Spending DA

1NC
US spending downheading for a surplus
Boak 7/11 (Josh Boak, AP Economics Writer, 7/11/14, US Records $71
Billion Budget Surplus in June, ABC News,
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-records-71-billion-budgetsurplus-june-24525694, Accessed 7/13/14, MX)

The U.S. government ran a monthly budget surplus in June, putting it

on course to record the lowest annual deficit since 2008. The
Treasury Department said Friday that its June surplus totaled $71
billion, following a $130 billion deficit in May. The government also ran
a surplus in June 2013, bolstered by dividends from Fannie Mae, the
mortgage giant under federal conservatorship for the past six years. For the
first nine months of this budget year, the deficit totals $366 billion,
down 28 percent from the same period in 2013. Tax receipts are up 8
percent compared to the prior year-to-date, while spending has increased 1
percent. The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting a deficit of
$492 billion for the full budget year ending Sept. 30. That would be
the narrowest gap since 2008. In 2008, the government recorded a
deficit of $458.6 billion, which was the record high for deficits up to that
time. But with the outbreak of the recession, deficits soared to
unprecedented levels, exceeding $1 trillion for four consecutive years. Tax
revenues fell during that period, while government boosted spending in an
attempt to stabilize the financial system and provide relief to people who had
lost jobs. The yearly deficit peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009 during the
worst of the financial crisis. It gradually fell from there, plunging to
$680.2 billion last year.

<<Insert Specific Link>>

Increased spending collapses growth
Boccia, Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs, Thomas A.
Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, The Institute for Economic Freedom
and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, 13
(Romina, 11/20/13, Cutting the US Budget would help the economy grow,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/11/cutting-the-us-budgetwould-help-the-economy-grow, AL)
Lawmakers face a choice of either confronting the nations spending crisis
head-on by reforming entitlement and other structural spending or continuing
to operate with their heads in the sand, waiting for a spending and debt
tsunami to wash over the nation and drown economic growth.
Research shows that reductions in government spending free
resources in the economy for investment and job creation, thus
spurring economic growth. For example, the CBO assessed three different
deficit scenarios and their impact on the economy: a $2 trillion increase in
primary deficits, a $2 trillion decrease in primary deficits, and a $4 trillion

decrease in primary deficits. The CBOs results show that any short-term
boost in gross national product (GNP)[13] from higher deficit spending in
the short term would be more than offset by the long-term reduction in
economic growth from higher interest rates and a crowding-out
effect of private investment. Equally, any short-term dip in GNP from
additional deficit reduction would be followed by stronger economic
growth over the long term.[14]
Government spending changes the composition of total demand, such as by
increasing consumption at the expense of investment. Poorly targeted deficit
spending would boost GNP in the short term, but leave less available for
productive investments in the future. Deficit spending shifts economic
resources from the future to the present, leaving younger generations with a
larger tax burden and fewer resources to invest. In reverse, lower
government spending frees economic resources for investment in the private
sector, which improves consumer wealth. In sum, additional government
spending today harms economic growth in the long term, while
budget cuts today would enable the economy to grow much faster
tomorrow.

Diversionary theory means nations will go to war

Royal 10(Jedediah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the

U.S. Department of Defense, 2010, Economic Integration, Economic

Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises, in Economics of War and
Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer,
p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the
likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a
moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the
security and defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in this
vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several
notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008)
advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory,
finding that rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and
fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from one preeminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic
crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981)
that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk of
miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain
redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as
a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999).
Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined
with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major,
medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and
connections between global economic conditions and security conditions
remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory
of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a
significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security
behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain
pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future

trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline,

particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources,
the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use
force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be
the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or
because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third,
others have considered the link between economic decline and external
armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong
correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during
periods of economic downturn. They write: The linkages between internal and
external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic
conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour.
Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which
international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg &
Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in
the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has
the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions.
Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government.
Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity
arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased
incentives to fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally
around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess,
and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline
and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999),
and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards
diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states,
due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to
being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000)
has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic
performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential
popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force.
In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates
economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic
crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic decline
with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This
implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not
featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more
attention. This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link
economic interdependence with a decrease in the likelihood of external
conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those
studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global
interdependence and do not specifically consider the occurrence of and
conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here
should be considered ancillary to those views.

Uniqueness

Spending Down NOw

US heading for budget surplus
Presta 7/10 (John Presta, Chicago Finance Examiner, 7/10/14, Is Obama
administration heading toward a budget surplus over the next two years?
Examiner, http://www.examiner.com/article/is-obama-administration-headingtoward-a-budget-surplus-over-the-next-two-years, Accessed 7/13/14, MX)
There is a quiet murmur in financial circles that the United States
government may be headed once again toward a surplus budget,
opined 24/7Wall Street.com yesterday. That has not happened since the final
few years of the Clinton administration and during George W. Bush's first year
in office. However, Bush managed to decimate the budget surplus in short
order, with the first of his two inadvisable tax cuts. Add to that the launching
of two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Counting the increased government
expenditures incurred by the Bush administration it all added up to record
deficits that at the end of the Bush years, the economy was damaged and
went into a deep recession. Going forward, government expenditures are
expected to stay under control, led by reduced military spending
because of the wind down of the two wars, and the expiration of the
Emergency Unemployment Compensation program. The improving
economy means increased numbers are returning to work, thus
increasing tax revenues. The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics
released showed total nonfarm payroll employment increased by
288,000, dropping the unemployment rate to a declining to 6.1
percent. The unemployment rate is the best since Sept. of 2008.
Adding fuel to the argument of the returning budget surplus during the
Obama administration is a report from the Congressional Budget Office
(CBO), that said the United States federal government had a budget
surplus of $70 billion in the month of June (2014). That surplus eclipses the
budget surplus from last June (2013). Marketwatch reported that the CBO
reported receipts in June (2014) that were $324 billion, $37 billion
more than in June 2013. Spending came in at $253 billion in June,
$83 billion more than a year ago. For the fiscal year to date, the
total deficit is $366 billion, $144 billion less than in the same nine
months of fiscal 2013. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently
estimated that the federal deficit through the first nine months was
$366 billion, which was significantly better than the $510 billion deficit
for the same period during the 2013 fiscal year. The primary reason for the
improvement was receipts, which improved by $172 billion. Total receipts
were up by 8 percent in the first nine months of fiscal year 2014 and were
lead by individual income taxes and social insurance (payroll) taxes,
which together rose by $123 billion, or 7 percent. In addition, receipts
from corporate income taxes rose by $29 billion (or 14 percent),
because of growth in taxable profits in calendar years 2013 and 2014.
Receipts from April through Junelargely representing corporations first two
quarterly estimated tax payments for the 2014 tax yearincreased by about
$12 billion (or 11 percent). Also, receipts from the Federal Reserve rose
by $18 billion, or 32 percent. The increase was attributable in part to the

larger size of the central banks portfolio of securities and to a higher yield on
that portfolio. Almost all gains occurred from January through June.

US spending low now

Boak 7/11 (Josh Boak, AP Economics Writer, 7/11/14, US Records $71
Billion Budget Surplus in June, ABC News,
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-records-71-billion-budgetsurplus-june-24525694, Accessed 7/13/14, MX)

The U.S. government ran a monthly budget surplus in June, putting it

on course to record the lowest annual deficit since 2008. The
Treasury Department said Friday that its June surplus totaled $71
billion, following a $130 billion deficit in May. The government also ran
a surplus in June 2013, bolstered by dividends from Fannie Mae, the
mortgage giant under federal conservatorship for the past six years. For the
first nine months of this budget year, the deficit totals $366 billion,
down 28 percent from the same period in 2013. Tax receipts are up 8
percent compared to the prior year-to-date, while spending has increased 1
percent. The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting a deficit of
$492 billion for the full budget year ending Sept. 30. That would be
the narrowest gap since 2008. In 2008, the government recorded a
deficit of $458.6 billion, which was the record high for deficits up to that
time. But with the outbreak of the recession, deficits soared to
unprecedented levels, exceeding $1 trillion for four consecutive years. Tax
revenues fell during that period, while government boosted spending in an
attempt to stabilize the financial system and provide relief to people who had
lost jobs. The yearly deficit peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009 during the
worst of the financial crisis. It gradually fell from there, plunging to
$680.2 billion last year.

US spending low now

Boak 7/11 (Josh Boak, AP Economics Writer, 7/11/14, US reports $71

billion surplus in June; projected to have smallest annual deficit in 6 years,

US News, http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2014/07/11/usrecords-71-billion-budget-surplus-in-june, Accessed 7/12/14, MX)
WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. government ran a monthly budget
surplus in June, putting it on course to record the lowest annual
deficit since 2008. The Treasury Department says the June surplus
totaled $71 billion, following a $130 billion deficit in May. The
government also ran a surplus in June 2013, bolstered by dividends from
Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant under federal conservatorship for the past
six years. For the first nine months of this budget year, the deficit
totals $366 billion, down 28 percent from the same period in 2013.
Tax receipts are up 8 percent compared to the prior year-to-date, while
spending has increased 1 percent. The Congressional Budget Office is
forecasting a deficit of $492 billion for the full budget year ending Sept. 30.

US deficit is declining
Felsenthal 7/12 (Mark Felsenthal, Journalist, 7/12/14, White House trims
2014 deficit projection to $583 billion, BDN Main Nation,
https://bangordailynews.com/2014/07/12/news/nation/white-house-trims2014-deficit-projection-to-583-billion/, Accessed 7/12/14, MX)

The White House lowered its U.S. federal deficit forecast

for the 2014 fiscal year by $66 billion to $583 billion on Friday on the
basis of gathering economic momentum as evidenced by gains in
hiring. The deficit has been cut by more than half as a share of the
economy, representing the most rapid sustained deficit reduction since World War II, and it continues
WASHINGTON

to fall, acting White House budget director Brian Deese said in a statement. Despite the narrower deficit,
Republicans and analysts raised concerns about high levels of debt over the long term. The White House
projection shows that, even though the debt is on a declining path, it would reach 72 percent of GDP in
2024 instead of 69 percent as originally estimated, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget noted.
The Obama administration projected a $649 billion deficit for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30 when it
delivered its budget proposal to Congress in March. The deficit peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009 in the
aftermath of the recession that ended that year. The White House said it revised its forecast in the midsession review because the national unemployment rate has come down more rapidly than expected. The

The
administration said it expects the deficit to be 3.4 percent of gross
domestic product for the year, down from 3.7 percent, and to fall to
below 3 percent of GDP in 2015. President Barack Obama in recent
speeches has pointed to an improving economic climate, citing gains
in hiring, housing and manufacturing. But wages have lagged and polls show many
jobless rate fell to 6.1 percent in June from 6.7 percent in March, a six-year low.

Americans remain downbeat about their prospects five years into the recovery from the recession.

US deficit is declining
McIntyre 7/9 (Douglas A. McIntyre, Host of Mcintyre in the Morning;
Winner of the Best Columnist award in 2011, Is the U.S. Headed Toward a
Budget Surplus? 24/7 Wall St, http://247wallst.com/economy/2014/07/09/isthe-u-s-headed-toward-a-budget-surplus/, Accessed 7/13/14, MX)
The last time the United States had a budget surplus was in 2001,
according the White House. Unimaginably, it may have one again, and
within a very few years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
recently estimated that the federal deficit through the first nine
months was $366 billion, which was significantly better than the
$510 billion deficit for the same period during the 2013 fiscal year.
The primary reason for the improvement was receipts, which improved by
$172 billion.

US deficit is declining
Taylor 7/13 (Andrew Taylor, journalist for Associated Press, 7/13/14, US
deficit in 2014 forecast to drop by US$100 billion: White House, The China
Post,
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/americas/2014/07/13/412241/USdeficit.htm, Accessed 7/13/14, MX)
The U.S. government's budget deficit will drop to US$583
billion this year, the lowest level of President Barack Obama's tenure, the White House said Friday.
Last year's deficit was US$680 billion. The latest update from the White House budget
WASHINGTON --

office is also US$66 billion less than the administration predicted earlier this year when releasing the
president's budget. Obama presided over trillion-dollar-plus deficits during his first term as the economy
struggled to recover from a deep recession and financial crisis. Attempts to strike deals on spending cuts
and revenue increases with GOP leaders such as House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio have failed, though

Obama was successful in muscling through a tax increase on wealthier

earners in early 2013. Tight spending on annual agency budgets is also
responsible for lower deficits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office projects an even lower deficit of US$492 billion for the budget
year ending Sept. 30. Under the president's leadership, the deficit
has been cut by more than half as a share of the economy, representing
the most rapid sustained deficit reduction since World War II, and it continues to fall, said
acting White House budget director Brian Deese. At the same time, our
economy is moving forward and businesses are creating jobs. Businesses have added nearly 10 million
new jobs over the past 52 months.

Budget Surplus now

AP, 7/11/14 (7/11/14, Untied Sttaes Records 71 Billion Budget Surplus in
June, http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/united-states-records-71-billionbudget-surplus-in-june-557217, AL)

Washington: The US government ran a monthly budget surplus in June, putting it

on course to record the lowest annual deficit since 2008. The Treasury Department said Friday that its

June surplus totaled $71 billion, following a $130 billion deficit in

May. The government also ran a surplus in June 2013, bolstered by dividends from Fannie Mae, the

mortgage giant under federal conservatorship for the past six years. For the first nine months of this
budget year, the deficit totals $366 billion, down 28 percent from the same period in 2013. Tax receipts are

The
Congressional Budget Office is forecasting a deficit of $492 billion
for the full budget year ending Sept. 30. That would be the
narrowest gap since 2008. In 2008, the government recorded a deficit of $458.6 billion,
up 8 percent compared to the prior year-to-date, while spending has increased 1 percent.

which was the record high for deficits up to that time. But with the outbreak of the recession, deficits
soared to unprecedented levels, exceeding $1 trillion for four consecutive years. Tax revenues fell during
that period, while government boosted spending in an attempt to stabilize the financial system and
provide relief to people who had lost jobs. The yearly deficit peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009 during the
worst of the financial crisis. It gradually fell from there, plunging to $680.2 billion last year. Over the next

The deficit will fall to $469

billion in 2015 before rising again and topping $1 trillion annually starting
in 2023, according to the CBO. Spending on the government's major benefit programs, including Social
decade, CBO is projecting that the deficits will total $7.6 trillion.

Security and Medicare, will drive those increases as more baby boomers retire.

Fiscal Discipline now

Sparshott, Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, 1/13/14
(Jeffrey, 1/13/14, US Posts December Budget Surplus of $53.22 Billion,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230359540457931874
2766736128, AL)
WASHINGTONThe federal

government posted a budget surplus in

December after mortgage giants Fannie Mae FNMA -0.25% and Freddie Mac FMCC +0.25%
posted big payments to the Treasury, further narrowing the deficit in
the first quarter of the fiscal year. Revenues outpaced spending by $53.22 billion
in December, the first surplus for the month since the 2007 fiscal year and the biggest on record.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had forecast a $44.5 billion
surplus. Federal finances have been improving steadily as spending
remains contained and revenues rise. Federal revenue climbed by 8% to

$664.60 billion in the first three months of the latest fiscal year. Individual income and payroll taxes
accounted for the bulk of the increase, largely a result of higher tax rates that kicked in during the 2013

Spending fell 8% in the first quarter to $838.20 billion, in large part because
of improving finances at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two companies
calendar year.

paid $39.57 billion to the Treasury at the end of last year. Because of the way the government accounts for

The latest
budget figures follow trends from 2013, when the deficit fell below
$1 trillion for the first time in five years. The $680.28 billion shortfall for the full year
the funds, they are deducted from spending, rather than included in revenues.

was down by more than one-third from 2012 as a slowly recovering economy and higher tax rates boosted
receipts. U.S. lawmakers in December negotiated a two-year budget
setting a $1.012 trillion spending ceiling for the 2014 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

deal,

Falling deficits but we still need to curb spending

Boccia, Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs,Thomas A.
Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, The Institute for Economic Freedom
and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, Fraser, Heritage Expert, and
Goff, Policy analyst, transportation and infrastructure, Thomas A Roe for
Economic Policy Studies 13
(Romina, Alison, Emily, Federal spending by the numbers, 2013: Government
spending trends in graphics, tables, and key points,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/08/federal-spending-by-thenumbers-2013, AL)
In 2013, federal spending approached $3.5 trillion and the deficit dropped to only
$642 billion. Some are using this small improvement in the nations fiscal situation to avoid further
budget tightening. But as the figures and graphics in this report show, this is the wrong conclusion to draw.
Following four years of trillion-dollar deficits, the national debt will still reach nearly $17 trillion and exceed
100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of the year. Publicly held debt (the debt borrowed
in credit markets, excluding Social Securitys trust fund, for example), is alarmingly high at three-quarters
of GDP. Without further spending cuts, it is on track to rise to a level last seen after World War II.

Deficits fell in 2013 because President Obama and Congress raised taxes on
all Americans, the economy saw slight improvement which helped to
bring in more revenue, and spending cuts from sequestration and spending caps under
the Budget Control Act of 2011 took effect. The nation should not take this short-term
and modest deficit improvement as a signal to grow complacent about reining in exploding spending.

existing spending cuts and tax

increases will not prevent them from rising soon , and within a decade
Though deficits will decline for a few more years,

exceeding $1 trillion once again. Driving this is federal spending which, despite sequestration cuts, will
grow 69 percent by 2023. The nations long-term spending trajectory remains on a fiscal collision course.
Total spending has exploded by 40 percent since 2002, even after inflation. Some programs have grown far
in excess of that. Defense, however, has been slashed. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and
Obamacare are so large and growing that they are on track to overwhelm the federal budget. While the
Budget Control Act of 2011 and sequestration are modestly restraining the discretionary budget,

spendingincluding entitlementscontinues growing nearly unabated.

Without any changes, mandatory spending, including net interest, will consume
three-fourths of the budget in just one decade.
mandatory

Deficits decreasing now

John, Staff Writer at The Wire, 14

(Arit, 7/11/14, This years deficit will probably be the smallest since 2008,
http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/07/this-years-deficit-will-probably-bethe-smallest-since-2008/374322/, AL)

The federal government ran on a $71 billion surplus in June, putting the
country on track for the lowest deficit since 2008, according to The Associated Press. For
the first nine months of fiscal year 2014 the deficit was $366 billion, 28
percent lower than it was at this point last year. The Congressional Budget
Office estimates that the deficit will be $492 billion, the lowest deficit since
2008's $459 billion ($498 billion counting inflation). Meanwhile, the White House
gave a more conservative estimate of a $583 billion deficit, according to the AP.
That still puts the deficit down nearly $100 billion from $680 billion last
year. If you've been following the ebb and flow of the deficit, you know that last fiscal year was the first
time the deficit was as low as its been since 2008, and down from the trillion dollar deficits of every year of
Obama's presidency. In October The Wire laid out how to argue about the decreased based on your

Republicans credit the sequester and decreased spending and

Democrats credit their policies. The difference is that, so far this year, revenues have
political beliefs:

increased 8 percent and spending has also gone up 1 percent.

Budget Surplus coming

Pyke, Deputy Economic Policy Editor for ThinkProgress.org, 14
(Alan, 1/14/14, United States Notches Record $53 Billion Budget Surplus in
December,
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/14/3158271/december-surplusrecord-austerity/, AL)
Revenue exceeded spending by $53 billion in December, a record
budget surplus for the month that reflects the U.S. governments success
at cutting deficits in recent years.
The record surprised analysts, who had expected a $44 billion surplus for the
month. The jump is due in large part to big payments from the
government-backed housing finance agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, according to Bloomberg. Those companies have now paid the
government over $185 billion since they were taken over by
taxpayers in 2008, including $34 billion in December. Rising tax revenues
from the gradually improving economy have also been helping to
shrink deficits in recent years.

Congressional Budget Office plans long term spending

reduction
Shadi 2014(How spending has fallen under Obama By Jeanne Sahadi
@CNNMoney January 27, 2014: 10:18 AM ET,
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/27/news/economy/spending-obama/)

As a share of the economy, spending on domestic and defense programs

has been on the decline since 2010, and is on track to reach the
lowest level in more than 50 years by 2023. At its height in 2010,
"discretionary spending" under Obama reached 9.1% of GDP. That was largely
due to the stimulus law intended to dig the country out of a deep recession.
But even at that high level, it wasn't that much higher than the 40-year
average of 8.4% and was still below the 40-year peak of 10% reached in
1983. Today, levels are well below the long-term average. And the
Congressional Budget Office projects that by 2023 discretionary
spending will fall to 5.3% of GDP, the lowest since 1962.

New fiscal policy plans on cutting $5 trillion in federal

spending over the next decade
OKeefe 2014(BY ED OKEEFE April 1, OKeefe holds a Bachelor of political
science from American University. Paul Ryans final budget plan would slash
$5 trillion in next decade http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paulryans-final-budget-plan-would-slash-5-trillion-in-nextdecade/2014/04/01/9ee12c04-b9ba-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html)
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) introduced a
budget proposal Tuesday that would cut more than $5 trillion in
federal spending over the next decade, primarily by effectively repealing
President Obamas signature health-care law and greatly reducing funding for
social programs. The 99-page plan is Ryans last manifesto on government
austerity as head of the Budget Committee. He has emerged as the GOPs
leading light on fiscal policy in recent years, but he is term-limited as
head of the budget panel and vying to become chairman of the tax-writing
Ways and Means Committee next year while considering a 2016 presidential
bid. Congress approved a bipartisan two-year budget agreement late
last year, but Ryan said he drafted a separate proposal because the
current plan is nowhere near what we need to cut spending.

Links

Exploration General
Exploring ocean depths is expensive and pointless
Carlyle 13 (Ryan Carlyle, BSChE; Subsea Hydraulics Engineer, 1/31/14,
Why Dont We Spend More on Exploring the Oceans, Rather than on Space
Exploration? Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/01/31/whydont-we-spend-more-on-exploring-the-oceans-rather-than-on-spaceexploration/, Accessed 7/7/14, MX)
So as someone whose job deals with exploring the ocean deeps see my answer to Careers: What kinds
of problems does a subsea hydraulics engineer solve? I can tell you that the ocean is excruciatingly

The vast majority of the seafloor once you get >50 miles offshore
is barren, featureless mud. On face, this is pretty similar to the empty expanses of outer space, but in
boring.

space you can see all the way through the nothing, letting you identify targets for probes or telescopes.
The goals of space exploration are visible from the Earth, so we can dream and imagine reaching into the

in the deep oceans, visibility is less than 100 fee t and travel
speed is measured in single-digit knots. A simple seafloor survey to
run a 100 mile pipeline costs a cool $50 million. The oceans are vast,
boring, and difficult/expensive to explore so why bother? Sure, there are beautiful
heavens. But

and interesting features like geothermal vents and coral reefs. But throughout most of the ocean these are
few and far between. This is a pretty normal view from a subsea robot:

Deep sea research is expensive

Arico 12 (Salvatore Arico, Programme Specialist for Biodiversity at
UNESCO, 21/5/12, Deep sea: the last frontier, Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission, Accessed 7/8/14, MX)
Deep-sea research is a costly business. From interviews with deep-sea scientists and
administrators, it would seem that the cost of sampling operations by a manned deepsea vehicle down to a depth of a few thousand metres and back to the surface can be as high as
US$l million per day, excluding maintenance costs. Although costs are steadily

decreasing due to greater efficiency, reliability and simplicity in operating deep-sea equipment, they
remain relatively high. If it is true that scientific collaboration has involved a non-trivial number of
scientists from developing countries, these are normally visiting scientists. Moreover, developing countries
lack the necessary capabilities, including in terms of knowledge and skills, to handle land-based deep-sea
research, with the notable exception of molecular biology techniques, which have become increasingly

Deep-sea research therefore remains an extravagance

only a handful of countries and companies can afford.
available worldwide.

Observing the Ocean Floor is expensive

Witze 13 (Alexandra Witze, Earth reporter for Science News and Nature,

9/25/13, Marine science: Oceanography's billion-dollar baby, Nature,

http://www.nature.com/news/marine-science-oceanography-s-billion-dollarbaby-1.13803, Accessed 7/7/14, MX)
Delaney is the architect behind a 925-kilometre network of fibreoptic cable and instruments being installed on the seabed off the
coast of Washington and Oregon. If all goes according to plan, these will stream real-time
data back to shore by 2015, delivering some of the first live video footage of an underwater volcano
erupting, hydrothermal vents growing and clouds of microbes billowing from the sea floor. The cabled
network is a key part of the massive US Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), which aims to create a flood
of continuous information from select sites. Oceanographers have long relied on brief glimpses of data
from single research cruises or isolated buoys or moorings. The OOI, and Delaney, aim to exchange those

flashes of insight for a constant spotlight. The goal is to launch an era of scientific discovery, Delaney
says, thumping his fist on the ship's deck rail. This is a game-changer.Many

US

oceanographers have not yet considered just how the OOI's broad scope and potential might
affect their research. But some who have been watching its development closely warn that the
project is an expensive gamble. Construction costs will run to
US$386 million, and the programme will then consume about $55
million per year for operations and maintenance. By the end of its
planned 25-year lifetime, the OOI will have cost nearly $1.8 billion
an unprecedented price tag in oceanography. The running costs will eat up about
one-sixth of the annual budget for ocean sciences at the US National
Science Foundation (NSF), and that proportion could increase. That money is being
pulled right out of what could otherwise be allocated for peer-reviewed science, says Charles Eriksen, an
oceanographer at the University of Washington who is not involved with the project. Critics also complain

the OOI sites cover only a fraction of a per cent of the world's
oceans.
that

Deep-sea marine research requires expensive technology

Ben-Avraham 13 (Zvi, 11/19/2013, Professor at Haifa University and
renowned researcher in the field of geosciences, THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
RESEARCH CENTER OF ISRAEL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA,
http://www.haifa-univ.ca/images/Mediterranean%20Sea%20Research
%20Center%20of%20Israel.pdf)
Deep-sea marine research is difficult and complex, even with todays advanced technologies.

Investigating the deep-sea floor requires expensive infrastructures

that can withstand pressure at great depths and are difficult to
finance and maintain. Most of Israels marine research infrastructure is non-existent or
antiquated at best. Deep sea marine research is dependent on purchasing
expensive deep sea exploration equipment (such as manned and
unmanned submersibles, trawls and towed camera platforms),
upgrading our national marine research infrastructure, securing
appropriate levels of technical support and ensuring ongoing
maintenance.

Deep sea-research is expensive

Etnoyer 09 (Peter, 8/11/2009, Marine Biologist at NOAA, The Policy and
Politics of Deep Sea Corals,
http://deepseanews.com/2009/08/policy-behind-deep-sea-corals/)

Obamas FY 2010 budget seeks an increase of $1 million to $2.5

million, and Hourigan says the increase which Congress seems likely to approve will enable the new
program to expand its research to the West Coast. But deep-sea research is expensive,
and $2.5 million does not go far when it costs several hundred
thousand dollars just to lease an ROV for a few weeks of field work.
President

One deep sea research ship would cost approx. $6.5

million
Ruth 06 (Laura, January 2006, Biotechnology Expert, Gambling in the
deep sea, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1369241/)

One reason why academic scientists and institutions team up with

commercial partners is the high cost of deep-sea research. Few
countries can afford dedicated academic deep-sea research
programmes and equipment such as specialized ships and
submarines (see Fig 3): namely the USA and Japan, although France, the UK and Russia also have
deep-sea research capabilities. A 30-day expedition cruise costs roughly US$1
million, with an average daily operating cost of about US$30,000.
Diversa, which collaborates with Deep Ocean Expeditions, estimate
its annual costs to be approximately US$56.5 million to operate the
RV Akademik Keldysh ship, owned and operated by the PP Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Moscow,
Russia. These high costs usually require academic and commercial partnershipsacademic institutions
have the equipment and the knowledge, and the commercial partners provide funds and other useful
capabilities.

