Hendrickson---Semis

1NC
OFF
 1NC
The fifty states and relevant subnational actors should suspend their cooperation in
the administration of federal programs until federal government fiscally redistributes
in the United States by expanding non-cosmetic Social Security healthcare.
It competes and solves---conditioning the plan never fiats it, but results in federal
adoption AND aggressively expands dual sovereignty.
Bloomberg ’21 [Scott; September 17; Associate Professor of Law, University of Maine School of Law;
Social Science Research Network, “Frenemy Federalism,” Draft Manuscript, p. 2-40]
i. Uncooperative Federalism

Dean Heather Gerken and Professor Jessica Bulman-Pozen have categorized state legalization of marijuana as an instance of uncooperative
federalism.108 In their influential 2009 essay, Uncooperative Federalism, Gerken and Bulman-Pozen observe that scholars had traditionally
conceived of our system of federalism through one of two lenses. Under the “ state autonomy ” model of federalism, the
states and the fed eral government are dual sovereign s who act as autonomous rivals , allowing
states to act as dissenters to federal policies they deem undesirable. 109 In contrast, under the “cooperative federalism”
approach, the states are like agents or servants of the federal government, dutifully carrying out a federal program to achieve a shared
objective.110

Uncooperative federalism presents a third type of relationship between the states and the federal government, one that
recognizes a principal’s or master’s dependence on their agents or servants, and the concomitant power of
an embedded agent or servant to push back against their superior. 111 Sometimes, the states do not
dutifully cooperate in administer ing a federal program, but actively seek to change or
undermine that program. They are uncooperative .
Gerken and Bulman-Pozen identify three categories of state actions that constitute uncooperative federalism. The first is “licensed” dissent,
which occurs when “Congress explicitly contemplates that states will deviate from federal norms in implementing federal policy, but states take
that invitation in a direction the federal government may not anticipate.”112 State efforts to catalyze federal welfare reform provide an
example. In the 1980s, states such as Wisconsin and Michigan utilized a waiver provision of the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children
welfare program (“AFDC”) to “recast an entitlement for poor families struggling to raise children into a temporary grant for recipients who
would quickly move into the private workforce.”113 Departing from the existing federal policy, the states began enacting welfare-to-work
requirements that required welfare recipients to actively seek employment and terminated AFDC benefits after a set period of time.114
These uncooperative state s largely succeed ed in changing federal welfare law when Congress passed the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.115

The second form of uncooperative federalism occurs when states exploit gaps in federal regulatory schemes. In such
cases, “the federal government does not contemplate state variation but states have sufficient discretion that they find ways
to contest federal policy .”116 Gerken and Bulman-Pozen offer California’s efforts to regulate air pollution more stringently than
state has successfully exploited a narrow
the EPA as an example of this strain of uncooperative federalism. The
exception to the Clean Air Act’s preemption provision to drive federal emissions standards for decades.117

The third, and “strongest,” form of uncooperative federalism is civil disobedience, where states “simply refuse to comply with
the national program or otherwise obstruct it .”118 Gerken and Bulman-Pozen cite state pushback to the Patriot Act as an
example. After Congress passed the Act, several states enacted resolutions that prohibited their agencies from assisting the federal government
 uncooperative action had real effect , as “the fed eral government relies on
in enforcing the Act.119 This

the states for enforcement assistance .”120

In early 2009, the federal-state relationship regarding marijuana fit within the uncooperative federalism framework, falling into the civil
disobedience bucket.121 At that point, thirteen states had legalized medical marijuana, a costly blow to the federal government due to its
dependence on the states for assistance in enforcing marijuana prohibition.122 The DEA, meanwhile, was “actively working to undermine the
decriminalization efforts underway in California, the state with the most nationally visible decriminalization policy.”123 Indeed, federal
prosecutions of individual medical marijuana users and marijuana businesses in California were commonplace in the early 2000s.124

ii. Increased Federal Cooperation

There is a great deal more cooperation in the federal-state marijuana relationship than there was when Gerken and Bulman-Pozen originally
described it as uncooperative federalism. Since 2009, dozens more states have legalized medical marijuana and many have also legalized the
drug for recreational use. In conjunction with these state policy change s , the fed eral government ’s policy
changed as well: It became far more cooperative with the states.

Though the fed eral government indisputably has the constitutional authority to prosecute marijuana
businesses and users operating in states where marijuana is legal, over the years it has agreed – expressly at times and tacitly at others –
to allow those businesses and users to avoid prosecution. This form of federal cooperation began with a series of DOJ memoranda instructing
U.S. Attorneys not to prosecute marijuana businesses and users acting in compliance with state law.

In 2009, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden issued a policy memorandum to U.S. Attorneys titled “Investigations and Prosecutions in States
Authorizing the Medical Use of Marijuana.”125 The “Ogden Memo,” as it has become known, instructed U.S. Attorneys in states that legalized
medical marijuana to deprioritize the enforcement of federal marijuana law against individuals who use medical marijuana in compliance with
state law.126 As a result, the federal government stopped prosecuting medical marijuana users unless the user failed to comply with
state law in a manner that implicated one of several “potential federal interest[s]” listed in the Ogden Memo.127

Reasserting state sovereignty counterbalances governance failures from federal

encroachment---extinction.
Mihalakas ’19 [Nasos; May 21; Global Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, LL.M. from
University College London, J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law; The Federalism Project,
“The Need for Governance Reform – Symptoms vs. Cause,”
https://the-federalism-project.org/2019/05/21/the-need-for-governance-reform-symptoms-vs-cause/]
There is no doubt that we live in “challenging” times. We face ‘social challenges,’ from racial discrimination to gender inequality, women’s
rights (reproductive or otherwise) that will have to be addressed, LGBTQ issues (recognition of gay marriage), a gun violence epidemic due to
both inadequate gun control laws but also excessive violence in our society, etc. We also face ‘ economic challenge s ,’ like
stagnant salaries and low wages, job insecurity (due to automation or outsourcing), taxes that are too high for some and not
high enough for others, mounting student debt, and yes massive income inequality. And, of course, we do face ‘ external

challenges ’, from nuclear prolif eration in the Korea n peninsula, to ISIS and religiously motivated global
terror ism, to global warming and climate change!

Yet, most of these issues are but symptoms of a greater cause . Their existence, or our inability to overcome them,
is being caused by a much greater problem in our society that unless we address soon we risk permanent
societal failures within the next 20 to 30 years.

This greater cause is our very own failing system of governance !!!
Though brilliant in its original construction by the founding fathers, our Federal system of governance (separation of powers, check and
balances, separate Federal and State governments) is grossly off track and highly unbalanced. During the past 200 years, we
witnessed a steady transfer of power away from the States and into the Fed eral government, and within the
Federal government we saw a similar steady concentration of power in the hands of the Executive (the singular President), and to a certain
extend the Supreme Court (due to Congressional acquiescence).

This did not happen due to some conspiracy by the ‘powerful elite’ or through interference by foreign powers. It happened gradually (almost
naturally), as a response to major failures at the State level: in dealing with slavery and racial discrimination (see Civil War and Jim Crow laws in
the south), in dealing with market failures and the need to regulate business and provide a safety net (see Great Depression, The New Deal and
the Great Society), in fighting a Cold War with the Soviet Union (see expansion of military and intelligence services to advance US foreign
policy).

Today, power and authority to deal with issues and solve problems is highly concentrated at the Federal level, away from ordinary people and
their ability to monitor let alone influence elected politicians.

There is so much power concentrated at the Fed eral level, and in particular in the hands of one person (the
President) that it makes Washington politicians constant targets of special interests and lobbying
negotiations for compromise impossible because there is so much at stake, and it has created
organizations, makes

a highly unbalanced system (where “checks and balances” are not fully implemented and more often can’t work effectively).
Washington gridlock, dysfunction, polarization, and partisanship have led to the inability to pass a budget (balanced or otherwise), or address
the need for immigration reform, or provide for adequate healthcare coverage and affordable prescription drugs, or even implement proper tax
reform. Therefore, unless we address these ‘ systemic ’ failures of our system of governance, unless we implement
fix the process , we will never get lasting solutions to our current and future
institutional changes and

societal challenges .
Unfortunately, there is no one thing we can do, no ‘magic bullet’ that can fix the dysfunction of our Federal system of governance (because it’s
not just ‘the Federal government’ that needs reform, but also/primarily Congress and the Judiciary). Rather, there are several things (from
specific process changes through laws/regulations to Constitutional amendments) that we will have to changes now, in order to see
improvement in the function of our system of governance in the next 20 to 30 years.

