and
affordable? What about food security? Are our healthcare systems improving? Are our pension systems
sound? Wherever one looks, there are dark clouds gathering on a global horizon marked by volatility,
uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). But what exactly is a global system? Our planet itself is an
autonomous and selfsustaining mega-system, marked by periodic cycles and elemental vagaries. Human
activities within however are not system isolates as our banking, utility, farming, healthcare and retail
sectors etc. are increasingly entwined. Risks accrued in one system may cascade into an unforeseen
crisis within and/or without (Choo, Smith & McCusker, 2007). Scholars call this phenomenon
“emergence”; one where the behaviour of intersecting systems is determined by complex and largely
invisible interactions at the substratum (Goldstein, 1999; Holland, 1998). The ongoing COVID-19
pandemic is a case in point. While experts remain divided over the source and morphology of the virus,
the contagion has ramified into a global health crisis and supply chain nightmare. It is also tilting the
geopolitical balance. China is the largest exporter of intermediate products, and had generated nearly
20% of global imports in 2015 alone (Cousin, 2020). The pharmaceutical sector is particularly vulnerable.
Nearly “85% of medicines in the U.S. strategic national stockpile” sources components from China
(Owens, 2020). An initial run on respiratory masks has now been eclipsed by rowdy queues at
supermarkets and the bankruptcy of small businesses. The entire global population – save for major
pockets such as Sweden, Belarus, Taiwan and Japan – have been subjected to cyclical lockdowns and
quarantines. Never before in history have humans faced such a systemic, borderless calamity. COVID-19
represents a classic emergent crisis that necessitates real-time response and adaptivity in a real-time
world, particularly since the global Just-in-Time (JIT) production and delivery system serves as both an
enabler and vector for transboundary risks. From a systems thinking perspective, emerging risk
management should therefore address a whole spectrum of activity across the economic, environmental,
geopolitical, societal and technological (EEGST) taxonomy. Every emerging threat can be slotted into this
taxonomy – a reason why it is used by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for its annual global risk
exercises (Maavak, 2019a). As traditional forces of globalization unravel, security professionals should
take cognizance of emerging threats through a systems thinking approach. METHODOLOGY An EEGST
sectional breakdown was adopted to illustrate a sampling of extreme risks facing the world for the 2020-
2030 decade. The transcendental quality of emerging risks, as outlined on Figure 1, below, was primarily
informed by the following pillars of systems thinking (Rickards, 2020): • Diminishing diversity (or
increasing homogeneity) of actors in the global system (Boli & Thomas, 1997; Meyer, 2000; Young et al,
2006); • Interconnections in the global system (Homer-Dixon et al, 2015; Lee & Preston, 2012); •
Interactions of actors, events and components in the global system (Buldyrev et al, 2010; Bashan et al,
2013; Homer-Dixon et al, 2015); and • Adaptive qualities in particular systems (Bodin & Norberg, 2005;
Scheffer et al, 2012) Since scholastic material on this topic remains somewhat inchoate, this paper
buttresses many of its contentions through secondary (i.e. news/institutional) sources. ECONOMY
According to Professor Stanislaw Drozdz (2018) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, “a global financial
crash of a previously unprecedented scale is highly probable” by the mid- 2020s. This will lead to a trickle-
down meltdown, impacting all areas of human activity. The economist John Mauldin (2018) similarly
warns that the “2020s might be the worst decade in US history” and may lead to a Second Great
Depression. Other forecasts are equally alarming. According to the International Institute of Finance,
global debt may have surpassed $255 trillion by 2020 (IIF, 2019). Yet another study revealed that global
debts and liabilities amounted to a staggering $2.5 quadrillion (Ausman, 2018). The reader should note
that these figures were tabulated before the COVID-19 outbreak. The IMF singles out widening income
inequality as the trigger for the next Great Depression (Georgieva, 2020). The wealthiest 1% now own
more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people (Coffey et al, 2020) and this chasm is widening with
each passing month. COVID-19 had, in fact, boosted global billionaire wealth to an unprecedented $10.2
trillion by July 2020 (UBS-PWC, 2020). Global GDP, worth $88 trillion in 2019, may have contracted by
5.2% in 2020 (World Bank, 2020). As the Greek historian Plutarch warned in the 1st century AD: “An
imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics” (Mauldin, 2014).
The stability of a society, as Aristotle argued even earlier, depends on a robust middle element or middle
class. At the rate the global middle class is facing catastrophic debt and unemployment levels,
widespread social disaffection may morph into outright anarchy (Maavak, 2012; DCDC, 2007). Economic
stressors, in transcendent VUCA fashion, may also induce radical geopolitical realignments. Bullions
now carry more weight than NATO’s security guarantees in Eastern Europe. After Poland repatriated
100 tons of gold from the Bank of England in 2019, Slovakia, Serbia and Hungary quickly followed suit.
According to former Slovak Premier Robert Fico, this erosion in regional trust was based on historical
precedents – in particular the 1938 Munich Agreement which ceded Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to
Nazi Germany. As Fico reiterated (Dudik & Tomek, 2019): “You can hardly trust even the closest allies
after the Munich Agreement… I guarantee that if something happens, we won’t see a single gram of this
(offshore-held) gold. Let’s do it (repatriation) as quickly as possible.” (Parenthesis added by author).
President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia (a non-NATO nation) justified his central bank’s gold-repatriation
program by hinting at economic headwinds ahead: “We see in which direction the crisis in the world is
moving” (Dudik & Tomek, 2019). Indeed, with two global Titanics – the United States and China – set
on a collision course with a quadrillions-denominated iceberg in the middle, and a viral outbreak on its
tip, the seismic ripples will be felt far, wide and for a considerable period. A reality check is
nonetheless needed here: Can additional bullions realistically circumvallate the economies of 80 million
plus peoples in these Eastern European nations, worth a collective $1.8 trillion by purchasing power
parity? Gold however is a potent psychological symbol as it represents national sovereignty and
economic reassurance in a potentially hyperinflationary world. The portents are clear: The current global
economic system will be weakened by rising nationalism and autarkic demands. Much uncertainty
remains ahead. Mauldin (2018) proposes the introduction of Old Testament-style debt jubilees to facilitate
gradual national recoveries. The World Economic Forum, on the other hand, has long proposed a “Great
Reset” by 2030; a socialist utopia where “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” (WEF, 2016). In the final
analysis, COVID-19 is not the root cause of the current global economic turmoil; it is merely an accelerant
to a burning house of cards that was left smouldering since the 2008 Great Recession (Maavak, 2020a).
We also see how the four main pillars of systems thinking (diversity, interconnectivity, interactivity and
“adaptivity”) form the mise en scene in a VUCA decade. ENVIRONMENTAL What happens to the
environment when our economies implode? Think of a debt-laden workforce at sensitive nuclear and
chemical plants, along with a concomitant surge in industrial accidents? Economic stressors, workforce
demoralization and rampant profiteering – rather than manmade climate change – arguably pose the
biggest threats to the environment. In a WEF report, Buehler et al (2017) made the following pre-
COVID-19 observation: The ILO estimates that the annual cost to the global economy from accidents and
work-related diseases alone is a staggering $3 trillion. Moreover, a recent report suggests the world’s 3.2
billion workers are increasingly unwell, with the vast majority facing significant economic insecurity: 77%
work in part-time, temporary, “vulnerable” or unpaid jobs. Shouldn’t this phenomenon be better
categorized as a societal or economic risk rather than an environmental one? In line with the systems
thinking approach, however, global risks can no longer be boxed into a taxonomical silo. Frazzled
workforces may precipitate another Bhopal (1984), Chernobyl (1986), Deepwater Horizon (2010) or Flint
water crisis (2014). These disasters were notably not the result of manmade climate change. Neither was
the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011) nor the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004). Indeed, the combustion of a
long-overlooked cargo of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had nearly levelled the city of Beirut,
Lebanon, on Aug 4 2020. The explosion left 204 dead; 7,500 injured; US$15 billion in property damages;
and an estimated 300,000 people homeless (Urbina, 2020). The environmental costs have yet to be
adequately tabulated. Environmental disasters are more attributable to Black Swan events, systems
breakdowns and corporate greed rather than to mundane human activity. Our JIT world aggravates the
cascading potential of risks (Korowicz, 2012). Production and delivery delays, caused by the COVID-19
outbreak, will eventually require industrial overcompensation. This will further stress senior executives,
workers, machines and a variety of computerized systems. The trickle-down effects will likely include
substandard products, contaminated food and a general lowering in health and safety standards (Maavak,
2019a). Unpaid or demoralized sanitation workers may also resort to indiscriminate waste dumping. Many
cities across the United States (and elsewhere in the world) are no longer recycling wastes due to
prohibitive costs in the global corona-economy (Liacko, 2021). Even in good times, strict protocols on
waste disposals were routinely ignored. While Sweden championed the global climate change narrative,
its clothing flagship H&M was busy covering up toxic effluences disgorged by vendors along the Citarum
River in Java, Indonesia. As a result, countless children among 14 million Indonesians straddling the
“world’s most polluted river” began to suffer from dermatitis, intestinal problems, developmental disorders,
renal failure, chronic bronchitis and cancer (DW, 2020). It is also in cauldrons like the Citarum River
where pathogens may mutate with emergent ramifications. On an equally alarming note, depressed
economic conditions have traditionally provided a waste disposal boon for organized crime elements.
Throughout 1980s, the Calabriabased ‘Ndrangheta mafia – in collusion with governments in Europe and
North America – began to dump radioactive wastes along the coast of Somalia. Reeling from pollution
and revenue loss, Somali fisherman eventually resorted to mass piracy (Knaup, 2008). The coast of
Somalia is now a maritime hotspot, and exemplifies an entwined form of economic-environmental-
geopolitical-societal emergence. In a VUCA world, indiscriminate waste dumping can unexpectedly morph
into a Black Hawk Down incident. The laws of unintended consequences are governed by actors,
interconnections, interactions and adaptations in a system under study – as outlined in the methodology
section. Environmentally-devastating industrial sabotages – whether by disgruntled workers, industrial
competitors, ideological maniacs or terrorist groups – cannot be discounted in a VUCA world.
Immiserated societies, in stark defiance of climate change diktats, may resort to dirty coal plants and
wood stoves for survival. Interlinked ecosystems, particularly water resources, may be hijacked by
nationalist sentiments. The environmental fallouts of critical infrastructure (CI) breakdowns loom like a
Sword of Damocles over this decade. GEOPOLITICAL The primary catalyst behind WWII was the
Great Depression. Since history often repeats itself, expect familiar bogeymen to reappear in
societies roiling with impoverishment and ideological clefts. Anti-Semitism – a societal risk on its own
– may reach alarming proportions in the West (Reuters, 2019), possibly forcing Israel to undertake
reprisal operations inside allied nations. If that happens, how will affected nations react? Will security
resources be reallocated to protect certain minorities (or the Top 1%) while larger segments of society are
exposed to restive forces? Balloon effects like these present a classic VUCA problematic.
Contemporary geopolitical risks include a possible Iran-Israel war; US-China military confrontation
over Taiwan or the South China Sea; North Korean proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies;
an India-Pakistan nuclear war; an Iranian closure of the Straits of Hormuz; fundamentalist-driven
implosion in the Islamic world; or a nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia. Fears that the
Jan 3 2020 assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani might lead to WWIII were grossly
overblown. From a systems perspective, the killing of Soleimani did not fundamentally change t
 OFF
The 2024 election is Trump v Biden – it’s close and dependent on coalitions.
Goldmacher 9/22 [Shane Goldmacher is a national political reporter and was previously the chief
political correspondent for the Metro desk, New York Times, “Biden, Warning Trump Could ‘Destroy’
Democracy, Moves Past G.O.P. Primary”, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/us/politics/biden-
trump-2024-election-polls.html] Luke
This spring, as the Republican presidential primary race was just beginning, the Democratic National Committee commissioned polling on how
the leading Republicans — Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis — fared against President Biden in battleground states. But now, as Mr.
Trump’s lead in the primary has grown and hardened, the party has dropped Mr. DeSantis from such
hypothetical matchups. And the Biden campaign’s polling on Republican candidates is now directed
squarely at Mr. Trump, according to officials familiar with the surveys. The sharpened focus on Mr. Trump isn’t
happening only behind the scenes. Facing waves of polls showing soft support for his re-election among
Democrats, Mr. Biden and his advisers signaled this week that they were beginning to turn their full attention to his
old rival, seeking to re-energize the party’s base and activate donors ahead of what is expected to be a long and grueling
sequel. On Sunday, after Mr. Trump sought to muddy the waters on his position on abortion, the Biden operation and its surrogates pushed back with uncommon intensity. On Monday, Mr. Biden told donors at a New
York fund-raiser that Mr. Trump was out to “destroy” American democracy, in some of his most forceful language so far about the