Federal dollars for deep sea research unpopular because

of maintenance costs
Schrope 13 (Mark, 5/27/2013, Mark Schrope is a freelance writer and

editor based in Florida, Wealthy backers support scientific efforts to explore

deep seas, http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/wealthybackers-support-scientific-efforts-to-explore-deep-seas/2013/05/24/486c6430b716-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html)
Funding pure ocean exploration - going where no person has gone before - has
always been hard for researchers. Federal agencies do support
exploratory work, but they generally award grants to pursue
answers to well-formed questions. This can create a Catch-22, in which scientists don't
know which questions to ask until they get into unexplored areas. Beginning in 2001, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had an Ocean
Exploration program that provided grants for open-ended work, but
the program's priorities have shifted toward more limited work aboard
the agency's exploration vessel Okeanos Explorer. Most oceanographers rely on
support from the National Science Foundation, but its budget, level
at best for several years, has had to deal with rising fuel prices and
other costs required to maintain its fleet of research vessels, leaving
less available for grants. The challenge of raising money for sea
exploration "is the hardest it's ever been in my career," says Edith Widder, a deepsea biologist and founder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association in Fort Pierce, Fla.

Coral Reefs
Restoring coral reefs with cultures is either expensive or a
failure
Edwards and Gomez 07 (Alasdair J. Edwards, Edgardo D. Gomez,
Professor of Coral Reef Ecology; PhD in Zoology; BA in Natural Sciences, PhD
in Marine Biology; BA in English, Reef Restoration Concepts & Guidelines:
Making sensible management choices in the fact of uncertainty, pg 15, MX)
Methods for both asexual and sexual propagation of large numbers of corals have now been successfully

the main scientific unknown is

whether the cultured corals can be successfully deployed on
degraded reefs and will survive well there. The cheapest option for transplantation is to
transplant directly: culture may make better use of coral material but it
does so at a financial cost. The more sophisticated the culture, the
greater the costs: also, the longer the time in culture, the greater the
costs (Figure 7). Reef restoration is already expensive compared to
seagrass or mangrove restoration. Thus the drive is towards low-cost methods, and
maximizing the efficiency and cost- effectiveness of coral culture is a key challenge. Ex situ culture
in aquaria is generally more expensive than in situ culture in the sea in
either mid-water or benthic nurseries. However, survivorship of very early stages
or very small transplants (e.g. nubbins of <5-10 mm diameter) is generally only
satisfactory in ex situ aquaria. There are thus a range of trade-offs
between survival, type of culture, and costs, which are as yet not
well quantified.
demonstrated. As will be seen from the discussions below,

Coral reef restoration is expensive

Spurgeon and Lindahl 2k (James P.G. Spurgeon, Ulf Lindahl, Head of
Sustain Value; BSc in Zoology, PhD, 2000, Economics of Coral Reef
Restoration, Ocean Docs,
http://www.oceandocs.net/bitstream/1834/564/1/cesar_12.pdf, Accessed
7/7/14, MX, note: ha = hectare)
This chapter provides an introduction to the economics of coral reef
restoration. A comparison of coral restoration schemes from four
countries indicates that costs can vary from some US$ 13,000 per ha
to over a hundred million US$ per ha. However, it also reveals that cost
estimates in the literature are not readily comparable, and that many
cost components of restoration are ignored. Little work has been
conducted into the potential benefits of coral restoration. This issue is briefly
considered with reference to the case studies. The chapter suggests that a
benefit-cost analysis approach should be used more often to help assess the
justification for coral reef restoration and to improve the elliciency of any
such expendi- ture. It is clear that a greater understanding of the
economics and biology of coral reef restoration is required, as well as
consideration of alternative management options, before being able to
determine with confidence whether coral reef restora- tion really is an
effective use of available funds.

Desalination
Ocean desalination is expensive
Food and Water Watch 07 (Food and Water Watch, Food & Water
Watch is a non-profit organization that advocates for common sense policies
that will result in healthy, safe food and access to safe and affordable
drinking water, September 2007, TOP TEN REASONS TO OPPOSE OCEAN
DESALINATION,
http://coldmoon.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/top10desal.pdf)
2. its expensive. Ocean desalinated water is the most expensive water
supply. To produce ocean desal water it costs at least 5 times what
conserved water costs. Conservation can be as little as zero for lifestyle
changes to $250 per acre-foot, according to the San Diego County Water
Authority, while the full costs of implementing ocean desal including
infrastructure could be as high as $3,000 per acre-foot. An acre-foot of
Water is 326,000 gallons, or approximately a third of a million gallons. An
acre-foot is approximately enough Water for four families of four for one year.
The fill cost of operation of desal is still being debated since we have no track
record with an operating large-scale plant in the U.S. Ocean desal requires
multiple subsidies of both water and electricity to try to break even,
as well as high upfront construction, and long-term operation and
maintenance costs. Some proponents, such as CAL AM's Coastal Water
Project in the Monterey area and Elkhorn Slough, are requesting upfront rate
increases to provide for construction of the plant before producing any water.

Ocean desalination costs twice as much as imported water

Cavanaugh 13 (Kerry, Editorial Writer at Los Angeles Times, November
13th, 2013 Desalination isn't the answer to California's water problem,
/articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/13/news/la-ol-ocean-water-desalination20131112)
Ocean water desalination doesnt pencil out. Its far too expensive to
produce potable water from seawater about $2,000 an acre foot,
compared to about $1,000 an acre foot for imported water. It
requires a tremendous amount of energy to purify saltwater. And
there are potentially serious environmental impacts from sucking in
millions of gallons of ocean water and pumping the leftover brine
back into the ocean. Thats why Long Beach shelved plans for a
desalination project with the Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power. Its a lot cheaper to conserve water or recycle it. In fact,
Orange County has a model water recycling operation down the road
in Fountain Valley, where sewage water is purified in a treatment
plant and then pumped to large ponds to percolate into the
groundwater supply. This costs about $900 an acre foot and uses
one-third the amount of electricity of a desalination plant, according
to the Orange County Water District. And it reuses wastewater
rather than sticking a straw in the ocean. Climate change will affect
the reliability of Californias water supply. Utilities throughout the

state should be thinking about how to use less water imported from
Northern California and the Colorado River, and developing
homegrown water through recycling and conservation.
Desalination should be a last resort.

Drilling
All forms or Oil Drilling is expensive There is no reason
offshore is different
Flower 12 (Merlin Flower, Editor in Chief for oil-price.net, 12/16/09, Oil

Drilling an Expensive Business, OIL-PRICE.NET, http://www.oilprice.net/en/articles/oil-drilling-expensive-business.php, Accessed 7/5/14, MX)

this could rank as one of the riskiest
ventures-oil drilling. Here's a sampler for what we are talking about from Mukluk Island: In
1983, twelve companies spent nearly $2 billion drilling for oil in the
Beaufort Sea, North of Alaska. The exploration was based on oil stains
found. But the well turned out to be a dry hole with no oil. Little wonder then
that oil drilling is risky and expensive . According to Arizona Geological Survey, Oil
drilling in Arizona costs between $400,000 to $1,000,000 , depending on the
depth of the hole and its location. A rig capable of drilling most exploratory holes
typically costs $8,000-15,000 per day . Well then, why is drilling for oil so
expensive? It is because of some of the costs involved: Payments for the
contractors, welders, engineers, supervisors, mud loggers,
geologists, scientists Personnel for drilling, logging, cementing,
casing and other logistics Clearing all the dues with the landowner
(territorial payments if offshore), payment of taxes, fee for attorney, permit to
drill the well Costs for maintenance: There will be three shifts with personnel employed
24 hours a day, so amenities for the crew like motels, restaurants,
transport, water and food.
Among all the undertakings in the world,

Offshore Oil Drilling is the most expensive form of drilling

(meh)
Schaefer 12 (Keith Schaefer, editor and publisher of the Oil & Gas
Investments Bulletin; degree in journalism, 3/14/12, Investing in Offshore
Drilling & Deepwater Exploration, Oil and Gas Investments Bulletin,
http://oilandgas-investments.com/2012/investing/offshore-drilling-explorationinvesting/, Accessed 7/5/14, MX)
Offshore drilling is the most complex and expensive way of accessing
oil and gas reserves, particularly when it comes to deep water and
ultra-deep water exploration activities. While presenting the industry with its biggest
challenges, deep water exploration and development yields the greatest potential rewards and healthy

The rising complexity and costs of

such endeavours demands huge capital investments, long term commitments,
profit margins to the oil service companies involved.

higher efficiencies and a growing reliance on technology in order to reduce uncertainties.The market
fundamentals for oil service companies remain solid, oil prices are stubbornly holding their ground above
$100 per barrel in a tough macroeconomic environment. The resiliency of high oil prices is fuelling
increasing exploration and production spending by operators as the industry pushes further offshore into
ever-deeper water. By 2020, offshore oil production is expected to account for 34% of the global output up
from 25% in 1990. Offshore drilling companies are seeing a significant increase in tenders and requests
from customers, particularly for the ultra-deep water rigs which are commanding higher daily rates for its
units. The brightening outlook mirrored by record backlog orders and rising rates encouraged the industry
to focus on adding new equipment in all market segments in a bid to provide the most versatile fleets of
mobile offshore drilling units. Jack-up rigs are mobile, self-elevating drilling platforms that are towed by
tugboats to the drill site with water depth of up to 400 feet. Jack-Ups are equipped with tubular structure
legs that are lowered to the sea floor where jacking elevates the hull above the water surface before

drilling operations begin. Semi-submersible rigs operate in a semi-submerged position with the lower hull
ballasted down below the waterline. The rig consists of a deck which contains working areas, equipment
and living quarters that is able to carry drilling operations in deep and ultra-deep waters of up to 10,000
feet in water depth. Drill Ships are self-propelled ships equipped for drilling in water depths in which jackup rigs are incapable of working. They can drill in deep and ultra-deep waters in up to 12,000 feet of water

oil prices have also spurred a construction boom in drilling

rigs; the cost for a drilling ship easily surpasses $600M per unit
where it is leased at $500k/day or more on 2 or 3 year contracts. The
depth. Rising

Jack-up market is seeing increased demand in Mexico, the North Sea, the Middle East and Asia while the
floaters market which includes ultra-deep water rigs has been improving markedly in Brazil, Africa and the
Gulf of Mexico.

Offshore Drilling is expensive

Gagliardi 13 (Lou Gagliardi, Guest blogger, 2/7/13, Why oil and gas

drilling is going deeper and further offshore, The Christian Science Monitor,
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0702/Why-oiland-gas-drilling-is-going-deeper-and-further-offshore, Accessed 7/5/14, MX)
remote basins may hold the promise of
significant deposits of hydrocarbons with 200 million barrels or more of recoverable reserves.
The added incentive here is that these more

This is attractive for the Majors, since it affords them with economies of scale, the ability to lower their

Unfortunately, these
types of discoveries are occurring in more remote, highly technically
difficult, and highly expensive to produce regions, areas of deeper
waters further offshore, and in areas of extreme wind and
temperatures such as the Arctic. Indeed, the cost of a deepwater exploratory
and production rig operating in ultra-deep waters over 7,000 feet today is
averaging over U.S. $500,000 per day, with other deep water rigs
operating in less than 7,000 ft. commanding from U.S. $300,000 to $400,000 per day.
operating cost per barrel, and produce profitably in very high cost areas.

Offshore Wind
Offshore wind is expensive
Goreham 13 (Steve, Executive Director Climate Science Coalition of
America, June 7th 2013, Offshore wind: The enormously expensive energy
alternative,
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/climatism-watchingclimate-science/2013/jun/7/offshore-wind-enormously-expensive-energyalternat/)
CHICAGO, June 7, 2013 The US Department of the Interior announced the first offshore wind energy lease
sale earlier this month. Interior plans a July auction of 164,750 acres off the southern coasts of Rhode
Island and Massachusetts for commercial wind farms. But why are federal and state governments
promoting expensive offshore wind energy? The auction is a continuation of the Smart from the Start
program for expediting offshore wind begun by former Energy Secretary Steven Chu and former Secretary
of the Interior Ken Salazar in 2011. Sally Jewell, the new Secretary of the Interior, has embraced the
program, stating, This is history in the making as we mark yet another major milestone in the Presidents
all-of-the-above energy strategy. Today we are moving closer to tapping into the enormous potential
offered by offshore wind to create jobs, increase our sustainability, and strengthen our nations
competitiveness in this new energy frontier. Several governors joined the chorus for offshore wind.
Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick supports the program, The U.S. Department of Energy projects
20,000 jobs by 2020 in offshore wind. Why not host those jobs here in Massachusetts? Maryland governor
Martin OMalley agreed, Offshore wind is a potential win-win-win for Maryland. Todays vote positions our
State for greater job creation and opportunity, while moving us forward toward securing a more
sustainable energy future. Governors also voicing strong support are Paul LePage of Maine, Pat McCrory of
North Carolina, Bob McDonnell of Virginia, and even Ted Strickland of Ohio, who would place wind turbines
in Lake Erie. In 2010, governors from ten states, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia, signed a Memorandum of
Understanding to establish the Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium to promote offshore wind

offshore wind is enormously expensive. The US

Department of Energy (DOE) estimates the levelized cost of windgenerated electricity at more than double the cost of coal-fired
electricity and more than three times the cost of power from natural
gas. For example, the proposed Cape Wind project off the coast of southeast Massachusetts will initially
development. Unfortunately,

deliver electricity at 18.7 cents per kilowatt-hour with a built-in increase of 3.5 percent per year over a
fifteen-year contract. This is more than triple the wholesale cost of electricity in New England. Offshore
wind is only possible because of generous subsidies, tax breaks, and mandates from government. Today,
38 states offer property tax incentives, 28 states offer sales tax incentives, and 24 states offer tax credits
for renewable energy sources. Twenty-nine states have Renewable Portfolio Standards laws requiring
utilities to buy an increasing share of electricity from renewable sources, including all ten states in the

the US government extended

the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), providing 2.2 cents per kilowatthour for electricity generated from wind. The PTC will cost taxpayers $12 billion
this year. Look for the DOE to offer loan guarantees to offshore wind developers. Altogether,
government incentives pay 30 to 50 percent of the cost of a wind
installation. The consumer pays twice for offshore wind. First,
consumer taxes fund wind energy subsidies and tax breaks. Second,
states like Massachusetts force utilities to buy high-cost offshore wind
electricity, which then increase electricity rates so the consumer
pays again. At the same time, were in the midst of a hydrocarbon revolution. Advances in hydraulic
Offshore Wind Energy Consortium. At the start of the year,

fracturing and horizontal drilling will provide more than 100 years of natural gas at current usage rates.
With electricity from natural gas at less than one-third the price of offshore wind, why the support for
offshore wind from our political leaders? Electricity from your wall outlet is standard voltage and current.
No one can tell the difference between electricity from hydrocarbon sources or green sources such as
wind. Would governors Patrick and OMalley repurchase their current car at three times the price? Wind
energy backers claim that if the government subsidizes wind systems, the cost will come down. But that
idea is false. Wind turbines are not new technology. After 25 years of installations, about 185,000 wind
turbine towers were operating across the world at the end of 2011. Wind technology is already well down

data from the DOE shows that the installed cost

of US wind systems has been rising, not falling. Installed costs have
risen 65 percent over the last six years, from $1,300 per kilowatt in
2004 to over $2,100 per kilowatt in 2010.
the cost learning curve. In fact,

Wind and solar thermal electricity are way more

expensive than fossil fuels
Wald 09 (Matthew L., 3/28/2009, Reporter at The New York Times, where
he has been writing about energy topics for 30 years, Cost Works Against
Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources in Time of Recession,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/business/energyenvironment/29renew.html?_r=0)
wind and solar power are generally more expensive than the
fossil fuels they are meant to supplant. If carbon dioxide penalties made coal power
And

more expensive, as some environmentalists argue is inevitable, the relative cost of renewable energy
might decrease. But consumers will still pay more. One big question is how much it currently costs
companies to produce coal-fired energy, and the answers are often colored by ideology or self-interest.
Companies that sell coal or rely on coal-fired electricity often pick a low number; environmentalists cite the
indirect costs to society, like strip mining or spills of coal ash. And since the electricity industry became
more competitive, the utilities, even municipal ones, have become more secretive about their costs. Some

experts not aligned with either camp estimate that wind power is currently
more than 50 percent more expensive than power generated by a
traditional coal plant. Built into the calculation is the need for
utilities that rely heavily on wind power to build backup plants fired
by natural gas to meet electricity demand when winds are calm.

Another obstacle to nailing the numbers is that prices for coal and natural gas go through market swings. If
the price of natural gas gets high enough, wind could look cheap by comparison, but right now natural gas
is down sharply a sign that the recession will not be kind to renewable energy. Organizations that
profess to be neutral about what new technology gets built suggest that renewable energy probably has a
steep hill to climb. For example, the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit consortium financed by

in
2015, wind energy would cost nearly one-third more than coal and
about 14 percent more than natural gas. The cost of solar thermal
electricity, made by using the suns heat to boil water and spin a turbine, would be nearly
three times that of coal and more than twice that of natural gas. (It
investor- and publicly-owned utilities, predicted in November that even for plants coming on line

would be almost double the cost of wind energy, too.)

Renewable energy subsidies waste money and hurt

governments
Michaels 12 (Patrick J., December 2011, Senior fellow at the Cato Institute
and a senior research fellow for policy and economic development at George
Mason University, Sustainability Is Too Expensive,
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2011/12/sustainability_is
_too_expensive.html)

Former Washington Redskins quarterback Sunny Jurgenson, now a sportscaster, often derides the so-called
prevent defense by saying, the prevent defense doesnt. Ditto for sustainability. It does not

spends resources that would much more likely go into market

efficiency. It wastes public monies and costs jobs. This is obvious
when examining the economics of the environmentalists favorite sustainable or
renewable energy sources, solar power and windmills. According to the
Energy Information Administrations 2011 summary, the total cost per megawatt-hour
sustain. It

of an average of solar thermal and photovoltaic will exceed four

times that of advanced combined-cycle natural gas in 2016. For
combined onshore and offshore wind, the cost exceeds 2.5 times
that of gas. Spain has already demonstrated the unsustainability
of sustainable distributed energy. The government bought support there by paying
everyone who placed a solar panel on his or her roof an exorbitant amount. According to Gabriel Calzada,

each green job that was created cost

approximately $800,000 per year. Soon the solar subsidies began to
gnaw away at Spains economy, and they were drastically reduced.
Spains unemployment now stands at 21 percent, and there is a
chance the government will default on its sovereign debt. Throwing
money at solar energy and windmills has real costs and economic
consequences that reverberate worldwide. People may tell pollsters they favor
of Spains King Juan Carlos University,

sustainable projects, but they dont buy them. Fewer than 7,000 private individuals have purchased the
Chevrolet Volt, despite state and federal subsidies that approach $10,000 per car and that are transferred

All sustainability does is reward inefficiency and

promote development of politically correct technologies people do
not want. As the people of Spain and the stockholders of General Motors (that would be you, reader)
to the purchaser.

know, sustainable development isnt.

OTEC
OTEC costs at least 80 million
Ocean Energy Council 14 (Ocean Energy Council, A not for profit
organization dedicated to the development and implementation of ocean
energy, March 2014, Examining the future of Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion,
http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/examining-future-ocean-thermal-energyconversion/)
Despite the sound science, a fully functioning OTEC prototype has yet to be developed. The high costs of
building even a model pose the main barrier. Although piecemeal experiments have proven the

Vega of the
estimated in an OTEC summary
presentation that a commercial-size five-megawatt OTEC plant could
cost from 80 to 100 million dollars over five years. According to Terry
Penney, the Technology Manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the combination of
cost and risk is OTECs main liability. Weve talked to inventors and other
constituents over the years, and its still a matter of huge capital
investment and a huge risk, and there are many [alternate forms of
energy] that are less risky that could produce power with the same
certainty, Penney told the HPR.
effectiveness of the individual components, a large-scale plant has never been built. Luis
Pacific International Center for High Technology Research

OTEC is expensive, even developers say so

Lockheed Martin 13 (Lockheed Martin Corporation, 6/20/13, US
Patent & Trademark Office, http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?

Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html
&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=20130153171.PGNR., Accessed 7/3/14, MX)
Each of the thermal processes includes a heat exchanger which is generally used to transfer heat from
steam or humid air to cooler seawater. By transferring heat from the steam or humid air, freshwater

in the case of OTEC,

expensive materials drive up heat exchanger capital costs and often
eliminate the thermal desalination process from consideration . Large
condenses onto the heat transfer surfaces of the heat exchanger. As

heat exchangers are required for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) for producing power based on
the temperature difference between deep seawater and seawater near the surface of the ocean. A closed
Rankine cycle using ammonia as the working fluid is commonly used in OTEC. Warm seawater is used to
transfer heat to the boil liquid ammonia in the evaporator of the Rankine cycle. The cold seawater is used
to remove heat from ammonia gas during a substantially constant pressure transfer of heat from the
ammonia gas as it condenses in the condenser. Both the evaporator and the condenser each comprise one

Expensive corrosion resistant metals are normally required for

these heat exchangers since sea water is corrosive. The ammonia working fluid is used in the
or more heat exchangers.

discussed application, but is incompatible with alloys containing copper, and titanium has been cited as
the baseline material in past studies for OTEC plants but this idea is not restricted to ammonia as the
working fluid. Many of the heat exchangers employ shell and tube technology; while others incorporate

The expensive materials drive up the capital

expenditure associated with OTEC heat exchangers to largely
restrict locations where plants can be economically deployed.
more compact plate-fin geometries.

Material cost for OTEC is expensive

Energy.gov 13 (Energy.gov, 8/16/13, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
Basics, Energy.gov, http://energy.gov/eere/energybasics/articles/oceanthermal-energy-conversion-basics, Accessed 7/7/14, MX)

OTEC works best when the temperature difference between the warmer, top
layer of the ocean and the colder, deep ocean water is about 36F (20C). These conditions exist in
tropical coastal areas, roughly between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. To bring the
cold water to the surface, ocean thermal energy conversion plants require an
expensive, large-diameter intake pipe, which is submerged a mile or
more into the ocean's depths.

Wave Power
Wave and Tidal Power are more expensive than other
forms of clean energy
Fehrenbacher 09 (Katie Fehrenbacher, Senior Writer and Editor for

GigaOM; has been covering green tech for 5 years, 5/8/09, Why Wave and
Tidal Power Are Lost At Sea It's Darn Expensive, GigaOM,
http://gigaom.com/2009/06/08/why-wave-and-tidal-power-are-lost-at-seadarn-expensive/, Accessed 7/5/13, MX)
wave and tidal power installations have
been largely stuck in the pilot stage bigger projects in particular have
faced technical glitches and a lack of funding. Tom Konrad over on
AltEnergyStocks points out research done last year showing ocean powers most
vulnerable point: Its one of the most expensive clean energy generation
options out there. Thats according to a study developed last year by
infrastructure consulting firm Black and Veatch (B&V) for the California Renewable
Energy Transmission Initiative, a state initiative focused on research to build transmission
lines for clean power. The report says that within California specifically, wave and
marine current power generation can cost as much as $445 per MWH
and $410 per MWH, respectively. Other renewables like wind, solid biomass,
hydroelectric and geothermal have clean energy generation costs
nearing $150 per MWH. Its not ground-breaking info, but the chart shows how stark the
difference is between ocean power and other forms of clean power generation. Ocean power is a
popular idea, given theres so much available ocean space. Politicians like San Francisco Mayor
Despite many companies best efforts,

Gavin Newsom (including via an editorial on our site) have written about how we should invest more in
ocean power to [H]elp secure our future prosperity, create thousands of new jobs and reduce our
dependence on foreign oil, and suggested federal policies to boost the industry. Im all for helping usher
along a technology that has the potential to drop in price ,

but the cost of ocean power

should definitely factor into how much federal support this industry gets.

Ocean wave energy is too expensive projects are getting

abandoned
Boddie 4/28 (Ken Boddie, Anchor and reporter for KOIN 6, 4/28/14, Ocean
wave energy project abandoned due to costs, KOIN 6,
http://koin.com/2014/04/28/ocean-wave-energy-project-abandoned-duecosts/, Accessed 7/5/14, MX)

The company behind a project meant to harness the oceans energy to

create electricity for Oregon has backed out after an expensive setback.
Ocean Power Technology built a 26-ton buoy, which is lodged at Vigor Shipyards
on Swan Island, that was supposed to create electric from ocean waves for
Oregonians much like a buoy the company deployed in Scotland. The company decided to
abandon the buoy project in Oregon after nearly $9 million dollars of
mostly federal government funds were spent on it partly because they could not
afford to finish it. Instead, the company is moving its work to Australia,
which gave them $62 million for the same project . However, KOIN 6 News Ken
Boddie learned Oregon is out $430,000 in lottery funds for Ocean Power
Technologys abandoned project.

Ocean energy is the most expensive form of renewable

energy
Mercurio 5/13 (Richmond Mercurio, Reporter at Peoples Independent
Media, 5/13/14, Ocean Energy Fails to Make Waves, Malaya Business
Insights, http://www.malaya.com.ph/business-news/business/ocean-energyfails-make-waves, Accessed 7/5/14, MX)
benchmark investment for ocean energy projects is about $5
million per megawatt (MW), making it among the most expensive
renewable energy projects to construct at present. Investment for solar is
currently placed at $3 million per MW, wind at $2.5 to $3.5 million
per MW, hydro at $2.5 to $3 million per MW, and biomass at $2.8 to
$3 million per MW. The technology for ocean power is proven to work but it is
still very expensive, Cerezo said. Mario Marasigan, DOEs Renewable Energy Management
Cerezo said

Bureau director, however, said the Philippines is not alone in its dilemma when it comes to ocean energy
given that the industry is still at its nascent stage. There are very limited ocean energy installations in the
world, commercialization is difficult. Also, pricing mechanism is difficult to establish without sufficient basis
and with limited comparative studies not only in the Philippines but also around the world, Marasigan

Ocean energy capacity in commercial operations worldwide to

date is only about 527 MW, with France currently having the largest existing ocean power
said.

facility with a generating capacity of 240 MW.

Whaling
Scientific whaling programs are expensive and
unnecessary
Normile 13 (Dennis Normile, Contributing Correspondent, 6/1/13, Japan's

Scientific Whaling: An Expensive Proposition, Science Insider,

http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2013/02/japans-scientific-whalingexpensive-proposition, Accessed 7/6/14, MX)
Japan's scientific whaling effort has cost taxpayers $378 million since
1987, even as demand for whale meat has shrunk and the research has
proven of little value, according to a report released here on 5 February by the
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). A moratorium has suspended
commercial whaling since 1986, but a clause in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) convention
allows countries to hunt whales for research purposes. The meat can be sold to cover the cost of research,
which in Japan is overseen by the Institute of Cetacean Research located here. Critics contend that

A
quarter century of scientific whaling has shed little light on the
creatures, said IFAW Japan Representative Naoko Funahashi at a press
conference here to unveil the report. "There are very, very few findings which
meet [scientific] aims," said Funahashi, a member of IWC's Scientific
Committee. "Results from 'scientific whaling' are scant ," agrees Leah
Gerber, a marine conservation biologist at Arizona State University, Tempe. She
says she doesn't know of any marine researchersapart from those
involved with the research whaling programs of Japan, Norway, and
Iceland -- who believe that scientific whaling produces valuable
results. A telephone receptionist at the Institute of Cetacean Research said the institute will not
scientific whale hunts by Japan and a few other countries are thinly disguised commercial whaling.

comment on the report and declined to pass the call to public relations or other officials. But other backers
of the scientific whaling program insist it has value. Masayuki Komatsu, a former Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry and Fisheries official who is now at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies here, says
that if the research results are weak, it is because the number of whales taken "is far too small to achieve
scientific significance." Komatsu, who helped plan the scientific whaling program, says the numbers
actually taken in Antarctic waters have been far short of Japan's current official target of 850 minke, 50 fin,
and 50 humpback whales annually. (According to IWC data, the take has come close to those numbers only
once: in 2005, when Japan harvested 866 whales in the Southern Ocean. Japan has also refrained from
taking humpbacks in response to IWC pressure.) Numbers have dropped precipitously in the last 2 years
because of interference by antiwhaling activists. If the planned number of whales could be killed and
analyzed, Komatsu says, the data would shed light on the size and health of stocks, and the interaction of
whales with their prey and the ecosystem. Critics disagree. " It

is well established in the

scientific literature that there are many ways to study whale diet and
condition without killing them," Gerber says. Most IWC science committee
members, Funahashi adds, "do not see any reason to kill whales." Opponents
have also long condemned research whaling on conservation and humanitarian grounds. The IFAW report
seeks to undermine the economic argument. "Whaling

is an economic loser," said

Ramage, IFAW's whale program director, at the press conference. In
addition to an average of $9.8 million a year in subsidies, Japan's
scientific whaling program in 2011 received $28.6 million from a
supplemental budget intended to fund earthquake and tsunami
relief, according to the report compiled by E-Square Inc., a Japanese public interest consultancy hired by
IFAW. In the meantime, whale meat consumption in Japan has slumped to 1%
of its 1960s peak and stockpiles of unsold whale meat have
quadrupled over the past 15 years despite attempts to auction it off at bargain prices.
As a result, the gap is growing between the Institute of Cetacean
Patrick

Research's expenses and its revenues from selling whale meat, states the report,
which adds that the Fisheries Agency of Japan has had to steadily ramp up subsidies for research whaling.