There is a parallel example to this system of governance failures, and it’s that of ‘global warming.’ Global temperatures have been rising, due to
greenhouse gases (caused by human activity – burning fossil fuels like coal and oil), presenting an existential threat to our planet and our way of
life. However, fossil fuels are not inherently evil, used by certain people bent on the destruction of humanity! Energy from fossil fuels was
instrumental in facilitating the industrial revolution, which brought progress and technological innovations during the past 150 years, that
helped the whole world to advance, prosper, and better connect. It was not until recently that we realized that the constantly expanding use of
fossil fuels by humans is contributing to rising temperatures, and if we don’t do something now to ‘bent the curve’, then in 20 to 30 years from
now temperatures will rise to levels that can be devastating to the planets ecosystem, and by extension us humans.

Concentration of power at the Federal level, over the past 200 years, though not inherently evil (downright necessary and proper
during some critical periods), has reached a point of pure dysfunction . The proof of the unsustainable
nature of our current system (like rising temperatures are a proof of global warming) is income inequality. During the past
50 years, we have witnessed a steady concentration of wealth at the hands of the top 10% (and primarily the top 1%).

And although one can look at our society today statically and say: “things are still ok: there are rich people and poor people, and we are still the
most powerful and wealthy nation in the world – so what’s the problem?”… the trend keeps going upwards: currently over 70% of our national
wealth is concentrated at the hands for the top 10%. When do we need to do something to stop this trend? When it gets to 80%, or 90%?

Democrats and Republicans (now thanks to Donald Trump) both agree on the existence of a ‘powerful elite, in cahoots with the political
establishment, bent on exploiting the middle class’… yet both party’s solution is the same: win political power and cut or raise taxes, regulate
more or less, appoint some type of judges… in essence, deal with the symptoms and not the underlying cause!

If we want to address the underlying cause of income inequality (and outsourcing of jobs, health-care failures, racial
tensions, education funding, women’s rights, public housing, etc.), then we need to reform our system of governance, before we can
consider specific policy priorities. By fixing the legislative process, restoring proper checks, correcting the imbalance within the government
branches and return ing powers back to the States … we can get on a path where we see real results within the next 20 to 30
years.

Otherwise, gridlock and dysfunction at the Federal level will only get worse !
 1NC
The United States federal government ought to fiscally redistribute in the United
States by expanding non-cosmetic Social Security healthcare, subject to a judicially
imposed sunset that requires review with the possibility of renewal, alteration, or
termination every twenty-five years.
Judicial sunsets solve, avoid politics and revitalize rule of law.
Michael Gentithes 14, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at University of Akron School of Law,
Master of Laws in Legal Theory from NYU, JD from DePaul University, 9/1/2014, "Sunsets on
Constitutionality & Supreme Court Efficiency," Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, vol. 21, pg.
373-420, christian

In addition, sunsets on constitutionality will promote several Rule of Law virtues that allow private actors
across the nation to comply with the Constitution’s requirements more efficiently . If the Court can
clearly announce that a particular government policy will remain constitutional for at least an extended
sunset period, citizens will not need to be experts at parsing divided opinions in order to understand the current state of constitutional
law. This added clarity in our nation’s foundational norms will in turn enhance their public accessibility, and will also render

the law of the Constitution more predictable and thus a more useful edifice upon which citizens can order
their private affairs.

First, there is significant Rule of Law value to a legal regime that is clear. Such clarity is needed to guide the
actions of citizens, provide fair warning if life, liberty, and property are at stake, and protect expectations of how others,
including the
state, will behave.148 Sunsets will allow the Court to specify a period during which a policy will remain
constitutional while delineating
precisely how and when the Court is willing to revisit the issue, rather than
leaving it open to conjecture when the Court might again see fit to issue new edicts on the topic that unsettle vast swathes of the
legal regime.

Clear, intelligible Supreme Court opinions in turn open constitutional law for public consumption . There are
gains to be reaped from ensuring that the law of the land is openly promulgated to the masses, even if the majority of the citizenry will react
indifferently.149 Decisions announcing a constitutional sunset bring the status of the law into the
sunshine where all can at least potentially view it. This is a vast improvement from leaving the public on edge as they try
to anticipate the whim of a few key Justices who might revisit an opinion at any time. The reduced opacity in the Court’s
jurisprudence creates a virtuous cycle whereby its relationship to the public at large is more responsive and far more useful in citizens’ daily
lives.

Finally, sunsets that clarify the status of certain constitutional decisions will add stability to the Court’s
jurisprudence, again serving important Rule of Law goals. Actors seeking to order their affairs in compliance with
government policies and programs can rest assured that those policies and programs will remain
stable , thereby significantly lowering their transaction costs.150 Such a stable legal regime is more predictable,
generating viable expectations amongst citizens as to how a policy’s constitutionality will be viewed for at least a significant period of time.151
That predictability allows those subject to its constraints to utilize their talents within the consistent bounds
of the law.
That’s key to global stability.
Norman L. Eisen 22, senior fellow in governance studies at Brookings, executive chair of the States
United Democracy Center, former White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform,
10/31/2022, "Rule of law continues five-year decline, but bright spots emerge," Brookings,
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/rule-of-law-continues-five-year-decline-but-bright-spots-emerge,
christian

The world is slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. But the blow it struck to the rule of law
remains persistent and widespread, according to fresh survey data collected in 140 countries. While declines in
performance were not as extreme as in 2021, this year’s findings from the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index

underscore the alarming drops in nearly every rule of law factor measured , especially in fundamental rights
and checks and balances , which are two critical pillars of the rule of law.

Overall, these trends toward authoritarianism and away from rules-based liberal democracy portend dark
trouble ahead . As big-power geopolitical competition continues to heat up, the differences in how states govern
themselves will have outsized influence in shaping solutions to some of our most intractable problems –
digital disruption and disinformation , corruption and illicit trafficking, and outright war . Russia’s
illegal invasion of Ukraine, and its sophisticated disinformation tactics, shows just how dangerous this divergence
has become.

Extinction.
George Eaton 20. Senior online editor of the New Statesman. Citing Noam Chomsky, Laureate
professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and professor emeritus at MIT,
Ph.D. in linguistics from Penn. “Noam Chomsky: The world is at the most dangerous moment in human
history”. The New Statesman. Sept 17 2020. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2020/09/noam-
chomsky-the-world-is-at-the-most-dangerous-moment-in-human-history

Noam Chomsky has warned that the world is at the most dangerous moment in human history owing to the climate
crisis , the threat of nuclear war and rising authoritarianism . In an exclusive interview with the New Statesman, the 91-year-old US
linguist and activist said that the current perils exceed those of the 1930s.

“There’s been nothing like it in human history,” Chomsky said. “I’m old enough to remember, very vividly, the threat that Nazism could take over much of
Eurasia, that was not an idle concern. US military planners did anticipate that the war would end with a US-dominated region and a German-dominated region… But even that, horrible

enough, was not like the end of organised human life on Earth , which is what we’re facing .”
Chomsky was interviewed in advance of the first summit of the Progressive International (18-20 September), a new organisation founded by Bernie Sanders, the former US presidential
candidate, and Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, to counter right-wing authoritarianism. In an echo of the movement’s slogan “internationalism or extinction”, Chomsky

warned: “ We’re at an astonishing confluence of very severe crises. The extent of them was illustrated by the
last setting of the famous Doomsday Clock . It’s been set every year since the atom bombing, the minute hand has moved forward and back. But last January,
they abandoned minutes and moved to seconds to midnight, which means termination . And that was before the scale of the pandemic.”

This shift, Chomsky said, reflected “the growing threat of nuclear war, which is probably more severe than it was during the Cold War. The
growing threat of environmental catastrophe, and the third thing that they’ve been picking up for the last few years is the sharp
deterioration of democracy , which sounds at first as if it doesn’t belong but it actually does , because the only
hope for dealing with the two existential crises , which do threaten extinction , is to deal with them
through a vibrant democracy with engaged , informed citizens who are participating in developing
programmes to deal with these crises.”