implications of a second Trump term. On Wednesday, as the president spoke to donors at a Manhattan hotel, he acknowledged in the
most explicit way yet that he now expected to be running against “the same fella.” And on Friday, Mr. Biden
announced plans to join striking autoworkers on the picket line in Michigan next week — one day before Mr. Trump
visits the state. The mileposts all point to a general election that has, in many ways, already arrived. David
Axelrod, the architect of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, said engaging now with Mr. Trump would help Mr. Biden in “getting past this
“The whole predicate of Biden’s
hand-wringing period” about whether the president is the strongest Democratic nominee.
campaign is that he would be running against Trump,” Mr. Axelrod said. “Their operative theory is, once this is focused on the
race between Biden and Trump, that nervousness will fade away into a shared sense of mission. Their
mission is in getting to that place quickly and ending this period of doubt.” Mr. Trump has undertaken a pivot of
his own, skipping the Republican debates and seeking to position himself as the inevitable G.O.P. nominee, with allies urging the party to line
up behind him even before any primary votes are cast. Mr. Biden, in his remarks to donors on Monday on Broadway, issued a blunt warning
about his likely Republican opponent. “Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” the
president said. “And I will always defend, protect and fight for our democracy. That’s why I’m running.” Mr. Biden is planning to follow up those
off-camera remarks with what he has billed as a “major speech” about democracy. The White House said the speech, in the Phoenix area the
day after the next Republican debate, would be about “honoring the legacy of Senator John McCain and the work we must do together to
strengthen our democracy.”

Biden will win now but its close

Walker 9/11 (Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, “Trump Advantage Over Biden in Electoral
College Is Fading, Political Expert Says” 9/11/2023 https://truthout.org/articles/trump-advantage-over-
biden-in-electoral-college-is-fading-political-expert-says/)
A bevy of recent polling data suggests that voters are split on which candidate they would prefer in the 2024 presidential election when
faced with a potential race between Democratic incumbent President Joe Biden and former president and likely Republican nominee Donald
Trump. As of Monday morning, an aggregate of polling data from RealClearPolitics shows that Biden is leading Trump by just
0.4 percent. That’s well within the margin of error — indeed, in nine of the last 10 polls shared to the site, the two are statistically tied.
Although the election is still more than a year away, the data is worrying some Democrats, who fear that a close race will benefit Trump when it
comes to the Electoral College. Conventional wisdom suggests that Republicans generally outperform Democrats in the Electoral College, even
when the electorate is nearly evenly split — in 2016, for example, Trump won the presidency in spite of losing the popular vote by around two
million votes to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. In 2020, though Trump lost to Biden by around seven million votes overall, he was within
experts have been challenging
45,000 votes in three different swing states of being re-elected through the Electoral College. But
the prevailing wisdom that Trump will perform better in the Electoral College than Biden, even if the
final vote count is split. According to an analysis from The New York Times’s chief political analyst Nate Cohn, Trump’s
advantage in a “close race” Electoral College scenario is dwindling. Cohn cites the fact that Biden is faring “as
well or better” than Trump in nationwide polling of battleground states. “At this point, another large Trump
Electoral College advantage cannot be assumed,” Cohn wrote in a column published on Monday. “At the very least,
tied national polls today don’t mean Mr. Trump leads in the states likeliest to decide the presidency.” There
are numerous indications that Trump’s advantage in this respect is fading, Cohn said. In the 2022 midterms, which
Republicans won only by a narrow margin (despite widespread predictions of a substantial “red wave”), most Republican gains came
from states that didn’t see much competition, whereas the expected 2024 battleground states saw
closer results. “Republicans showed their greatest strengths in noncompetitive states like California and New York as well as across much
of the South, including newly noncompetitive Florida,” Cohn said. But in places like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, the results differ vastly from
those in 2020. Cohn also pointed out that pollingin these and other battleground states tends to show Biden faring
better than Trump. In a New York Times/Siena poll published last month, for instance, Biden led Trump by just two
points. In the battlegrounds, meanwhile, the incumbent president led the GOP candidate by double that amount. There are
other indicators that suggest the election will be close, but more difficult for Trump to win than Biden . The mere
fact that Biden is the incumbent president gives him an automatic advantage — only two incumbents in the past 30 years
(Trump being one of them) have failed to be re-elected. Only 10 incumbent presidents in U.S. history have failed to win the
presidency for a second term. Notably, favorability ratings don’t have to be perfect for a president to be re-elected
— months before their respective re-election campaigns, both former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who went on to win their
contests, were in the low-40s range — and Biden’s current numbers (41 percent favorable, 55 percent unfavorable in one recent poll) appear to
be just slightly better than Trump’s (40 percent favorable, 58 percent unfavorable).

Expansion in fiscal redistribution is unpopular.

Stantcheva, 21 – Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard (Stefanie Stantcheva,
“Why People Vote Against Redistributive Policies That Would Benefit Them,” MIT Press Reader, 11-20-
2021, Available Online: https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/why-do-we-not-support-redistribution]
Understanding the connection between citizens’ information, beliefs, and political support for policies that can affect
their lives in profound ways is both critical and difficult. Amid rising inequality and political polarization, uncovering citizens’
(mis)perceptions, views on fairness, and economic circumstances is an important first step in addressing problems that currently weaken U.S.
democracy. A central
puzzle is why so many voters seem to vote against redistributive policies that would
benefit them, such as more progressive income taxes, taxes on capital income or estates, or more generous
transfer programs, and why voters have tolerated policies that have contributed to a stark rise in inequality
over the past few decades.