The IFAW investigation shows "that this industry is in the red, that it
is losing money and that it is getting worse every year," Ramage said.

Whaling is just an expensive hobby

Marsland 13(Robbie Marsland, UK Director of the IFAW, 5/14/13,
Icelandic fin whaling - an expensive and dangerous hobby, in more ways
than one, International Fund for Animal Welfare, http://www.ifaw.org/unitedstates/news/icelandic-fin-whaling-expensive-and-dangerous-hobby-moreways-one, Accessed 7/8/14, MX)
Its been a busy week or so for those following the dying whaling industry in Iceland. The lone Icelandic fin

whaler, Kristjan Loftssons boats last killed a fin whale almost three years ago in
2010. At the beginning of May he announced plans to send his boats
out for another season of killing of this endangered species. No-one really knows why he
wants to continue spending a large part of his considerable fortune on killing whales. When he first
recommenced whaling in 2009 he said he would make US $40 million a
year from these bloody efforts. Although his boats killed 273 fin whales in 2009
and 2010 he still hasnt sold all the meat to Japan and he remains resolutely
quiet about whether he is even breaking even from the whaling. All this whale
killing simply appears to be the hobby of a successful businessman
who has a fondness for an industry that captures what he thinks is a sense of being Icelandic. If so, its
an expensive and cruel hobby that threatens the existence of the worlds second largest
whale. It also threatens to drive a damaging wedge between Iceland and potential international allies. The
response to his recent announcement within Iceland also shows that he is driving a wedge between the
tiny number of people who make a living from whaling and those organisations that represent the
enormous tourism and whale watching industry.

Japan stopped whaling for economic purposes

Nasu 4/7 (Hitoshi Nasu, PhD; senior lecturer in law at the Australian

National University, 4/7/14, Japan has bigger problems than an end to

whaling, The Drum, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-07/nasu-japan-hasmore-pressing-problems-than-whaling/5368154, Accessed 7/8/14, MX)
The Japanese government immediately announced its intention to abide by the
ruling and to stop whaling in the Southern Ocean , at least until next year. But why
has Japan so easily and so suddenly abandoned its decades-long whaling program? Under the ruling, Japan
is still allowed to continue so-called "scientific whaling", although in a significantly reduced capacity. Japan
has even threatened to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission on many occasions in the
past. Is it just international pressure that has now forced Japan to end whaling in the Southern Ocean? In
my view, it is a bit naive to believe that, and instead we need to take into consideration Japan's more

the Japanese government did

not have an intention to win this case - or if it did, not as strongly as before. The
domestic market demand for whale meat has remained low despite
various attempts to encourage consumers to buy and cook them at home. The public scandal in 2012
revealing that part of the reconstruction budget in the aftermath of the
Great East Japan Earthquake was spent for a fisheries agency to protect Japan's
whaling fleet from harassment led many people to reconsider the value of
public funding to support expensive whaling activities. The evergrowing government debt that rose to a record high at the end of last year is
another contributing factor that weakened the political interest in
financially supporting whaling activities at the current level.
pressing problems. There has already been speculation that

Zoning
Oceanic surveys and/or zoning is expensive
Boehnert 13 (Jon M. Boehnert, 9/25/13, Rhode Island Property Law,
Zoning the Oceans, http://www.rhodeislandpropertylaw.com/tags/nationalocean-policy/, Accessed 7/3/14, MX)
Ocean zoning is in many ways similar to land based zoning, with which we are all
familiar. In land based zoning, designated areas may be restricted to certain
uses, such as industrial, commercial or residential, and these
restrictions may, and usually do, come with numerous qualifications. The
density, area, specific type of uses, even designs, setbacks, height, location and
other components of facilities are often regulated. Land based zoning may
also have floating zone or overlay districts, as well as provisions for special exceptions or
variances to allow certain types of uses in certain areas only upon meeting certain
qualifications. Similar requirements can be established for coastal
regions. That process usually starts with something called marine spatial
planning, which sounds arcane but really means nothing more than gathering detailed
information about the ecosystems in the study area, the uses that now occur in
the study area, and making recommendations based on the ecology and ecosystems and
current and proposed uses. But this is far more difficult than it sounds, given we are
dealing with coastal areas and open oceans, and with uses, not to mention fish
and marine life, which may move through various areas at different
times of the year. Often the study efforts can be extensive, expensive, and
time consuming.

Internals

Spending BadDowngrade
The time to act is now, any new spending will be
economically damaging.
Boccia, 2013 (Romina Boccia; Senior policy analyst at Roe Institute for

Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, How the United States
High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans; 2/2/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-the-united-states-highdebt-will-weaken-the-economy-and-hurt-americans; Date Accessed 7/3/2014)
By neglecting the regular budget orderthe institutional schedule to
assess government spending and allocate taxpayer dollars with prudenceCongress
and the President are increasingly failing to govern . Congress has only
budgeted when forced to do so. Reaching the debt ceiling should be such an occasion, and Congress
should not delay the decision again on necessary reforms and spending
reductions. The Presidents and Congresss failure to establish a
credible strategy for reining in massive deficits and debts in 2011
led Standard & Poors to downgrade the U.S. credit rating,[22]
Moodys, another major rating agency, warned Congress early in 2013
that failure to provide a basis for meaningful improvement in the
governments debt ratios over the medium term could affect the
rating negatively.[23] Ratings agencies provide important signals to investors about the risks
associated with investing in government bonds. Further downgrades of the U.S. debt and
demand by capital markets will eventually lead to higher interest
rates, whose costs would drive up federal spending and debt even
more. As U.S. debt is quickly approaching economically damaging debt levels , U.S. lawmakers
should delay no more. The time to act is now.

New Spending would cause a downgrade.

Newman 2013 (Rick Newman; the author of Rebounders: How Winners

Pivot From Setback to Success and the co-author of two other books; What
Will Cause the Next U.S. Credit Downgrade; 1/3/2013;
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2013/01/03/what-will-causethe-next-us-credit-downgrade; Date Accessed: 7/3/2014)
Washington still has to axe
hundreds of billions in annual spending to stabilize its finances . Some
A failure to cut spending in 2013. Just about everybody agrees that

hope it will happen as part of a deal to extend the debt ceiling. The problem is that most government
spending actually benefits somebodyseniors, home buyers, the poor, defense contractorsand Congress

Moody's wants to see

spending cuts, and perhaps even more tax hikes, as part of a big budget deal in the first few
has proven itself particularly reluctant to reduce anybody's benefits.

months of 2013 that would convincingly improve the government's long-termfinances. "The debt trajectory
resulting from this process is likely to determine whether the Aaa rating is returned to a stable outlook or

If Congress
continually delays spending cutsthe habit in recent yearsa
downgrade could come by summer. A rise in interest rates. Historically low interest
downgraded," Moody's said in a statement following the January 1 fiscal-cliff deal.

rates are a huge break for taxpayers, because they help keep the interest payments on $16 trillion worth
of national debt lower than they'd otherwise be. If interest rates were to rise, the Treasury would have to
fork over more money to borrow, which would have to come from money spent elsewhere, higher taxes, or
even more borrowing. Standard & Poor's says that higher interest rates are one scenario that could it to
downgrade U.S. debt a second time. The Federal Reserve has considerable power to keep interest rates

low, but it can't necessarily overcome market forces if there's strong upward pressure on rates .

That's
not a problem now, but it could be in the future, especially if
inflation picks up, as some economists expect. A recession. Another
economic downturn would put more people out of work, lower
government revenue from income taxes, and possibly require more federal stimulus
spending. Any of those things would make the U.S. debt burden more
intractable, leading to another downgrade. That's why policymakers are
in such a tricky spot now. They must simultaneously raise taxes and cut spending, but not so
abruptly that it torpedoes the economy. The best plan would be one that phases in adequate austerity
measures over time, so everybody knows what's coming, with minimal disruption today. But that sort of
deftness may be beyond the capabilities of a bare-knuckle Congress.

Spending BadEmpirics
European countries prove that increased spending would
tank the economy.
Boccia, 2013 (Romina Boccia; Senior policy analyst at Roe Institute for

Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, How the United States
High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans; 2/2/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-the-united-states-highdebt-will-weaken-the-economy-and-hurt-americans; Date Accessed 7/4/2014)
Europes Fiscal Crisis: Precursor for the United States? Europe is
experiencing an extended fiscal and economic crisis with no end in
sight. In addition to adopting a common currency regime lacking most of the
institutional trappings necessary for its survival, many countries in Europe
have lived beyond their means for many years. Many racked up
massive government debts while benefiting from artificially low interest
rates, as the euro signaled to markets that all European debts were
alike. The poster child for this behavior, of course, is Greece. Greece racked
up a debt-to-GDP ratio of 145 percent in 2010 and 165 percent in
2011.[18] Not surprisingly, investors eventually lost confidence in
Greeces ability to service its debts. European lawmakers responded in
early 2011 with a combination of a bailout and fiscal austerity. Nevertheless,
Greece defaulted on its debts to the detriment of investors and
other European taxpayers. Many other European countries also
amassed public debts beyond 90 percent of their economiesfor
instance Italy (100 percent) and Portugal (97 percent) in 2011and
are now undergoing wrenching austerity and prolonged recessions.
In addition to disastrous currency policy, these countries also have a
fiscal policy culprit in common: high levels of government spending
on entitlementsa fiscal situation by no means foreign to the U.S.
government.

Japan proves that increased spending has lead to a

suffering economy; the only way for the US to avoid a
similar crisis is to stop spending.
Boccia, 2013 (Romina Boccia; Senior policy analyst at Roe Institute for

Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, How the United States
High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans; 2/2/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-the-united-states-highdebt-will-weaken-the-economy-and-hurt-americans; Date Accessed 7/4/2014)
Avoiding Japans Lost Decades for America Not all countries that build debt mountains suffer from a lack

Japan is arguably the worlds most indebted

major economy, with net public debt at 126 percent of GDP, and yet
creditors continue to lend to the Japanese government. Japan amassed this public debt
to a large extent in the midst of its lost decades1991 to 2010
while falling again and again for the wishful thinking that
government deficits stimulate economic growth. History and
in investor confidence and go into default.

economic fundamentals have shown this thinking to be wrong. This

misguided policy is standing in the way of a Japanese recovery. As The Heritage Foundations Derek

Japans debt is almost entirely domestically financed,

gigantic sums are shifted from the private sector to the
public sector, where the social return on investment is almost nil and
the yields paid on the debt are only slightly better . The huge debt and
oversized government has sapped Japans domestic sources of growth .[19]
Scissors and J. D. Foster explain:
which means

Japan is experiencing a prolonged debt overhang episode with, as yet, no debt crisis drama because
Japanese citizens are prodigious savers. The Japanese mostly owe their debt to themselves as Japanese
citizens have been willing to forgo consumption and have been buying government bonds for a long time,
enabling the Japanese government to accumulate gross debt levels more than twice the size of the

the country suffers from persistently weak

economic growth. The IMF warned the United States and Japan against a further buildup of risk by
failing to lower their debt levels. U.S. policymakers should not allow themselves
to be lulled into complacency by low interest rates. Policymakers must act
now to allow an orderly and controlled mechanism to reduce public
debtnot wait for a sovereign debt crisis to force their hands.[20] A
full-fledged fiscal crisis hits a country with the same force as a
patient suffering severe trauma. However, a no-drama debt overhang that reduces
growth slowly drains the life from the patient, like a long-term disease. The U.S. should not
delay adopting a credible strategy to resolve chronic deficits and
debt, lest it find itself on the stretcher.
Japanese economy. Instead,

Spending BadGrowth
US federal spending creates an economic crisis.
Boccia, 2013 (Romina Boccia; Senior policy analyst at Roe Institute for
Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, How the United States
High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans; 2/2/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-the-united-states-highdebt-will-weaken-the-economy-and-hurt-americans; Date Accessed 7/3/2014)
U.S. federal spending in 2013, combined with depressed receipts from a weak economy, is on
track to result in a deficit of $850 billion. Publicly held debt in the United States will exceed 76 percent of

and chronic deficits are projected to push

U.S. debt to 87 percent of the economy in 10 years.[1] Debt is
projected to grow even more rapidly after 2023. Recent economic research, especially the work
of Carmen Reinhart, Vincent Reinhart, and Kenneth Rogoff, confirms that federal
debt at such high levels puts the United States at risk for a number of
harmful economic consequences, including slower economic growth,
a weakened ability to respond to unexpected challenges, and quite
possibly a debt-driven financial crisis.[2]
gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013,

Spending would increase the possibility of a fiscal crisis.

Boccia, 2013 (Romina Boccia; Senior policy analyst at Roe Institute for

Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, How the United States
High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans; 2/2/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-the-united-states-highdebt-will-weaken-the-economy-and-hurt-americans; Date Accessed 7/3/2014)
future
spending and debt are on track to rise even higher in large part due to increasing
entitlement spending. Academic research shows that advanced economies like
the United States are at risk of significant and prolonged reductions
in economic growth when public debt reaches levels of 90 percent of
GDP. High public debt threatens to drive interest rates up, to crowd out private investment, and to raise price inflation.
America is on a dangerous budget path. Current spending and debt are dangerously high, and

The implications would be severe and pronounced for all Americans, but most especially for the poor, the elderly, and the
middle class. U.S. policymakers should learn from Greece and Japan and avoid a fiscal crisis and economic stagnation

would increase the probability

of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose confidence in
the governments ability to manage the budget and the government
would thereby lose its ability to borrow at affordable rates . Such a
crisis wouldprobably have a very significant negative impact on
the country.-Congressional Budget Office, 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook
brought about by public debt overhang. Growing federal debt also

Any new spending would increase the GDP and have a

negative effect on long term economic growth.
Furth, 2013 (Salim Furth, Ph.D.; Senior Policy Analyst, MacroeconomicsCenter for Data Analysis @ The Institute for Economic Freedom and
Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, a doctorate in economics with
concentrations in macroeconomics and international economics, a master of
arts degree in economics, a bachelor of science in economics and

international affairs; High Debt Is a Real Drag; 2/22/2013;

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-a-high-national-debtimpacts-the-economy; Date Accessed: 7/5/13)
Three teams of economists have separately shown that high
government debt has a negative effect on long-term economic
growth. When government debt grows, private investment shrinks, lowering future growth and future
wages. Estimates across advanced economies show that debt drag reaches large and
statistically significant levels as debt grows, with the worst effects
occurring after debt reaches 90 percent of gross domestic product
(GDP). With U.S. federal, state, and local government debt at 84
percent of GDP and rising, policymakers should begin taking debt
drag into account when considering new deficit spending.

Multiple studies show that Increased spending would

decrease economic growth.
Furth, 2013 (Salim Furth, Ph.D.; Senior Policy Analyst, MacroeconomicsCenter for Data Analysis @ The Institute for Economic Freedom and
Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, a doctorate in economics with
concentrations in macroeconomics and international economics, a master of
arts degree in economics, a bachelor of science in economics and
international affairs; High Debt Is a Real Drag; 2/22/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-a-high-national-debtimpacts-the-economy; Date Accessed: 7/5/13)
Two studiesone by Manmohan Kumar and Jaejoon Woo of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF)[1] and one by Carmen Reinhart, Vincent Reinhart, and
Kenneth Rogoff published by the National Bureau of Economic
Research[2]illustrate that once countries reached higher-debt
status, they tended to suffer lower subsequent growth. Looking at
annual data, Reinhart, Reinhart, and Rogoff show that annual growth
after inflation averaged 3.5 percent among countries with central
government debt below 90 percent of GDP in the previous year and 2.3
percent among countries with debt above 90 percent of GDP. Kumar
and Woo look at five-year averages and report that high-debt
advanced economies grew 1.3 percentage points slower annually
than their low-debt (below 30 percent) counterparts. Kumar and Woo note
that the negative effects of debt build steadily as debt grows from 30
percent to 90 percent. At intermediate debt levels, debt drag is already substantial.[3]
Another studyby Stephen Cecchetti, Madhusudan Mohanty, and Fabrizio
Zampolli of the Bank for International Settlements[4]shows that total
public debt in 18 advanced economies almost doubled as a share of
GDP from 1980 to 2010. In addition, public, household, and corporate
debt all increased by about the same degree. These authors found
about the same negative effects on economic growth from high debt
levels. What makes these results especially compelling is that the
different author groups used different statistical and methodological
approaches yet found very similar results. Kumar and Woo use growth regressions
to find that on average, a 10 percentage point increase in the initial
debt-to-GDP ratio is associated with a slowdown in annual real per

capita GDP growth of 0.19 percentage points per year in advanced economies with debt greater
than 90 percent of GDP. Cecchetti, Mohanty, and Zampolli use a different econometric approach but arrive

At high debt levels, a 10 percentage point

increase in initial debt-to-GDP ratio is associated with 0.18
percentage points less GDP growth over the next five years. They also
at substantially the same conclusion:

use an econometric technique to find the best cutoff level above which debt is harmful: They find that 84
percent of GDP is the best cutoff. At debt levels less than 84 percent of GDP, the evidence is less clear,
and neither study can make statistically significant conclusions. Kumar and Woo estimate that at debt
levels between 60 percent and 90 percent of GDP, the

effect of 10 percentage points of

debt on GDP growth is around 0.16 percentage point per year.

Government spending will lead to economic devastation.

Payne, 2013 (Amy Payne; staff member at the heritage foundation; We
Need a Balanced Budget in 10 Years; 2/27/2013;
http://dailysignal.com/2013/02/27/demint-on-kudlow-balanced-budget-andsequestration/; Date Accessed: 7/5/2013 )
All this talk of spending cuts in sequestration is forgetting one important point: These arent true

government spending is
continuing to grow, said Heritage President-elect Jim DeMint on The Kudlow Report. He told
host Larry Kudlow, You can seetheres no cuts in spending. In fact, it will continue to
increase at a rather dramatic pace. While President Obama runs
around warning everyone of economic devastation, its the
Presidents policies that are truly harmful to the economy, DeMint said. Hes
tried to discredit capitalism over the last four years, and now hes trying to make a case
that the only way to grow the economy is to continue to grow
spending. Heritage recommends an approach to budgeting that would set the country back on a
spending cuts. They are reductions in the rate at which

prosperous track. We want to see the country on a 10-year path to a balanced budget that creates some
financial stability, DeMint said. We need some pro-growth policies like good, simple
tax reform and entitlement reform to give some certainty out over the next 10 years.

Spending kills the economy-leads to higher taxes,

borrowing, and a greater deficit.
Knudsen, 2011 (Patrick Louis Knudsen; staff writer at the heritage

foundation; The Imperative of Spending Control; 10/12/2013;

http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2011/10/the-imperative-ofspending-control; Date Accessed: 7/5/2013)
Spending control has never been more important than it is today. All of you are
well aware of the extraordinary deficit and debt crisis the government faces; and although you may differ
on the causes of this problem, and how best to solve it, surely you all agree it must be addressed. My own

the root problem is spending. It is spending that creates the

need for taxes and borrowing, and so curtailing the growth of spending is
view is that

indispensable for shrinking deficits and debt. Therefore, if a President offers credible proposals to reduce
spending, Congress should give them serious consideration. In light of todays immense budget challenge,
this hearingwhich amounts to budget oversightis precisely the kind of activity that should be going on
much more broadly and regularly in Congress. Year after year, Congresses create new programs and
expand government activities, but rarely go back to review how they are working. Consequently, programs
that are ineffective, inefficient, bloated, obsolete, or just plain unnecessary gain immortality
while Congress looks the other way. This hearing is a refreshing departure from that pattern, and some of
my recommendations today aim at making it a model for other committeesto make a routine of the
process you are pursuing today, as one step toward breaking

the culture of spending.

in

Similarly, over the years various administrations have proposed terminations and reductions, and

some cases have done so repeatedly. But there tends to be inadequate follow up, unless the

administration chooses to report the results. During the Bush Administration, only once, in 2005, did the
Administration present a summary of what had happened with its recommendations. The Obama
Administration has summarized the results of its proposals annually, but it may be difficult to confirm those
accounts independently. In any case, all too often the recommendations end up just collecting dust on a

are deeply inadequate,

considering the more than trillion-dollar deficits the government is running these
shelf somewhere. Moreover, the current Administrations proposals
days.

New spending would negatively effect the economy long

term.
Furth, 2013 (Salim Furth, Ph.D.; Senior Policy Analyst, Macroeconomics-

Center for Data Analysis @ The Institute for Economic Freedom and
Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, a doctorate in economics with
concentrations in macroeconomics and international economics, a master of
arts degree in economics, a bachelor of science in economics and
international affairs; High Debt Is a Real Drag; 2/22/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-a-high-national-debtimpacts-the-economy; Date Accessed: 7/5/13)
Policymakers should take the long-term contractionary effects of
debt into account when calculating the costs and benefits of
government spending. For instance, Cecchetti, Mohanty, and Zampollis estimate implies that
an additional, one-time $100 billion expenditure in 2013 would cumulatively shave $27 billion off GDP over

High national debt can

seriously slow economic growth. Slow growth is in important
respects worse than a recessionit lowers incomes and well-being
permanently, not just temporarily. Among the unpleasant features of debt is that it is easy to grow
and difficult to shrink. Thus, a one-time increase in government debt is typically
a permanent addition, and the drag effects on the economy are longlasting. Short-term policies can dramatically affect long-term
growth.
the next five years and $102 billion off GDP over the next 10 years.

Spending now would crush the economy

Boccia, 2013 (Romina Boccia; Senior policy analyst at Roe Institute for
Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, How the United States
High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans; 2/2/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-the-united-states-highdebt-will-weaken-the-economy-and-hurt-americans; Date Accessed 7/3/2014)
results should serve as a sobering wake-up call for
policymakers. Reinhart, Reinhart, and Rogoff discovered that the average growth rate in countries
experiencing public debt overhang is 1.2 percentage points lower than in
periods with debt below 90 percent of GDP .[13] These public debt overhang
episodes last an average of about 23 years. Thus, the cumulative effect of lower growth by one
percentage point or more means that national income at the end of the period
would be lower by roughly one-fourth. The growth rate of countries with
exceptionally high levels of debtmore than 120 percent of the economy drops even lower, by an
average of 2.3 percentage points, which is roughly two-thirds. These figures indicate just
how dire the U.S. situation could become: According to the Congressional Budget
Office baseline economic forecast, U.S. GDP is projected to be $25.9 trillion in
fiscal year 2023. U.S. publicly held debt is projected to reach nearly 90 percent of GDP that year.
The authors

Assuming a 2.2 percent growth rate over 23 years, U.S. GDP would reach $42.7 trillion in 2046 if there was

no impact from the debt overhang. Applying the crude assumption that GDP would be reduced by 1.2
percentage points,

in each year of the assumed 23-year debt overhang

period, U.S. GDP growth would be slashed by more than half to a mere 1 percent. This would reduce
U.S. GDP by more than $10 trillion, to only $32.6 trillion in 2046. The

cumulative effect from the debt overhang would result in a level of GDP lower by nearly one-quarter at the
end of the period.

Spending BadInflation
New spending leads to inflation- causing the economy to
erode
Boccia, 2013 (Romina Boccia; Senior policy analyst at Roe Institute for

Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, How the United States
High Debt Will Weaken the Economy and Hurt Americans; 2/2/2013;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/how-the-united-states-highdebt-will-weaken-the-economy-and-hurt-americans; Date Accessed 7/3/2014)
The United States has, as do other countries with independent currencies, an
additional option to monetize its debts: replacing a substantial portion of outstanding
Higher Inflation.

debt with another form of federal liabilitycurrency. The government could, through the Federal Reserve,
inflate the money supply. The resulting increase in the rate of price inflation would devalue the principal of

The resulting inflation would also destabilize the

private economy, increase uncertainty, increase real interest rates,
and slow economic growth markedly. Inflation is particularly harmful
for those Americans on fixed incomes, such as the elderly who rely on
Social Security checks, pensions, and their own savings in
retirement. By raising the cost of essential goods and services, like
food and medical care, inflation can push seniors into poverty.
Inflation and longer life expectancies can mean that some seniors run out of
their savings sooner than anticipated, then becoming completely dependent on Social
Security. Inflation inflicts the most pain on the poor and middle class by
reducing the purchasing power of the cash savings of American
families. Inflation also means that everyone has to pay more for goods
and services, including essentials like food and clothing . Moreover,
severe inflation could dethrone the U.S. dollar as the worlds primary
reserve currency. Thus far, a major saving grace for the U.S. government has been that, in
the remaining public debt.

comparison with other advanced nations with major currencies, such as Europe and China, the U.S. dollar

If Washington
policies continue on their current path of ever-higher sovereign debt
and a risky Federal Reserve policy, both of which lack a credible crisis coping strategy, confidence in the
U.S. economy and monetary policy regime could erode . Such a development
has retained its status as the best currency option for finance and commerce.[16]

would be unprecedented in size and magnitude and the impact on Americans and the economy would be
massive and severe.

A2: Krugman
Krugmans theories on spending are wrong and only
reduction in future spending is key to avert an economic
crisis.
Foster, 2013 (J.D. Foster; the Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the
Economics of Fiscal Policy at The Heritage Foundation. His primary focus is
studying long-term changes in tax policy to ensure a strong economy. He also
examines changes in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security so they are both
affordable and more effective; Krugman Still Wrong on Federal Spending and
the Economy; 2/15/13; http://dailysignal.com/2013/02/15/krugmansconscience-no-substitute-for-reason/; Date Accessed: 7/3/2014)
A not-so-small cottage industry has grown up refuting liberal economist Paul Krugmans public
pronouncements. Its not a hard industry to join, and theres plenty of work, but it can be repetitive. Even

Krugmans recent writings opposing federal spending cuts for the

sake of the economy are sufficiently troubling to warrant yet another go.
Krugmans misguided conclusion is simple enough: Increasing budget deficits by
increasing spending helps a weak economy, while cutting spending and budget
deficits hurts the economy. The key to deriving this conclusion is what
Krugman refers to as excess saving. Specifically, total demand in the
economy is too low because individuals and businesses are saving
too much. Government deficits can soak up this excess saving and
turn it into demand, thus moving the economy back toward full
employment.mWould that it were so, but its not. If excess saving existed, and if
so,

that saving were in a form government borrowing could tap, then the theory would have merit. But as

there is no excess saving in the sense

Krugman means. Krugmans theory breaks down because it ignores
another little industry known as financial markets. Financial markets are vastly
explained elsewhere in more detail,

complicated and wonderfully efficient most of the time. They evaluate asset prices, assess risk, and
sometimes overpay executives. But above all, the central role of financial markets is fairly simple. Its
called intermediation. As the term suggests, intermediation involves acting to intermediate between two
other parties. It means facilitating some manner of economic arrangement. And what is that economic
arrangement precisely? It is putting those with excess saving today in contact with those who need capital
today. Financial markets connect savers to borrowers, turning excess saving into demand-boosting
purchasesall miraculously without the hand of government lifting a finger. Financial markets provide
loans and equity to those who want to borrow to buy a car or a home, to businesses that want to expand or
upgrade their facilities, and so forth. Where does that money come from? Former savings become current

upshot of this discussion is that steady, sustained

reductions in federal spending are not a threat to the recovery, though they are
essential to economic growth in the years ahead.
investments. The

Impacts

Impact War Extinction

Economic collapse causes a nuclear disaster
Burrows, counselor in the NIC, and Harris, member of the
NICs Long Range Analysis Unit, 09

[Mathew J. Burrows is a counselor in the National Intelligence Council (NIC),

the principal drafter of Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, Jennifer
Harris is a member of the NICs Long Range Analysis Unit, Revisiting the
Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis, The Washington Quarterly,
April, http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/twq/v32i2/f_0016178_13952.pdf,
accessed: 7/13/13]
Increased Potential for Global Conflict Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed
believes the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking forces. With so
many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample opportunity for unintended consequences,
there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history may be more instructive than ever. While we

the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be

drawn from that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies
and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and on
the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the
same period). There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in
the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential for greater conflict
could grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly volatile economic
environment as they would be if change would be steadier. In surveying those risks, the report
continue to believe that

stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues

Terrorisms appeal will decline if economic growth

continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced . For those
terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and
scientific knowledge will place some of the worlds most dangerous
capabilities within their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a combination of
move up on the international agenda.

descendants of long established groups inheriting organizational structures, command and control

newly emergent
collections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized,
particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower
in an economic downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economicallyinduced drawdown of U.S. military presence would almost certainly be the
Middle East. Although Irans acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, worries about a
nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to develop new security
arrangements with external powers, acquire additional weapons, and
consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear that the type of
stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War
would emerge naturally in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity
conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an
unintended escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not
processes, and training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attack and

well established. The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with underdeveloped
surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce inherent
difficulties in achieving reliable indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack .

The lack of
strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, short warning and missile
flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions may place more focus on
preemption rather than defense, potentially leading to escalating crises.
Types of conflict that the world continues to experience, such as over

resources, could reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and there is a

resort to neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity
will drive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy
supplies. In the worst case, this could result in interstate conflicts if
government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example, to
be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of their
regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical
implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval
buildups and modernization efforts, such as Chinas and Indias development of
blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries indeed turns inward, one of the

Buildup of regional naval capabilities could

lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and counterbalancing moves , but it also will
create opportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also
becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage
changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and
between states in a more dog-eat-dog world. What Kind of World will 2025 Be? Perhaps more
most obvious funding targets may be military.

than lessons, history loves patterns. Despite widespread changes in the world today, there is little to
suggest that the future will not resemble the past in several respects. The report asserts that, under most

the trend toward greater diffusion of authority and power that has
been ongoing for a couple of decades is likely to accelerate because of the
emergence of new global players, the worsening institutional deficit, potential
growth in regional blocs, and enhanced strength of non-state actors and networks. The
scenarios,

multiplicity of actors on the international scene could either strengthen the international system, by filling
gaps left by aging post-World War II institutions, or could further fragment it and incapacitate international
cooperation. The diversity in both type and kind of actor raises the likelihood of fragmentation occurring
over the next two decades, particularly given the wide array of transnational challenges facing the
international community. Because of their growing geopolitical and economic clout, the rising powers will
enjoy a high degree of freedom to customize their political and economic policies rather than fully adopting
Western norms. They are also likely to cherish their policy freedom to maneuver, allowing others to carry
the primary burden for dealing with terrorism, climate change, proliferation, energy security, and other
system maintenance issues. Existing multilateral institutions, designed for a different geopolitical order,
appear too rigid and cumbersome to undertake new missions, accommodate changing memberships, and
augment their resources. Nongovernmental organizations and philanthropic foundations, concentrating on
specific issues, increasingly will populate the landscape but are unlikely to affect change in the absence of
concerted efforts by multilateral institutions or governments. Efforts at greater inclusiveness, to reflect the
emergence of the newer powers, may make it harder for international organizations to tackle transnational
challenges. Respect for the dissenting views of member nations will continue to shape the agenda of

An ongoing financial crisis

and prolonged recession would tilt the scales even further in the direction of
a fragmented and dysfunctional international system with a heightened risk
of conflict. The report concluded that the rising BRIC powers (Brazil, Russia,
India, and China) seem averse to challenging the international system, as
Germany and Japan did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but this of
course could change if their widespread hopes for greater prosperity become
frustrated and the current benefits they derive from a globalizing world turn
negative.
organizations and limit the kinds of solutions that can be attempted.

Both recent and historical analysis prove this

Green and Schrage 09 (Senior Advisor and Japan Chair @ CSIS and

Associate Professor @ Georgetown University AND CSIS School Chair in

International Business and Former Senior Official with the US Trade
Representatives Office (Michael J. and Steven P., Its not just the economy,
State Department and Ways & Means Committee, Asia Times, 3/26,
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/asian_economy/kc26dk01.html)

Facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, analysts at the
World Bank and the US Central Intelligence Agency are just beginning to
contemplate the ramifications for international stability if there is not a
recovery in the next year. For the most part, the focus has been on fragile
states such as some in Eastern Europe. However, the Great Depression
taught us that a downward global economic spiral can even have
jarring impacts on great powers. It is no mere coincidence that the
last great global economic downturn was followed by the most
destructive war in human history. In the 1930s, economic
desperation helped fuel autocratic regimes and protectionism in a
downward economic-security death spiral that engulfed the world in
conflict. This spiral was aided by the preoccupation of the United
States and other leading nations with economic troubles at home
and insufficient attention to working with other powers to maintain
stability abroad. Today's challenges are different, yet 1933's London
Economic Conference, which failed to stop the drift toward deeper depression
and world war, should be a cautionary tale for leaders heading to next
month's London Group of 20 (G-20) meeting.

Economic decline guarantees multiple scenarios for

nuclear war and turns every other impact
Harris and Burrows 9 - PhD in European History @ Cambridge and
Counselor of the US National Intelligence Council AND Member of the National
Intelligence Councils Long Range Analysis Unit (Mathew J. and Jennifer,
Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis, April,
Washington Quarterly, http://www.twq.com/09april/docs/09apr_Burrows.pdf)
Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes
the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and
interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each
with ample Revisiting the Future opportunity for unintended consequences,
there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, history may be more
instructive than ever. While we continue to believe that the Great
Depression is not likely to be repeated, the lessons to be drawn from
that period include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and
multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) and
on the sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of
Nations in the same period). There is no reason to think that this
would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in the twentieth
century. For that reason, the ways in which the potential for greater
conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt in a constantly
volatile economic environment as they would be if change would be
steadier. In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood
that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as
resource issues move up on the international agenda. Terrorisms
appeal will decline if economic growth continues in the Middle East
and youth unemployment is reduced. For those terrorist groups that
remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and
scientific knowledge will place some of the worlds most dangerous
capabilities within their reach. Terrorist groups in 2025 will likely be a
combination of descendants of long established groups_inheriting

organizational structures, command and control processes, and training

procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks and newly emergent
collections of the angry and disenfranchised that become self-radicalized,
particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower
in an economic downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economicallyinduced drawdown of U.S. military presence would almost certainly be the
Middle East. Although Irans acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable,
worries about a nuclear-armed Iran could lead states in the region to develop
new security arrangements with external powers, acquire additional
weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions. It is not clear
that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great
powers for most of the Cold War would emerge naturally in the Middle East
with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity conflict and terrorism taking
place under a nuclear umbrella could lead to an unintended
escalation and broader conflict if clear red lines between those
states involved are not well established. The close proximity of
potential nuclear rivals combined with underdeveloped surveillance
capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also will produce
inherent difficulties in achieving reliable indications and warning of an
impending nuclear attack. The lack of strategic depth in neighboring states
like Israel, short warning and missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian
intentions may place more focus on preemption rather than defense,
potentially leading to escalating crises. 36 Types of conflict that the
world continues to experience, such as over resources, could
reemerge, particularly if protectionism grows and there is a resort to
neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity
will drive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy
supplies. In the worst case, this could result in interstate conflicts if
government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example,
to be essential for maintaining domestic stability and the survival of their
regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical
implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval
buildups and modernization efforts, such as Chinas and Indias development
of blue water naval capabilities. If the fiscal stimulus focus for these countries
indeed turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military.
Buildup of regional naval capabilities could lead to increased tensions,
rivalries, and counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for
multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. With water also
becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage
changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both
within and between states in a more dog-eat-dog world.

Impact Economy - Asia

Economic collapse causes Asian instability and war outweighs on probability and magnitude
Auslin 09 (resident scholar at AEI (Michael Averting Disaster, The Daily
Standard, 2/6, http://www.aei.org/article/100044)

As they deal with a collapsing world economy, policymakers in Washington and around the globe must not

when a depression strikes, war can follow. Nowhere is this

truer than in Asia, the most heavily armed region on earth and riven
with ancient hatreds and territorial rivalries. Collapsing trade flows
can lead to political tension, nationalist outbursts, growing distrust,
and ultimately, military miscalculation. The result would be disaster
on top of an already dire situation. No one should think that Asia is
on the verge of conflict. But it is also important to remember what
has helped keep the peace in this region for so long. Phenomenal
growth rates in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, China
and elsewhere since the 1960s have naturally turned national
attention inward, to development and stability. This has gradually
led to increased political confidence, diplomatic initiatives, and in
many nations the move toward more democratic systems. America
has directly benefited as well, and not merely from years of lower
consumer prices, but also from the general conditions of peace in
Asia. Yet policymakers need to remember that even during these
decades of growth, moments of economic shock, such as the 1973
Oil Crisis, led to instability and bursts of terrorist activity in Japan, while the uneven pace of
forget that

growth in China has led to tens of thousands of armed clashes in the poor interior of the country. Now
imagine such instability multiplied region-wide. The economic collapse Japan is facing, and China's
potential slowdown, dwarfs any previous economic troubles, including the 1998 Asian Currency Crisis.
Newly urbanized workers rioting for jobs or living wages, conflict over natural resources, further saberrattling from North Korea, all can take on lives of their own. This is the nightmare of governments in the
region, and particularly of democracies from newer ones like Thailand and Mongolia to established states
like Japan and South Korea. How will overburdened political leaders react to internal unrest? What happens
if Chinese shopkeepers in Indonesia are attacked, or a Japanese naval ship collides with a Korean fishing

Asia's political infrastructure may not be strong

enough to resist the slide towards confrontation and conflict . This would
vessel? Quite simply,

be a political and humanitarian disaster turning the clock back decades in Asia. It would almost certainly
drag America in at some point, as well. First of all, we have alliance responsibilities to Japan, South Korea,
Australia, and the Philippines should any of them come under armed attack. Failure on our part to live up
to those responsibilities could mean the end of America's credibility in Asia. Secondly, peace in Asia has
been kept in good measure by the continued U.S. military presence since World War II. There have been
terrible localized conflicts, of course, but nothing approaching a systemic conflagration like the 1940s.
Today, such a conflict would be far more bloody, and it is unclear if the American military, already
stretched too thin by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, could contain the crisis. Nor is it clear that the
American people, worn out from war and economic distress, would be willing to shed even more blood and
treasure for lands across the ocean. The result could be a historic changing of the geopolitical map in the
world's most populous region. Perhaps China would emerge as the undisputed hegemon. Possibly
democracies like Japan and South Korea would link up to oppose any aggressor. India might decide it could
move into the vacuum. All of this is guess-work, of course, but it has happened repeatedly throughout

There is no reason to believe we are immune from the same

types of miscalculation and greed that have destroyed international
systems in the past.
history.

Global nuclear war

Landay 2k (Jonathon, National Security and Intelligence Correspondent
with 15 Years of Experience for Night Ridder, Top administration officials
warn stakes for US are high in Asian conflicts, March 11th, Lexis)

Few if any experts think China and Taiwan, North Korea and South Korea, or India and Pakistan are spoiling

even a minor miscalculation by any of them could destabilize

Asia, jolt the global economy and even start a nuclear war. India,
Pakistan and China all have nuclear weapons, and North Korea may
have a few, too. Asia lacks the kinds of organizations, negotiations
and diplomatic relationships that helped keep an uneasy peace for five
decades in Cold War Europe. "Nowhere else on Earth are the stakes as high
and relationships so fragile," said Bates Gill, director of northeast
Asian policy studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think
tank. "We see the convergence of great power interest overlaid with
lingering confrontations with no institutionalized security
mechanism in place. There are elements for potential disaster."
to fight. But

Impact AT: US Not Key to Global

Financial crises in the US spills over - all markets are
reliant on the US
Harris and Burrows 09 (PhD in European History @ Cambridge and

Counselor of the US National Intelligence Council AND Member of the National

Intelligence Councils Long Range Analysis Unit (Mathew J. and Jennifer,
Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis, April,
Washington Quarterly, http://www.twq.com/09april/docs/09apr_Burrows.pdf)
emerging markets the
world over have lost more than half of their value since September
2008 alone. Banks that have never reported a net loss earnings quarter were dissolved in a matter
Such was the world the NIC foresaw as the crisis unfolded. Now,

of days. Even with the one year anniversary of the Bear Stearns collapse approaching in March, markets
may have yet to find a floor. The proportions of the current crisis hardly need familiarizing. As the panic
has not yet given way to a lucid picture of the impacts, most economists and political forecasters are smart

in the post-crisis
world, it seems conceivable that global growth will most likely be
muted, deflation will remain a risk while any decoupling of the
industrialized from developing countries is unlikely, the state will be
the relative winner while authoritarianism may not, and U.S.
consumption as the engine for global growth will slowly fade. Whether
enough to shy away from sweeping predictions amid the fog of crisis. Yet,

U.S. political and market clout will follow, and whether U.S. political leadership will come equipped with
knowledge of the strategic forces affecting the United States remains to be seen. How Much of a
Geopolitical Game Changer is the Financial Crisis? Mapping the NICs predictions against early facts,

one of the most interesting observations is less about any particular

shock generated by the financial crisis and more about its global
reach. If anything, the crisis has underscored the importance of
globalization as the overriding force or mega-driver as it was
characterized in both the NICs 2020 and 2025 Global Trends works.
Developing countries have been hurt as decoupling theories,
assertions that the emerging markets have appreciably weaned
themselves from the U.S. economy, have been dispelled . This second
epicenter of the crisis in emerging markets could also continue to exacerbate and prolong the crisis.
Alongside foreseeable exposures, such as Pakistan with its large current account deficit, are less
predictable panics like Dubai, whose debt was financed on suddenly expensive dollars. Even those with
cash reserves, such as Russia and South Korea, have been severely buffeted.

The US is key to the global economy

Caploe 09 (CEO of the American Centre for Applied Liberal Arts and

Humanities in Asia, PhD in International Political Economy @ Princeton (David,

Focus still on America to lead global recovery, April 7, The Strait Times)
IN THE aftermath of the G-20 summit, most observers seem to have missed
perhaps the most crucial statement of the entire event, made by United
States President Barack Obama at his pre-conference meeting with British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown: 'The world has become accustomed to the
US being a voracious consumer market, the engine that drives a lot
of economic growth worldwide,' he said. 'If there is going to be
renewed growth, it just can't be the US as the engine.' While
superficially sensible, this view is deeply problematic. To begin with,
it ignores the fact that the global economy has in fact been

'America-centred' for more than 60 years. Countries - China, Japan,

Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and so on - either sell to the US or
they sell to countries that sell to the US. To put it simply, Mr Obama
doesn't seem to understand that there is no other engine for the
world economy - and hasn't been for the last six decades. If the US does not
drive global economic growth, growth is not going to happen. Thus, US
policies to deal with the current crisis are critical not just domestically, but
also to the entire world. This system has generally been advantageous for all
concerned. America gained certain historically unprecedented benefits, but
the system also enabled participating countries - first in Western Europe and
Japan, and later, many in the Third World - to achieve undreamt-of prosperity.
At the same time, this deep inter-connection between the US and the rest of
the world also explains how the collapse of a relatively small sector of the US
economy - 'sub-prime' housing, logarithmically exponentialised by Wall
Street's ingenious chicanery - has cascaded into the worst global economic
crisis since the Great Depression.

Empirics prove
Sesit 08 (Michael, Bloomberg News Columnist, The four myths of

economic decoupling, The Korea Herald, February 16,

2008, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/returnTo.do?
returnToKey=20_T6876616661, AD: 6-30-9)
Myth No. 2: The rest of the world can escape the clutches of a U.S.
slowdown. Not according to history. The United States has had five
recessions since 1970. Each time, other economies' GDP growth also
declined. The U.S. economy fell an average of 3.8 percent during the recessions of 1974-75, 1980,
1982, 1991 and 2001, with other industrial countries slowing an average of 2 percent, Latin America falling
1.7 percent and emerging Asia declining 1.3 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.
"Despite all the chatter about one region or another being immune from problems in the

the reality is that in a globalized economy characterized by

rising cross-border flows of goods, services and capital, only hermit
economies like North Korea are truly de-linked from planet Earth," says Joseph
United States,

Quinlan, New York-based chief market strategist at Bank of America Capital Management. "Every one,
more or less, sinks or swims in the global village." Myth No. 3: Rising demand in the developing world will
compensate for the expected drop in U.S. consumer spending.Emerging-market countries are consuming
more, yet growth in many of them is still mostly driven by exports, not domestic demand. Moreover, 2.55
billion people -- almost half the population of the developing world -- lived on less than $2 a day in 2004,

U.S.
consumers spent $9.27 trillion in 2006, or 3.5 times the
aggregate $2.62 trillion personal-consumption expenditure of the
so-called BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. Myth No. 4: Growing intra-Asian
the latest year of available data, according to the World Bank and Bank of America.

trade -- especially that between China and other countries in the region -- will make up for lost exports
caused by a steep U.S. slowdown. No doubt, intra-regional trade is growing rapidly, but much of it reflects
shipments of intermediate goods. Still, 61 percent of emerging Asia's exports are ultimately consumed in
the U.S., European Union and Japan, according to the Asian Development Bank, while Asian developing
countries account for just 21 percent of final demand. "The U.S. is still more important to each Asian
country's total output than demand from other ex-Japan Asian economies combined," the bank said in a
recent report.Myth No. 5: Europe is becoming less dependent on the United States. True, America accounts
for only 12 percent of EU exports to countries outside the 25-nation bloc, down from 18 percent in 2000.
But exports aren't the whole story. Sales by U.S. affiliates of German companies totaled $352 billion in
2005, the last year of available data -- four times the $86 billion of German exports to America. Meanwhile,
Dutch U.S. affiliate sales were 16 times exports, U.K.-affiliate sales 7.6 times British exports and Frenchaffiliate sales 5.9 times. "If the U.S. economy heads south, so too will the earnings of many
European firms," Quinlan says. What's more, Wall Street's pull on the world's financial markets is unrivaled.
"U.S. equity returns remain the single biggest driver of global equity returns," says David Woo, Londonbased head of global currency strategy at Barclays Capital. "A

sizable U.S. equity

correction, by precipitating a global equity correction, will likely lead

to a synchronized global economic slowdown."

Aff Answers

Uniqueness Level

New Spending Now

The Treasury is accelerating government spending
Cagahastian 7/8 (David Cagahastian, writer, 7/8/14, Treasury claims to
have accelerated government spending in June, Business Mirror,
http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/en/news/top-news/35134-treasuryclaims-to-have-accelerated-government-spending-in-june, Accessed 7/12/14,
MX)
The government on Tuesday claimed to have accelerated its spending
activities in June by an undetermined amount, the event happening months after a slowdown in the

This is significant in
that the government is supposed to have engaged in a fiscal
stimulus program that has yet to find fulfillment in a year when local
output, measured as the gross domestic product (GDP), came out lower than expected and seen by
disbursement of funds that enabled it to post a surplus in May instead.

some to disappoint, even the most conservative analyst. National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said there had
been an uptick in the expenditures in June, based on initial figures compiled by the Bureau of the Treasury.
For June, what weve seen is that theres an acceleration in the disbursement program. There are no final
numbers yet but there will be an improvement in terms of expenditures, although the deficit will still be
within the program, de Leon said. The latter pertains to the deliberately crafted program to spend far
more than government expects to generate from its collection activities and for this deficit to act as

This fiscal imbalance or deficit was

programmed to equal at least 2 percent of GDP. Figures from the
Department of Finance (DOF) show the government posting an
P11.8-billion surplus in May, or the five-month balance as budget
excess totaling P8.5 billion. The DOF said the surplus position was due to buoyant revenue
stimulus for accelerated growth.

collection even as spending also slowed slightly during the January-to-May period. De Leon said the
slowdown in spending, which some analysts believe could affect economic growth because government
spending is a key growth driver, could be because of the decreased need to disburse money in areas

For the period Januaryto-May, government spending still increased by 5 percent from
disbursement figures reported for the period in 2013. As of end-May,
the government already spent P786.6 billion compared to P747.27
billion disbursed over five months by the government in 2013.
Revenue collections from January to May 2014 were up to P795.1
billion, with the Bureau of Internal Revenue collecting the most with
P549.1 billion for the five-month period.
affected by Supertyphoon Yolanda which hit the country late last year.

The government is going to go on a spending spree

between now and September
Carrol 7/7 (Rebecca Carroll, Senior Correspondent; BA from University of

Pennsylvania, 7/7/14, Why the Government Is Probably about to Go on a

Spending Spree, Nextgov, http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2014/07/whygovernment-probably-about-go-spending-spree/88039/, Accessed 7/12/14,
MX)
Agencies will make 35.4 percent of their 2014 purchases between
this month and the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, with most of
that activity occurring in September, Deltek predicted. In a typical
recent year, 32.4 percent of all spending took place in the fourth
quarter, and 18 percent occurred in September alone, Deltek found.

The numbers are even higher for specific procurement types and at
certain agencies. For instance, in the last five years, 39 percent of
government information technology purchases were made in the
fourth quarter. Agencies can hold off on software and IT equipment
upgrades, Carey Webster, Delteks director of federal information solutions,
explained in a webinar. At the same time, its very easy to procure these
types of services quickly when there is money to burn. Large aerospace and
defense acquisitions that take years to procure are less likely to take place
quickly at the end of the year, which is why the Energy and Defense
departments and NASA are the agencies least prone to balloon spending in
the final quarter, as a percentage of their overall spending. The State
Department, meanwhile, makes more than half of its purchases -- 56
percent -- in the fourth quarter. Researchers didnt know why this was
the case; they checked for an anomalous year that may have thrown off the
average, but larger fourth-quarter spending has been the norm at the
department for the last five years, at least, Webster said. The
departments of Interior and Health and Human Service and the U.S. Agency
for International Development were the next most likely to save their
purchases for the last quarter, spending an average of 47 percent, 46 percent
and 44 percent of their contracting budgets at the yearend, respectively.
Deltek based its analysis on this years enacted discretionary budget
of $1,127 billion. In recent years, about 43 percent of the
discretionary budget is contracted, the analysis found. Assuming the
pattern holds this year, about $489.5 billion will have gone to
contractors by the end of September. Because the year started off
slow -- only about 17 percent of estimated expenditures were contracted
out in the first quarter -- Deltek expects federal outlays of about $168.2
billion this quarter, or 35.4 percent.

Government spending remains high

Hood 7/1 (John Hood, President and Chairman of the John Locke Foundation
President and Chairman of the John Locke Foundation, 7/1/14, John Hood:
Government spending remains high, The Durhan News,
http://www.thedurhamnews.com/2014/07/01/3975884/john-hoodgovernment-spending.html, Accessed 7/13/14, MX)

Total state spending adjusted for inflation and population growth

reached its highest point in 2011-12, at about $5,350 per person. It
has declined slightly since then, primarily because of lower recession-related
federal funding, but remains well over $5,000. Thats higher than any
year before 2012, and about double what North Carolina spent as recently
as the late 1980s.

Government spending high now

Bilmes 2/5 (Linda Bilmes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public
Policy, 2/5/14, Reforming the Budget: Four Steps to Restore Fiscal
Discipline, Brookings,
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2014/02/04-budget-reformaccounting-system-overhead-bilmes, Accessed 7/13/14, MX)

Americas dysfunctional budget process has been mired in federal

shutdowns and debt ceiling brinksmanship for the past several years. No wonder
citizens confidence in government is at its lowest in four decades. Conventional wisdom in Washington is
that hyper-partisanship has infected appropriations along with everything else, and that barring a dramatic
shift in political tone, the best we can do is to pass one-off deals such as the recent Ryan-Murray bill. But
there are a series of structural reforms that could substantially improve the way the US does budgeting,

The current
budget system is broken: it consumes far too much time for little
gain. Every year, thousands of officials across government prepare detailed
estimates of how much it will cost to run their organizations, which Congress
mostly ignores. Instead, we enact budgets based on the previous years
spendingnot based on true need, shifting priorities or changing realities. As a result,
Congress has enacted 75 stopgap continuing resolutions during the past decade. In an effort to
illustrate value, federal agencies also conduct an elaborate annual process
to evaluate how well they are performing, but these assessments have
almost no impact on Congressional appropriations. Meanwhile, Congress has
spent trillions for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan using more than
30 such emergency supplemental" bills, which circumvent normal
budget caps and scrutiny. Even worse, we cant keep track of where
the money goes. Federal accounting systems provide little
management information and are completely unsuited to rooting out
overhead, duplication and inefficiencies. Most agency budgets are
simply long itemized lists of salaries and expenses. There is no
mechanism for calculating costs by the type of service delivered, and no way for
and which could be enacted by a bipartisan majority dedicated to good government.

managers to obtain such information. The process lags far behind many local governments, which break
down their spending into program budgetingproviding much greater transparency over expenses, costs

The lack of functional budgeting and

accounting has lowered the quality, and increased the cost of federal
government services. Agencies are unsure how much money they
will have for next year, or even next month . A recent study by Philip Joyce of the
University of Maryland showed that such funding delays result in a series of
inefficiencies. Agencies pay higher prices than necessary to hire
contractors because the government needs to use short-term
contracts. Agencies too often delay maintenance, leading to higher
costs in the future and significant harm to employee morale, retention, hiring and training. In a
separate study, my Harvard colleague Jeffrey Liebman found that federal agency
spending spikes in the 52nd week of the fiscal year, and unsurprisingly,
much of that spending goes to lower-quality items.
and overheads at each stage in the process.

Spending high now its being masked by tax collections

Manning, Vice president of public policy and communications for
Americans for Limited Government, 14
(Rick, Public Affairs Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Labor during the
George W. Bush Administration, and has worked in numerous grassroots and
political communications roles, most notably, as a state lobbyist for the
National Rifle Association for nine years, 6/18/14, Federal revenues and
spending rise but no balanced budget,
http://netrightdaily.com/2014/06/federal-revenues-spending-rise-balancedbudget/, AL)

The federal government released the good news that revenue

collections have reached an all-time high with total receipts of $1.935
trillion from October 1, 2013 to the end of May. The federal government
projects that total federal government revenues for the entire year will
reach just slightly more than $3 trillion. Yet, even with this unprecedented
flow of cash into the nations Treasury, the October-May deficit is an
astounding $436 billion with Mays deficit alone totaling almost $130 billion.
The problem is that the record revenue flows are largely driven by growth
inhibiting tax increases and the restoration of the payroll tax after a shortterm stimulus cut. Yet, rather than holding the spending line so revenues
could catch up with spending, the federal government is projected to
spend $3.65 trillion for the year, more than ever in history. In fact,
federal spending in this fiscal year is jumping by almost $200 billion
according to Treasury Department projections.
Year Receipts
Outlays
Surplus or Deficit (-)
2009 2,104,989 3,517,677 -1,412,688
2010 2,162,706 3,457,079 -1,294,373
2011 2,303,466 3,603,059 -1,299,593
2012 2,450,164 3,537,127 -1,086,963
2013 2,775,103 3,454,605 -679,502
2014 estimate
3,001,721 3,650,526 -648,805
2015 estimate
3,337,425 3,900,989 -563,564
2016 estimate
3,567,952 4,099,078 -531,126
2017 estimate
3,810,779 4,268,606 -457,827
2018 estimate
4,029,856 4,443,145 -413,289
2019 estimate
4,226,119 4,728,791 -502,672
With almost two/thirds of all federal government spending on automatic pilot,
the above chart shows the mushrooming growth of outlays even with receipts
projected to double from 2009 to 2019. If the projected increase in federal
government expenditures only rise by 2 percent over the next two years
rather than the current 9.3 percent rise, and the receipts remained as
projected, the deficit would be reduced to $256 billion in just those two years.
Incredibly, this two percent increase in federal government spending over
the next two years would lower the increase in the national debt by
more than half a trillion dollars over that time.

NonUQ billions spent on climate change activities now

Clabough, Marketing Assistant at Job Corps, Writer at The New American,
13
(Raven, 10/30/13, Government to spend twice as much on global warming
than border security,
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/16836-govt-to-spendtwice-as-much-on-global-warming-than-border-security, AL)
Estimates reveal that the federal government will spend more money
on fighting global warming than it will on tightening border security.
Global-warming spending is estimated to cost approximately $22.2
billion this year, twice as much as the $12 billion estimated for customs
and border enforcement. According to the White House, there are

currently 18 federal agencies engaged in activities related to global

warming. Those agencies fund programs that include scientific research,
international climate assistance, renewable energy technology, and
subsidies for renewable energy producers. Republicans have criticized
the administration for its global-warming efforts and have demanded more
transparency. The online Daily Caller reported, Republicans on the Energy
and Commerce Committee have been calling on the heads of major federal
agencies to testify on global warming activities. The efforts to acquire
testimony have been mostly unsuccessful, however, with just the heads of
the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency agreeing to
testify in front of the House of Representatives. With billions of dollars
currently being spent annually on climate change activities, Congress
and the public should understand the scope of what the federal
government is doing, how the billions of dollars are being spent, and what
it will accomplish, said Kentucky Republican Rep. Ed Whitfield. Anyone who
believes the committee ought to be focusing its attention on climate change
related issues should be standing with us to get these answers.