Trump has accomplished something quite impressive: he’s succeeded in increasing the threat of each of the three dangers. On nuclear weapons, he’s
Chomsky added that “[Donald]

moved to continue, and essentially bring to an end, the dismantling of the arms control regime, which has offered some protection against terminal disaster.
He’s greatly increased the development of new, dangerous, more threatening weapons, which means others do so too,
which is increasing the threat to all of us.

“On environmental catastrophe, he’s escalated his effort to maximise the use of fossil fuels and to terminate the regulations that somewhat mitigate the effect of the coming disaster if we
proceed on our present course.”

“On the deterioration of democracy, it’s become a joke. The executive branch of [the US] government has been completely purged of any dissident voice. Now it’s left with a group of
sycophants.”

Chomsky described Trump as the figurehead of a new “ reactionary international” consisting of Brazil, India, the UK,
Egypt, Israel and Hungary. “In the western hemisphere the leading candidate is [Jair] Bolsonaro’s Brazil, kind of a small-time clone of President Trump. In the

Middle East it will be based on the family dictatorships, the most reactionary states in the world. [Abdel al-] Sisi’s Egypt is the worst dictatorship that

Egypt has ever had. Israel has moved so far to the right that you need a telescope to see it, it’s about the only country in the world where young people are even more
reactionary than adults.”

Modi is destroying Indian secular democracy , severely repressing the Muslim

He added: “[Narendra]

population, he’s just vastly extended the terrible Indian occupation of Kashmir. In Europe, the leading
candidate is [Viktor] Orbán in Hungary, who is creating a proto-fascist state. There are other figures, like [Matteo] Salvini in Italy, who gets his kicks out of watching
refugees drown in the Mediterranean.”
 1NC
The fifty states and relevant subnational actors should fiscally redistribute in the
United States by adopting Medicare for All.
 1NC
The United States federal government should:
- impose limits on allowable law suits and malpractice awards;
- increase use of medical savings accounts [MSAs];
- make all money spent on medical care tax-deductible;
- permit physicians to charge lower fees for patients paying cash, without
financial penalties from private insurers;
- allow retired physicians to work at free health care clinics.

Solves health insurance.

Day ‘9 [Michael A; 2009; M.D.; ATS Journals, "Con: Single-Payer Health Care,"
https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.200906-0882ed]

Instead of adopting universal coverage through single-payer health care, a better approach to the health insurance problem in
this country would be to control costs. There are several ways to do this. First, we need tort reform, with limits on
allowable law suits and malpractice awards. The practice of defensive medicine has been estimated to add up to
$50 billion annually to health costs (18). Using an example from our own field, does every patient with an abnormal chest
radiograph require computed tomography and then positron emission tomography? How many of us feel comfortable not ordering these tests
when they are recommended by the radiologist, who is also practicing defensive medicine? Second, we need to increase the use of
medical savings accounts (MSAs). MSAs are a type of insurance plan that allows patients to spend tax-free
income on health care before meeting their insurance deductible, and they are allowed to keep the
money they do not spend . When consumers spend their own money, they look for a better price (19), and
value becomes an important consideration. Third, all money spent on medical care, including drugs, should be
tax-deductible . This will level the playing field for people who do not receive insurance as a medical benefit
from an employer. Fourth, physicians should be permitted to charge lower fees for patients paying cash ,
without financial penalties from private insurers. Finally, retired physicians should be permitted to work at
free health care clinics with immunity from malpractice threats.
 1NC
The United States federal government should:
- provide a federal job guarantee in rural infrastructure development
that provides public health insurance;
- propose further cooperation with the Federative Republic of Brazil
over food production and innovation.
 1NC
IRA preserves innovation. Defense isn’t descriptive of regulatory exemptions.
Sachs ‘23 [Rachel, Loren Adler, and Richard Frank; July; Treiman Professor of Law, Washington
University in St. Louis; Associate Director, USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy; Ph.D. in
Economics from Boston University; Health Affairs Scholar, “A holistic view of innovation incentives and
pharmaceutical policy reform”,
https://academic.oup.com/healthaffairsscholar/article/1/1/qxad004/7203675, BEJJP-ATJ [6-27-2023]

contains provisions aimed at minimizing negative impacts on innovation as a whole. The

First, the IRA
law directs Medicare drug price negotiations towards innovator small-molecule and biologic drugs that
have been on the market for many years without generic or biosimilar competition in an effort to
provide companies with time to recoup their investments and earn competitive returns . This
commitment is backed by the factors that Medicare must consider during the negotiation process once a drug is selected,
including the innovator manufacturer's research and development (R&D) costs for the drug and “the extent to which the
manufacturer has recouped research and development costs.”4

Putting the negotiation structure in context,

for drugs that have been on the market nine to eleven years and twelve
to fifteen years, respectively, the IRA requires minimum discounts of 25% and 35% (although larger discounts can be
negotiated). Recent CBO analyses estimate that average rebates in Medicare Part D (which primarily governs those medications
seniors obtain at a pharmacy, rather than those that are administered by physicians or in a hospital setting) for brand-name drugs are
Recent research on the financing of cancer drugs also helps illustrate why these IRA
approximately 35%.5

provisions serve as protection for innovations that result in high cost prescription drug products. For
example, one study found that those products experience a median time to recovery of R&D investments of five years.6

Further, the negotiations themselves do not impact a manufacturer's ability to obtain and enforce any intellectual property rights, including
patents, trade secrets, and Food and Drug Administration–awarded exclusivity periods, which are typically considered to be core elements of
promoting innovation. And even when subject to a negotiated price, manufacturers typically will receive revenues that are higher than if they
were facing a generic or biosimilar competitor.

To be sure, in implementing the IRA, Medicare will need to make decisions about how r esearch and
d evelopment costs will be defined and applied, which will affect this analysis. As one example, it will be important to ensure that
Medicare's conception of research and development costs “of the manufacturer” is capacious enough to encompass a range of business
models, including manufacturers who choose to in-license compounds from other firms as well as those who develop products in-house.
Additionally, important questions also remain about how Medicare should consider the costs of failures. For instance, there are technical issues
regarding possible double counting of failures by attribution of failure costs alongside elevated discount rates justified by the elevated risk of
R&D failure.

Second, the IRA singles out particular classes of products for special treatment, articulating a legislative
judgment that innovation in particular therapeutic areas or by particular entities ought to be protected
in different ways. Drugs that have only a single orphan indication are categorically exempt from Medicare negotiations, a policy choice
aiming to provide special incentives for innovation in rare diseases. The law also phases in the negotiation program for

drugs from small biotech nology companies and creates a temporary price floor for them, giving those
companies more time to adjust to the law's implications for their business models.7 However, these exemptions
are narrowly targeted in an attempt to limit gaming. For instance, although legislators clearly want to protect investments in
drugs treating rare diseases, the exemption's limitation to products with only a single orphan indication would prevent
manufacturers of drugs for common diseases from avoiding negotiation by obtaining approval for additional orphan indications. This limitation
is important, as a recent federal report found that many high-expenditure orphan drugs typically also were approved for more common
indications as well,8 including several of the top-selling drugs in Medicare.9 The net impact on R&D incentives is uncertain.
Third, and most importantly, the IRA
aims to limit adverse impacts on innovation that delivers high clinical value
for patients, particularly in cases when new products provide only marginal or no clinical benefits when
compared with existing treatments. As part of the negotiation process, Medicare must consider a drug's
“comparative effectiveness” and “therapeutic alternatives,” as well as whether the drug “address[es] unmet medical
needs” for patients.10 Drugs that demonstrate a comparative advantage over therapeutic alternatives or that
address unmet medical needs—in other words, those that deliver new clinical benefits for patients—
ought to command a higher price than those that do not. By limiting negotiated price reductions for
drugs that deliver greater clinical benefits , the IRA's negotiation process should maintain strong
financial incentives for manufacturers to develop new drugs that represent clinical improvements
and to invest in the development of evidence to demonstrate those improvements.
Here as well, regulators do not have perfect information about the relative clinical value of drugs, and key implementation choices will matter
to the definition and application of these factors. Who will determine what qualifies as a “therapeutic alternative,” and does it include both
drug and non-drug treatment options? In light of companies’ existing weak incentives to produce comparative effectiveness information,11
how much of this information is likely to exist in practice? Can the expertise of other administrative agencies, such as the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) and its work on comparative effectiveness, be marshaled to support Medicare's work?