The median voter model predicts that an increase in inequality, as captured by the gap between median and average income, should lead to an
increase in support for redistribution and an increase in actual redistribution as policymakers cater to the median voter’s preferences. Yet, as
shown by economist Ilyana Kuziemko and others (including myself), using the General Social Survey, there has
been no increase at all in stated support for redistribution in the United States since the 1970s, even
among those who say they have below average income

Trump reelection leads to global nuclear war – shatters I-law and ruins foreign policy
Beres 23 [Louis, 3-23-23, Professor of International Law at Purdue. Modern Diplomacy, “If Trump
Returns as President: An Existential Threat to the United
States.”.https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/03/03/if-trump-returns-as-president-an-existential-threat-
to-the-united-states/] Recut - Luke
Credo quia absurdum, “I believe because it is absurd”-Tertullian There
are many reasons to fear Donald J. Trump’s return to
the White House, but one remains especially worrisome. It stems from the former president’s
conspicuous ignorance of international law and US foreign policy. Among assorted particulars of this debility, a
previously failed Trump posture – “America First” – would likely prove more injurious the second-time around .[1]
Prima facie, its restoration, thoughtless in the most literal sense, would dignify a numbingly vacant US president’s indifference to science, logic,
history and law.[2] Could it get any worse? Could anything be more absurd? Here is a basic answer: Following escalating
aggressions by Russia in Ukraine and potentially destabilizing aggressions by China and North Korea in Asia,[3] America
needs a leader who can read and think meaningfully. The American White House is not a proper place for foreign policy
pretenders, especially a former president who already displayed a pernicious fusion of historical indifference and intellectual incompetence.
There are also relevant specifics. Any future presidential retrogressions to “America First” would stem from misapplied US cultural
underpinnings. These backward steps, absurd steps, would reflect variously intersecting declensions of “mass-man.”[4] Though Donald Trump
remains a celebrated leader of the American “mass,” not just a member, he has never actually risen above the capacities of his chorus. Rather,
amid the constant rancor and noisy defilement, he has remained one of mass man’s most fervid exponents. From time immemorial,
international relations have been rooted in Realpolitik[5] or power politics.[6] Though such traditional patterns of thinking are normally
accepted as “realistic,” they actually undermine world law and global order. It follows that any sitting US president should
finally acknowledge the lethal limitations of our planet’s global threat system,[7] and recognize, as inevitable corollary, that US power
ought never be founded upon delusions of national primacy. “America First” has a pleasing resonance with the Many,
with those who like to chant in crowds. But this narrow political resonance does not extend to the Few, to those who would prefer to think as
conscious individuals.[8] About the “Few,” German-Swiss philosopher Thomas Mann attributes the downfall of civilizations to gradual
absorptions of the educated classes by the Mass, to the “simplification of all functions of political, social, economic and spiritual life.”[9] If
nothing else, America’s Trump era was a humiliating period of deliberate and falsifying simplifications. Is it anything less than preposterous to
actually seek its return? Americans require intellect-based answers, not an endless barrage of silly clichés and partisan rancor. In turn, such
answers will call for dialectical (mind challenging) thinking.[10] Analytically, in these calculations, the United States should always be considered
as one significant part of the larger world system, the world system configuration created by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.[11] Though more
or less ignored by global leaders, the “Westphalian” system of international law[12] (a system of institutionalized global anarchy) is destined to
fail. Moreover, together with the accelerating spread of nuclear weapons technologies and infrastructures, any such failure would prove
remorseless, unprecedented (sui generis would say the logicians) and irremediable.[13] At another level, it would signal the potentially
insufferable triumph of anti-reason.[14] There are also relevant nuances. Grievous world system failure could take place in hard to fathom
increments, or with great suddenness, as an unanticipated nuclear “bolt from the blue.” On such bewilderingly
unpredictable matters, any US policy resurrection of Donald Trump’s “America First” would prove starkly
injurious. Conceptually, it’s not complicated. In these indispensable calculations, history deserves a much more manifest pride of place.
False bravado and belligerent nationalism have never succeeded in any decipherable ways or for longer than brief intervals. Indeed, from an
historical standpoint, no observation could be more obvious. Plausibly, in a Trump-resurrected future, unsteady
expressions of national security policy would be exacerbated by multiple system failures. At times, these
failures could be mutually reinforcing or “synergistic.”[15] At other times, they could involve “force-multiplying” weapons of
mass destruction. In any case, they could be brought about by the defiling restoration of an absurd presidency. Rejecting the banalities
of “America First” and its derivative foreign policy deformations, a capable US president should think along clarifying lines of subject-matter
interrelatedness. It is preposterous to deny that “America First” would fail US national security obligations. Moreover, any such failure, even
one that did not produce catastrophic war or terror, would be degrading to United States. “The visionary,” teases Italian film director Federico
Fellini, “is the only realist.” But there can be nothing “visionary” about “America First.” Whether in its previous Trump-defined iteration or in a
future modified version, this stitched together amalgam of a former president’s clichés would be absurd. Should such a lack of vision find its
way back into the American White House in 2024, its multiple and recycled harms could fatally undermine whatever might still remain of
if strengthened and expanded by manipulative resurrections of
American Reason.[16] At some point, especially
“America First,” world system failures could become both tangibly dire and irreversible. In the final analysis, it
will not help the United States or any other country to tinker “thoughtlessly”[17] at the ragged edges of our “Westphalian” world legal order. At
any US presidential reaffirmations of “America First” could significantly hasten the
that decisive turning point,
onset of a regional or worldwide nuclear war. It’s not complicated. “America First” is just mass-defined shorthand for
“America Last.” In the longer term, the only sort of foreign policy realism that could make any sense for the United States is a posture that
pointed toward much “higher” awareness of global “oneness.”[18] Whether or not we like the sound of such “intellectual” cosmopolitanism,
world system interdependence is not a matter of policy volition. It is an incontrovertible fact.[19] In its fully optimized expression, such an
indispensable awareness – the literal opposite of former US President Donald Trump’s “America First” – would resemble what the ancients
called the “city of man.” For the moment, the insightful prophets of any more consciously collaborative world civilization will remain few and
far between.[20] But this lamentable absence, one unimproved even by active intellectual interventions by our “great universities,”[21] does
not owe to any witting analytic forfeiture. Above all, it reflects an imperiled species’ stubborn unwillingness to take itself seriously. This means
an unwillingness to recognize that the only sort of patriotic loyalty still able to rescue a self-destroying planet is one finally willing to embrace
humankind as a whole. Any such embrace would represent a new and re-directed focus of patriotic loyalty. Almost by definition, therefore, it
would not be discoverable by American mass. There is more. Intellectually and historically, “America First” remains misconceived and irrational.
[22] Now, more desperately than ever before, we require a logic-based universalization and centralization of international relations. Though
challenging, this complex requirement need not express a bewildering or incomprehensible rationale. But there will still be demanding
intellectual prerequisites. In the United States especially, such expectations will almost certainly be unrealizable. Nonetheless, it is hardly a
medical or biological secret that core factors and behaviors common to all human beings greatly outnumber those that differentiate one person
from another. Unless the leaders of all major states on Planet Earth can finally understand that the survival of any one state must be contingent
upon the survival of all, true national security will continue to elude everyone. This includes the “most powerful” states and individuals, even if
their explicit policy mantras call foolishly for the subject to be “first.” What cannot benefit the entire “hive,” warns Marcus Aurelius in his
Meditations, can never help the individual “bee.” The most immediate security tasks in our Westphalian condition of global anarchy remain
narrowly self-centered. Simultaneously, national leaders must finally learn to understand that our planet represents a recognizably organic
whole, a fragile but intersecting “unity” that exhibits diminishing options for genocide avoidance[23] and war avoidance.[24] This is the
indispensable unity of human “oneness.” It’s finally time for candor. Though clichéd, America is “running out of time.” Quickly, to seize rapidly
disappearing opportunities for longer-term survival, our leaders must learn to build upon the critical foundational insights of Francis Bacon,
Galileo and Isaac Newton,[25] and on the more contemporarily summarizing observation of philosopher Lewis Mumford: “Civilization is the
never ending process of creating one world and one humanity.”[26] Whenever we speak of civilization we must also speak of law.
Jurisprudentially, no particular national leadership can claim any special or primary obligation in this regard. Nor could any such leadership
cadre ever afford to build comprehensive security policies upon the vaguely distant hopes of mass. But the United States remains a key part of
the community of nations and must do whatever it can to detach an already collapsing “state of nations” from our time-dishonored “state of
nature.”[27] There is more. Any such willful detachment should be expressed as part of a wider vision for a more durable and justice-centered
world politics. Over the longer term, an American president will have to do his or her part to safeguard the global system as a whole. Then,
“America Together,” not “America First,” would express a markedly more rational and intellect-based security mantra.[28] However impractical
or fanciful this may all sound, nothing could be more perilous than continuing on a long-discredited “Westphalian” course. “What is the good of
passing from one untenable position to another,” inquires Samuel Beckett in Endgame, “of seeking justification always on the same plane?” It’s
a critical question, one that should now be asked of any sitting or aspiring US president, especially an aspirant who has already demonstrated
his consummate unfitness. For the moment, there is no need for detailing any further analytic or intellectual particulars. There are, of course,
bound to be many. Always, these will need to be held together by coherent and comprehensive (science-based) theory.[29] In The Plague,
Albert Camus instructs: “At the beginning of the pestilence and when it ends, there’s always a propensity for rhetoric…It is in the thick of a
calamity that one gets hardened to the truth – in other words – to silence.” As long as the nation-states in world politics continue to operate as
glib archeologists of ruins-in-the-making – that is, as “political prisoners” of a vastly-corrupted philosophic thought – they will be unable to stop
the next series of catastrophic wars.[30] Credo quia absurdum, said the ancient philosopher Tertullian. “I believe because it is absurd.” Until
now, certain traditional expectations of balance-of-power world politics may have been more-or-less defensible. Nevertheless, soon, from the
essential standpoint of longer-term options and global security survival prospects, an American president should open up this nation’s latent
security imagination to more visionary and intellect-based forms of foreign policy understanding. Resurrecting the “everyone for himself”
extremity of former president Donald J. Trump’s “America First” would represent a US policy move in the wrong direction. No move could
conceivably be more wrong. It could never make sense for the United States to construct security justifications along the incessantly brittle lines
“America First” remains a self-defiling national mantra, nothing more. Recently championed
of belligerent nationalism.[31]
by an American president who was proudly detached from historical or analytic understanding, it ought never be allowed to
reappear in United States foreign policy. To be sure, there is nothing inherently wrong with any sensible manifestations of
American patriotism, but these primacy-oriented (zero-sum) manifestations could never be reconciled with any
dignified human survival.
 OFF
P SPEC.
The plan text fails to specify implementation and design details of the carbon tax---
that should include the rate, the point of taxation, and the trajectory of the tax over
time
Adele Morris 15, senior fellow and policy director for Climate and Energy Economics at the Brookings
Institution, 5/27/15, “The national interest argument for pricing carbon,”
http://ycsg.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/session-2.pdf