NonUQ- spending increasing

Dorfman, professor of economics at The University of Georgia, consultant

on economic issues to a variety of corporations and local governments,

author of Ending the Era of the Free Lunch, Contributor at Forbes, 14
(3/6/14, The federal reserve is enabling Obama and Congress Out of control
spending, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/03/06/thefederal-reserve-is-enabling-obama-and-congress-out-of-control-spending/, AL)
In the past twelve months the federal government has increased the
national debt held by the public by $697 billion while the total debt has
grown by $820 billion. Since revenue collected by the government is at
record highs, these enormous deficits must be due to spending. Among
the many extraordinary measures taken by the Federal Reserve over the
past five or so years are several that are serving to enable President
Obama and Congress in continuing to spend with little, if any, restraint.
If we hope to get spending under control, it would help if the Fed stopped
encouraging so much wasteful spending.

Lavish spending now

Boccia, Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs,Thomas A.
Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, The Institute for Economic Freedom
and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation, Fraser, Heritage Expert, and
Goff, Policy analyst, transportation and infrastructure, Thomas A Roe for
Economic Policy Studies 13
(Romina, Alison, Emily, Federal spending by the numbers, 2013: Government
spending trends in graphics, tables, and key points,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/08/federal-spending-by-thenumbers-2013, AL)
Obamacare will add $1.8 trillion to federal health care spending by
2023. By 2015, health care spending will overtake Social Security as

the largest budget item, including Obamacares coverage expansion

provisions: a massive expansion of Medicaid and subsidies for the new health
insurance exchanges.
While mandatory spending is growing out of control and needs reform,
there are also plenty of places to cut in the rest of the budget. For
example, the Internal Revenue Service spent $4.1 million on a lavish
conference in 2010 for 2,609 of its employees in Anaheim, California.
Expenses included $50,000 for line-dancing and Star Trek parody
videos, $135,350 for outside speakers, $64,000 in conference
swag for the employees, plus free meals, cocktails, and hotel suite
upgrades.
Beyond waste, the federal government is too big. Energy spending
increased over 2,000 percent since 2002after adjusting for inflation.
Today there are roughly 80 means-tested anti-poverty programs.
Washington must stop kicking the can down the road, or we could soon find
ourselves teetering on the edge of a Greece-style meltdown. Instead,
lawmakers should eliminate waste, duplication, and inappropriate
spending; privatize functions better left to the private sector; and
leave areas best managed on a more local level to states and localities.
And they should make important changes to the entitlement programs so
that they become more affordable and benefits help those with the greatest
needs.

Link Level

Coral Reefs
Restoring coral reefs is cheap
Staff Reporter 5/14 (Staff Reporter, 5/14/14, Coral Reef Restoration
Cheap, Effective Way of Saving Coastlines; Researchers Say, Nature World
News, Accessed 7/9/14, MX)
Saving coral reefs could be an efficient and cheaper way of saving
world's coastlines, a new study has found. Coral reefs are delicate ecosystems and provide

shelter to 25 percent of all marine organisms. The latest study found that these reefs can act as the "tough
guy" against waves and can dissipate around 97 percent of the wave energy. Researchers used data from
27 previous studies conducted in different regions around the world, from coasts that see normal waves to
hurricane level waves. According to the researchers, coral reefs are as good as specially engineered
structures that are placed near the coast to prevent wave-related damage. "It's obvious to the eye that
waves inside a protected lagoon are much mellower than those crashing on the outer reef crest, but the
extent and generality of the energy dissipation revealed by the data analysis for different locations and
reef settings was surprising," said study co-author Fiorenza Micheli, a professor of biological sciences at
Stanford and Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station,. "It is a huge reduction. The majority of wave energy is
lost on the reef crest." Research has shown that human activities are negatively affecting coral reefs.
James Cook University scientists recently found that rising ocean temperatures are causing corals to keep
the larve close to the home-reef. This change in coral behavior has led to less interlocked structures. Coral
reef restoration could benefit coastlines around the world. Around 100 to 200 million people live in areas
that are less than 10 meters above sea level. Countries near the Pacific Ocean will reap the maximum
benefits of saving the coral reefs, researchers found. The team even estimated and compared the costs of

They report that building breakwaters will cost around

$19,791 per meter (median cost). Saving coral reefs could be much
cheaper, with the median cost coming up to $1,290 per meter for
coral restoration projects. Also, coral reefs grow, meaning that they
could become more valuable in the future. "Reef restoration can also
provide additional benefits," Micheli said in a news release. "While
reducing risk, coral reefs also support biodiversity, improve water
quality, and support fisheries and tourism."
saving the coasts.

Desal
Nano chips make desalination cheap
Laylin 14 (Taffline, 4/10/14, Freelance Environmental Journalist, Nano
Water Chip Could Make Desalination Affordable for Everyone
http://inhabitat.com/nano-water-chip-could-make-desalination-affordable-foreveryone/)
With freshwater declining throughout the globe, desalination looks
increasingly attractive, but current technologies are expensive, demand far
too much energy and are prone to contamination. Now researchers from the
University of Texas at Austin and the University of Marburg in Germany have
developed a water chip that creates a small electrical field that separates
salt from seawater. The technology, which is still under development and
works at the nano scale, uses so little energy it can run off a storebought battery! Read more: Nano Water Chip Could Make Desalination
Affordable for Everyone | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco
Architecture, Green Building The researchers apply a 3.0 volt electrical
charge to the plastic water chip, which has a microchannel with two
branches. By creating an ion depletion zone with an embedded
electrode that neutralizes chloride ions, they are able to redirect the
salts in the water down one channel, while the fresh water goes
down another. Like a troll at the foot of the bridge, the ion depletion zone
prevents salt from passing through, resulting in the production of freshwater,
the team wrote in a recent press release. Less energy-intensive than
current desalination plants, the water chip doesnt rely on a
membrane, and can be made portable so that just about anybody
living near the sea can purify their own water at home.

Drilling
New tech makes offshore drilling cheap
Schaefer 1/18(Keith Schaefer, Publisher of Oil and Gas, 1/18/14, The
Offshore Oil Drilling Revolution, and its Game-Changing Technologies, Oil
and Gas, http://oilandgas-investments.com/2014/energy-services/offshore-oildrilling-revolution/, Accessed 7/9/14, MX)
the energy sector is also using some funky technology from other
industrieslike Apples iPhone. The iPhone uses something called a small-scale
But

accelerometera device that measures changes in movement around them, telling it youve turned the

Petroleum engineers simply

took this technology and applied it to the drill bitdesigning
smart tools that can tell exactly where they are in space as they
move down a well bore. All this new technology does two things: it makes
the well cheaper, and improves aim
screen sideways and should adjust the view accordingly.

Wave Energy
Wave energy could soon be cost comparable to wind
energy
Ocean Energy Council No Date (A not for profit organization

dedicated to the development and implementation of ocean energy,

WAVE ENERGY, http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/oceanenergy/wave-energy/)
It has been estimated that improving technology and economies of
scale will allow wave generators to produce electricity at a cost
comparable to wind-driven turbines, which produce energy at about
4.5 cents kWh. For now, the best wave generator technology in place in the
United Kingdom is producing energy at an average projected/assessed cost of
7.5 cents kWh. In comparison, electricity generated by large scale coal
burning power plants costs about 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Combinedcycle natural gas turbine technology, the primary source of new electric
power capacity is about 3 cents per kilowatt hour or higher. It is not unusual
to average costs of 5 cents per kilowatt-hour and up for municipal
utilities districts.

Wind
Status quo solves wind farm expenses
Tully 7/8 (Andy Tully, news editor for Oilprice.com, 7/8/14, Two-bladed
Wind Turbines: Something Old Is New Again, Oil Price,
http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Two-bladed-WindTurbines-Something-Old-Is-New-Again.html, Accessed 7/9/14, MX)
A Chinese
company is leading an effort to build two-bladed turbines . Theres nothing
new about that. Whats new is that they finally seem to work properly. First the good news:
As with all research into new, alternative energies, this focuses on economics. Some say two-bladed
turbines could cost 20 percent less to build and install than its
conventional three-bladed siblings, while still equaling their power
output. The bad news? The flexible blades mounted on the windward side of a turbine tower can bow
Look at a picture of a wind turbine and youll see tower topped by a fan with three blades.

backwards and strike the tower, ruining the blades. It was this snag, discovered 12 years ago, that put two-

Chinas Ming Yang Wind Power, the worlds

ninth-largest wind-turbine manufacturer, plans the largest test ever
of a two-bladed turbine design. It is building a six-megawatt, twobladed turbine in China this year that is expected to generate as
much power as the largest commercial offshore turbines. The company also
plans to build another such farm off the Norwegian coast next year. The reason for Ming
Yangs confidence in these projects is that turbine designers have
discovered how to keep the blades intact. Peter Jamieson of Scotlands Garrad
Hassan & Partners mounted the turbines on the downwind side of the
towers and applied a technique called roto-braking to lower their
risk of striking the towers regardless of wind speed. Offshore wind
farms enjoy steadier breezes than those based on land , but theyre about
twice as expensive to install and maintain. This, though, can be mitigated in part by the use of twobladed turbines, which use fewer materials and so are lighter than
three-bladed turbines.
bladed turbines on the shelf until now.

Offshore wind costs per megawatt hour are identical to

coal

Shahan 11 (Zachary, 3/11/2011, Site Director & Publishing Services Manager

at Important Media, Wind Energy Cost-Competitive with Coal in Some
Regions, http://cleantechnica.com/2011/03/09/wind-energy-costcompetitive-with-coal-in-some-regions/)
Perhaps not in your part of the world, but according to the latest report from
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, in many parts of the world, onshore
wind power is now completely cost-competitive with coal. Reportedly,
in some regions of Brazil, Mexico, Sweden and the United States, wind
power has gotten down to $68/MWh. Coal power in those same regions
$67/MWh. And this isnt even taking the tremendous health costs
of coal into account. The DOE rolled out a 10-year plan last month
aimed at making wind and solar power cost-competitive with coal.
Clearly, in some regions, that wont be a problem.

Internals

Spending Causes Growth

Spending helps the economy
Pyke, Deputy Economic Policy Editor for ThinkProgress.org, 14
(Alan, 1/14/14, United States Notches Record $53 Billion Budget Surplus in
December,
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/14/3158271/december-surplusrecord-austerity/, AL)
Last years deficit was the smallest since 2008 and less than half of what it
was in 2009. The pullback in government spending has been a drag on
economic growth for years. While falling annual deficits and record
monthly surpluses are a sign of success for spending hawks, its not a good
thing for the American economy. With unemployment still very high and
millions giving up on finding work after years of fruitless post-recession job
hunting, many economists would argue the government needs to be
spending aggressively to boost economic growth. Instead, the
government is investing less in the economy now than at any time
since World War II. The Federal Reserves radical bond-buying
program the only thing that kept the economy from sliding into a
recession thanks to the trillions of dollars worth of austerity measures
enacted since 2010 begins to wind slowly down this month, potentially
exacerbating the negative impacts of the governments thriftiness.
News of the monthly surplus record comes just days after the paltry
December jobs report showed only 74,000 net jobs gained nationwide in the
final month of 2013. That was far below both what economists expected
(200,000 jobs) and the monthly average for 2013 (182,000 jobs). Thanks to
the spending cuts zeal of recent years, the immediate future is dim for
the millions of Americans who have been out of work for more than six
months and therefore rely upon Emergency Unemployment Compensation
(EUC) from the federal government. Congressional negotiators failed to
extend that program in last years budget deal, and Republicans are now
blocking efforts to reinstate the lapsed benefit program. State economies lost
$400 million in economic activity in just the first week after the program dried
up.

spending cuts hurts the econ

Liberto, senior writer for CNN, 13
(Jennifer, 10/18/13, Spending cuts are hurting economy,
http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/18/news/economy/sequester-economyshutdown/, AL)
The nation has been operating on a shrunken budget, slashed by $80
billion in forced spending cuts since March 1. And already, the so-called
sequester has dragged down economic growth, experts say. As
government workers returned to work Thursday, Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel warned employees that the economic pain could continue for his
agency, because "Congress did not end the budget uncertainty that has cast
such a shadow ... over this Department for much of the year." The Bipartisan
Policy Center too warned in a report this month that widespread economic
pain is already beginning to kick in, as the money (or lack of it) is finally

starting to pinch. The brunt of the cuts have fallen in areas like medical and
science research funding and services that help the poor, sick and elderly.
The sequester slashed 57,000 children this fall from the rolls of Head
Start daycare and preschool programs, available for poor families
nationwide. About two-thirds of Meals on Wheels programs had to reduce
the number of meals they served, by an average of 364 meals per week, a
survey found. The lack of government funds has also led to layoffs of
hundreds of science and medical research jobs, according to a survey
by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and 15 other
scientific societies. The cuts have also undermined federal public defenders'
ability to defend those accused of federal crimes -- a constitutional right for
people who can't afford a lawyer. Furloughs have delayed many cases -prompting U.S. District Judge Richard George Kopf in Nebraska to declare: "It
is time to tell Congress to go to hell." The Bipartisan Policy Center suggests
that if the cuts continue, economic impact on the defense industry will be
double in 2014 what it was in 2013. "The full brunt of the cuts hasn't hit,
and if we go down the sequester path for too long, we won't be able
to reverse the devastating impacts," according to the report.

Spending now is key to economic growth

Krugman, 2014 (Paul Krugman; professor of Economics and International
Affairs at Princeton University; Demography and the Bicycle Effect;
5/19/2014; http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/demography-andthe-bicycle-effect/; Date Accessed: 7/7/14)

we need sufficient
spending to make use of the economys potential . But one important
component of spending, investment, is subject to the accelerator
effect: the demand for new capital depends on the economys rate of
growth, rather than the current level of output. So if growth slows due to a falloff in population growth,
Its a pretty straightforward point. To have more or less full employment,

investment demand falls potentially pushing the economy into a semi-permanent slump.

Spending stimulates the economy

Krugman, 2014 (Paul Krugman; professor of Economics and International
Affairs at Princeton University; Macroeconomics and Class Warfare;
4/28/2014; http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/macroeconomicsand-class-warfare/; Date Accessed: 7/7/14)
when Obama was proposing a spending plan to boost the
economy, and some of us were pleading for a bigger plan , it was
common to hear people from both the right and the crazy center declaring that it
was all a ruse, an attempt to smuggle in liberal priorities under the guise
of fiscal stimulus. This was, as it happens, completely false and in the case of the right-wingers,
Back

a case of projection. After all, Obama didnt try to sell permanent spending increases as short-run stimulus

If
anything, your best bet is to try it the other way to push proposals that will
stimulate the economy while also building infrastructure and/or reducing inequality, and to
but Bush did exactly that when pushing his tax cuts. And whats more, it wouldnt have worked.

make the long-run, class-warfare aspects the heart of your sales pitch. This may seem odd. Shouldnt it be
easier to sell win-win ideas, which will make everyone or almost everyone better off? Well, it would be if

even educated readers tend not to get

the idea that the economy as a whole can suffer from inadequate
the public got Keynesian economics. But

demand (hey, lots of U. of Chicago professors dont get it either.) And I dont think its for want of
efforts to get the point across. The key sticking point is right at the beginning .
Never mind monetary and fiscal policy; the very notion that the economy can
suffer from too little spending turns out to be inherently difficult.
When I give public talks, I get some traction (I think) by asking
people what happens if everyone tries to cut his or her spending at
the same time, then pointing out that my spending is your income
and your spending is my income. But I dont think it sticks for many people: the appeal of
the economy-as-household metaphor usually takes over.

Spending lays the groundwork for economic expansion

Amy, No Date (Douglas J. Amy; Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke
College; The Deficit Scare: Myth vs. Reality;
http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=30&p=1; Date Accessed:
7/9/14)
Clearly this anti-deficit campaign is part of the larger starving the beast strategy that was discussed in

deficits and debt are complicated topics that merit

some analysis on their own. This article takes on the deficit hawks and critically examines
another article. But

their arguments. It will show that (1) Republicans only care about deficits when the money is being spent

our current large deficits have not been caused by

overspending by the Obama administration; (3) deficit spending is an
essential tool for combating economic recessions and depression s; (4)
public debt can fuel vital public investments in education, technology,
and infrastructure that lay the groundwork for future economic
expansion; (5) the inflated and misleading right-wing rhetoric about deficits and debt is distracting
on liberal programs; (2)

from a more rational and helpful discussion of the financial problems that we do face as a nation.

Spending provides a large economic boost and prevents

collapse.
Amy, No Date (Douglas J. Amy; Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke
College; The Deficit Scare: Myth vs. Reality;
http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=30&p=1; Date Accessed:
7/9/14)
arent Republicans right that deficit spending is
a terrible idea and we must stop doing it? Arent balanced budgets just a matter of
common sense? The answer is No. In fact, a good case can be made that deficit spending
is an indispensable government tool in addressing serious economic
problems. For example, most economists agree that deficit spending during a
recession, especially a severe one, is a very good thing to do. Even though
tax revenues are decreasing, the best thing for the economy is for the
government to keep spending money, and even increase spending.
When consumer and corporate spending are swooning, only the
government is in the position to spend money and stimulate
economic activity. The market will not take care of this problem, so
the government must step in. Government spending has a multiplier
effect that provides a large economic boost during recessions. If it spends money on
But irrespective of their motivations,

building schools and roads, for example, that money first helps constructions companies. These companies in turn will hire
more workers who will then spend more money on goods and services, thus helping other businesses. The construction
companies will also purchase more tools and materials from other businesses, who will then hire more workers, and so on.
In this way,

deficit spending spreads through the economy, lessening the

impact of recessions and helping to speed economic recovery . And as the

economy rebounds, this produces higher tax revenues, which eventually lessens the need for deficit spending. Contrary to

deficit spending and

economic stimulus programs of the Obama administration provided
enormous benefits. A 2010 study by Alan Blinder of Princeton and Mark Zandy of Moodys Analytics found
that the combined effect of the fiscal stimulus package, TARP, and the
actions of the Federal Reserve Board raised real GDP 11% over
where it would have been, saved an estimated 8 million jobs, and
probably averted deflation and a depression. They concluded: It is clear that laissez
faire was not an option; policymakers had to act. Not responding would have left both the economy and
the wildly erroneous claims of the political right, most economists agree that the

the governments fiscal situation in far graver condition. We conclude that Ben Bernanke was probably right when he said
that We came very close in October [2008] to Depression 2.0.

Spending is keywith out it economies would suffer

another great depression.
Amy, No Date (Douglas J. Amy; Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke

College; The Deficit Scare: Myth vs. Reality;

http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=30&p=1; Date Accessed:
7/9/14)
The worst thing the federal government could have done was to listen
to the deficit hawks and curtailed spending in the face of a severe recession .
To see why, you simply need to look at state governments that did
this in recent years. As their economies were tanking, many state
governments which are constitutionally required to balance their budgets had to lay off
workers, cut benefits to individuals, and curtail purchases of goods
from the private sector. This simply made a bad economic situation
worse. It created a kind of reverse multiplier effect,. taking money and jobs out of the
economy and lowering demand for goods and services in an already
weak economy Instead of speeding an economic recovery, this kind
of frugal spending policy actually slows it down. It hardly makes
sense to kick the economy when it is down, but this is what happens if
governments are forced to balance their budgets every year. If the Republicans continue to be successful

blocking further stimulus spending, this will only hurt the economy. At
best, it will delay recovery from the recession, and at worst, it might actually precipitate a
dip back into more severe recession. Either way, this will only add up to
more suffering for millions of American workers. Chronic long term
in

unemployment has reached heights not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This is the real
crisis facing many Americans. They are out of a job, out of savings, and losing their house. Their American

Only the government is in the position to help to

stimulate the economy to produce more jobs. And yet the Republicans keep
dream is fading fast.

insisting that budget balancing must be our first priority thus leaving millions of jobless working class and
middle class Americans hung out to dry.

Spending causes an economic boom-WWII proves.

Amy, No Date (Douglas J. Amy; Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke
College; The Deficit Scare: Myth vs. Reality;
http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=30&p=1; Date Accessed:
7/9/14)
Conservatives are also wrong when they argue that deficit spending
and a large national debt will inevitably undermine economic growth .

To see why, we need to simply look back at times when we have run up large deficits and increased the
national debt.

The best example is World War II when the national debt

soared to 120% of GDP nearly twice the size of todays debt. This
spending not only got us out of the Great Depression but set the
stage for a prolonged period of sustained economic growth in the
50s and 60s. Massive investments were made in science and
technology, American workers were re-trained and re-employed,
private investment was encouraged, and consumer purchasing
power was increased. That 25-year post-war economic boom, with the most
rapid increase in living standards in our history, would not have happened without
the stimulus of all this deficit spending.

Spending is a major stimulus to economic growth

Amy, No Date (Douglas J. Amy; Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke
College; The Deficit Scare: Myth vs. Reality;
http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=30&p=1; Date Accessed:
7/11/14)
a Nobel
Prize winning economist. He argues that deficit spending, when it is done
right, can be a major stimulus to economic growth and actually lower
long term government debt.7 When economic growth is back on healthy terms, this leads to
But there is even a more important issue here one often brought up by Joseph Stiglitz,

increased tax revenues, which eventually lessen the need for government to borrow money. For Stiglitz,

the key is to spend that deficit money on things like education, technology, and
infrastructure that lay the groundwork for future economic expansion . We
will not remain competitive with other countries for long if we dont
have decent roads, efficient airports, adequate clean water supplies, and sufficient school facilities.
Recently the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that over the next five years it would take at
least $1.6 trillion to bring our national infrastructure into an acceptable state. These are huge investments
that the private sector is unwilling to make .

Going into debt to pay for these things is a good

investment in our collective futures.

Spending ensures a growing economy

Amy, No Date (Douglas J. Amy; Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke
College; The Deficit Scare: Myth vs. Reality;
http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=30&p=1; Date Accessed:
7/11/14)
Finally, as noted earlier,

government spending can be crucial for ensuring a

prosperous and growing economy. A large part of the economic growth in
the last twenty years has been fueled by various kinds of private
sector economic bubbles. This is hardly desirable or sustainable. In the

1990s, there was a large technology bubble that created billions in apparent investment profits. Later, it
was the housing bubble which encouraged consumers to borrow and spend much more money because of
the rapidly increasing value of their homes. When these bubbles burst, they took the economy down with

Today, we need a more stable and reliable way of encouraging

economic growth. Public investments in emerging technologies, like alternative
energy, could prove to be a valuable part of that economic strategy. If
we can leave our children a sustainable growing economy, this could
be their greatest inheritance.
them.

A2: Spending Causes Collapse

Spending aids governments and averts collapse
Krugman, 2011 (Paul Krugman; professor of Economics and International
Affairs at Princeton University; The Truth About Federal Spending;
7/29/2011; http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/the-truth-aboutfederal-spending/; Date Accessed: 7/7/14)
Whenever someone like me or Bruce Bartlett points out how little Obama resembles the rights portrait of
a raging leftist, someone is sure to come back with the assertion that

Obama has presided

over a vast expansion of federal spending. Even people who really should know
better, like John Taylor, do it. So whats the truth? Ive written about this before, but heres another take.

federal spending rose from 19.6% of GDP in fiscal 2007 to

23.8% of GDP in fiscal 2010. So isnt that a huge spending spree? Well, no. First of all, the
The fact is that

size of a ratio depends on the denominator as well as the numerator. GDP has fallen sharply relative to the

A 6 percent
fall in GDP relative to trend, all by itself, would have raised the ratio
of spending to GDP from 19.6 to 20.8, or about 30 percent of the
actual rise. That still leaves a rise in spending; but most of that is safety-net
programs, which spend more in hard times because more people are in distress. The CBO breaks
out income security (Table E-10 in Historical Budget Tables), which is unemployment
economys potential; heres the ratio of real GDP to the CBOs estimate of potential GDP:

insurance, food stamps, etc., and also gives us numbers on Medicaid; heres what they look like as

were still left

with a bit, around 1 point of GDP. Thats the stimulus, more or less .
percentages of GDP: Thats another 2 points of GDP, or about half the rise. So

And there are two things you need to know about it. First, its temporary, and already fading out fast.

spending was actually aid to state and

local governments, intended not to expand spending but to avert a
fall that is, it was about maintaining government, not expanding it.
Second, a large part of the stimulus

Spending myths are wrong-Spending actually has a large

positive multiplier
Krugman, 2014 (Paul Krugman; professor of Economics and International
Affairs at Princeton University; No Time For Sargent; 4/21/2014;
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/no-time-for-sargent/; Date
Accessed: 7/7/14)
So when Sargent reminds us that communities face trade-offs, thats much less clear at a time when
the community is not at all like an individual in which there are substantial amounts of unemployed

tells us
this: When a government spends, its citizens eventually pay, either
today or tomorrow, either through explicit taxes or implicit ones like
inflation. There are very good reasons to believe that this is just wrong under
current conditions. Theres overwhelming evidence that in an
economy against the zero lower bound government spending has a
large, positive multiplier, so the goods the government buys dont
come at the expense of other consumption or investment; and
theres a reasonable argument to the effect that even in purely fiscal
terms spending more than pays for itself.
resources, and putting those resources to work would be pure gain, not a tradeoff. And then he

Spending helps sustain the economy and prevents a

second Great Depression
Krugman, 2013 (Paul Krugman; professor of Economics and International
Affairs at Princeton University; Dwindling Deficit Disorder; 3/10/2013;
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/opinion/krugman-dwindling-deficitdisorder.html?_r=0; Date Accessed: 7/8/14)
policy debate in Washington has been dominated by
warnings about the dangers of budget deficits. A few lonely economists have
tried from the beginning to point out that this fixation is all wrong, that deficit
spending is actually appropriate in a depressed economy. But even though the deficit
For three years and more,

scolds have been wrong about everything so far where are the soaring interest rates we were promised?
protests that we are having the wrong conversation have consistently fallen on deaf ears. Whats really
remarkable at this point, however, is the persistence of the deficit fixation in the face of rapidly changing
facts. People still talk as if the deficit were exploding, as if the United States budget were on an
unsustainable path; in fact, the deficit is falling more rapidly than it has for generations, it is already down
to sustainable levels, and it is too small given the state of the economy. Start with the raw numbers.

Americas budget deficit soared after the 2008 financial crisis and the
recession that went with it, as revenue plunged and spending on
unemployment benefits and other safety-net programs rose . And this
rise in the deficit was a good thing! Federal spending helped sustain
the economy at a time when the private sector was in panicked
retreat; arguably, the stabilizing role of a large government was the
main reason the Great Recession didnt turn into a full replay of the
Great Depression. But after peaking in 2009 at $1.4 trillion, the deficit began coming down. The

Congressional Budget Office expects the deficit for fiscal 2013 (which began in October and is almost half
over) to be $845 billion. That may still sound like a big number, but given the state of the economy it really
isnt. Bear in mind that the budget doesnt have to be balanced to put us on a fiscally sustainable path; all
we need is a deficit small enough that debt grows more slowly than the economy. To take the classic
example, America never did pay off the debt from World War II in fact, our debt doubled in the 30 years
that followed the war. But debt as a percentage of G.D.P. fell by three-quarters over the same period. Right
now, a sustainable deficit would be around $460 billion. The actual deficit is bigger than that. But
according to new estimates by the budget office, half of our current deficit reflects the effects of a stilldepressed economy. The cyclically adjusted deficit what the deficit would be if we were near full
employment is only about $423 billion, which puts it in the sustainable range; next year the budget
office expects that number to fall to just $172 billion. And thats why budget office projections show the
nations debt position more or less stable over the next decade. So we do not, repeat do not, face any kind
of deficit crisis either now or for years to come. There are, of course, longer-term fiscal issues: rising health
costs and an aging population will put the budget under growing pressure over the course of the 2020s.
But I have yet to see any coherent explanation of why these longer-run concerns should determine budget
policy right now. And as I said, given the needs of the economy, the deficit is currently too small. Put it this

Smart fiscal policy involves having the government spend when the
supporting the economy when it is weak and reducing
debt only when it is strong. Yet the cyclically adjusted deficit as a share of G.D.P. is
way:

private sector wont,

currently about what it was in 2006, at the height of the housing boom and it is headed down. Yes,

well want to reduce deficits once the economy recovers, and there are gratifying signs
that a solid recovery is finally under way. But unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, is still
unacceptably high. The boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity , John
Maynard Keynes declared many years ago. He was right all you have to do is look at Europe to see the
disastrous effects of austerity on weak economies. And this is still nothing like a boom. Now, Im aware that
the facts about our dwindling deficit are unwelcome in many quarters. Fiscal fearmongering is a major
industry inside the Beltway, especially among those looking for excuses to do what they really want,

People whose careers are

heavily invested in the deficit-scold industry dont want to let
evidence undermine their scare tactics; as the deficit dwindles,
were sure to encounter a blizzard of bogus numbers purporting to
show that were still in some kind of fiscal crisis. But we arent. The deficit is
namely dismantle Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

indeed dwindling, and the case for making the deficit a central policy concern, which was never very
strong given low borrowing costs and high unemployment, has now completely vanished.