More broadly, the ways in which the relevant factors in the negotiation process are weighted and applied against each other will be relevant to
these innovation impacts. A
negotiation framework that gives greater weight to whether a drug represents a
therapeutic advance than to a manufacturer's R&D costs (albeit with recoupment serving as a floor) may create
greater relative pressures for manufacturers to engage in high-clinical-value innovation for
patients, rather than developing a “me-too” version of an existing product.

In setting and applying these factors through the negotiation process and in defining the precise drugs at issue, the IRA
effectively
reduces the monopoly pricing that companies can expect to recoup many years after a drug has entered
the market, although the IRA does not formally impact companies’ exclusive rights. The application of the negotiation
framework itself, therefore, may also realign incentives in a way that increases rewards to companies
that engage in the creation of entirely new products relative to the payoffs to engage in activities
aimed at extending exclusivity , such as the creation of line extensions with modest clinical value.
Indeed, a recent working paper suggests that limiting brand drug firms’ ability to extend market exclusivity for

existing drugs may result in greater firm-specific r esearch and d evelopment investments.12

The IRA itself contains provisions outside of the negotiation framework that should impact innovation as well.
Several provisions of the law expand insurance coverage of prescription drugs under Part D of Medicare. These
include placing a cap on out-of-pocket liability for beneficiaries, reducing the out-of-pocket costs for
adult vaccines to zero, and limiting the out-of-pocket costs of insulins to a maximum of $35 per month. Those provisions, in
turn, will increase utilization. By increasing utilization , these provisions should increase sales and
thereby, in many cases, returns for manufacturers and encourage investment in developing new
drugs. On a more modest front, the IRA also doubles the R&D tax credit for small businesses and expands the set of
circumstances under which they may use the credit, aiming to enable them to use the credit to the same degree that larger businesses have
and increasing their innovation incentives accordingly.13 This
is especially important given the central role that smaller
biotechnology firms are playing in driving innovation.14

alongside the IRA, the Biden Administration has pursued a range of policies that may impact
Additionally,

r esearch and d evelopment and should be considered in examining the future of drug innovation. Three such policies—all
implemented beginning in 2022—illustrate the range of the administration's interests in innovation policy. First, the administration led
the creation of the A dvanced R esearch P rojects A gency for H ealth (ARPA-H), which aims to speed
biomedical and health research through building “high-risk, high-reward” capabilities and to drive
breakthroughs in diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease.15 The administration sought to provide ARPA-H
with $6.5 billion in funding over its first three years, as part of a broader effort to increase the budget of the
NIH overall (though the omnibus funding package provided only $1.5 billion for three years).16 ARPA-H directly
complement s the innovation-related aspects of the IRA, by increasing investment in disease classes
where drug development could lead to significant clinical breakthroughs for patients.

Second, the administration launched a N ational B iotechnology and B iomanufacturing I nitiative in an effort to
“coordinate a whole-of-government approach to advance” these fields “towards innovative solutions in
health”.17 Through this initiative, the administration can engage a widew range of federal agencies to
coordinate and support the development of platform technologies and encourage innovation. The
Department of Health and Human Services has set out specific steps across its component parts in an effort to support the
development and implementation of biotechnology and biomanufacturing technologies .18 These
initiatives should decrease regulatory barriers to approval, particularly for innovative pharmaceutical
products relying on novel manufacturing techniques.

Third and finally, the White House O ffice of S cience and T echnology P olicy has recommended that federal agencies
update their public access policies “to make publications and their supporting data resulting from
federally funded research publicly accessible.”19 Increasing the amount of taxpayer-funded research that is
publicly accessible without costs should have the effect of increasing access to information for researchers—
information that can then be used in innovative research and development to benefit patients.

The oversimplified vision of “innovation” and the IRA's relationship to it presented by many of the
law's detractors simply do not match the nuanced vision of innovation encompassed either in the IRA or
in adjacent policies that the Biden Administration has simultaneously pursued. Although highly uncertain, CBO estimated only a 1%
decline in the number of new drugs coming to market over the next thirty years due to the IRA . And
features of the negotiation process, in conjunction with the other policies and initiatives discussed in this commentary, should
mitigate these impacts on new drug development both broadly and particularly for innovation that
matters most to patients. Taken together, it is even possible that these combined changes could increase the
development of higher-value drugs, and at the same time reducing costs and increasing patient access.

US pharma innovation buttresses global healthcare and finance. Single-payer implodes

the system.
Yates ‘18 [Jonathan; July 31; adjunct professor at University of Iowa; Des Moines Register, “A single-
payer system will cause the health care sector to implode”
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2018/07/27/single-payer-
system-cause-health-care-sector-implode/849329002/]
In the early days of the American automobile industry, consumers could buy a Model T in any color they wanted, so long as it was black. Such
will be the "service and selection" to be expected in the United States if a single-payer system, where the government pays for all medical
treatment, is implemented for health care.
A single-payer system will cause the health care sector to implode , with profound implications
for Iowa, the United States and the world's economy .

Health care is the largest component of the American economy, about one-sixth of g ross d omestic
p roduct. Forcing the health care system in the United States, the best in the history of the world, to be
socialized will have profound implications. The government will immediately be put in a position of
having higher expenses and less revenues. With health insurance companies gone , so will the tens of
billions in tax dollars paid to local, state, and federal government from these entities.

This will most certainly not be compensated for by reduced government spending. Rarely in history has a
government program reduced spending, especially in health care.

In addition to wrecking the government budget, a single-payer system would destroy the stock , bond and
commercial real estate markets. Insurance firms are major investors in the financial markets. Taking
away the insurance companies would eviscerate the financial markets.

The same would happen with salaries for health care professionals such as doctors and nurses. Doctors
in Canada, England and France make a fraction of those in America..

Opportunities in health care would be reduced, starting with the educational system. The U nited S tates
has the finest system of higher education in the world. More than half of the top 100 universities in the
world are in the United States. It is the same American dominance for medical device and other
health care patents . International universities can't even begin to compete with the best in the
United States in a holistic approach that encompasses undergraduate education, graduate schools, research facilities and athletics..

Foreign and business leaders from abroad come to the United States for medical care. Americans go
overseas for cheap health care. Those who can afford it come to the USA for the best health care
treatment. Which is preferable in medical services: the cheapest or the best ? A lesson learned very
quickly in life is that generally the best works out to be the least expensive, over the long term.

It is because of the superiority of the American health care system that single-payer systems still
exist around the world . Without the U nited S tates outperforming the rest of the world in r esearch
and d evelopment, their medical systems would collapse . Single-payer systems around the world can
survive only because they benefit from what the health care industry in the US A produces.

US pharma out-competes China now, but government control cedes the industry.
Atkinson ‘19 [Robert D; August; Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill; Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, “China’s Biopharmaceutical
Strategy: Challenge or Complement to U.S. Industry Competitiveness?” https://www2.itif.org/2019-
china-biopharma-strategy.pdf]

Over the last two decades, China has successfully challenged American industrial competitiveness in many industries, but
as China has
gone all in on its “Made in China 2025” strategy, the challenge will increasingly be to U.S. advanced and
innovation-based industries. However, America still maintains competitive advantage over many nations,
including China , in the biopharmaceutical industry. In fact, since 2001, while U.S. manufacturing jobs have fallen, the number of
biopharmaceutical jobs has increased over 20 percent. In short, biopharma is a U.S. manufacturing success story.