I’m going to talk about whathas to go into a US carbon tax bill if we were going to do it. First, you have to figure out
what to call it. It’s amazing how much energy people spend on whether it’s a tax or a fee or some other term of art. You
have to decide what you’re going to tax, who the taxable entities are going to be; we just talked about the
upstream and downstream choice of tax incidence. You have to decide what your tax rate is going to be, and
how it’s going to evolve over time, and whether it’s just a formulaic escalation or whether it’s guided by
some feedback, such as the environmental performance of the tax, or linkages to the international regime or what.

Vote negative---lack of mechanism specificity undermines the quality of policy analysis

and destroys neg ground by making the plan a moving target
Oren Cass 15, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Summer 2015, “The Carbon-Tax Shell Game,”
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-carbon-tax-shell-game

Simply put, the

carbon tax is a shell game. The range of designs, prices, rationales, and claimed benefits varies so
widely — even within many individual arguments for the tax — that assessing the actual validity of most discrete
proposals becomes nearly impossible. The insubstantial effect on emissions gets obscured by discussions
of the fiscal benefits. The negative fiscal effects get offset by claims of environmental efficacy. The tax's
simplicity and practicality are touted, even as new complexity is introduced to address each flaw. The
same revenues are rhetorically spent to achieve multiple ends, even as the different promises made to each
constituency would be rejected by the others.

If we grabbed the wrists of carbon-tax advocates and demanded they turn over the shells all at once, we would find there was
never a marble to begin with. Implementing a US Carbon Tax, a book released on Earth Day by the American Enterprise Institute,
the Brookings Institution, the International Monetary Fund, and Resources for the Future, provides a particularly transparent example. Chapter
4, "Carbon Taxes to Achieve Emissions Targets," studies carbon taxes that would cut U.S. emissions in half by 2050 and finds an average price of
$35 per ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2020, rising to $163 in the final year. Chapter 5, "Macroeconomic Effects of Carbon Taxes," studies the
impact of carbon taxes on the economy but reviews taxes with an average starting value below $20 per ton of CO2 and a 2050 value averaging
less than $90 per ton. A
"carbon tax" helps the environment, and a "carbon tax" has manageable economic
effects — but the two are not at all the same tax
 OFF

The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal

redistribution in the United States by instituting a substantial border-adjusted carbon
tax and providing green incentives
CP avoids basic income links and funds green incentives
Hafstead 19 [Marc Hafstead "Carbon Pricing 102: Revenue Use Options" Resources for the Future Sept.
26, 2019] [thiele] [https://www.rff.org/publications/explainers/carbon-pricing-102/] [Fellow; Director,
Carbon Pricing Initiative; Director, Climate Finance and Financial Risk Initiative]C
Carbon Dividends A carbon dividend distributes the revenue from a carbon price back to households,
typically in the form of a check, a tax credit (annually or through adjustments to employer tax withholding),
supplements to existing payments from federally administered benefit programs like Social Security, or
through payments using the electronic benefit transfer system (used to deliver food stamp benefits). In its
simplest form, a carbon dividend would divide the amount of revenue generated by a carbon price over
the course of a year evenly among all households. However, a carbon dividend does not need to be
divided in equal amounts (it can be divided based on one’s income, tax returns, or other factors), and the
details of a carbon dividend vary among policies. A carbon dividend has been used to redistribute
revenues in a number of climate policy proposals, including the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend
Act, the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act, the Climate Action Rebate Act, and Climate Leadership
Council's Carbon Dividend Plan. Carbon dividends are an especially progressive, or equitable, use of the
revenue, as the dollar amount of a carbon dividend will likely exceed the increased costs incurred by the
average low- and middle-income household. A study by the US Treasury predicted that approximately 70
percent of households would be better off with an equal per capita dividend. Tax Swaps A tax swap uses
the revenue from a carbon price to reduce taxes deemed “distortionary”—taxes that can result in a
decrease of economic output, because they tax labor or capital. Distortionary taxes may unintentionally
encourage individuals to work fewer hours by taxing their income (labor), or they may encourage
businesses to produce less output by taxing the equipment they use to create products (capital). These
types of taxes can include payroll, individual income, or corporate income taxes. The costs of distortionary
taxes can be partially (or even fully) offset if the revenue generated from these taxes can be “swapped”
with the revenue generated from a carbon price. This swap can allow distortionary taxes to be reduced,
which can produce economic gains. For example, Chen and Hafstead estimate that a carbon tax of
$43.40 (in 2019 dollars) would decrease real GDP by 0.59 percent in 2025. However, if the revenues are
used to reduce distortionary taxes, then GDP loss could be lowered to as little as 0.35 percent. So, a tax
swap can reduce the economic costs of a carbon price by reducing other economic distortions. These
economic effects from a tax swap are called the revenue-recycling effect, and the size of the effect
depends on which particular tax is reduced. If revenues are not used to reduce preexisting tax rates, or if
revenues are used to finance new spending, then there is no beneficial revenue-recycling effect. Green
Spending Carbon pricing revenue can be used to finance “green spending” programs aimed at reducing
emissions through non-pricing methods. For example, it can be used to subsidize electric vehicles or
clean energy generation, fund weatherization programs, invest in energy efficiency improvements, and
more. Using the revenue for green spending may not be as beneficial as one might think, however. First,
most evidence suggests that green spending programs would increase total carbon pricing policy costs
and exacerbate distributional issues (making the policy more regressive). For example, Borenstein and
Davis (2016) find that US tax credits for clean energy investments have gone disproportionately to higher-
income households. Second, there is increasing evidence that green spending programs may deliver
smaller environmental benefits than projected. Further, the foregone use of revenues to either increase
economic efficiency (through tax swaps) or address distributional issues (carbon dividends) is an
additional cost of green spending.
 OFF
The United States federal government should institute basic income to both
individuals and green businesses, funded from deficit spending.