Spending averts a great depression

Stiglitz, 2010 (Joseph E. Stiglitz; University Professor at Columbia

University and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics; Stiglitz: The
Dangers of Deficit Reduction; 3/5/10;
http://www.sfbg.com/bruce/2010/03/05/stiglitz-dangers-deficit-reduction;
Date Accessed: 7/11/14)
NEW YORK A wave of fiscal austerity is rushing over Europe and America. The magnitude of budget
deficits like the magnitude of the downturn has taken many by surprise. But despite protests by the
yesterdays proponents of deregulation, who would like the government to remain passive,

most

economists believe that government spending has made a

difference, helping to avert another Great Depression. Most economists also
agree that it is a mistake to look at only one side of a balance sheet (whether for the public or private
sector). One has to look not only at what a country or firm owes, but also at its assets. This should help
answer those financial sector hawks who are raising alarms about government spending. After all, even
deficit hawks acknowledge that we should be focusing not on todays deficit, but on the long-term national

debt. Spending, especially on investments in education, technology, and

infrastructure, can actually lead to lower long-term deficits. Banks shortsightedness helped create the crisis; we cannot let government short-sightedness prodded by the

Faster growth and returns on public investment

yield higher tax revenues, and a 5 to 6% return is more than enough
to offset temporary increases in the national debt. A social costbenefit analysis (taking into account impacts other than on the
budget) makes such expenditures, even when debt-financed, even
more attractive. Finally, most economists agree that, apart from these
considerations, the appropriate size of a deficit depends in part on
the state of the economy. A weaker economy calls for a larger deficit, and the appropriate
financial sector prolong it.

size of the deficit in the face of a recession depends on the precise circumstances. It is here that
economists disagree. Forecasting is always difficult, but especially so in troubled times. What has
happened is (fortunately) not an everyday occurrence; it would be foolish to look at past recoveries to
predict this one. In America, for instance, bad debt and foreclosures are at levels not seen for threequarters of a century; the decline in credit in 2009 was the largest since 1942. Comparisons to the Great
Depression are also deceptive, because the economy today is so different in so many ways. And nearly all
so-called experts have proven highly fallible witness the United States Federal Reserves dismal

even with large deficits, economic growth

in the US and Europe is anemic, and forecasts of private-sector
growth suggest that in the absence of continued government
support, there is risk of continued stagnation of growth too weak to return
forecasting record before the crisis. Yet,

unemployment to normal levels anytime soon. The risks are asymmetric: if these forecasts are wrong, and
there is a more robust recovery, then, of course, expenditures can be cut back and/or taxes increased. But

if these forecasts are right, then a premature exit from deficit

spending risks pushing the economy back into recession. This is one
of the lessons we should have learned from Americas experience in
the Great Depression; it is also one of the lessons to emerge from
Japans experience in the late 1990s. These points are particularly germane for the
hardest-hit economies. The United Kingdom, for example, has had a harder time than other countries for
an obvious reason: it had a real-estate bubble (though of less consequence than in Spain), and finance,
which was at the epicenter of the crisis, played a more important role in its economy than it does in other
countries. The UKs weaker performance is not the result of worse policies; indeed, compared to the US, its
bank bailouts and labor-market policies were, in many ways, far better. It avoided the massive waste of
human resources associated with high unemployment in America, where almost one out of five people who

governments
should, of course, have plans on the drawing board to raise taxes and cut
would like a full-time job cannot find one. As the global economy returns to growth,

expenditures. The right balance will inevitably be a subject of dispute. Principles like it is better to tax bad

things than good things might suggest imposing environmental taxes. The financial sector has imposed
huge externalities on the rest of society. Americas financial industry polluted the world with toxic
mortgages, and, in line with the well established polluter pays principle, taxes should be imposed on it.
Besides, well-designed taxes on the financial sector might help alleviate problems caused by excessive
leverage and banks that are too big to fail. Taxes on speculative activity might encourage banks to focus
greater attention on performing their key societal role of providing credit. Over the longer term, most

economists agree that governments, especially in advanced industrial countries with

aging populations, should be concerned about the sustainability of their
policies. But we must be wary of deficit fetishism. Deficits to finance wars or give-aways to the
financial sector (as happened on a massive scale in the US) lead to liabilities without corresponding assets,

But high-return public investments that

more than pay for themselves can actually improve the well-being of
future generations, and it would be doubly foolish to burden them
with debts from unproductive spending and then cut back on
productive investments. These are questions for a later day at least in many countries,
imposing a burden on future generations.

prospects of a robust recovery are, at best, a year or two away. For now, the economics is clear:

reducing government spending is a risk not worth taking.

A2: Downgrade

U.S. downgrade wouldnt hurt the economymarkets

already know the risks, the impacts should have
happened, ratings dont make sense in terms of
treasuries, and there is no where else to investthere is
literally ZERO risk of the DA
Hough 2011(Jack, Smart Money Staff, July 27, "S&P, Moody's U.S.
Downgrade Irrelevant ", http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/stocks/spmoodys-downgraded-to-irrelevant-1311719817477/)

Given that Treasury bonds have historically served as a benchmark against

which the safety of other investments is judged, the spillover effects would
be "extremely damaging" for the world economy, a senior advisor for the
International Monetary Fund said this week. Someone forgot to tell the
investors who stake actual money in Treasury bonds, however. The closely
watched 10-year Treasury has gained since the beginning of the
year, dropping its yield from 3.4% to 3.0%. That means interest rates on
the things the president mentioned aren't expected to "skyrocket"
soon--not even if the rocket he had in mind is only one of those backyard
balsa-wood-and-gunpowder fliers. Maybe financial markets are waiting for
the actual downgrades. But that would contradict an investment law as basic
as gravity: Markets are forward-looking. At any given moment, they
anticipate information that's known or even suspected. S&P
announced a negative outlook on the U.S. (warning of a possible downgrade)
in April, and Moody's announced something similar earlier this month. By
now, anything that would have happened has happened. It's not that
investors doubt the judgment of raters, although the latter have attracted
plenty of jeers in recent years, partly because their pay-me-to-rate-you
business models are inherently awkward, and partly because they have
missed some colossal collapses. Enron had an investment-grade credit rating
four days before it went bankrupt. During the recent housing bust, mortgage
securities that were sold as Parmigiano-Reggiano turned out to be a notch
below Cheez Whiz. That has led some outside analysts to mutiny. In
December, Meredith Whitney, who made her name covering banks, told
CBS's "60 Minutes" that 50 to 100 "sizeable" municipalities could default on
amounts totaling "hundreds of billions of dollars," directly contradicting the
ratings agencies, who expect that municipal defaults will be isolated and
manageable. So far, the ratings agencies have been right on municipalities. I
suspect that they've taken recent criticism to heart and are working hard to
produce good research. And in fairness, creditworthiness is a complicated
thing to judge, depending as it does on human behavior, and the agencies
get plenty of calls right. If they say the U.S. is bucking for a downgrade, I'll
take their word for it. I'm unfashionably bullish on America, but I'm not sure
anything deserves a perfect credit rating, least of all something that can
make its own money. But I also think the opinions of S&P and Moody's
(and Fitch, which says it will decide its opinion of the U.S. in August) are
irrelevant when it comes to Treasurys. These firms add value by tracking

a universe of bond issuers too vast for most investors to watch. Their
opinions on Ford Motor or the city of Rochester, N.Y., matter greatly to bond
buyers. The world doesn't need help analyzing Treasurys, though. No
entity in the world is more closely watched than the United States
government, not even Lady Gaga. And none publishes more and better
information on its financial condition. The sort of investors who decide
Treasury prices--foreign governments, giant mutual funds, the Social
Security Trust Fund--don't wait for S&P or Moody's to tell them whether
to buy. They do the math themselves. They also have limited
choices. In a recent report for Wells Fargo Securities, economist Jay Bryson
writes that investors aren't likely to dump Treasurys, simply because
Europe has no unified debt security and most Asian capital markets
are small and illiquid, save for that of Japan, which is in worse shape than
the U.S. What about the fear that large investment funds, bound by
prospectus to buy only AAA-rated bonds, would be forced to sell? Bryson
calls this "overblown" for two reasons. Mutual funds hold just 7% of
Treasurys. Also, Bryson's team reviewed prospectuses for the largest
ones and found no such mandate. So fear the debt and the deficit a little
and political intransigence a lot, but don't fear the alphabetical
Armageddon of a dozen researchers swapping their As for Bs. I'm
guessing about the number, by the way. None of the agencies would tell me
how many analysts decide their U.S. rating or even how much of the decision
is based on perceptions rather than numbers. A document provided by Fitch
says its minimum committee size is generally four analysts including one
"senior director," and that those average six to seven years of tenure. That's
comforting. If I'm wrong, I'd hate for the world's financial system to be
brought down by new hires.

Downgrade has ZERO IMPACTmarkets dont care about

ratings because its a risk-free asset
Detrixhe 10/9(John, Bloomberg Staff, 2012, "U.S. Downgrade Seen as
Upgrade as U.S. Debt Dissolved", http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1009/u-s-downgrade-seen-as-upgrade-as-u-s-debt-dissolved.html)
Reduced borrowing means there is less competition for the U.S. Treasury
Department as it sells debt to fund spending programs to help the nation
recover from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Creditrating firms are discounting the improvement even as debt, equity
and currency markets suggest the U.S. is more creditworthy than
before Standard & Poors stripped the nation of its AAA grade in
2011. Most people dont pay much attention to ratings when it
comes to Treasuries, as they are still considered to be risk- free
assets, Donald Ellenberger, who oversees about $10 billion as co-head of
government and mortgage-backed securities at Federated Investors in
Pittsburgh, said Oct. 5 in a telephone interview. Until that perception
changes Treasuries will continue to be in demand, he said.

Impact Level

No Impact to Collapse
No impact to economy
Drezner 14 (Daniel Drezner, IR prof at Tufts, The System
Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great
Recession, World Politics, Volume 66. Number 1, January 2014,
pp. 123-164)

The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn't barked: the effect
of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict and violence. During the
initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the
financial crisis would lead states to increase their use of force as a
tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that the global
economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflictwhether through
greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a
ratcheting up of great power conflict. Violence in the Middle East, border
disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy
movement fueled impressions of a surge in global public disorder. The
aggregate data suggest otherwise, however. The Institute for
Economics and Peace has concluded that "the average level of
peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in 2007."43
Interstate violence in particular has declined since the start of the
financial crisis, as have military expenditures in most sampled
countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not
triggered any increase in violent conflict, as Lotta Themner and Peter
Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of relative stability when we
consider the trend for the past five years."44 The secular decline in
violence that started with the end of the Cold War has not been
reversed. Rogers Brubaker observes that "the crisis has not to date
generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion
that might have been expected."43

Impact empirically denied

Barnett 09 (Thomas P.M. Barnett, senior managing director of
Enterra Solutions LLC, The New Rules: Security Remains Stable
Amid Financial Crisis, 8/25/2009)

When the global financial crisis struck roughly a year ago, the blogosphere
was ablaze with all sorts of scary predictions of, and commentary regarding,
ensuing conflict and wars -- a rerun of the Great Depression leading to world
war, as it were. Now, as global economic news brightens and recovery -surprisingly led by China and emerging markets -- is the talk of the day, it's
interesting to look back over the past year and realize how globalization's
first truly worldwide recession has had virtually no impact
whatsoever on the international security landscape. None of the more
than three-dozen ongoing conflicts listed by GlobalSecurity.org can be
clearly attributed to the global recession. Indeed, the last new entry (civil
conflict between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestine) predates the economic
crisis by a year, and three quarters of the chronic struggles began in the last

century. Ditto for the 15 low-intensity conflicts listed by Wikipedia (where the
latest entry is the Mexican "drug war" begun in 2006). Certainly, the RussiaGeorgia conflict last August was specifically timed, but by most accounts the
opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was the most important external
trigger (followed by the U.S. presidential campaign) for that sudden spike in
an almost two-decade long struggle between Georgia and its two breakaway
regions. Looking over the various databases, then, we see a most familiar
picture: the usual mix of civil conflicts, insurgencies, and liberation-themed
terrorist movements. Besides the recent Russia-Georgia dust-up, the only two
potential state-on-state wars (North v. South Korea, Israel v. Iran) are both
tied to one side acquiring a nuclear weapon capacity -- a process wholly
unrelated to global economic trends. And with the United States effectively
tied down by its two ongoing major interventions (Iraq and Afghanistanbleeding-into-Pakistan), our involvement elsewhere around the planet has
been quite modest, both leading up to and following the onset of the
economic crisis: e.g., the usual counter-drug efforts in Latin America, the
usual military exercises with allies across Asia, mixing it up with pirates off
Somalia's coast). Everywhere else we find serious instability we pretty much
let it burn, occasionally pressing the Chinese -- unsuccessfully -- to do
something. Our new Africa Command, for example, hasn't led us to anything
beyond advising and training local forces. So, to sum up: * No significant
uptick in mass violence or unrest (remember the smattering of urban riots
last year in places like Greece, Moldova and Latvia?); * The usual frequency
maintained in civil conflicts (in all the usual places); * Not a single state-onstate war directly caused (and no great-power-on-great-power crises even
triggered); * No great improvement or disruption in great-power
cooperation regarding the emergence of new nuclear powers (despite all
that diplomacy); * A modest scaling back of international policing efforts by
the system's acknowledged Leviathan power (inevitable given the strain);
and * No serious efforts by any rising great power to challenge that Leviathan
or supplant its role. (The worst things we can cite are Moscow's occasional
deployments of strategic assets to the Western hemisphere and its weak
efforts to outbid the United States on basing rights in Kyrgyzstan; but the
best include China and India stepping up their aid and investments in
Afghanistan and Iraq.) Sure, we've finally seen global defense spending
surpass the previous world record set in the late 1980s, but even that is likely
to wane given the stress on public budgets created by all this unprecedented
"stimulus" spending. If anything, the friendly cooperation on such stimulus
packaging was the most notable great-power dynamic caused by the
crisis. Can we say that the world has suffered a distinct shift to political
radicalism as a result of the economic crisis? Indeed, no. The world's major
economies remain governed by center-left or center-right political
factions that remain decidedly friendly to both markets and trade. In
the short run, there were attempts across the board to insulate
economies from immediate damage (in effect, as much protectionism
as allowed under current trade rules), but there was no great slide
into "trade wars." Instead, the World Trade Organization is
functioning as it was designed to function, and regional efforts
toward free-trade agreements have not slowed. Can we say Islamic
radicalism was inflamed by the economic crisis? If it was, that shift was

clearly overwhelmed by the Islamic world's growing disenchantment with the

brutality displayed by violent extremist groups such as al-Qaida. And looking
forward, austere economic times are just as likely to breed connecting
evangelicalism as disconnecting fundamentalism. At the end of the day, the
economic crisis did not prove to be sufficiently frightening to provoke major
economies into establishing global regulatory schemes, even as it has
sparked a spirited -- and much needed, as I argued last week -- discussion of
the continuing viability of the U.S. dollar as the world's primary reserve
currency. Naturally, plenty of experts and pundits have attached great
significance to this debate, seeing in it the beginning of "economic warfare"
and the like between "fading" America and "rising" China. And yet, in a world
of globally integrated production chains and interconnected financial
markets, such "diverging interests" hardly constitute signposts for wars up
ahead. Frankly, I don't welcome a world in which America's fiscal profligacy
goes undisciplined, so bring it on -- please! Add it all up and it's fair to say
that this global financial crisis has proven the great resilience of America's
post-World War II international liberal trade order.

No rational for war

Jervis 11 (Robert Jervis, Professor in the Department of Political Science

and School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, Force

in Our Times, Survival, Vol. 25, No. 4, p. 403-425, December 2011)
Even if war is still seen as evil, the security community could be dissolved if
severe conflicts of interest were to arise. Could the more peaceful world
generate new interests that would bring the members of the community into
sharp disputes? 45 A zero-sum sense of status would be one example,
perhaps linked to a steep rise in nationalism. More likely would be a
worsening of the current economic difficulties, which could itself
produce greater nationalism, undermine democracy and bring back oldfashioned beggar-my-neighbor economic policies. While these dangers are
real, it is hard to believe that the conflicts could be great enough to
lead the members of the community to contemplate fighting each
other. It is not so much that economic interdependence has proceeded to
the point where it could not be reversed states that were more internally
interdependent than anything seen internationally have fought bloody civil
wars. Rather it is that even if the more extreme versions of free trade
and economic liberalism become discredited, it is hard to see how
without building on a preexisting high level of political conflict
leaders and mass opinion would come to believe that their countries
could prosper by impoverishing or even attacking others. Is it possible
that problems will not only become severe, but that people will entertain the
thought that they have to be solved by war? While a pessimist could note
that this argument does not appear as outlandish as it did before the financial
crisis, an optimist could reply (correctly, in my view) that the very
fact that we have seen such a sharp economic down-turn without
anyone suggesting that force of arms is the solution shows that
even if bad times bring about greater economic conflict, it will not
make war thinkable.

Trade still happens- wars dont escalate

Lamy 11 (Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization.

Lamy is Honorary President of Paris-based think tank Notre Europe. Lamy

graduated from the prestigious Sciences Po Paris, from HEC and NA,
graduating second in his year of those specializing in economics. System
Upgrade BY PASCAL LAMY | APRIL 18, 2011)
The bigger test came with the 2008-2009 Great Recession, the first
truly global recession since World War II. When the international
economy went into free fall, trade went right along with it. Production and
supply are today thoroughly global in nature, with most manufactured
products made from parts and materials imported from many other countries.
These global value chains have a multiplier effect on trade statistics, which
explains why, as the global economy contracted by 2 percent in 2009, trade
volume shrank by more than 12 percent. This multiplier effect works the
other way around as well: Growth returned to 4.6 percent and trade
volume grew by a record 14.5 percent over the course of 2010. Projections
for trade in 2011 are also strong, with WTO economists predicting
that trade volume will rise 6.5 percent during the current year. This
sharp rebound in trade has proved two essential things: Markets
stayed open despite ever-stronger pressures to close them, and
trade is an indispensible tool for economic recovery, particularly for
developing countries, which are more dependent on trade. Shortly
after the crisis broke out, we in the WTO began to closely monitor
the trade policy response of our member governments. Many were
fearful that pressures to impose trade restrictions would prove too
powerful for governments to resist. But this is not what happened.
Instead, the system of rules and disciplines, agreed to over 60 years
of negotiations, held firm. In a series of reports prepared for WTO
members and the G-20, we found that governments acted with great
restraint. At no time did the trade-restrictive measures imposed cover more
than 2 percent of world imports. Moreover, the measures used -- antidumping duties, safeguards, and countervailing duties to offset export or
production subsidies -- were those which, in the right circumstances,
are permissible under WTO rules. I am not suggesting that every
safeguard measure or countervailing duty imposed during those difficult days
was in compliance with WTO rules, but responses to trade pressures were
generally undertaken within an internationally agreed-upon framework.
Countries by and large resisted overtly noncompliant measures, such as
breaking legally binding tariff ceilings or imposing import bans or quotas. As
markets stayed open, trade flows began to shift, and countries that
shrugged off the impact of the crisis and continued to grow -- notably
China, India, and Brazil -- became ever-more attractive markets for countries
that were struggling, including those in Europe and North America. Trade has
been a powerful engine for growth in the developing world, a fact reflected in
the far greater trade-to-GDP ratios we see there. In 2010, developing
countries' share of world trade expanded to a record 45 percent, and this
trend looks set to continue. Decisions made in Brasilia, Beijing, and New Delhi
to open their respective economies to trade have been instrumental in
enabling these countries to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

Collapse doesnt cause war- the upswing does

Ferguson 06 (Niall, Professor of History Harvard University, Foreign

Affairs, 85(5), September / October, Lexis)

Nor can economic crises explain the bloodshed. What may be the most
familiar causal chain in modern historiography links the Great Depression to
the rise of fascism and the outbreak of World War II. But that simple story
leaves too much out. Nazi Germany started the war in Europe only after
its economy had recovered. Not all the countries affected by the
Great Depression were taken over by fascist regimes, nor did all such
regimes start wars of aggression. In fact, no general relationship
between economics and conflict is discernible for the century as a
whole. Some wars came after periods of growth, others were the causes
rather than the consequences of economic catastrophe, and some severe
economic crises were not followed by wars.

no econ war empirics disprove war

Pickering 7 (Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kansas State

University (Jeffrey, Emizet F. Kisangani, Diverting with Benevolent Military

Force: Reducing Risks and Rising above Strategic Behavior, International
Studies Quarterly 51, 277299, JSTOR)
Our results underscore the utility of broadening the conception of
diversionary force and using the agenda setting framework to understand
leaders decisions to divert. As the agenda setting approach anticipates, we
find that leaders in democracies and mixed regimes tend to prefer a
comparatively low-risk, low-profile type of military force when they
attempt diversion. They use what we term SEI in their attempt to clear the
domestic policy agenda. They presumably hope that the use of such
seemingly controllable, low-scale force will provide a brief reprieve
from the public and the medias focus on issues that have damaged their
political reputations and threatened their terms in office. If low politics force
succeeds in providing leaders with the window they seek, they can be
expected to do all they can to reshape the policy agenda in the hope of
saving their political careers. Autocratic leaders, in contrast, do not appear
to use any form of external armed force to bolster their domestic
standing when they encounter domestic unrest or economic difficulty.
Our results also highlight the need for further theoretical development of the
SCA framework. In our cross-national sample of democracies, SCA does not
seem to constrain democratic leaders to the extent that is implied in the
literature. For example, we find no evidence that SCA prevents democratic
leaders from using PSI, and democratic leaders often used SEI even when
SCA was present (see especially Table 5). The only time SCA seems to
obstruct democratic leaders is when they attempt SEI in the face of rising
levels of inflation or mass unrest. We did not expect target states to be able
to employ SCA to inhibit SEI, but this result at least provides some evidence
for the theoretically compelling and logical influence of SCA on democracies.
This outcome and the unanticipated influence of SCA on autocracies suggest
that the SCA framework requires greater precision. As noted previously,
adding measures that capture extant relations or affinity levels among
potential actors and targets may enhance the explanatory power of SCA.

Another possibility is that we are trying to generalize a phenomenon that has

limited scope. It may be that target states only worry about diversion from
extremely powerful states and perhaps some unstable, unpredictable
autocracies, which might explain why David Clark (2003) and Benjamin
Fordhams (2005) results diverge from those found in this paper and by
Christopher Sprecher and Karl DeRouen (2005). Careful empirical study will
have to determine if this is the case, and if it is not why SCA appears to
constrain certain types of actors experiencing certain types of domestic
troubles but not others. Different methods will have to be used to pinpoint
the prevalence and the impact of SCA. While powerful and suggestive, the ZIP
method is based on a theoretical assumption: that SCA is the exogenous
influence that prevents leaders from using military force. Although this is
plausible and the evidence presented by David Clark (2003) and Benjamin
Fordham (2005) is extremely compelling for the United States case, there
could be other exogenous influences that have similar effects on leaders in
other countries. Powerful opposition parties (Schultz 1998) or increasing
tensions or instability within the government itself could, for example, tie
leaders hands in a way that prevents the use of military force. Given the
significant institutional variation that characterizes democracies and mixed
regimes across the globe, both detailed qualitative and country-specific
quantitative analyses will be necessary to trace the empirical boundaries of
SCA and to refine the theory. In sum, this paper adds to the growing body of
literature that suggests that leaders in democracies and mixed regimes use
armed forces overseas for diversionary purposes. It just may not be
the type of high profile, confrontational military force we typically
envision. It is often armed force deployed over low politics issues like
humanitarian suffering. Making this simple distinction between the types of
armed force states use abroad may go some way toward uniting extant
empirical research on diversion and perhaps even producing more
cumulative research in the future.

Econ Resilient
Its 2013- proves global economic resilient- Sandy and
EU prove
Eberly 13 (Jan Eberly, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy for the
Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of the Securities Industry and
Financial Markets Association, Statement by Assistant Secretary for
Economic Policy Jan Eberly for the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of
the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, February 4, 2013)
WASHINGTON - Economic recovery in the U.S. continued at a moderate pace
over the course of 2012, with real GDP expanding by 1.5 percent following a
2.6 percent increase during 2011. After thirteen straight quarters of growth,
real GDP edged down slightly in the final quarter of last year, as sharply lower
defense spending, slower inventory growth, and a widening of the trade
deficit offset a solid increase in consumer spending and strong growth of both
residential investment and business capital spending. Job creation has
accelerated in recent months. The unemployment rate declined
notably over the first nine months of 2012 and has been little changed since
September. The economy sustained a number of temporary shocks
last year , such as a jump in energy prices early in 2012, a severe
drought during the summer, and Hurricane Sandy in late October,
and also contended with the ongoing sovereign debt crisis in
Europe and a more general slowdown in global growth. Growth is
expected to pick up in the first quarter of 2013, despite some fiscal
drag. Other potential challenges this year include the risk of
renewed setbacks in Europe, the impact of continued uncertainty
about the U.S. fiscal situation, and the possibility of additional,
sequester-related fiscal tightening. Even so, private forecasters
anticipate a gradual acceleration in the pace of expansion as 2013
unfolds, as well as further progress in reducing unemployment.
According to the advance report released last week, real GDP edged down 0.1
percent at an annual rate in the fourth quarter, compared with a 3.1 percent
advance in the third quarter. The swing was due in part to a 6.6 decline in
government spending. Federal outlays fell 15.0 percent the largest quarterly
decline in four decades as federal defense purchases plummeted 22.2
percent. In the third quarter, federal spending rose sharply, boosted by a
jump in defense outlays. The composition of the pronounced swing between
Q3 and Q4 suggests that uncertainty about the impending sequester played a
role. State and local government spending, which has been falling nearly
continuously since late 2009, declined 0.7 percent in Q4. Altogether, the
decline in government expenditures cut 1 percentage points from real GDP
growth in Q4. GDP growth in late 2012 was also held back by a sharp
slowdown in private inventory accumulation, which subtracted 1
percentage points from real GDP in the fourth quarter after adding 0.7
percentage point to growth in the third quarter. The drought-related
drawdown in farm inventories, which reduced GDP growth in the prior two

quarters, slowed. A wider trade deficit subtracted an additional percentage

point from GDP growth in the fourth quarter. Notwithstanding the slight dip in
headline GDP, the main components of underlying private demand
strengthened in the fourth quarter. Consumer spending, which
accounts for roughly two-thirds of GDP, grew by 2.2 percent at an
annual rate, accelerating from the third quarters 1.6 percent rise, and
adding 1.5 percentage points to real growth. Business fixed investment grew
8.4 percent in the fourth quarter, contributing 0.8 percentage point to growth.
Equipment and software investment rose at a 12.4 percent pace after falling
by 2.6 percent in the prior quarter. Residential investment grew by 15.3
percent at an annual rate in the fourth quarter, up from 13.5 percent in the
third quarter, and contributed 0.4 percentage point to GDP growth.
Residential investment has increased in each of the past seven
quarters -- the first such string of advances in this sector since 2005
and has grown at an average annual rate of almost 11 percent per quarter
over this period. Private domestic final purchases (the sum of consumption,
business fixed investment, and residential investment) jumped by 3.3 percent
at an annual rate in the fourth quarter, more than double the thirds quarters
1.5 percent pace. Over the past three years, this marker of a privatesector led, self-sustaining recovery has grown at an average
annual rate of just under 3 percent. Labor market conditions continue to
improve at a steady but gradual pace, and the most recent data show that
job creation at the end of 2012 was actually faster than initially reported.
Private-sector job growth averaged 225,000 per month during the fourth
quarter, up from 142,000 in the third quarter, and nearly double the 117,000
jobs per month created on average in the second quarter. More than 6.1
million new jobs have been created in the private sector since the
employment trough in February 2010. Moreover, underlying labor demand
appears to be improving. The average private-sector workweek stood at 34.4
hours in January, up from a low of 33.8 hours in 2009 and just 0.2 hour
shorter than in December 2007. The unemployment rate stood at 7.9 percent
in January, up slightly from a near four-year low of 7.8 percent in November
and December. Measures of longer-term unemployment as well as marginal
attachment to the labor force and part-time employment continue to trend
lower. The median duration of unemployment fell by 4.8 weeks over the past
year to 16.0 weeks in January and is down from a high of 24.8 weeks in mid2010. It is worthwhile to look at progress across the country, too: in
December, 25 states reported unemployment rates that were significantly
below the national average. These are all positive signs that underlying labor
market conditions continue to firm. With the progress made in the
housing market in the past several months, we now appear to be
approaching important milestones. For example, total housing starts rose
in December to a 4 year high and the number of residential building
permits issued reached their highest level since mid-2008. As of December,
total existing home sales had retraced to a level about two-thirds of their
2005 peak, and the decline in new single-family homes during that month
was actually attributed to a lack of supply, rather than a dearth of demand
sales in this category were still up nearly 9 percent year-over-year. The
inventory of unsold new homes is just above record lows for the series, which

dates to the early 1960s, and the inventory of existing homes available for
sale continues to move lower and is now two-thirds below its July 2010 peak
level. During 2012, residential investment climbed 14.4 percent the
strongest yearly increase since 1983. The major house price indexes
have been moving higher on a year-over-year basis for the past ten
months, and are now being supported by tighter supply and
stronger demand conditions. Record or near-record lows in mortgage
rates, a relatively high level of housing affordability, and improving household
wealth are also helping to boost demand and to support broader-based
improvement in the housing sector. Looking ahead, downside risks to U.S.
economic activity remain, including persistent concerns about instability in
European sovereign debt markets. Here at home, consumer sentiment
faltered at the turn of the year in the face of fiscal uncertainty and the
expiration of tax cuts. Still, energy prices have eased in very recent months,
and there are signs of reviving demand in Asia. While downside risks
create vulnerabilities in any economy, recent progress within the
U.S. has improved the economys resilience in the face of potential
challenges. The underlying and consistent strength of private
demand over the past three years constitutes an important
foundation for that resilience, and the level of real GDP is now 2.4
percent higher than in the fourth quarter of 2007, at the time of the previous
expansions peak. After five years of decline, residential investment
has added to growth in each of the past seven quarters. The
workweek has lengthened to a duration close to that last seen in December
2007, the peak month of the previous upturn, and the unemployment rate is
at a four-year low. These are important milestones for consumers as well as
the housing and labor markets, and are evidence of a moderate and steady
forward movement.