However, “ Made in China 2025 ,” as well as other plans, target life sciences for global leadership.
China is taking a range of steps, including regulatory changes, funding of biomedical research and
venture capital ( VC ), restructuring of the industry to eliminate many smaller producers, expanding medical
tourism, and expediting listings on the Hong Kong exchange, to propel China to become a major global
biopharma competitor —particularly by developing a world-class generics industry. However, while some of these policy
actions are fair and legitimate, many are not because they are “innovation mercantilist” in nature, seeking to unfairly
benefit Chinse firms at the expense of U.S. and other foreign firms. In other words, China is seeking to
challenge the U nited S tates in one of the most high-value-added, innovation-intensive industries in
the world—the kind of industry for which the United States has held a competitive advantage for
decades.
To be sure, the Chinese market is large, growing rapidly, and represents significant market opportunities for producers in the United States, so
U.S. policy should continue to push for market access. However, Chinese policies, if coupled with potential U.S. policy
errors— particularly drug price controls that would slow down U.S. biopharma innovation —could
mean that within the next decade or two, the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry could lose significant market
share and jobs to China, hurting not only the U.S. econ omy and workers, but also global
biopharmaceutical innovation .1 However, unlike when the United States lost emerging technology industries such as solar
panels to China, today, no one should be able to claim ignorance of China’s playbook and end game. Should
U.S. policymakers
decide it is in the U.S. national interest to have a globally leading life-sciences industry, they will need to
respond appropriately, particularly ensuring U.S. policies, including drug-pricing policies, support industry
investment in research and development ( R&D ) and innovation.
This report first discusses the competitive position of the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry and why a competitive industry is in the U.S. national
interest. It then examines the competitive position of China’s biopharma industry, followed by a review of Chinese mercantilist industrial
policies in other industries. The report then reviews China’s strategy and policies for growing the biopharmaceutical industry. Finally, it
discusses how the U.S. government should respond.

IMPORTANCE OF THE BIOPHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY TO THE U.S. ECONOMY

The biopharmaceutical sector includes research, discovery, testing, and manufacturing of medicines and therapeutics that cure disease and
are at least four
improve patient health. As life-sciences industry experts David Beier and George Baeder have written, there
essential policy components nations need for a strong life-sciences innovation industry: “1) strong
r esearch and d evelopment infrastructure (including skilled researchers); 2) effective i ntellectual p roperty
protection; 3) integration in global standards of trade, IP [intellectual property], and drug regulation; and 4)
functioning markets offering sufficient reimbursement.”2 The U nited S tates is one of the few nations
with all four components, which is a major reason why it is highly competitive in life sciences, although
with recent calls for drug price controls, it is at risk of seeing a weakening of the second and fourth
factors.

These strengths are why employment in the biopharmaceutical industry (classified as a manufacturing industry by
the U.S. government) grew 26 percent between 1998 and 2019, while total U.S. nonfarm employment increased 23 percent, and
employment in manufacturing declined 27 percent.3 Moreover, wages in the industry exceeded the average private wage by 50 percent or
more in 43 states, and by more than 75 percent in 24 states.4

The sector, along with medical devices, performed $111.8 billion of R&D in 2016 (the most recent year for which
public data is available), of which $85.9 billion was self-funded.5 Of the total research performed, $79.4 billion was invested in
the United States. Partly because 19 percent of its domestic employment was involved in research, the pharmaceutical industry
accounted for 20.4 percent of all domestic R&D in the United States .6 Moreover, the United States increased its share
of pharmaceutical R&D expenditures among developed countries between 1995 and 2010 from 43 percent to 57 percent.7 One reason is U.S.
firms have kept most of their research activity at home, while European and Japanese firms have shifted some R&D to the United States.

This is why the U nited S tates remains the predominant powerhouse of drug discovery and
production , ranking first in nearly all measures of innovation.8 The Biopharmaceutical Competitiveness and
Investment Survey ranked the United States first among mature markets in 2017, followed by Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom.9
The United States scored higher than the average of its top-three competitors in each of the survey’s five categories, in addition to recently
being ranked as the top location for life-sciences jobs in the world.10 That same year, 11 of the top 25 pharmaceutical companies were
headquartered in the United States, accounting for 48 percent of total sales from this group. Moreover, in 2015, the United States attracted 74
percent of all worldwide venture-capital investments in the biopharmaceutical industry.11

The U nited S tates leads the world in life-sciences innovation. In the 2000s, more new chemical entities were developed
and approved by regulatory authorities in the United States than in the next five nations—Switzerland, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany,
and France—combined.12 Broadening the lens to the years 1997 to 2016, U.S.-headquartered enterprises accounted for 42 percent of new
chemical and biological entities introduced and approved around the world, far outpacing contributions from European Union member
countries, Japan, China, and other nations.13

But this has not always been the case. In the latter half of the 1970s, European-headquartered enterprises introduced more than
twice as many new drugs to the world as did those in the United States (149 to 66).14 Throughout the 1980s, fewer than 10 percent of new
active substances were introduced first in the United States, as figure 1 shows. And, as recently as 1990, the global research-based
pharmaceutical industry invested 50 percent more in Europe than in the United States.15 As Shankar Singham of the Institute of Economic
Affairs noted, “Europe
was the unquestioned center of biopharmaceutical research and development for
centuries, challenged only by Japan in the post-war period.”16

Yet, in recent decades, that picture has changed. Whereas less than 10 percent of new drugs were first introduced in the
United States in the 1980s, by the 2010s, more than 60 percent of new drugs were first introduced in the United States.18 By 2006,
pharmaceutical companies invested 40 percent more in the United States than in Europe. And the
United States has been the
world’s largest funder of biomedical R&D investment over the past two decades—a share some analysts
have estimated has reached as high as 80 percent.19 This has contributed to an unprecedented era of
life-sciences innovation, and the retention and creation of good U.S. jobs. Over the last decade,
biopharmaceutical companies have invested over half a trillion dollars in R&D, while more than 350 new
medicines—many firsts of their kind—have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).20

America’s wresting of global life-sciences leadership has been no accident , but rather the result of a
series of intentional policy decisions designed to make America the world’s preeminent location for
life-sciences research, product commercialization, and production. For instance, the United States’ introduction
of the world’s first R&D tax credit in 1981 played a catalytic role in spurring greater levels of private-
sector R&D. In the life-sciences sector, this was complemented by the 1986 introduction of the orphan drug tax
credit, which allows drug manufacturers to claim a tax credit on research costs for orphan drugs (i.e., drugs for rare diseases affecting
200,000 or fewer U.S. patients). The 1992 introduction of the bipartisan P rescription D rug U ser F ee A ct, which authorized the
FDA to collect user fees associated with applications from the biopharmaceutical industry for regulatory approval of new human-drug
submissions, has played a pivotal role in reducing the time it takes the FDA to make safety and efficacy determinations for new drugs—from the
over 30 months it took on average in the mid-1980s to less than 10 months today.21 America’s strong IP system —including
allowing 12 years of data exclusivity for biologics and providing a period of marketing exclusivity for drugs independent of exclusive patent
rights, as well as providing patent linkage and patent term extension through the HatchWaxman Act— has helped spur
investment.

Robust funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), especially the doubling of funding in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has
helped lay the groundwork for robust biopharma innovation.22 The U nited S tates also benefits greatly
from having a drug-pricing system that permits companies to earn sufficient revenues from one
generation of biomedical innovation to reinvest in the next . That matters greatly because, as the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has written, “ There exists a high degree of
correlation between pharmaceutical sales revenues and R&D expenditures .”23 Limited
government price controls also make investing in the United States more attractive than in many
other nations.24

The lesson of the U.S. gain in global competitive advantage in the biopharmaceutical industry should be
clear. It was not based on absolute advantage (e.g., some nations being good in agriculture because they have a lot of
it was and is based on competitive advantage (e.g., factors that are malleable by
arable land). Rather,
policy, such as a strong drug-approval system and reasonable drug pricing). As such, have competitive
advantage in industries such as biopharmaceutical is something that has to be earned and worked at
to retain . As some European nations and nations such as Japan found to their distress, competitive advantage is not a
birthright ; it can be lost . That should be the message for the United States: while the U nited S tates is
doing well in the industry now , it could easily lose that advantage, particularly to China , which has
targeted the industry for global leadership. This means that the U nited S tates needs to keep in place
the right policies and make them even stronger while at the same time continuing to press China to roll back its innovation
mercantilist practices in this industry.