CP solves UBI
Santens '21 [Scott; "Why We Need Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and Why It Needs Universal
Basic Income (UBI);" https://vocal.media/theSwamp/why-we-need-modern-monetary-theory-mmt-and-
why-it-needs-universal-basic-income-ubi]

In the beginning, man said, Let there be money: and there was money. Centuries later , on March
27, 2020, the United States passed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security
Act and with the stroke of a pen, over $2 trillion was spent without first taxing or borrowing from
anyone. It included $1,200 stimulus checks for adults and $500 for kids. Another $900 billion was spent
without first taxing or borrowing from anyone nine months later as the Consolidated Appropriations Act. It
included $600 stimulus checks per adult and kid. Another $1.9 trillion was spent without first taxing or
borrowing from anyone another three months later when a third stimulus check went out thanks to the
American Rescue Plan Act, this one for $1,400 per adult and kid. It was followed in July by the first of six
monthly payments of $250 to $300 more per kid. All told, within one year, $1 trillion in cash was sent
directly to the bank accounts and mailboxes of about 85% of Americans, no strings attached. We didn’t
"pay for" any of this. We just did it. None of it was made possible by taxing or borrowing from anyone
first, and that’s the big lesson I believe everyone needs to take away from the COVID-19 pandemic
besides the effectiveness of direct cash payments and dangers of politicizing science and public health.
Americans needed money, so it was created out of nothing. The thing is, that’s not new. It’s how money
works in any country that issues its own currency. Here’s the now less secret truth: the US government
is not funded by taxes. It creates its own currency out of nothing. It spends it into existence. Taxes then
remove money from the money supply to maintain its value (among other things). For the
cryptocurrency enthusiasts out there, the US dollar utilizes a mint and burn model. The eater address is
the IRS. In other words, yes there is in fact a "magical money tree." All money is a human invention
and there is in fact no limit to the amount of money that can be created. There is however a limit
at any point in time to the goods and services that can be exchanged for money at that point in
time, and that real and always changing limit depends entirely on the amount of natural
resources, human labor, machine labor, knowledge, skills, time, energy, etc. that is available to meet
demand with supply at that point in time. That’s what really matters - what money is meant to
measure - not money itself. Money is only a human construct created to very roughly measure the stuff
it’s traded for, and taxation is important for a multitude of reasons, but making spending possible by a
currency issuing government just isn’t one of them. This is the heart of what’s come to be known as
Modern Monetary Theory (or MMT). Conventional thinking says that the US government first needs to
obtain money from taxes or borrowing in order to spend it. MMT says that the government first spends
money, then it taxes or borrows money to remove it from circulation. That may seem like a somewhat
silly difference, but I’ve come to believe it’s actually an extremely important one, and one that once
adopted, is the most likely path to a better future that includes a truly Universal Basic Income — like
Alaska's annual dividend but monthly and larger — that’s the highest it can be without surpassing inflation
targets. I’ve never been against MMT as a descriptive theory, but for years I’ve just seen it as an
alternative way of looking at federal spending and taxes, but having just lived through the year 2020, and
having read Stephanie Kelton’s book The Deficit Myth, I've come to believe MMT may just be the key to
achieving UBI, and perhaps even the only way.
Plan comparatively wrecks business confidence
Alberto Alesina, et. al, Carlo A. Favero, and Francesco Giavazzi, 3-1-2018, Alberto Alesina is the
Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University, "Improving Economic Growth: Cut
Spending or Raise Taxes?," IMF,
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2018/03/alesina, //hm-sms
Our second finding is that reductions in entitlement programs and other government transfers were less
harmful to growth than tax increases. Such cuts were accompanied by mild and short-lived economic
downturns, probably because taxpayers perceived them as permanent and so expected that the taxes
needed to fund the programs would be lower in the future. Thus, the data suggest that reforms of social
security rules aimed at reducing government spending are more like normal spending cuts than tax
increases. Because social security reforms tend to be persistent, especially in countries with aging
populations, they entail some of the smallest costs in terms of lost output. Private investment also
responded very differently to the two types of austerity plans—positively to spending-based plans and
negatively to tax-based plans. Business confidence behaved consistently with private investment. On the
other hand, household consumption and net exports (the difference between exports and imports) did not
appear to differ on average during the two types of adjustments. What about recent episodes of austerity
that occurred after the crisis and started during a recession? Although the sheer size of some of these
austerity plans was exceptional—not only in Greece but also in Ireland, Portugal, and Spain and to a
lesser extent in Italy and the United Kingdom—the outcomes did not differ significantly from those of
previous episodes. Countries that chose tax-based austerity suffered deeper recessions than those that
chose to cut spending. Among the latter are Ireland, despite a massive bank bailout program, and the
United Kingdom, whose economic performance was much stronger than the IMF had predicted. The UK
plan consisted almost completely of spending cuts. These included cuts in government consumption and
public investment; reductions in transfers, including more restrictive policies on employers’ pension
contributions; support allowances; and public service pensions. Spending cuts (planned or immediately
implemented) between 2010 and 2014 amounted to 2.9 percent of GDP—about 0.6 percent a year on
average. Of all these measures, 87 percent were implemented within this five-year interval, with the rest
deferred. The result: growth in the United Kingdom was higher than the European average. Investment
growth recovered from the 21 percent drop of 2009 and increased almost 6 percent in 2010. Possible
explanations There are at least three possible explanations for these striking results. One is that the
difference between tax- and spending-based plans is due to a difference in accompanying policies. The
most obvious candidate is monetary policy. Guajardo, Leigh, and Pescatori (2014) argue that differences
in the response of monetary policy are largely responsible for the different effects of the tax- and
spending-based corrections they analyzed. We, however, find only a small fraction of the difference to be
related to monetary policy. A second possibility relates to the behavior of the exchange rate. A fiscal
correction could be less harmful if preceded by a currency devaluation, which would make exports more
competitive and support growth. We find that this was not the case: there was no systematic difference in
the behavior of the exchange rate before the two types of fiscal adjustment. If the exchange rate had
been a significant factor, then the difference between the two cases in terms of GDP growth should have
been associated with higher growth of net exports following a devaluation, independently of the type of
fiscal plan adopted. This was not the case. As mentioned above, the driving force was domestic private
investment. Finally, large fiscal adjustments are often periods of deep structural reforms, which may
include the liberalization of product and/or labor markets. If these were systematically occurring at the
time of spending cuts, they might explain our finding. But in fact, these reforms did not occur
systematically during periods of spending cuts. A more promising explanation points to the role of
confidence and expectations. Imagine an economy on an unsustainable path with exploding public debt.
Rising interest rates in countries with high debt may generate exactly this scenario. Sooner or later fiscal
stabilization must occur. The longer the delay, the more taxes must be raised (or spending cut) in the
future. Stabilization, when it occurs, removes uncertainty about further delays that would have increased
the costs even more. Blanchard (1990) provides a simple model that illustrates this point. Stabilization
that eliminates uncertainty about higher fiscal costs in the future stimulates demand today—especially
from investors, who are more sensitive to uncertainty given the long-term nature of their plans. In their
models, Blanchard (1990) and Alesina and Drazen (1991) do not distinguish between stabilization on the
tax and the spending side. However, it is quite likely that the benefits of removing uncertainty are more
likely to occur with spending-based, rather than tax-based, austerity plans. A tax-based plan that does not
address the automatic growth of entitlements and other programs over time is much less likely to produce
a long-lasting effect on the budget. If the plan doesn’t address automatic spending increases, taxes must
be continually raised to cover the additional outlays. So the confidence effect is likely to be much smaller
for tax-based plans, because of rising expectations of future taxes. Spending-based plans, on the other
hand, produce the opposite effects. Our finding for the response of business confidence to austerity
supports this view. Business confidence increases immediately at the start of a spending-based austerity
plan, in contrast to what happens at the beginning of a tax-based plan.

decreased business confidence causes recession

Barkin 19 Barkin, Tom. “Confidence, Expectations and Implications for Monetary Policy.” Federal
Reserve Bank of Richmond, 11 July 2019,
www.richmondfed.org/press_room/speeches/thomas_i_barkin/2019/barkin_speech_20190711.

In addition, the business reaction function has gotten faster. Short-termism has increased as activism
in the market for corporate control has shifted companies’ focus. Just as with consumers, I think firms’
resilience is down. They start with lower confidence—another “hangover” from the Great Recession. At
the same time, businesspeople tell me the length of the current upturn makes them nervous that another recession
might be right around the corner. The speed of the reaction function may be exacerbated by higher
leverage. Corporate debt as a percentage of GDP is at an all-time high. Levered companies—
and their creditors—have a bias toward taking action on negative news. This can mean cutting costs,
reducing staff or pricing for volume. Taken together, all these factors lead to an asymmetry in which firms
are much more cautious about the downside than they are optimistic about the upside. Perhaps
both consumers and businesses have a higher bar for spending decisions. It’s possible that some of the tepid
recovery from the Great Recession was a self-fulfilling lack of belief in the strength of the economy. Firms’ fear
of
failure could have prevented them from making investments even in the presence of reasonable
returns. This negative tilt, or asymmetry, continues today. Firms are frustrated with political
polarization and uncertainty about trade and regulation. This limits their pricing courage and caps
the upside on their spending and investment decisions. For these reasons, a drop in confidence could
lead to lower investment, lower output and eventually lower employment. If employment is placed at risk,
consumption won’t be far behind. And that would place us in more serious difficulty. Put another way,
I don’t discount the idea that we could talk ourselves into a recession.