Econ resilient, US isnt key, and impact empirically denied

Lamy 11(Pascal Lamy is the Director-General of the World Trade
Organization. Lamy is Honorary President of Paris-based think tank Notre
Europe. Lamy graduated from the prestigious Sciences Po Paris, from HEC
and NA, graduating second in his year of those specializing in economics.
System Upgrade BY PASCAL LAMY | APRIL 18, 2011)
The bigger test came with the 2008-2009 Great Recession, the first
truly global recession since World War II. When the international
economy went into free fall, trade went right along with it. Production and
supply are today thoroughly global in nature, with most manufactured
products made from parts and materials imported from many other countries.
These global value chains have a multiplier effect on trade statistics, which
explains why, as the global economy contracted by 2 percent in 2009, trade
volume shrank by more than 12 percent. This multiplier effect works the
other way around as well: Growth returned to 4.6 percent and trade
volume grew by a record 14.5 percent over the course of 2010. Projections
for trade in 2011 are also strong, with WTO economists predicting
that trade volume will rise 6.5 percent during the current year. This
sharp rebound in trade has proved two essential things: Markets

stayed open despite ever-stronger pressures to close them, and

trade is an indispensible tool for economic recovery, particularly for
developing countries, which are more dependent on trade. Shortly
after the crisis broke out, we in the WTO began to closely monitor
the trade policy response of our member governments. Many were
fearful that pressures to impose trade restrictions would prove too
powerful for governments to resist. But this is not what happened.
Instead, the system of rules and disciplines, agreed to over 60 years
of negotiations, held firm. In a series of reports prepared for WTO
members and the G-20, we found that governments acted with great
restraint. At no time did the trade-restrictive measures imposed cover more
than 2 percent of world imports. Moreover, the measures used -- antidumping duties, safeguards, and countervailing duties to offset export or
production subsidies -- were those which, in the right circumstances,
are permissible under WTO rules. I am not suggesting that every
safeguard measure or countervailing duty imposed during those difficult days
was in compliance with WTO rules, but responses to trade pressures were
generally undertaken within an internationally agreed-upon framework.
Countries by and large resisted overtly noncompliant measures, such as
breaking legally binding tariff ceilings or imposing import bans or quotas. As
markets stayed open, trade flows began to shift, and countries that
shrugged off the impact of the crisis and continued to grow -- notably
China, India, and Brazil -- became ever-more attractive markets for
countries that were struggling, including those in Europe and North
America. Trade has been a powerful engine for growth in the developing
world, a fact reflected in the far greater trade-to-GDP ratios we see there. In
2010, developing countries' share of world trade expanded to a record 45
percent, and this trend looks set to continue. Decisions made in Brasilia,
Beijing, and New Delhi to open their respective economies to trade have been
instrumental in enabling these countries to lift hundreds of millions of people
out of poverty.

Best studies prove

Brandt and Ulfelder 11 (*Patrick T. Brandt, Ph.D. in Political Science from

Indiana University, is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School
of Social Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. **Jay Ulfelder, Ph.D. in
political science from Stanford University, is an American political scientist
whose research interests include democratization, civil unrest, and violent
conflict, April, 2011, Economic Growth and Political Instability, Social
Science Research Network)
These statements anticipating political fallout from the global economic crisis
of 20082010 reflect a widely held view that economic growth has rapid and
profound effects on countries political stability. When economies grow at a
healthy clip, citizens are presumed to be too busy and too content to engage
in protest or rebellion, and governments are thought to be flush with
revenues they can use to enhance their own stability by producing public
goods or rewarding cronies, depending on the type of regime they inhabit.
When growth slows, however, citizens and cronies alike are presumed to grow
frustrated with their governments, and the leaders at the receiving end of
that frustration are thought to lack the financial resources to respond

effectively. The expected result is an increase in the risks of social unrest, civil
war, coup attempts, and regime breakdown. Although it is pervasive, the
assumption that countries economic growth rates strongly affect their
political stability has not been subjected to a great deal of careful
empirical analysis, and evidence from social science research to date
does not unambiguously support it. Theoretical models of civil wars,
coups detat, and transitions to and from democracy often specify slow
economic growth as an important cause or catalyst of those events, but
empirical studies on the effects of economic growth on these phenomena
have produced mixed results. Meanwhile, the effects of economic growth on
the occurrence or incidence of social unrest seem to have hardly been
studied in recent years , as empirical analysis of contentious collective
action has concentrated on political opportunity structures and dynamics of
protest and repression. This paper helps fill that gap by rigorously reexamining the effects of short-term variations in economic growth on the
occurrence of several forms of political instability in countries worldwide over
the past few decades. In this paper, we do not seek to develop and test new
theories of political instability. Instead, we aim to subject a hypothesis
common to many prior theories of political instability to more careful
empirical scrutiny. The goal is to provide a detailed empirical characterization
of the relationship between economic growth and political instability in a
broad sense. In effect, we describe the conventional wisdom as seen in the
data. We do so with statistical models that use smoothing splines and
multiple lags to allow for nonlinear and dynamic effects from economic
growth on political stability. We also do so with an instrumented measure of
growth that explicitly accounts for endogeneity in the relationship between
political instability and economic growth. To our knowledge, ours is the
first statistical study of this relationship to simultaneously address the
possibility of nonlinearity and problems of endogeneity . As such, we
believe this paper offers what is probably the most rigorous general
evaluation of this argument to date . As the results show, some of our
findings are surprising. Consistent with conventional assumptions, we find
that social unrest and civil violence are more likely to occur and democratic
regimes are more susceptible to coup attempts around periods of slow
economic growth. At the same time, our analysis shows no significant
relationship between variation in growth and the risk of civil-war onset, and
results from our analysis of regime changes contradict the widely accepted
claim that economic crises cause transitions from autocracy to democracy.
While we would hardly pretend to have the last word on any of these
relationships, our findings do suggest that the relationship between economic
growth and political stability is neither as uniform nor as strong as the
conventional wisdom (s) presume (s). We think these findings also help
explain why the global recession of 20082010 has failed thus far to
produce the wave of coups and regime failures that some observers had

anticipated, in spite of the expected and apparent uptick in social unrest

associated with the crisis.

(no econ collapse) economys resilient can survive

shocks
Bloomberg 12 (Feds Plosser Says U.S. Economy Proving Resilient to
Shocks, 5-9, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-09/fed-s-plossersays-u-s-economy-proving-resilient-to-shocks.html)
Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser said
the U.S. economy has proven remarkably resilient to shocks that
can damage growth, including surging oil prices and natural
disasters. The economy has now grown for 11 consecutive
quarters , Plosser said today according to remarks prepared for a speech at
the Philadelphia Fed. Growth is not robust. But growth in the past year
has continued despite significant risks and external and internal
headwinds. Plosser, who did not discuss his economic outlook or the
future for monetary policy, cited shocks to the economy last year,
including the tsunami in Japan that disrupted global supply chains,
Europes credit crisis that has damaged the continents banking
system and political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. The
U.S. economy has a history of being remarkably resilient , said
Plosser, who doesnt have a vote on policy this year. These shocks held GDP
growth to less than 1 percent in the first half of 2011, and many analysts
were concerned that the economy was heading toward a double dip. Yet, the
economy proved resilient and growth picked up in the second half of the
year. Plosser spoke at a conference at the Philadelphia Fed titled,
Reinventing Older Communities: Building Resilient Cities. Urban Resilience
His regional banks research department is working on a project to measure
the resilience of different cities, to learn more about the reasons that some
urban areas suffer more than others in downturns, Plosser said. He
mentioned one early finding of the study: Industrial diversity increases a
citys resilience. I do want to caution you that resilient and vibrant
communities are not just about government programs or directed industrial
planning by community leaders, Plosser said. The economic strength of
our country is deeply rooted in our market- based economy and the
dynamism and resilience of its citizenry.

U.S. Not Key

Other countries check US growth
The Economist 07 (November 23, Americas Vulnerable Economy, pg.
13)
The best hope that global growth can stay strong lies instead with
emerging economies. A decade ago, the thought that so much depended
on these crisis-prone places would have been terrifying. Yet thanks largely to
economic reforms, their annual growth rate has surged to around 7%. This
year they will contribute half of the globe's GDP growth, measured at
market exchange rates, over three times as much as America . In the
past, emerging economies have often needed bailing out by the rich world.
This time they could be the rescuers . Of course, a recession in America
would reduce emerging economies' exports, but they are less vulnerable than
they used to be. America's importance as an engine of global growth has
been exaggerated. Since 2000 its share of world imports has dropped from
19% to 14%. Its vast current-account deficit has started to shrink, meaning
that America is no longer pulling along the rest of the world. Yet
growth in emerging economies has quickened, partly thanks to
demand at home. In the first half of this year the increase in consumer
spending (in actual dollar terms) in China and India added more to global GDP
growth than that in America. Most emerging economies are in healthier
shape than ever (see article). They are no longer financially dependent on the
rest of the world, but have large foreign-exchange reservesno less than
three-quarters of the global total. Though there are some notable exceptions,
most of them have small budget deficits (another change from the past), so
they can boost spending to offset weaker exports if need be.

Economic Collapse Inevitable

Economic Collapse is inevitable
Smith 6/20(John Smith, Degrees in Journalism and History,
6/20/14, New Survey States Economic Collapse is 99.9%
Unavoidable in 2014, Us Finance Post,
http://usfinancepost.com/new-survey-states-economic-collapse-is99-9-unavoidable-in-2014-20184.html, Accessed 7/11/14, MX)
Global risks are accelerated: everyone is in a historic transition that
few will be able to recover from, says The Wall Street Journal The crisis
ahead will be worse than 2000 and 2008 states the new Wall Street
Journal survey that summarized the views of financial leaders who were
interviewed over the last year. The underlying reason is simple: a
monetary policy that is fundamentally flawed the Federal Reserve
System is still printing cheap money. The Feds should stop
micromanaging the economy, which includes debt buybacks and investing in
private companies, urged David Stockman, director of the Office of
Management and Budget of the U.S. between 1981 and 1985. Meanwhile,
William Hunt Gross, founder of PIMCO, one of the largest global asset
managers of the fixed income investment world, warned of supernova
credits. He explained that his company has two billion dollars at risk
if cheap money from the Federal Reserve explodes. Investment
banking a decade ago only promoted the development of small business, but
it is now being dominated by leveraged speculation, Gross said. The world
is caught in a mega-bubble that has no name and analysts warned the
Federal Reserve that the bubble is about to explode, as did the Asian
financial crisis years ago. The paper, which focuses on data, research,
and tips from financial advisors, warned that millions of investors have no
idea what will happen. Sooner or later there will be another ugly
battle related to debt and the markets will be crippled. Gary
Shilling, columnist for Forbes, warned of an expanding bubble. He
calculated a very slow real GDP growth for the next eight years of
only 2%, and promised an even more serious global slowdown over
the next generation. I am 100% sure that the crises that we are
moving towards will be much worse than 2008, he said.

Tradeoff DA

1NC
Funding for Cassini is low now; if NASA funding were
reduced the program could be eliminated.
Rehnberg, 2014 (Morgan Rehberg; a graduate student in the University

of Colorado - Boulder's Department of Astrophysics and Planetary Science, @

work he studies the rings of Saturn and develop software to help detect nearEarth asteroids; COULD THE 2014 BUDGET SAVE CASSINI?; 1/15/14;
http://cosmicchatter.org/news/2014/1/15/could-the-2014-budget-save-cassini;
Date Accessed: 7/12/14)
With its future on the line, the Cassini mission may yet survive if the
US Congress passes their proposed budget for 2014. And, for once,
that's not seeming like such a big if. It's been a long road for NASA's Cassini
spacecraft. In development starting in the mid 1980s and launched towards
Saturn in 1997, the mission didn't arrive at its destination until the summer of
2004. Designed for a four year mission upon reaching Saturn, the Cassini
program has been extended twice - first for two years until 2010, and
then for a final seven through 2017. Coming up on ten years in Saturnian
orbit, Cassini has revolutionized our understanding of the planet and
the enigmatic rings which surround it. Despite its incredible
successes, recent rumors have suggested that Cassini could be on
the chopping block. Budget shortfalls at NASA, exacerbated by
sequestration, has NASA facing a Sophie's Choice: shut down the successful
Cassini or eliminate the popular Curiosity. Cassini and Curiosity represent
NASA's two active "flagship" missions (I'm ignoring Voyager here). These are
the largest and most expensive (more than $2 billion each) missions
undertaken by the space agency and are major commitments to studying
Saturn and Mars, respectively. In addition to their upfront price tag, each
costs in the neighborhood of 50-60 million dollars a year to operate,
significantly more than smaller missions. Although in theory NASA could
choose to eliminate either one, it's extremely difficult to imagine shutting
down the recently-launched Curiosity, especially given its tremendous public
popularity. So, things were not looking great for Cassini, but the 2014
budget might offer some relief.The current draft of the 2014 federal
budget includes an additional $700 million for NASA over last year's
appropriation. That's an increase of about 4%. More importantly,
the NASA science office received a larger proportion of that, about
7%, and planetary science in particular is being boosted about 10%.

The Aff spends a lot of money and funding for Space and
Sea exploration is zero-sum.
Mangu-Ward, 2013 (Katherine Mangu-Ward; managing editor of Reason
magazine and a Future Tense fellow at the New America Foundation; Is the
Ocean the Real Final Frontier?;
9/4/13;http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/09/sea_vs
_space_which_is_the_real_final_frontier.html; Date Accessed: 7/12/14)

While many of the technologies for space and sky are the similar, right down
to the goofy suits with bubble headsthe main difference is that in space,
youre looking to keep pressure inside your vehicle and underwater youre
looking to keep pressure outtheres often a sense that that sea and
space are competitors rather than compadres.
They neednt be, says Guillermo Shnlein, a man who straddles both realms.
Shnlein is a serial space entrepreneur and the founder of the Space Angels
Network. (Disclosure: My husbands a member.) The network funds startups
aimed for the stars, but his most recent venture is Blue Marble Exploration,
which organizes expeditions in manned submersibles to exotic underwater
locales. (Further disclosure: I have made a very small investment in Blue
Marble, but am fiscally neutral in the sea vs. space fight, since I have a
similar amount riding on a space company, Planetary Resources.) As usual,
the fight probably comes down to money. The typical American
believes that NASA is eating up a significant portion of the federal
budget (one 2007 poll found that respondents pinned that figure at onequarter of the federal budget), but the space agency is actually nibbling at a
Jenny Craigsized portion of the pie. At about $17 billion, governmentfunded space exploration accounts for about 0.5 percent of the
federal budget. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
AdministrationNASAs soggy counterpartgets much less, a bit
more than $5 billion for a portfolio that, as the name suggests, is
more diverse. But the way Shnlein tells the story, this zero sum mindset is the result of a relatively recent historical quirk: For most of the
history of human exploration, private funding was the order of the day. Even
some of the most famous examples of state-backed explorationChristopher
Columbus long petitioning of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, for instance, or
Sir Edmund Hillarys quest to climb to the top of Everestwere actually
funded primarily by private investors or nonprofits. But that changed with the
Cold War, when the race to the moon was fueled by government
money and gushers of defense spending wound up channeled into
submarine development and other oceangoing tech. That does lead
to an either/or mentality. That federal money is taxpayer money
which has to be accounted for, and it is a finite pool that you have to
draw from against competing needs, against health care, science,
welfare, says Shnlein. In the last 10 to 15 years, we are seeing a
renaissance of private finding of exploration ventures. On the space side we
call it New Space, on the ocean side we have similar ventures. And the
austerity of the current moment doesnt hurt. The private sector is stepping
up as public falls down. Were really returning to the way it always was.

Cutting NASAs budget harms the economy and the USs

STEM leadership.
Vertesi, 2013 (Janet Vertesi; sociologist of science and technology at
Princeton University; Don't gut NASA space missions; 10/14/13;
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/14/opinion/vertesi-cassini-mission/; Date
Accessed: 7/13/14)

Next year's NASA budget is poised to force premature cancellation of

either Curiosity or Cassini -- the agency's flagship missions. Funding
decisions get made behind closed doors, but projected figures reduce
Cassini's budget in 2014 by almost half, and half again in 2015,
making it impossible to fly. Even funding for analyzing data will be
"restructured," according to NASA. These cuts are not only
devastating for scientists; they are also potentially harmful for our
economy, and our leadership in STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Math).
When most people think of spacecraft, they think of hunks of metal flying or
driving around, alone in the far reaches of the solar system. Some are cute
and personable, like the Opportunity Rover or Voyager; some, like Cassini, are
less well known. People might also recall the gorgeous photos spread across
the front pages of the New York Times or on the cover of National Geographic.
A few might even think of the famous scientists who have brought these
pictures to life, like Carl Sagan, Steve Squyres, or Carolyn Porco. The robots'
stories and adventures captivate us. But what about the people who created
and operate the robots? Behind the scenes, largely invisible to the public, are
many of America's best scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, NASA centers, and research facilities who work on these missions
to make space exploration possible. The budget cuts will affect America's
most experienced and most promising engineers and researchers.
They may have to join the legions of the unemployed. Do we really want to
put someone like Bobak Ferdowksi, NASA's famous "Mohawk Guy," out of a
job?
Some may think that space engineers can simply move to the private
sector. After all, companies like Space X or Virgin Galactic are looking for
talents. But private ventures involve different motives and skills. And
private companies do not fund planetary science and experiments.
Moreover, private and public research institutions from Cornell to Ohio
State University rely partly on NASA grants to support their graduate
students, post-docs, and other staff in STEM fields. In other words,
NASA funding not only expands the frontiers of our knowledge, it also
trains the next generation of STEM leaders in our country. The
budget cuts would deprive our young scientists and engineers the
resources to continue their studies and, in turn, contribute to
America's innovation. Seen in perspective, the looming budget
adjustment along with all the cuts in recent years sentences
America's planetary exploration program to death by starvation.
Cassini, for one, is already operating on a shoestring. And NASA has put plans
for future missions to the outer solar system on ice, despite efforts by the
planetary community to plan cost-effective and exciting opportunities. The
continuous gutting of NASA and its planetary science programs should
outrage all Americans. If we end the Cassini or the Curiosity mission, it
would be a crisis not just for science but for America's leadership in STEM.
At a time when our math and science students are getting left behind, and
the public is looking to our high tech and scientific sectors to power
innovation and economic growth, we should invest in our sciences and
continue to inspire the next generation. Let's make sure our current best and
brightest working on the cutting edge don't get the pink slip.

With out Stem Leadership, the word faces a laundry list of

threats including climate change, energy and water
shortages, public health emergencies, environmental
degradation, poverty, and food insecurity
Fedoroff, 2008 (Nina V. Fedoroff; received the National Medal of Science,
President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a
member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences, and the
American Academy of Microbiology; HEARING: BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE
ON RESEARCH ANDSCIENCE EDUCATION COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGYHOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED TENTH
CONGRESSSECOND SESSION; 4/2/2008;
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg41470/html/CHRG110hhrg41470.htm; Date Accessed: 7/13/14)
Chairman Baird, Ranking Member Ehlers, and distinguished members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss science diplomacy at
the U.S. Department of State. The U.S. is recognized globally for its
leadership in science and technology. Our scientific strength is both a
tool of ``soft power''--part of our strategic diplomatic arsenal--and a basis
for creating partnerships with countries as they move beyond basic
economic and social development. Science diplomacy is a central element of
the Secretary's transformational diplomacy initiative, because science and
technology are essential to achieving stability and strengthening
failed and fragile states. S&T advances have immediate and enormous
influence on national and
global economies, and thus on the international relations between
societies. Nation states, nongovernmental organizations, and multinational
corporations are largely shaped by their expertise in and access to
intellectual and physical capital in science, technology, and
engineering. Even as S&T advances of our modern era provide opportunities
for economic prosperity, some also challenge the relative position of
countries in the world order, and influence our social institutions and
principles. America must remain at the forefront of this new world by
maintaining its technological edge, and leading the way
internationally through science diplomacy and engagement. Science
by its nature facilitates diplomacy because it strengthens political
relationships, embodies powerful ideals, and creates opportunities for all. The
global scientific community embraces principles Americans cherish:
transparency, meritocracy, accountability, the objective evaluation
of evidence, and broad and frequently democratic participation.
Science is inherently democratic, respecting evidence and truth above all.
Science is also a common global language, able to bridge deep political and
religious divides. Scientists share a common language. Scientific interactions
serve to keep open lines of communication and cultural understanding. As
scientists everywhere have a common
evidentiary external reference system, members of ideologically
divergent societies can use the common language of science to
cooperatively address both domestic and the increasingly trans-

national and global problems confronting humanity in the 21st

century. There is a growing recognition that science and technology will
increasingly drive the successful economies of the 21st century.
Science and technology provide an immeasurable benefit to the U.S. by
bringing scientists and students here, especially from developing countries,
where they see democracy in action, make friends in the international
scientific community, become familiar with American technology, and
contribute to the U.S. and global economy. For example, in 2005, over
50 percent of physical science and engineering graduate students and
postdoctoral researchers trained in the U.S. have been foreign nationals.
Moreover, many foreign-born scientists who were educated and have worked
in the U.S. eventually progress in their careers to hold influential positions in
ministries and institutions both in this country and in their home countries.
They also contribute to U.S. scientific and technologic development:
According to the National Science Board's 2008 Science and Engineering
Indicators, 47 percent of full-time doctoral science and engineering faculty in
U.S. research institutions were foreign-born. Finally, some types of science-particularly those that address the grand challenges in science and
technology--are inherently international in scope and collaborative by
necessity. The ITER Project, an international fusion research and development
collaboration, is a product of the thaw in superpower relations between Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan. This reactor
will harness the power of nuclear fusion as a possible new and viable energy
source by bringing a star to Earth. ITER serves as a symbol of international
scientific cooperation among key scientific leaders in the developed and
developing world--Japan, Korea, China, E.U., India, Russia, and United States-representing 70 percent of the world's current population. The recent
elimination of funding for FY08 U.S. contributions to the ITER project comes at
an inopportune time as the Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER
International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the
ITER Project had entered into force only on October 2007. The elimination
of the promised U.S. contribution drew our allies to question our
commitment and credibility in international cooperative ventures.
More problematically, it jeopardizes a platform for reaffirming U.S.
relations with key states. It should be noted that even at the height of
the cold war, the United States used science diplomacy as a means
to maintain communications and avoid misunderstanding between
the world's two nuclear powers--the Soviet Union and the United States.
In a complex multi-polar world, relations are more challenging, the
threats perhaps greater, and the need for engagement more
paramount. The welfare and stability of countries and regions in
many parts of the globe require a concerted effort by the developed
world to address the causal factors that render countries fragile and
cause states to fail. Countries that are unable to defend their people against
starvation, or fail to provide economic opportunity, are susceptible to
extremist ideologies, autocratic rule, and abuses of human rights. As well,
the world faces common threats, among them climate change,
energy and water shortages, public health emergencies,
environmental degradation, poverty, food insecurity, and religious
extremism. These threats can undermine the national security of the

United States, both directly and indirectly. Many are blind to political
boundaries, becoming regional or global threats. The United States has no
monopoly on knowledge in a globalizing world and the scientific challenges
facing humankind are enormous. Addressing these common challenges
demands common solutions and necessitates scientific cooperation,
common standards, and common goals. We must increasingly harness the
power of American ingenuity in science and technology through strong
partnerships with the science community in both academia and the private
sector, in the U.S. and abroad among our allies, to advance U.S. interests in
foreign policy.

UQ
Funding for Cassini is happening now
Leone, 2014 (Dan Leone; he NASA reporter for SpaceNews, where he also
covers other civilian-run U.S. government space programs and a growing
number of entrepreneurial space companies, In his previous job, Dan was a
technology and business reporter for Transport Topics, a Washington-based
weekly newspaper covering the trucking and surface transportation
industries, earned a bachelor's degree in public communications from the
American University in Washington; Cashed Strapped NASA Chose Cassini
over SOFIA; http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/39739cashedstrapped-nasa-chose-cassini-over-sofia; Date Accessed: 7/13/14)

WASHINGTON An international airborne telescope the White House

proposed mothballing March 4 was squeezed out of NASAs budget by
other ongoing missions, in particular the flagship-class Cassini probe that
has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, a senior agency official said. The
White House proposed grounding the billion-dollar Stratospheric
Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) in part to avoid forcing
the 16-year-old Cassini orbiter to compete with the 1.5-year-old
Mars Curiosity rover for extended mission funding, according to budget
documents. Cassini needs about $60 million a year to reach its
currently targeted mission conclusion in September 2017.

Space funding now

Dreier, 2014 (Casey Drier; Director of Advocacy- leads the strategic

planning and implementation of the Society's political advocacy efforts, has a

B.A. in Physics from Oberlin College, a regular contributor to The Planetary
Report; Congress Rejects Cuts to Planetary ExplorationAgain;
http://www.planetary.org/press-room/releases/2014/congress-rejectscuts.html; Date Accessed: 7/13/14)
The FY2014 Omnibus spending bill, now before the U.S. Congress, once
again rejects cuts to NASA's Planetary Science Division that were
sought by the White House. The Planetary Society commends Congress for
this action, and strongly encourages the White House to prioritize Planetary
Science in its future budget requests commensurate with its strong public
and legislative support. The Society supports the passage of this bill for its
additional Planetary Science funding as well as its overall funding levels
allocated for NASA.
Congress plans to allocate $1.345 billion for NASA's Planetary
Science Division, $127 million more than requested by the White
House. We strongly support the increase, but note that the number is well
below the program's historical average of $1.5 billion per year.