Second-gen pharma manufacturing secures biotech lead, which solves global

catastrophic risks. Anything else cedes the world to China.
Carlson ‘20 [Rob and Rik Wehbring; 2020; Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University; principal at
Biodesic; Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, “TWO WORLDS, TWO BIOECONOMIES: The Impacts
of Decoupling US–China Trade and Technology Transfer” https://www.jhuapl.edu/assessing-us-china-
technology-connections/dist/708755b762440d5a46b9bb5cbce356d9.pdf]

Biotechnology is at the center of a long-term contest for power between the U nited S tates and China . A
technological edge in biological engineering and manufacturing will provide a substantive and las ting
advantage that spans the full economy and the entire planet . The management of biotechnological trade and
information flows in the near term will have consequences that will play out over decades.

Biological engineering should be viewed as critical infrastructure for the twenty-first century that will
underlie and enable the entire economy . Biotechnology is already a substantial component of the economies of the United
States and China, although analyses are hampered by the quantity and quality of information, and neither country officially tracks the
contribution of biotechnology to their gross domestic product (GDP). After
assembling data from a variety of sources, we
conclude that in the United States, biotechnology revenues exceed those of better-measured sectors,
such as semiconductors , mining, and utilities .1 As detailed below, we estimate that US biotechnology revenues
now exceed $400 billion, or 2 percent of GDP. Chinese biotechnology revenues are reported to be of a
similar size. Our standard assumption is that product revenues are a useful proxy measure of technical capability, and thus the sum of
these revenues could support the conclusion that the two countries are roughly equally matched today.

However, the existing technical capabilities and revenues should not be viewed as representative of the
future. The extant economic impact has been quietly delivered using first-generation tools and
methods based on the capability to modify and move genes from one organism to another. This impact will
be dwarfed by changes to come. McKinsey & Company estimates that biological production could supply up to 60 percent of physical inputs
across the global economy and that biotechnology could have a “direct economic impact of up to $4 trillion a year” for decades to come; the
authors add, “The full potential could be far larger if we take into account potential knock-on effects, new applications yet to emerge, and
additional scientific breakthroughs.”2 The assessment that biotechnology will further transform the global economy is based, in turn, on an
assessment that biotechnology itself is undergoing a transformation.

First-generation biotechnology is now being superseded by the emergent capability to read and write DNA. This interconversion of biological
and digital representations of DNA enables applying mature digital design methods to engineering biology. Digital transformation of biological
engineering delivers quantifiably higher rates of progress. We illustrate the power of these technologies with several anecdotes that
demonstrate the acceleration of commercial engineering efforts by more than an order of magnitude. Because
scientific and
technical progress compound on past progress, actors in this international arena, whether states or
corporations, that demonstrate mastery of these emerging biotechnologies will benefit from
compounding rates of technological change . Losing the lead is probably a one-time event, and
whoever is not in the lead will be severely disadvantaged while constantly playing catch-up. This is the
competitive space of the twenty-first century.

A technological lead in biotechnology not only impacts the health and well-being of populations but also
provides an edge in developing and producing materials that serve as feedstocks for the rest of the
economy. Advanced biological engineering using second-generation tools and methods has already
delivered to market materials with novel properties that are useful in both civilian and military applications, where
those new materials cannot plausibly be made via synthetic chemistry. Consequently, because of the
breadth and depth of its impact on the economy, biological engineering is now recognized as a
strategically important technology by the governments of both the United States and China, and
maintaining a technological lead in this area is critically important for both physical and economic
security. The governments of the United States and China have both identified biological engineering as metaphorical high ground, and
both are investing to secure it.

has explicitly described its intent to dominate the global stage in the twenty-first
The government of China
century through biotechnology and has been working to implement associated long-term strategic goals. While China has a
multidecadal vision that has informed its strategy and has subsequently been implemented using various tactics, the United States has no
similar long-term vision and has exhibited no coordinated response to Chinese actions. In this paper, we do not address this larger issue.
Instead, we examine one particular strategy—decoupling— to lay the groundwork for further policy analysis. In particular, we describe the
current environment (size and composition of US and Chinese revenues from biotechnology) and the interdependence of biotechnology in the
two countries and then offer a first review of how some decoupling mechanisms might unfold. We also examine the strategic risk that
decoupling may pose to each country in the context of accelerating, and compounding, learning rates in biological engineering.

The benefits of the present relationship appear to be asymmetric, as do the consequences of decoupling. Whereas
the United States
relies on China for some manufacturing and services, China currently depends heavily on access to US
basic research in biotechnology; it would be easier for the United States to replace access to Chinese
instrumentation and ingredients than for China to replace access to American basic research and
education. More broadly, the biotechnological ties between the two economies span finance, trade, and the movement of people and
ideas, each of which can be evaluated with respect to the impacts of decoupling.

We approach policy formulation and analysis with the expectation that they should be based on a firm understanding of the world as it is.
However, we do not find that existing data is sufficient to support extensive specific recommendations. As a result, our brief recommendations
are primarily directed at improving situational awareness to support more-detailed future analysis. Policy proposals derived from such analysis
would also benefit from a clear strategic statement and a clear exposition of goals by national governments. Ultimately, this conversation has
society-wide implications for how both the United States and China invest in education and domestic research and development (R&D) and for
the extent to which each country benefits from those investments.

Biotechnology is recognized around the globe as a strategic technology. Countries that develop
mastery of the relevant engineering and manufacturing capabilities will have distinct advantages
over those that do not.

The emergence in 2020 of a global pandemic has starkly illuminated many elements of the relationship
between the U nited S tates and China while also creating new points of contention. Companies and government
agencies in both countries are engaged in aggressive competition to develop testing,
countermeasures, and vaccines against a new pathogen that has crippled economies around the world. The intensity
of this competition is serving to inflame existing political tensions and also to elevate concerns about
the fragility of global supply chains, the risks of monopoly and sole-source manufacturing, the rise of
digital intellectual property (IP) theft, and the suppression of facts and concomitant rise in propaganda. We use
the pandemic as a case study to illustrate the themes of decoupling across these domains.

What Is “Biotechnology”?

Two significant challenges in quantifying the size of any nation’s biotechnology industry are (1) confusion around the scope of technologies
included in the definition and (2) conflation with the broader term “bioeconomy.” We use biotechnology to refer
to all
engineered or genetically modified (GM) biological systems and revenues therefrom. This primarily encompasses
pharmaceutical or other medical applications (also known as “biologics”), GM crops, and industrial applications such as
chemical manufacturing accomplished via biological means. We use syn thetic bio logy to refer to a component of biotechnology
focused on bringing
modern engineering concepts to biotechnology, a component that relies heavily on
large, high-quality data sets, digitization, automation, and reading and writing DNA as well as, fundamentally, on
the increasing fungibility of information and matter. We use the word bioeconomy to refer to a wider scope of products and activity, including
fisheries, forestry, non-GM agriculture, and others.

The quality and quantity of data on biotechnology revenues is poor at best, leading to widespread misunderstanding about its economic
importance. Biotechnology
is generally underappreciated as a contributor to the US economy primarily
because the relevant data is not collected by the government. Whereas the economic contribution of
semiconductors was tracked by the D epartment o f C ommerce at least as early as 1958, when they made up less than 0.1
percent of GDP, as of 2020, there is still no official tracking of biotechnology.3 As a result, its economic impact
has crept up on us unawares. The same set of problems plague assessments of Chinese biotechnology revenues. For example, while
it is difficult today for Western observers to ascertain exactly how many Chinese companies are operating in biotechnology, the Chinese
government may have the same problem.4 At a warm-up meeting for the 2011 Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention, one
of us (Carlson) was told by a Chinese representative that the government “had no idea” how many biotechnology or synthetic biology
companies existed in the country.

What Is at Stake?

If chemistry reigned as the science most powerfully shaping world affairs in the nineteenth century,
in the twentieth century, physics took over that role. The development of quantum mechanics beginning in the
1920s led to nuclear weapons, which fundamentally changed military and diplomatic spheres. The same science
also led to the understanding of semiconductors and a subsequent computer revolution beginning in the
1980s, serving as a foundation for technological and economic dominance. Now, after decades of effort, many of the

techniques from these prior advances are being successfully applied to engineering bio logical
systems, with the consequence that the molecular substrate of life on Earth is becoming a medium for
innovation .