US recession causes global war

Dr. Mathew Maavak 21, PhD in Risk Foresight from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, External
Researcher (PLATBIDAFO) at the Kazimieras Simonavicius University, Expert and Regular Commentator
on Risk-Related Geostrategic Issues at the Russian International Affairs Council, “Horizon 2030: Will
Emerging Risks Unravel Our Global Systems?”, Salus Journal – The Australian Journal for Law
Enforcement, Security and Intelligence Professionals, Volume 9, Number 1, p. 2-8

Various scholars and institutions regard global social instability as the greatest threat facing this
decade. The catalyst has been postulated to be a Second Great Depression which, in turn, will
have profound implications for global security and national integrity. This paper, written from a broad
systems perspective, illustrates how emerging risks are getting more complex and intertwined; blurring
boundaries between the economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological taxonomy used
by the World Economic Forum for its annual global risk forecasts. Tight couplings in our global systems
have also enabled risks accrued in one area to snowball into a full-blown crisis elsewhere. The
COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic fallouts exemplify this systemic chain-reaction.
Onceinexorable forces of globalization are rupturing as the current global system can no longer be
sustained due to poor governance and runaway wealth fractionation. The coronavirus pandemic is also
enabling Big Tech to expropriate the levers of governments and mass communications worldwide. This
paper concludes by highlighting how this development poses a dilemma for security professionals. Key
Words: Global Systems, Emergence, VUCA, COVID-9, Social Instability, Big Tech, Great Reset
INTRODUCTION The new decade is witnessing rising volatility across global systems. Pick any random
“system” today and chart out its trajectory: Are our education systems becoming more robust and
affordable? What about food security? Are our healthcare systems improving? Are our pension systems
sound? Wherever one looks, there are dark clouds gathering on a global horizon marked by volatility,
uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). But what exactly is a global system? Our planet itself is an
autonomous and selfsustaining mega-system, marked by periodic cycles and elemental vagaries. Human
activities within however are not system isolates as our banking, utility, farming, healthcare and retail
sectors etc. are increasingly entwined. Risks accrued in one system may cascade into an unforeseen
crisis within and/or without (Choo, Smith & McCusker, 2007). Scholars call this phenomenon
“emergence”; one where the behaviour of intersecting systems is determined by complex and largely
invisible interactions at the substratum (Goldstein, 1999; Holland, 1998). The ongoing COVID-19
pandemic is a case in point. While experts remain divided over the source and morphology of the virus,
the contagion has ramified into a global health crisis and supply chain nightmare. It is also tilting the
geopolitical balance. China is the largest exporter of intermediate products, and had generated nearly
20% of global imports in 2015 alone (Cousin, 2020). The pharmaceutical sector is particularly vulnerable.
Nearly “85% of medicines in the U.S. strategic national stockpile” sources components from China
(Owens, 2020). An initial run on respiratory masks has now been eclipsed by rowdy queues at
supermarkets and the bankruptcy of small businesses. The entire global population – save for major
pockets such as Sweden, Belarus, Taiwan and Japan – have been subjected to cyclical lockdowns and
quarantines. Never before in history have humans faced such a systemic, borderless calamity. COVID-19
represents a classic emergent crisis that necessitates real-time response and adaptivity in a real-time
world, particularly since the global Just-in-Time (JIT) production and delivery system serves as both an
enabler and vector for transboundary risks. From a systems thinking perspective, emerging risk
management should therefore address a whole spectrum of activity across the economic, environmental,
geopolitical, societal and technological (EEGST) taxonomy. Every emerging threat can be slotted into this
taxonomy – a reason why it is used by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for its annual global risk
exercises (Maavak, 2019a). As traditional forces of globalization unravel, security professionals should
take cognizance of emerging threats through a systems thinking approach. METHODOLOGY An EEGST
sectional breakdown was adopted to illustrate a sampling of extreme risks facing the world for the 2020-
2030 decade. The transcendental quality of emerging risks, as outlined on Figure 1, below, was primarily
informed by the following pillars of systems thinking (Rickards, 2020): • Diminishing diversity (or
increasing homogeneity) of actors in the global system (Boli & Thomas, 1997; Meyer, 2000; Young et al,
2006); • Interconnections in the global system (Homer-Dixon et al, 2015; Lee & Preston, 2012); •
Interactions of actors, events and components in the global system (Buldyrev et al, 2010; Bashan et al,
2013; Homer-Dixon et al, 2015); and • Adaptive qualities in particular systems (Bodin & Norberg, 2005;
Scheffer et al, 2012) Since scholastic material on this topic remains somewhat inchoate, this paper
buttresses many of its contentions through secondary (i.e. news/institutional) sources. ECONOMY
According to Professor Stanislaw Drozdz (2018) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, “a global financial
crash of a previously unprecedented scale is highly probable” by the mid- 2020s. This will lead to a trickle-
down meltdown, impacting all areas of human activity. The economist John Mauldin (2018) similarly
warns that the “2020s might be the worst decade in US history” and may lead to a Second Great
Depression. Other forecasts are equally alarming. According to the International Institute of Finance,
global debt may have surpassed $255 trillion by 2020 (IIF, 2019). Yet another study revealed that global
debts and liabilities amounted to a staggering $2.5 quadrillion (Ausman, 2018). The reader should note
that these figures were tabulated before the COVID-19 outbreak. The IMF singles out widening income
inequality as the trigger for the next Great Depression (Georgieva, 2020). The wealthiest 1% now own
more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people (Coffey et al, 2020) and this chasm is widening with
each passing month. COVID-19 had, in fact, boosted global billionaire wealth to an unprecedented $10.2
trillion by July 2020 (UBS-PWC, 2020). Global GDP, worth $88 trillion in 2019, may have contracted by
5.2% in 2020 (World Bank, 2020). As the Greek historian Plutarch warned in the 1st century AD: “An
imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics” (Mauldin, 2014).
The stability of a society, as Aristotle argued even earlier, depends on a robust middle element or middle
class. At the rate the global middle class is facing catastrophic debt and unemployment levels,
widespread social disaffection may morph into outright anarchy (Maavak, 2012; DCDC, 2007). Economic
stressors, in transcendent VUCA fashion, may also induce radical geopolitical realignments. Bullions
now carry more weight than NATO’s security guarantees in Eastern Europe. After Poland repatriated
100 tons of gold from the Bank of England in 2019, Slovakia, Serbia and Hungary quickly followed suit.
According to former Slovak Premier Robert Fico, this erosion in regional trust was based on historical
precedents – in particular the 1938 Munich Agreement which ceded Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to
Nazi Germany. As Fico reiterated (Dudik & Tomek, 2019): “You can hardly trust even the closest allies
after the Munich Agreement… I guarantee that if something happens, we won’t see a single gram of this
(offshore-held) gold. Let’s do it (repatriation) as quickly as possible.” (Parenthesis added by author).
President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia (a non-NATO nation) justified his central bank’s gold-repatriation
program by hinting at economic headwinds ahead: “We see in which direction the crisis in the world is
moving” (Dudik & Tomek, 2019). Indeed, with two global Titanics – the United States and China – set
on a collision course with a quadrillions-denominated iceberg in the middle, and a viral outbreak on its
tip, the seismic ripples will be felt far, wide and for a considerable period. A reality check is
nonetheless needed here: Can additional bullions realistically circumvallate the economies of 80 million
plus peoples in these Eastern European nations, worth a collective $1.8 trillion by purchasing power
parity? Gold however is a potent psychological symbol as it represents national sovereignty and
economic reassurance in a potentially hyperinflationary world. The portents are clear: The current global
economic system will be weakened by rising nationalism and autarkic demands. Much uncertainty
remains ahead. Mauldin (2018) proposes the introduction of Old Testament-style debt jubilees to facilitate
gradual national recoveries. The World Economic Forum, on the other hand, has long proposed a “Great
Reset” by 2030; a socialist utopia where “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” (WEF, 2016). In the final
analysis, COVID-19 is not the root cause of the current global economic turmoil; it is merely an accelerant
to a burning house of cards that was left smouldering since the 2008 Great Recession (Maavak, 2020a).
We also see how the four main pillars of systems thinking (diversity, interconnectivity, interactivity and
“adaptivity”) form the mise en scene in a VUCA decade. ENVIRONMENTAL What happens to the
environment when our economies implode? Think of a debt-laden workforce at sensitive nuclear and
chemical plants, along with a concomitant surge in industrial accidents? Economic stressors, workforce
demoralization and rampant profiteering – rather than manmade climate change – arguably pose the
biggest threats to the environment. In a WEF report, Buehler et al (2017) made the following pre-
COVID-19 observation: The ILO estimates that the annual cost to the global economy from accidents and
work-related diseases alone is a staggering $3 trillion. Moreover, a recent report suggests the world’s 3.2
billion workers are increasingly unwell, with the vast majority facing significant economic insecurity: 77%
work in part-time, temporary, “vulnerable” or unpaid jobs. Shouldn’t this phenomenon be better
categorized as a societal or economic risk rather than an environmental one? In line with the systems
thinking approach, however, global risks can no longer be boxed into a taxonomical silo. Frazzled
workforces may precipitate another Bhopal (1984), Chernobyl (1986), Deepwater Horizon (2010) or Flint
water crisis (2014). These disasters were notably not the result of manmade climate change. Neither was
the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011) nor the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004). Indeed, the combustion of a
long-overlooked cargo of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had nearly levelled the city of Beirut,
Lebanon, on Aug 4 2020. The explosion left 204 dead; 7,500 injured; US$15 billion in property damages;
and an estimated 300,000 people homeless (Urbina, 2020). The environmental costs have yet to be
adequately tabulated. Environmental disasters are more attributable to Black Swan events, systems
breakdowns and corporate greed rather than to mundane human activity. Our JIT world aggravates the
cascading potential of risks (Korowicz, 2012). Production and delivery delays, caused by the COVID-19
outbreak, will eventually require industrial overcompensation. This will further stress senior executives,
workers, machines and a variety of computerized systems. The trickle-down effects will likely include
substandard products, contaminated food and a general lowering in health and safety standards (Maavak,
2019a). Unpaid or demoralized sanitation workers may also resort to indiscriminate waste dumping. Many
cities across the United States (and elsewhere in the world) are no longer recycling wastes due to
prohibitive costs in the global corona-economy (Liacko, 2021). Even in good times, strict protocols on
waste disposals were routinely ignored. While Sweden championed the global climate change narrative,
its clothing flagship H&M was busy covering up toxic effluences disgorged by vendors along the Citarum
River in Java, Indonesia. As a result, countless children among 14 million Indonesians straddling the
“world’s most polluted river” began to suffer from dermatitis, intestinal problems, developmental disorders,
renal failure, chronic bronchitis and cancer (DW, 2020). It is also in cauldrons like the Citarum River
where pathogens may mutate with emergent ramifications. On an equally alarming note, depressed
economic conditions have traditionally provided a waste disposal boon for organized crime elements.
Throughout 1980s, the Calabriabased ‘Ndrangheta mafia – in collusion with governments in Europe and
North America – began to dump radioactive wastes along the coast of Somalia. Reeling from pollution
and revenue loss, Somali fisherman eventually resorted to mass piracy (Knaup, 2008). The coast of
Somalia is now a maritime hotspot, and exemplifies an entwined form of economic-environmental-
geopolitical-societal emergence. In a VUCA world, indiscriminate waste dumping can unexpectedly morph
into a Black Hawk Down incident. The laws of unintended consequences are governed by actors,
interconnections, interactions and adaptations in a system under study – as outlined in the methodology
section. Environmentally-devastating industrial sabotages – whether by disgruntled workers, industrial
competitors, ideological maniacs or terrorist groups – cannot be discounted in a VUCA world.
Immiserated societies, in stark defiance of climate change diktats, may resort to dirty coal plants and
wood stoves for survival. Interlinked ecosystems, particularly water resources, may be hijacked by
nationalist sentiments. The environmental fallouts of critical infrastructure (CI) breakdowns loom like a
Sword of Damocles over this decade. GEOPOLITICAL The primary catalyst behind WWII was the
Great Depression. Since history often repeats itself, expect familiar bogeymen to reappear in
societies roiling with impoverishment and ideological clefts. Anti-Semitism – a societal risk on its own
– may reach alarming proportions in the West (Reuters, 2019), possibly forcing Israel to undertake
reprisal operations inside allied nations. If that happens, how will affected nations react? Will security
resources be reallocated to protect certain minorities (or the Top 1%) while larger segments of society are
exposed to restive forces? Balloon effects like these present a classic VUCA problematic.
Contemporary geopolitical risks include a possible Iran-Israel war; US-China military confrontation
over Taiwan or the South China Sea; North Korean proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies;
an India-Pakistan nuclear war; an Iranian closure of the Straits of Hormuz; fundamentalist-driven
implosion in the Islamic world; or a nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia. Fears that the
Jan 3 2020 assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani might lead to WWIII were grossly
overblown. From a systems perspective, the killing of Soleimani did not fundamentally change the actor-
interconnection-interaction adaptivity equation in the Middle East. Soleimani was simply a cog who got
replaced.
 OFF
The United States federal government should:
 guarantee employment to members of the armed forces upon completion of
service;
 collaborate with and incentivize the private sector to significantly expand job
creation programs, particularly in the Energy sectors; AND
 finance state pensions and fully resource state technology governance.
• funded through progressive taxation