The additional funding ensures the steady development of the next

major mission to Mars in 2020, which will store samples of the red
planet for eventual return to Earth. It also provides $80 million for
continued research into a flagship-class mission to explore Europa,
the enigmatic moon of Jupiter that was recently revealed to be
spouting its liquid-water ocean into space.
"Exploring Europa is no longer a 'should' but a 'must'," said Casey
Dreier, The Planetary Society's Director of Advocacy, "Congress made a smart
decision to continue studying the Europa Clipper mission concept. There is
bipartisan support and strong public interest in exploring Europa, the
mission is technically feasible, and it is high priority within the scientific
community. The White House should embrace this bold search for life and
request a new start for this mission in FY2015."

Cassini has avoided a decrease in funding thus far, but the

brink is now.
Howell, 2014 (Elizabeth Howell; a senior writer at Universe Today and
regular contributor to Space.com, Space Exploration Network, the NASA
Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience,
pursuing a Ph.D. in aerospace sciences at the University of North Dakota;
BUDGET 2015: Flying SOFIA Telescope To Be Shelved For Higher-Priority
Programs Like Cassini; 3/4/2014;
http://www.universetoday.com/110007/budget-2015-flying-sofia-telescope-tobe-shelved-for-higher-priority-programs-like-cassini/#ixzz312pqDlgD; Date
Accessed: 7/12/14)
NASA is prepared to axe an airborne telescope to keep higherpriority programs such as the Saturn Cassini mission going,
according to budget documents the agency released today (March 4). We
have more information about the budget below the jump, including the
rationale for why NASA is looking to shelve its Stratospheric
Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
NASAs has been flying the telescope for just over three years and recently
took some nice snapsnots of the M82 supernova that astronomers have been
eager to image. The agencys administrator, however, said SOFIA has
had its shot and its time to reallocate the money for other
programs.

Cassini is in jeopardy, spending cuts would reduce

affectivity.
Foust, 2014 (Jeff Foust; aerospace analyst, journalist and publisher. A

senior aerospace analyst with the Futron Corporation, the editor and
publisher of The Space Review and has written for Astronomy Now and The
New Atlantis, has a bachelor's degree in geophysics from the California
Institute of Technology and a Ph.D in planetary sciences from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology; NASA: upcoming senior review wont

pit Cassini versus Curiosity; 1/17/14;
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2014/01/17/nasa-upcoming-senior-review-wontpit-cassini-versus-curiosity/; Date Accessed: 7/12/14)
Last week, a senior NASA official denied that was the case. Thats
inaccurate, said Jim Green, director of NASAs planetary science division, at
a meeting last week of the Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) in
Washington when asked about reports that only one of those two flagship
missions could be continued. That review will involve some tough decisions,
he acknowledged, but that does not mean shutting off missions entirely. Id
rather not do that to any of the planetary missions, he said. Some
missions may be funded at a higher level than other missions based
on priorities established in the senior review. Green offered a similar message
earlier this week to another group of scientists, the Outer Planets Assessment
Group (OPAG), meeting in Tucson. Other scientific divisions at NASA, notably
heliophysics, deals with such reviews by ending some missions entirely, a
process Green said hed like to avoid. Each and every one of those
[planetary] missions may not be funded at the current level that are
funded at right now, he said. Some may be at a lower level. That
environment, Green said, means that ongoing missions will need to be
creative in figuring out how to continue their missions, or some aspects of
them, for less than theyre receiving today. Its a very tough environment, so
everyone needs to sharpen their pencils and really think about the science
that can be accomplished, he said at OPAG. The process of the senior review
itself is still coming together, with one big uncertainty: how much money will
be available for continuing missions. Bill Knopf, lead program executive for
mission operations in the planetary sciences division at NASA Headquarters,
told OPAG that a guideline narrative for the senior review will be released to
projects by the end of this month. Those guidelines, though, will not include
budget levels, which will wait until the release of the administrations fiscal
year 2015 budget proposal, not expected until at least late February.
Proposals from the various missions will be due in April, with results
announced in June. Were working on not as much information as wed like to
have right now, Knopf said, referring to the unknown level of the fiscal year
2015 budget. Hopefully, the President will issue his budget in February.
Those statements by NASA officials, though, may not be completely
reassuring to scientists. The reliance on the FY2015 budget proposal for
setting spending levels for the senior review could be problematic, as the
administration sought significant cuts in planetary spending in both its FY13
and FY14 budget proposals, cuts partially offset by Congress in the final
spending bills for those years. In a statement earlier this week about the final
FY14 appropriations bill, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said he heard
disquieting rumors about cuts in the planetary science program in
the FY15 proposal, including shutting down some current
missions. Those involved in Cassiniwhich continues to be perceived
as the mission most in jeopardy during the senior review, given its cost
and agemade the case for continuing the mission at OPAG. Cassini is an
investment not to be wasted, Linda Spilker, Cassini project

scientist, said in a presentation to OPAG. Flying the mission though its

planned end in September 2017 would cost about $180 million, or $60 million
a year, and perform science that otherwise could likely not be accomplished
for decades. To waste it would be unthinkable. Cassini, some believe,
could also be at a disadvantage if asked to continue the mission with
reduced funding, since it has already had to tighten its belt during
past reviews: Spilker said Cassinis budget went from $80 million to
$60 million a year in the previous senior review in 2012 even though
it was considered fully funded. Those kinds of challenges await NASA and
ongoing planetary missions this year. The cold reality, said Knopf, is that
we have only so much money to go around.

Links
Space Exploration has more funding than ocean
exploration now.
Casti, 2013 (Taylor Casti; Master's student in Publishing: Digital and Print
Media at New York University; Ocean vs. Space: Which Is the True Final
Frontier?; 9/25/13; http://mashable.com/2013/09/25/ocean-vs-space/; Date
Accessed: 7/12/14)
Space may be called "the final frontier," but anyone who has seen a
picture of a goblin shark or a vampire squid will agree that the
ocean can be downright alien. Both realms are ripe for exploration,
offer extensive potential benefits and come at a hefty price. So which
wins in a battle between the two for the title of the final frontier?
Which area of exploration will result in the greater good for humanity? Dr.
Paul Bunje, senior director of prize development and ocean health at the
XPRIZE Foundation, and Alexandra Hall, senior director of Google Lunar
XPRIZE, met on the Social Good Summit stage to duke it out on Tuesday.
Space has been the clear leader for a long time. $17.8 billion dollars
is going toward space exploration in 2013, compared to the $5
billion dollars that goes toward oceanic exploration. This discrepancy
has led to skewed results: While 500 individuals have been sent into
space, only three have visited the deepest part of the ocean, the
Mariana Trench. We have better maps of the surface of Mars than we
do of our own ocean floor, and we understand more about the dark
side of the moon than ocean life. Despite centuries of ocean
exploration, weve only covered about 5% of the ocean.

Theres a trade off NASA receives funds out of the same

committee that funds NOAA
Mervis, 2010 (Jeffrey Mervis; deputy news editor, Science Magazine,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C.;
President Obama's Science Spending; transcript of an interview with
various guests on NPR; 2/5/10;
http://www.wbur.org/npr/123410020/president-obamas-science-spending;
Date Accessed: 7/12/14)

But more broadly, Congress isn't going to go for all of these things.
Congress, as you'll talk about later with NASA, is not going to be happy
with that reallocation and savings. And the reason that's important
to the rest of the science budget is because NASA is funded by the
same committee that funds the National Science Foundation, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Commerce,
which has NOAA and NIST. And so if they have a fixed amount of money,
the more they give to one agency, the less there is for everybody
else. So sometimes Congress makes decisions not because they're
opposed to research, but because they have other higher priorities.

Theres a trade off- budgeting is zero-sum

Williams, 2011 (Jesse Williams; guest columnist for Yale Daily News;

Williams: War of the wars; 1/20/11;

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2011/01/20/williams-war-of-the-wars/; Date
Accessed: 7/12/14)
The budget-tightening weeks are a tough time in Washington. After all,
our revenues are finite, so budgeting is a zero-sum game: every
dollar we spend on education is a dollar we cant spend on the
military; every dime we put into Social Security is one dime that
cant go to NASA, and so on. So when it comes time to cut, every portion
of spending can, in a very real sense, be evaluated against any other
portion. Yet, we rarely do that kind of broad evaluating we stay busy
trying to decide whether were giving the Marine Corps a new tank instead of
a new jet. Thats not a conversation about national priorities, and not the kind
of conversation we can and should be having. Why not weigh that tank
against, say, $12 billion in federal subsidies for education?

Cut-Go Rules cause a trade-off

Sange, 2011 (Alexandra Sange; a Public Policy Associate at the National

Association of Community Health Centers, works to preserve, strengthen and

expand Community Health Centers through the federal legislative process
with a focus on health center reimbursement and financing. She works with
Congress on health centers priorities in Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, and other
insurance plans, capital financing, health information technology, and 340B,
and other mandatory spending, has a Masters in Public Policy; HOUSE
PASSES NEW RULES FOR THE 112TH CONGRESS; 1/18/11;
http://blogs.nachc.com/washington/house-passes-new-rules-for-the-112thcongress/; Date Accessed: 7/12/14)
Changing Pay-go to Cut-go. The new rules replace the previous pay-as-yougo or PAYGO requirement with a cut-as-you-go or cut-go requirement. Cutgo prohibits the House from considering any bill that produces a net
increase in mandatory spending within the 1-year, 5-year and 10year budget windows, as opposed to PAYGOs ten-year window. If a bill
increases mandatory spending by any amount, the bill must cut the
budget somewhere by that same amount. Under PAYGO, spending cuts
could serve as offsets to spending increases, however, revenue increases
could also serve as offsets. Under the cut-go rule increases in
revenue cannot be used to offset increases in mandatory spending.

Impact

Key to Science Leadership

Funding is key to science
Spudis 2014 (Paul is a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary
Institute in Houston, AIR AND SPACE MAGAZINE: published by the
Smithsonian, April 22, NASAs Extended Science Missions in Peril,
http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/nasas-extended-science-missionsperil-180951189/?no-ist accessed 5/1/2014)
But when is enough, enough? There are so many places to go, so much to do and so little money to spread
around; new missions are waiting their turn. Once a mission completes its defined job, shouldnt we accept
that its over and move on to the next one? What reasoning guides NASAs continued support for extended
missions? There are several strong arguments in favor of continuing extended missions. The most obvious

extended mission takes advantage of a proven asset

already in place and working. Spaceflight remains a risky business and
one is that an

its amazing that after 50 years of experience with it, seemingly minor malfunctions or glitches can and do
destroy the well-laid plans, work and dreams of hundreds of scientists and engineers. Every launch of a
spacecraft is a heart-stopping moment for the people who have worked (often for years) on the mission a
hope against hope that somehow, their baby will survive this baptism of fire and safely navigate the

Most malfunctions occur early in flight,

either in launch failures or during the deployment of structures, such as antennas and solar arrays. With
those early events safely behind them, the mission team can
breathe easier and begin data collection. Once the nominal mission data is in the
treacherous shoals of interplanetary space.

can, the mission team has safely cleared another hurdle and eagerly looks forward to the collection of
additional data. In some cases, spacecraft are flexible enough to be programmed to collect data or conduct
experiments that were not thought about prior to flight. In other cases, spacecraft designed to collect
partial data for a planet can end up collecting global data sets, or at least greatly improve an existing data
product through repeated additional observations. In the 1970s, the Viking Orbiters had imaging systems
much improved over the previous Mariner 9 camera, but the mission was not designed to make a global
map of Mars. Nonetheless, the Viking Orbiters ended up mapping the entire planet in unprecedented
resolution and image quality during their extended missions. Another reason for continuing an extended

the
Cassini mission has been extended repeatedly not only for the
excellent science it is producing, but also because no future
missions to Saturn are currently planned by any space faring nation.
mission is if there are no immediate plans for any future missions to the object of study. For example,

In the case of LRO, it is the last remnant of what was to be a series (now cancelled) of robotic missions to
the Moon. Moreover, the LRO spacecraft is in a stable frozen orbit that requires no maintenance; its
instruments continue to work superbly and we are conducting new and innovative experiments, such as
using the large radio dish antenna at Arecibo (Puerto Rico) to undertake bistatic radar measurements of
various locales and geological units, including most interestingly, polar deposits. Bistatic radar
measurements of diffuse backscatter can distinguish between those caused by rocky surfaces and ice; this
particular experiment was not planned when LRO was launched five years ago. We have obtained new
data that portrays a moon unlike the one we thought it to be. This new Moon is drawing the attention of
the worlds space powers. The camera on LRO constantly returns detailed, high-resolution images of
astonishing beauty and utility. We have completely mapped the Moon at medium resolution (about 100
meters per pixel); the Narrow Angle Camera on LRO can resolve objects on the surface as small as one
meter (pixel size 25-100 cm). These data have given us spectacular views of fresh flows of impact melt
(twisted landforms caused by the flow of liquid, shock-melted rock), entrances to subterranean
(sublunarian?) voids (possibly intact lava caves), unusual and enigmatic landforms that may be created by
recent and violent venting of gas from the lunar interior, and newly formed impact craters, known to be
new because previous images show nothing at these sites. Virtually all of these features were completely
unknown prior to being imaged by the LROC. Thus, ongoing extended missions can and often do make new
and unexpected discoveries, in some cases discoveries that could not even have been anticipated prior to
flight. At a recent meeting, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden claimed that extending old missions was
not as invigorating for young scientists than starting new ones. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most students in planetary science and space engineering cut their

teeth by working on extended missions. Students and young investigators get few
opportunities to work directly on new missions most mission teams are made up of experienced
scientists and engineers (read: greybeards).

It is only during the extended mission

that the less experienced people get their chance (Its done its job let the
kids play with it!). Moreover, for ongoing missions like LRO, student workers are a critical and large part of
the team for ongoing operations. They plan data collects, monitor the downlinks and store and archive the
data. The loss of an extended mission asset doesnt increase opportunities for students it decreases
them. We do not yet know how the Senior Review will turn out. NASA is famous for wanting to move on
to the next thing and often abandons working spacecraft .

A bird in the hand is worth two

in the bush but as things currently stand, there isnt much in the
mission pipeline to move on to. Planetary Science has taken several massive budgetary
hits in the past few years, with more on the way. The termination of LRO and MER will not help move new

Money not spent on these extended missions

will probably slide into SMDs Black Hole of Funding (the James Webb Space
missions off the drawing board.

Telescope) or be dissipated on new paperwork, committee meetings and concept studies. It would be both
fiscally prudent and programmatically responsible for NASA to fund and retain these working and still
productive extended missions.

Science Leadership GoodLaundry List

Science diplomacy is key to solve all of the major
problems of the 21st century
Fedoroff 2009 - Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State
and to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), U.S. Department of State, Washington DC 20520, USA. (Nina,
Science Diplomacy in the 21st Century, 1/9/2009,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286740801636X#)

But the problems are deep and stubborn. Perhaps the most poignant disparities exist
between the countries of the developed world and much of Africa, where climate, disease, soil exhaustion,
and a host of other problems contribute. In his book titled The Bottom Billion, economist Paul Collier
(http://users.ox.ac. uk/~econpco/) offers an insightful analysis of the many factors that contribute to

The global food crisis

of 2008 triggered food riots in more than 30 countries and calls for a
new Green Revolution. The first Green Revolution, however, was
relatively straightforward, if not easy: improved crop varieties and
increased fertilizer use. The next Green Revolution will be more
difficult, even if we succeed in overcoming the deep and widespread
mistrust of using modern molecular methods for the genetic
improvement of crop plants. In a crowded world, we no longer have the luxury of focusing
on the single variable of agricultural productivity. Food, water, energy, health, and
economic development are all intertwined. Progress will depend on a
high level of education, particularly in science and engineering. All
will be impacted by climate change and politicseverywhere.
Climate change is a wake-up call to the awareness that we live in a
world without borders. Airplanes can make SARS and multidrug-resistant TB everyones
problem in a heartbeat. Trade barriers between nations and farm subsidies in
developed nations stifle agricultural growth in developing countries.
trapping the poorest nations in continuing cycles of poverty and unrest.

The rush toward renewable energy from biofuels accelerates deforestation in the Amazon, however
indirectly, and with each acre lost, another multitude of species goes extinct. Wall Streets problems echo
around the world.

And all of these seemingly separate problems turn out

to be interconnected. Food and energy are now viewed as fungible. Growing the foodand
feed and fiber and fueldemanded by a still expanding and increasingly affluent human population
requires innovations not just in agricultural productivity but also in water and land management, food
processing, and transportation. Decimating what remains of the tropics forests will as surely exacerbate

Its one big thorny tangle: people,

money, food, energy, health, water, land, climate, biodiversity. How
do we as scientists begin to thinkand acton a global scale to
address such complicated problems? It seems to me that we must
first become citizens not just of our own nations, but of this world
without borders. We need to see, experience, and identify with the peoples and the problems of
climate change as it will reduce biodiversity.

other nations and to recognize the complexity and interconnections among the challenges facing 21st
century humanity. And perhaps most importantly of all, we need to understand, at a deep gut level, that all

We must move quickly to develop the science

that will allow us to model and understand the complex system that
is our planet and its crust of human activities. We need to invent efficient,
our fates are truly intertwined.

nonpolluting means of local power generation. We need to invest in the research that will allow us to
improve how we manage water, grow food, battle disease, and build economies into the next generation

Science, of course, provides the common language to build

bridges between cultures.
and the next.

A2: Tradeoff DA

Link Level

No NASA Cuts
Budget cuts wont affect NASAs programs.
Bodzash, 2011 (Dennis Bodzash; astronomer/astrophotographer, serves
as a member of the Board of Directors and as newsletter editor for Northeast
Ohio's Black River Astronomical Society, writes columns as Cleveland
Photography and Astronomy Examiner; Last-ditch effort to avoid government
shutdown involves NASA cuts; http://www.examiner.com/article/last-ditcheffort-to-avoid-government-shutdown-involves-nasa-cuts; Date Accessed:
7/13/14)
Ever since the space race ended with Apollo 11, NASA has found itself on
the chopping block as only science, not national pride, has been at stake.
Since NASA's budget (as a part of the total federal budget) peaked
in the mid 1960s, NASA has been operating under less and less
money relative to the government as a whole. However, even as its
relative budget has shrank, NASA has always found ways to probe
the mysteries of the cosmos. No doubt, regardless of what the next
government spending bill offers, NASA will continue on its quest.

NASA funding inevitable

Coren, 2013 (Courtney Coren; contributor to NewsMax.com; Budget
Restraints Could Delay or Abort Major NASA Projects;
http://www.newsmax.com/SciTech/nasa-budget-cassinihubble/2013/12/26/id/543841/#ixzz32AfvBova; Date Accessed: 7/13/14)
For example, the Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn will run
out of fuel in about four years. To continue that mission, now
focused on exploring Saturn's rings, it would take about $60 million
a year, according to The Washington Post. But the NASA budget presently
has no funding designated for the mission, which could bring it to an
early end next year. "I think it would be the height of folly to terminate
such a profoundly successful mission when we're not done yet," said
Carolyn Porco, planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in
Boulder, Colo. Porco works on the project. NASA officials believe the
administration and Congress will likely share that view and in the
end will allow the mission to continue with the appropriate funding.

Funding Inevitable-Despite requested budget cuts, NASA

funding continues to occur
Dreier, 2014 (Casey Drier; Director of Advocacy- leads the strategic

planning and implementation of the Society's political advocacy efforts, has a

B.A. in Physics from Oberlin College, a regular contributor to The Planetary
Report; Congress Rejects Cuts to Planetary ExplorationAgain;
http://www.planetary.org/press-room/releases/2014/congress-rejectscuts.html; Date Accessed: 7/13/14)

The Society also supports the congressional recommendation that

NASA increase the pace of small planetary missions. We are
particularly happy to see full congressional and White House support for
restarting the nation's Plutonium-238 production capability, which provides
electrical power for many planetary science missions that can't utilize solar
panels. The White House has requested cuts to planetary science for
two years in a row, and for two years in a row Congress has rejected
them. In light of this and the more than 50,000 messages sent to Congress
and President Obama in support of NASA's planetary science program last
year, we urge the Office of Management and Budget to recognize the
unprecedented public and legislative support for solar system exploration,
and propose $1.5 billion for this program in their FY2015 budget request.

No Tradeoff
The plan is new spending PAYGO doesnt guarantee
trade-offs
Riedl 2005 (Brian, Grover M. Hermann fellow in federal budgetary affairs
at Heritage, January 25,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2005/01/whats-wrong-with-thefederal-budget-process)

The budget process is designed with a bias toward higher spending and
taxes. Public choice theory recognizes that how democracies make decisions
has a substantial effect on what is decided. Multi-year constraints, such as
PAYGO and discretionary spending caps, represent an attempt by
policymakers with a long-term view to constrain the decisions of annual
budgeters who are focused only on the short term. However, these multi-year
constraints fail to settle the question of whether the budget process
should be used to limit spending (as discretionary caps suggest) or to
slow the growth of the budget deficit, regardless of government size (as
PAYGO suggests). This confusion created odd situations whereby even
policies that would achieve both goals of reducing spending and
reducing the budget deficit (such as a discretionary spending cut
accompanied by a smaller tax cut) have not been allowed. Furthermore,
PAYGO did not successfully blunt the pro-spending bias of annual
budget writers because it focused only on the effects of new policies and
ignored current policies-because it was rarely enforced. Public choice
theorists also note the pro-spending bias caused by the decentralization of
spending committees. Although a single appropriations committee in the
House and the Senate annually approves all discretionary spending, nearly a
dozen different committees in each body of Congress write mandatory
spending programs. The lack of coordination between these committees
creates a "tragedy of the commons," whereby each committee is
responsible only for the funding of its own pet programs with no
obligation to trade off their costs with the costs of other committees'
programs.[3] Accordingly, each committee over-prioritizes and
consequently over-funds its own programs. A single committee
reviewing all legislation would solve this bias by taking on the responsibility
to make the difficult trade-offs.[4]

Any tradeoffs would come from other budgets

SVITAK 11 (3/29. Amy; Senior Writer Space.com, NASAs Budget Could
Get Infusion From Other U.S. Departments, http://www.space.com/11247nasa-budget-funding-commerce-justice-departments.html, 2011, RZ)
Congressional appropriators could tap the funding accounts of the U.S.
departments of Commerce and Justice to help cover what some see as a $1 billion
shortfall in NASAs $18.7 billion spending plan for 2012, which allocates less money for a
heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule than Congress directed last year. Theres over a billion-dollar difference
between the budget request and the authorized levels in [20]12 for the launch system and the crew
vehicle, and now that falls squarely back on the shoulders of [the appropriations committees] to try and
figure out where to come up with that money, said a panelist at a March 23 breakfast on Capitol Hill.

Sponsored by Women in Aerospace (WIA), the breakfast was held under the Chatham House Rule, an 84year-old protocol fashioned by the London-based nonprofit think-tank to promote frank discussion through
anonymity. [What Obama and Congress Should Do for Spaceflight] The panelist, one of six whose names
and job titles were circulated by WIA prior to the meeting, said funding requested in NASAs 2012 spending
plan does not square with levels Congress set in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 that U.S. President
Barack Obama signed into law in October. Specifically, the request called for spending $1.2 billion less than
the $4 billion Congress authorized for the heavy-lift launch vehicle and crew capsule in 2012. At the same
time, the request includes $350 million more than the $500 million Congress authorized to nurture
development of commercial vehicles to deliver cargo and crews to the International Space Station after the

it is now up to
congressional appropriators to find a billion dollars in other places in NASA to pay for
those activities or to decide to make those tradeoffs and take that money out
of the departments of Commerce or Justice or the other agencies
that are funded in the same bill as NASA. NASAs annual
appropriation is part of a broader spending package totaling nearly $65 billion
that funds the U.S. Commerce and Justice departments, the National
Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and
Technology and related agencies. But with NASA and other federal agencies operating in
space shuttle retires later this year. Consequently, the panelist said,

a fiscally constrained environment, the panelist said Congress could struggle to fund new multibillion-dollar
programs next year. Its not impossible but the ability to do that is severely constrained in the
environment were working in now, and thats exacerbated by budget requests coming up from the
administration that dont track with the authorization, the panelist said. Congress has yet to pass an
appropriations bill for 2011, leaving NASA and most federal agencies to subsist at 2010 spending levels in
the current budget year. The panelist said passing spending legislation for NASA is a complicated and
challenging thing this year, and it will be again next year given a fiscal climate that has changed
dramatically authorized funding levels for the space agency were set last fall. However, the panelist said
the appropriations subcommittees that fund NASA are very supportive of the agency, theyre supportive
of the authorization, they want to see NASA get as close as possible to those authorized levels, so that will
be a work in progress.

Internal Link Level

A2: Cuts Kill NASA

Cuts dont get kill programs NASA will find a way to fund
everything
Bodzash 11 (Dennis, writer @ Space News Examiner,
http://www.examiner.com/space-news-in-national/last-ditch-effort-to-avoidgovernment-shutdown-involves-nasa-cuts) JPG

Ever since the space race ended with Apollo 11, NASA has found itself on
the chopping block as only science, not national pride, has been at
stake. Since NASA's budget (as a part of the total federal budget) peaked in
the mid 1960s, NASA has been operating under less and less money
relative to the government as a whole. However, even as its relative
budget has shrank, NASA has always found ways to probe the
mysteries of the cosmos. No doubt, regardless of what the next
government spending bill offers, NASA will continue on its quest.

Impact Level

No Impact
Scientists lack unity, and are ineffective at engaging
governments, means no solvency
National Research Council 12 The National Research Council (NRC)

is the working arm of the United States National Academies, which produces
reports that shape policies, inform public opinion, and advance the pursuit of
science, engineering, and medicine. (U.S. and International Perspectives on
Global Science Policy and Science [pgs.33-34]2012
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13300&page=33 KW)
Many workshop participants underlined the failure of scientists to effectively
engage policy makers and the public in the understanding the role of
science and its potential value in diplomacy and in development. According to
Volker ter Meulen, the main challenges are the lack of a unified voice to
speak on behalf of science and the lack of experience within the
political institutions to use science and effectively communicate with the science community.
This challenge is often compounded by the multiplicity of other voices in a crowded world. In a very
complicated diplomatic system, involving NGOs, intergovernmental organizations, media,
and new communication modes and networks, the scientific community must learn
how to inform and engage more effectively with all these groups and
governments. Furthermore, several participants underscored the importance or recognizing that
many of the major policy challenges require science in diplomacy across a broad front. For example,
tackling the Millennium Development Goals requires understanding and action on food, health, and the
environment, which involves multiple government departments and requires a coherent and integrated

Unfortunately, noted one discussant, there are often organizational

barriers within and between governments, in addition to the low
public understanding and support for such policies.
policy.

Lack of cohesion, human capital, and infrastructure

prevent effective science diplomacy
National Research Council 12 The National Research Council (NRC)

is the working arm of the United States National Academies, which produces
reports that shape policies, inform public opinion, and advance the pursuit of
science, engineering, and medicine. (U.S. and International Perspectives on
Global Science Policy and Science [pgs.33-34]2012
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13300&page=33 )
A serious lack of human capital, coherent national science and
technology strategies, and research infrastructures in potentially
partnering countries was identified by some workshop participants as
an important barrier to more effective international engagement.
Gebisa Ejeta and others stated that weak human capacity, in part owing to
brain drain, and the lack of adequate research infrastructure in
developing countries has too often derailed promising science-based
developments or worse, prevented their successful exploitation. Ejeta also
underlined the differences in goals and aspirations between
institutions in the United States and those in developing countries that

often create an awkward dialogue about the objectives of collaborative

partnerships. Most of the advanced research institutions in the developed
world aim at creating a global public good; in contrast, research centers in
most developing countries focus on the development of locally needed
products and services. Nevertheless, he believed that the two goals are
mutually supportive, and if the parties communicate and work together, a
win-win scenario often can be reached. He also noted an overreliance in
developing countries on external funding to capitalize on science diplomacy
and global science cooperation opportunities, which is, of course, largely
because of insufficient local resource commitment to science. There is a
shortage of functional research centers and science support architecture such
as science and technology commissions merit-based funding mechanism, or
science academics in the developing world. Several participants identified
building such structures as an important goal of science diplomacy.