The science of the twenty-first century will be biology. The economic impact of biotechnology is already
significant and will eventually span the entire range of human activity . Consequently, biotechnology
is recognized around the globe as a strategic technology. Countries that develop master y of the
relevant engineering and manufacturing capabilities will have distinct advantages over those that do
not .
Two decades into this century, biotechnology is already a significant contributor to the US economy. Biologically
manufactured drugs now account for approximately 40 percent of new drug approvals and drug
revenues in the United States.5 The market penetrations of GM corn, soy, and cotton crops are each greater than 90 percent, which
implies that GM crops are grown on more than 180 million acres of the 315 million acres of US farmland under active cultivation.6 That is, at
least 57 percent of total US cropland is now used to grow GM organisms. Approximately 20 percent of US chemical industry revenues are now
generated by biotechnology, via products comprising fine chemicals, solvents, and plastics, thereby displacing petrochemicals from the
market.7 While it is difficult to forecast how large a share of the economy biotechnology will ultimately become, it is our view that, because of
inherent scaling and energy efficiency advantages, anything that can be made using biotechnology eventually will be.8

This pervasive technology will be used to address urgent needs around the planet .9 The global
population is now some 7.8 billion people, and the United Nations projects a population of 9.7 billion
people in 2050.10 The consequent demand for food , health care , and materials will create an ever-
larger pull for biological technologies. For example, because most arable land on the planet is already under cultivation in some
way, feeding that global population is likely to come from continued improvements in yields due to genetic modification of crops and shifts in
land use that are aided by engineered crops with novel traits, such as drought resistance and salt tolerance. In the United States, 17.9 percent
of GDP is spent on health care, spending that yields paltry results as evidenced by the fact that the United States ranks twenty-sixth among the
thirty-five Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in life expectancy.11 As the globe ages and more people
are subject to afflictions of old age, such as cancer or Alzheimer’s, halting disease through better use of biotechnology will become not just a
as a technology, can be used to manufacture the crucial
moral imperative but an economic one. Finally, biology,
industrial items we require—plastics, building materials, chemicals, etc.—without inducing further
climate change.

As we achieve greater control over engineered biological systems, the impact will expand across the
economy. The change in capability will arise from the application of modern engineering techniques to biology, which will require large,
highquality data sets, computation for modeling, and extensive use of automation, all of which are inherently digital. In the long term,
the fusion of the digital and the biological must be thought of as no less than enabling an entirely new
capability to program matter at length scales spanning atoms to ecosystems.
 1NC
Government-financed insurance means centralized cloud storage and data integration.
Afshar ‘14 [Vala; August 4; Chief Digital Evangelist, Salesforce; The Huffington Post, “Healthcare CIO:
Innovation Lessons From United States And Taiwan,”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vala-afshar/healthcare-cio-innovation_b_5648384.html]

While this is a much easier prospect in a smaller country like Taiwan, than it would be in the US, it would be something to explore at a state level as a test bed. Collecting data
from a single payer source can make a big difference in terms of preventative care models. We recognize that
data is king in the US, but we have to find a method of collaboration among all healthcare entities. Unlike in
the US, CIOs in Taiwan are still very traditional, focusing on in-house data centers and custom programming for their electronic medical records (EMRs). Every hospital develops its own
application software and builds its own data center. David advises the technology leaders in Taiwan to focus on these four pillars of next generation IT: cloud, mobile, social, and big data. If
these four pillars are applied to the Taiwan healthcare system, as he has done at UMMC, David believes that they can become a world powerhouse in healthcare. This advice is equally valid for

A shift in mindset to solutions and outcomes will shift the focus to the cloud and
all healthcare providers worldwide. Cloud -

away from local infrastructure. The cloud can provide the infrastructure for a national EMR and research
database. The biggest challenge in healthcare is integration across insurance payers, providers,
billing, and patients . The cloud can be the foundation allowing the scalability and agility that every government dreams of. Taiwan’s technology leaders must transform
their culture to embrace cloud technology. UMMC is in the process of setting up their public cloud with the goal of moving the majority of their infrastructure there. They have an enterprise

document storage environment set up in the cloud that allows for collaboration both internally and with other similar organizations. Big Data - Taiwan has an advantage
in Big Data from a claims perspective over the United States. With national health insurance, all claims
and billing data are housed in one system . Taiwan could take advantage of this consolidated claims data and use it to improve quality and provide
the highest level of care at the lowest costs. One side of this equation is already complete with their national insurance system. The next challenge will be to create either a standard for
interoperability or a national EMR system to avoid the integration challenges.

Data integration substantially compromises health security.

Snell ‘17 (January 2017 based on last date cited in article. Elizabeth, Health IT Security, citing The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society,
“Data Security Considerations in Healthcare Interoperability”, https://healthitsecurity.com/features/data-security-considerations-in-healthcare-interoperability)

Data security concerns can make both covered entities and patients hesitant to jump on board with
the interoperability push . Interoperability allows organizations to send data across health IT systems
and receive it in a readable, usable manner. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) describes the foundational level of interoperability as “data exchange from
one information technology system to be received by another and does not require the ability for the receiving information technology system to interpret the data.” There is also a structural
level that “defines the structure or format of data exchange (i.e., the message format standards) where there is uniform movement of healthcare data from one system to another such that

the clinical or operational purpose and meaning of the data is preserved and unaltered.” Regardless of the interoperability definition though, the data being transferred
must remain secure. It is important to advance healthcare for both exchange and interoperability. Organizations need to understand the health data exchange challenges and
find applicable solutions. POTENTIAL DATA SECURITY RISK AREAS WITH INTEROPERABILITY Privacy concerns often arise with interoperability as

health data sharing is one of its key aspects. More providers can have access to information, which could
help improve patient care, but it also opens up more potential opportunities for the data to
become compromised . Provider decision making could improve, and there could be more accurate treatment decision making. There is definitely
tension between health data availability and the appropriate data protection and use . “It is always the case that when
one is the steward, when a company is the steward of sensitive data, it is responsible for ensuring that the data is only used, or disclosed, as is appropriate and allowed by governing law,”
Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE) Vice President, General Counsel, Privacy Officer Valita Fredland told HealthITSecurity.com in a 2016 interview. “There are also the expectations of
the individuals whose information it is.” The population health and accountable care initiatives will also benefit from improved interoperability, and having health data be more readily
available. Fredland explained that for the information to be made available, it will be exchanged across a legal landscape that has varying degrees and various levels of privacy and security
rules and regulations. “It's fair to say that for a privacy professional in this day and age, he or she needs to be familiar with not only the state expectations and regulations on sensitive data, but
national and international, because data can travel,” Fredland said. ...Organizations responsible for compliance with HIPAA and HITECH need to ensure the same privacy and security
compliance with interoperability exchanged data, as with their other sensitive data. The legal landscape is very complex in regard to privacy and security regulations, which creates a great
challenge for any privacy professional thinking about interoperability and serving a client. Healthcare organizations should also consider their HIPAA audit preparation in relation to
interoperability, Fredland maintained. A covered entity must know where PHI is stored and to where it may be transferred. The aspect of transferring data fits perfectly with interoperability,
she said. “Interoperability just raises additional questions about mapping data so that organizations responsible for compliance with HIPAA and HITECH need to ensure the same privacy and
security compliance with interoperability exchanged data, as with their other sensitive data.” Covered entities and business associates will need to ensure that they regularly update all data
security measures, conduct appropriate employee training, and work to keep all connected devices secure. Failing to account for any of these aspects could lead to a data breach. That was
part of the concern raised in 2015 by St. Paul, Minnesota – based clinical psychologist Peter Zelles. Minnesota’s EHR interoperability law requires providers to use EHRs and also connect to a
state-certified health information organization. “The Minnesota e-Health Advisory Committee and [Minnesota Department of Health] recommend that all providers demonstrate progress
toward achieving the EHR and interoperability requirements,” the MDH website states. “As health care providers make progress toward the safe, secure and interoperable exchange of health
data, our Minnesota health care system will be better positioned to achieve the greater vision of health care reform.” Zelles explained in an opinion piece that having psychological records
included in the law was concerning. The mandate could even mean “the end of psychotherapy as a useful treatment.” Similarly, the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom claimed in 2015 that
new EHR interoperability requirements would potentially make it easier for inappropriate PHI access. “EHRs are not only dangerous for patients and impose costly and time-consuming

If
requirements on doctors, now the EHR is turning into a national security nightmare,” CCHF President and Co-founder Twila Brase wrote in an opinion piece at the time. “

background checks and security clearances can be hacked, so can sensitive and private
medical records .”