Financing job creations replicate economic stability and solves for populist outbursts
and sets global climate precedents
Bivens ’18 [Josh; April 12; Director of Research at the Economic Policy Institute, Ph.D. in Economics
from the New School for Social Research; Economic Policy Institute, “How do our job creation
recommendations stack up against a job guarantee?” https://www.epi.org/blog/how-do-our-job-
creation-recommendations-stack-up-against-a-job-guarantee/]

Areas of overlap between our job creation recommendations and a job guarantee
Darity, Hamilton, and Paul’s latest job guarantee proposal was released last month by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The best
summary statement of it comes from their own paper: “The federal job guarantee would provide a job, at non-poverty wages, for all citizens
above the age of 18 that sought one.” While job creation is the key goal of their proposal, their
plan also hinges on these jobs
producing goods and services that private markets are not producing—especially public investments.
They identify two key benefits of the job guarantee as:

Macroeconomic stabilization. The

job guarantee would function as a robust automatic stabilizer in the
economy, maintaining levels of employment during economic downturns through direct hiring, and
freely allowing workers to flow from the jobs program to the private sector during economic boom times.

The provision of socially useful goods and services. During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA)
and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were public employment programs designed to put Americans back to work…. These programs,
implemented under the Roosevelt administration, provided goods and services that benefited all Americans by facilitating the logistics and
technological expansion of our public infrastructure…..Under
a job guarantee, even those who do not receive
employment via the NIEC will likely benefit through the increased provision of public goods and socially desirable
goods and services.

In my view, a very good proportion (not all, but most) of the other benefits they identify as stemming from a job guarantee flow through these
channels. If one accepts this, then I think you can replicate these benefits through two recommendations I called for in my
recent paper on job creation:
1. Get macroeconomic policy right by ensuring aggregate demand is at a high enough level to support macroeconomic full employment
2. Undertake lots of public investment that will create and sustain jobs, as well as providing crucial
goods and services that private markets won’t
In regards to getting macroeconomic policy right, a job guarantee would be (among other things) a huge and automatic fiscal stabilizer. Huge
fiscal stabilizers are a great idea—the experience of the Great Recession and how badly discretionary fiscal policy (especially state and local)
dragged on growth should have spurred everybody to think about how fiscal stimulus can be made more automatic, and these should be a key
part of any plan claiming to get macroeconomic policy right going forward.
In regards to providing benefits by undertaking public investments, particularly in infrastructure and early childcare, I’d
absolutely agree that much larger public investments—particularly in these two areas—are great ideas.
They’re part of our recommendations for job creation and we’ve spent most of the past decade at EPI arguing strongly for
both.

The plan and the perm shatter both political support AND human capital for overall
recruitment.
Day ’18 [Meagan; October 19; M.A. from Goldsmiths at the University of London, B.A. from Oberlin
College, author and former editor; Jacobin, “Ending Economic Conscription,”
https://jacobin.com/2018/10/military-recruits-full-employment-welfare-state]
No doubt strong moral and ideological opposition to war and militarism are at the heart of any effective strategy. But we should also consider
the tactical importance of ambitious social-democratic reforms like a federal jobs guarantee, strong unions, and the universal social
provision of higher education and health care. These reforms may not put an end to American empire, but they do have an important effect:
they make
it harder for the military to recruit from the domestic working class. To combat the reign of
the American military abroad, we need to end economic conscription at home.
When domestic economic prospects are grim, the military has no problem recruiting soldiers. When those prospects improve, recruitment falls.
How do we know? We can see a micro-version of this process happening right now.

This year, for the first time in thirteen years, the Army reported it was short thousands of recruits. This year’s unemployment rate is also the
lowest we’ve seen in that same time period. These facts are related, and the military agrees.

“It’s a tough market out there,” said the Army’s deputy chief of staff. He meant it literally: in tight labor markets, when there are more jobs
than workers, employers have to compete to attract labor. Meanwhile, workers
have more options (which isn’t to
say abundant, fantastic options), and they naturally choose the better jobs on offer — leaving employers who are
offering comparatively bad bargains scrambling to fill positions. Hence the shortage of military recruits.

Part of the problem is that, by

the standards of the US labor market, the military isn’t a totally bad economic
bargain for working-class Americans. In fact, it’s a comparatively attractive option for many people, in
particular because it offers a steady income, free college and job training, and a lifetime of public health
care. In other words, it offers recruits some of the things a decent welfare state would give all its citizens.

Indeed, more soldiers report “benefits” as a major motivation for enlisting than any “call to serve.” It follows that if
we give people better economic options in civilian society, they are less likely to join the military in
droves.

This observation is important for the purposes of building an antiwar movement. A working-class background is the greatest
demographic predictor of military service. People who serve in the military may not always enter with pro-war ideas in their
heads, but they certainly encounter all kinds of justifications for America’s worldwide military presence and its endless overseas conflicts during
their service.

Additionally, every working-class person who enlists has a whole network of friends and family members who become more likely to identify
with the military and are therefore more vulnerable to right-wing “patriotic” pageantry and military chauvinism, including the mainstream
GOP’s maudlin reverence for the American flag and Donald Trump’s promises to “bomb the hell” out of our enemies and make the military “so
strong that no one will mess with us.”

Working-class support for the military is often overstated, but it is high enough to hamstring any antiwar movement angling for mass support —
which is the only kind of antiwar movement that can win.

The more recruits the military has, the more deeply it embeds itself in working-class American life. This obviously presents an enormous
obstacle to building opposition to war. And it is precisely the working class that must oppose war, because not only are workers the majority of
society and the group with the actual leverage to force change, but they’re also the ones who fight and die in the wars themselves.
As Eugene V. Debs said, “The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has
had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose — especially their lives.” In order for our
society to achieve peace, working people must realize they’re being conned into war.

So how do we go about removing the economic incentive for joining the military?

Ensuring full employment is a great start. Full employment means that everyone who’s actively looking for a job can easily find one, which
forces employers to compete with each other for hires, and gives workers more options and more power in the economy. Although
unemployment is pretty low right now, there will inevitably be another economic crisis, and the gains made will evaporate. A better way to
achieve full employment for the long haul is a federal job guarantee of some kind.

But wages aren’t only a natural effect of a tight or loose labor market — they also rise and fall based on the degree of organized class struggle.
Strong unions, which can be built through a combination of rank-and-file union activism and pro-labor legislative reforms, are key to driving and
keeping wages up, and therefore competitive with the military’s offerings.

And finally, wages by themselves aren’t enough to lure working people away from the military, which also pays for college and job training, and
provides free medical care for the rest of a person’s life. How can the civilian job market compete with that? The answer is to provide things like
college tuition, job training, and health care through universal federal-level social programs. We already have templates for these, as Medicare
for All and free tuition at public universities are rapidly becoming some of the most wildly popular new policy ideas in the United States.

A combination of a jobs guarantee, strong unions, and universal social programs would put an
enormous dent in the army’s program of economic conscription. There would still be an ideological battle to fight over
American nationalism and militarism. But it would be easier to win if the military were less embedded in American working-class life — and it
won’t be less embedded until working people stop gravitating toward the military out of economic self-interest. Social-democratic reforms
therefore must be considered part of any serious antiwar or anti-imperialist strategy.

Extinction.
Bonds ’17 [Timothy; March 1; Vice President in the Army Research Division and Director of the RAND
Arroyo Center, M.S. in Aero and Astro Engineering from the University of Illinoi, M.B.A. from
Washington University at St. Louis; Testimony Before the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee
on Tactical Air and Land Forces United States House of Representatives, “Limiting Regret: Building the
Army We will Need,” https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT400/CT466/
RAND_CT466.pdf]

For our first example, what

might happen if the United States does not continue its missions to defeat ISIL, al
Qaeda, the Taliban, and other violent extremist groups around the world? One potential regret is enduring
terror movements that continue to destabilize vulnerable nations and whole regions; harm captured peoples; exploit
captured territory to train terrorists, raise funds, and attract new recruits; and export violence to the United States and its allies and friends.

It remains unknown whether currently deployed forces are sufficient to achieve U.S. objectives. In fact, the
United States has
steadily increased troop deployments to Iraq and Syria and extended the mission in Afghanistan. However, this
analysis assumes that U.S. ground forces will remain engaged at their current levels against extremist
groups in order to continue to degrade them. Therefore, we assume here that these troops could not be pulled
away for other operations without ending this mission. It is also possible that countering violent extremists will require
more troops if the mission changes—for example, if additional ground troops are committed to combat operations, such
as those in Syria and Iraq. Total troop requirements would remain those shown earlier as the worldwide commitments.

For our second example, how might Russia take the same course in the Baltics that it has taken in Ukraine? Russian
“volunteers” could
enter and destabilize Estonia and Latvia, or worse, conventional forces could launch a surprise invasion
and present a fait accompli to NATO. We estimate that against currently stationed forces, the Russians could reach the Baltic capitals in
36–60 hours. That would leave the President with few and bad choices. The President could negotiate for the Russians to leave and risk the
fracture of NATO if negotiations and sanctions drag on for months or years, or the
President could choose to launch a
counteroffensive to retake NATO territory—against a nuclear-armed Russia that has threatened first use
of nuclear weapons to defend its territory from conventional attack and prevent its military from being destroyed. While the risk of war
with Russia is small, and the risks of escalation to nuclear conflict are smaller still, neither risk is zero. Since the human and financial costs of
both would be catastrophic, it is prudent to hedge against them.

Instead, NATO—and the United States—might place armored brigades in the Baltics. These armored brigades, along with other U.S. and NATO
forces able to quickly deploy on warning, would be capable of denying Russia a quick victory. Such forces could be permanently stationed or
rotationally deployed. These ground forces would be supported by air and sea power from the United States and its NATO allies. The European
Reassurance Initiative and the four NATO battalion tactical groups deployed to Poland and the Baltics have made an important statement of
alliance commitment and an initial “down payment” on the forces needed, but are not yet close to the amounts required to deny Russia a quick
overrun of the Baltics.

If the Russians attacked under this scenario, the United States and NATO would send air, sea, and land
reinforcements to deny a Russian victory. Additional U.S. and NATO forces would be needed to defeat
Russian forces and reverse any Russian territorial gains.
We will now assess the numbers of ground forces needed for the missions described above. We will begin with continuing infrastructure tasks, including training new troops, supporting joint
missions, and current overseas missions.

Adding the forces supporting current missions, we have a demand for 434,000 soldiers to support infrastructure tasks and current missions. This includes the troops who are rotationally
deployed; those forward-stationed in Europe, South Korea, and other places; and those supporting generating- and strategic-force operations (but who are not in the GRF or available for other
missions).

How large of an additional force would be required to deter and defeat aggression in the Baltics (shown here in orange)? For the deterrent force, we estimate that a total of three armored
brigades would be needed on the ground in the Baltics on the day fighting started, along with the two U.S. brigades and supporting soldiers already in Europe, and two other U.S. Army and
NATO rapid reaction brigades (the 82nd Airborne GRF and the NATO Very High Readiness Task Force) that can deploy to the Baltics on warning. In the future, our NATO allies should be able to
provide one or more of the three armored brigades needed. However, in the near term, it is unlikely that any one of these nations would be able to sustain a deployed armored brigade.
Therefore, we assume that the U.S. would need to deploy two more armored brigades and a fires brigade in addition to the forward stationed forces already in Europe and the armored and
aviation brigades already deployed in a “heel to toe” fashion. In total, 36,000 additional soldiers would be needed over and above those already forward stationed or rotationally deployed to
Europe.

When deployed at a 1:2 rotation ratio, keeping 36,000 soldiers on the ground in the Baltics requires 108,000 soldiers to maintain a continuous presence. Including the 283,000 soldiers forward
deployed in or rotating to Europe and other theaters, and the 151,000 soldiers engaged in infrastructure activities, a total of 542,000 soldiers would be required for these activities alone. This
number exceeds the 476,000 soldiers now planned for the regular Army, forcing the DoD to reduce day-to-day operations, continuously deploy 66,000 National Guard or Army Reserve
soldiers, grow the regular Army, or take some combination of these measures. Worse, this leaves no margin for higher demands if deterrence fails and war breaks out in Europe, Korea, or
elsewhere in the world.

In wartime, therefore, the DoD might be compelled to suspend troop rotations to maintain sufficient numbers of forces to meet contingency needs. From this point on in this testimony, we
will discuss wartime demand, with troops deployed without rotation for the duration of a conflict. Such extended deployments for the duration of the conflict will impose extraordinary strain
on troops and their families. (We should also note that some troop rotation will still be needed within theaters, so battle-worn units can pull back from the line for rest, refit, and replacement
of casualties).

If troop rotations to all theaters are suspended, including the deterrent force in the Baltics, troop demands will decline somewhat. The additional demand in the Baltics would decline to the
36,000 soldiers deployed at any one time; demand for the combination of other theaters would decline to 146,000, while the demand for infrastructure forces would remain steady at 151,000
soldiers. The total troops needed for these missions would decline to 334,000 soldiers when on a wartime footing.

Additional troops would be needed if the Russians were not deterred and decided to invade. To expel the invading Russian forces, we estimate that an additional 85,000 U.S. troops, including
six armored brigades and associated artillery, aviation, headquarters, and other supporting troops, would be needed to defeat a Russian invasion (shown in brown), along with eight brigades
and a similar number of troops from our NATO allies.

This raises the total U.S. troops needed to around 420,000 soldiers. This includes soldiers tasked to conduct infrastructure missions, continue current missions around the world, and deploy
the U.S. contribution to the NATO deterrent and war-winning forces shown above. Once again, this assumes a wartime footing for all of these troops with no rotations of soldiers.

We now turn to a third example—a war resulting from a provocation cycle that escalates to a North Korean attack on South Korea.

Current DoD force planning seems to focus on an invasion threat to South Korea from North Korean forces, as depicted on the map. But the
threat is changing. A provocation cycle could escalate out of control and lead to an artillery barrage of Seoul, involving some of the 10,000
artillery pieces and multiple rocket launchers, firing from hardened positions that the DoD believes to be in range of South Korea.10 Or North
Korea might collapse as a result of war or economic failure, leaving up to 200 nuclear, chemical, and
biological program sites unsecured (as represented by dots on the map above)..11
In either event, a significant burden would fall on U.S. forces. To counter North Korean artillery, U.S. ground forces would need to provide
forces to evacuate U.S. noncombatants; engineering, logistics, and maneuver units to sustain South Korean and U.S. operations to clear artillery
within range of Seoul; WMD-elimination task forces to secure chemical or nuclear munitions deployed with
artillery units; and ground combat forces to protect each of these types of units.
South Korean forces would also be stretched to gain control over North Korean military forces, exert political control over territory captured,
and deal with a massive humanitarian catastrophe—all at a time when the South Korean Army is decreasing in size by one-third from its peak.
For these reasons, countering an artillery barrage or North Korean WMDs would require significant U.S.
ground forces.