Cyberattacks on electronic medical records expose populations to bioterror attacks

through targeted medical devices.
Meskó ‘16 [Bertalan; October 5; M.D., Ph.D. in Genomics, University of Debrecen, Medical School and
Health Science center, research focuses on the impact of digital health technologies on the future of
health, teaches medical students and professionals at Semmelweis University, a European medical
school; Linkedin, “Disruptive Technologies Push Bioterrorism To A Whole New Level,”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/disruptive-technologies-push-bioterrorism-whole-new-mesk%C3%B3-
md-phd]

In 2011, a researcher from the McAfee tech company demonstrated at a conference in Miami how insulin pumps might be hacked to
deliver fatal doses to diabetes patients. Software and a special antenna designed by him allowed for locating and seizing control of any device
possibility of hacking insulin pumps is scary to say the least . According to Forbes, the problem is that
within 300 feet. The

medical professionals are either not aware of security risks or (naturally) do not have IT skills to ask the
“sensitive” questions, and while medical devices are becoming more and more networked, security requirements are not
keeping up . Might terrorists mess with our bodies and our brains? And it is not only an issue for insulin pumps.
Security threats are prevalent in the case of X-ray systems, blood refrigeration units, CT scanning
equipment, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) or implantable neurological devices. Researchers found
that neural implantable devices hold the potential to improve many patients’ lives dramatically, but unfortunately, there is no guarantee at the moment that neural
devices are robust against adversarial entities trying to exploit these devices to alter, block, or eavesdrop on neural signals. And previous examples show that ill-

intentioned individuals might have no qualm whatsoever in exploiting such loopholes . In November 2007 and
March 2008 individuals placed flashing animations on epilepsy support websites, causing some patients with photosensitive epilepsy to experience seizures. And
imagine what could happen if prosthetic limb systems will allow physicians to connect wirelessly to neural implants to adjust settings or deep brain simulators which
can treat Parkinson disease or chronic pain and devices for cognitive function augmentation. Imagine what could happen if hackers decide to bombard the brain
through these simulators with random signals or would interfere with the normal formation of memories. Such interference with individuals’ brains might result in
irreversible consequences. And what about our hearts? Is hacking pacemakers possible? One year ago, researchers at the human simulation program of the
University of Alabama were able to wirelessly hack a pacemaker, and to successfully launch brute force and denial of service attacks being able to virtually kill an
iStan patient – the most advanced wireless patient simulator. And why should anyone care that a simulated human can be hacked? Because of the dreaded ripple
effect. According to the researchers, “If medical training environments are breached, the long term ripple effect on
the medical profession, potentially, impacts thousands of lives due to incorrect analysis of life
threatening critical data by medical personnel.” And if you still have some doubts, just ask former US Vice President, Dick Cheney, whose
such
doctors in 2013 disabled the wireless program in his pacemaker because of concerns that a hacker might use it to deliver a fatal shock to his heart. And

fears are far from being overstretched . An American Action Forum report indicates hacks concerning the electrical
medical records (EMR) – thus the first step towards medical/ bioterrorism through technology - have
more than doubled since 2014, with more than 94 million EMRs being compromised. These breaches have cost the American healthcare system an
estimated $50 billion. And the non-financial consequences might be even more serious . I believe if we do not pay

more attention to the IT security aspects of interconnected and data-driven medical devices, we might easily find ourselves
in situations such as the one in the US television series Homeland where the US Vice President was killed through
manipulation of his pacemaker . The dark side of future technologies As you could see, there are already tangible
dangers of using effective medical devices for destruction instead of healing. And imagine how far technological development
might get. Here, I compiled a list about the possible technological devices and medical developments affected by the same security concerns in the future. I believe

that we will have to find the right answers for every security and privacy concern before technology will be
used widely.

Nuclear posture and international and domestic pressure would push the United
States to respond to this kind of bioweapon attack with nuclear retaliation.
Pifer ‘10 [Steven, Richard C. Bush, Vanda Felbab-Brown; May; Senior fellow in the Center on the
United States and Europe and director of the Arms Control Initiative at The Brookings Institution; senior
fellow at the Brookings Institution, holds the The Michael H. Armacost Chair and Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen
Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies, co-director, with Mireya Solís, of its Center for East Asia Policy Studies, joint
appointment as a senior fellow in the Brookings John L. Thornton China Center, Ph.D. (1978), M.Phil.
(1975), M.A. (1973), Columbia University; Senior fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and
Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, Ph.D., MIT, 2007; et. al; Brookings, “U.S. Nuclear
and Extended Deterrence: Consideration and Challenges,” Brookings Institution, Arms Control Series,
Paper 3, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_nuclear_deterrence.pdf]

The United States has at times recognized this reality. It publicly committed not to use nuclear weapons against
non-nuclear weapon states, unless the latter are allied with nuclear powers in wartime operations (and now has aligned its NSAs to non-nuclear
Yet American policy had not been consistent . Even while making such
weapon states in compliance with the NPT).

NSA commitments at various points, the United States has also sought to retain nuclear weapons as an

explicit deterrent against other, nonnuclear forms of weapons of mass destruction, as a matter of targeting policy
and nuclear weapons doctrine.106 There was an element of hypocrisy in this previous American pledge not to use
nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states when combined with a willingness to consider using nuclear
weapons in response to a biological (or even chemical) attack . Others noted this contradiction and chastised the United States for
it. One thoughtful and well-argued study in the 1990s asserted that nuclear weapons should never be used against biological (or
chemical) threats or in retaliation for such attacks. In considering the possibility of an extremely destructive biological agent that killed as many as
nuclear weapons might, the authors wrote that “… it would be technically and operationally difficult to achieve such high numbers of casualties with biological
weapons, and no nation is known to possess weapons so effective.”107 It is a good reason that, as a normal matter of policy, the
United States should
not plan on any nuclear response to attacks by lesser types of weapons of mass destruction, especially the types
of attacks that might be anticipated today or that have been witnessed in the recent past (for example, the chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq war of the
1980s).108 From this standpoint, the Nuclear Posture Review reached a sound conclusion on responding to a BW or CW attack. But this argument is perhaps more
persuasive for the technologies of the present rather than a hypothetical situation in the future; things could change over time. That is the crux of the challenge for
future policy and doctrine regarding whether nuclear weapons should have a future purpose of helping deter advanced biological attack. Biological

weapons could become much more potent in coming decades. Biological knowledge certainly is
advancing rapidly . To take one metric, the number of genetic sequences on file, a measure of knowledge of genetic codes for various organisms, grew
from well under five million in the early 1990s to 80 million by 2006.109 The number of countries involved in biological research is growing rapidly as well. What
about 25 to 50 years from now, a day that current policymakers must contemplate when considering lasting changes to doctrine as well as the pursuit of a nuclear-
weapons-free world? As of 2008, more than 160 states had ratified and acceded to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, but one of its weaknesses is the
lack of verification measures. One can naturally hope that better monitoring and verification concepts will be developed in the biological field—just as they must
clearly be improved in the nuclear realm if abolition is ever to be feasible even on its own more narrow terms.110 But these techniques will be very hard to devise,
and probably rather imperfect in their ability to provide timely warning. One can try various forms of direct as well as indirect monitoring—the latter including
looking for mismatches between the numbers of trained scientists and professional positions available to them in a given country, or a mismatch between the
numbers of relevant scientists and associated publications.111 Big disparities could suggest hidden programs. One can also build up disease surveillance systems
and create rapid-response BW investigation teams to look into any suspected development of illicit pathogens or any outbreak of associated disease.112 But the
United States will still need a good deal of luck to discover many hypothetical biological weapons programs. Any countries bent on cheating will have a good chance
of success in hiding their associated research and production facilities. For Americans, who long led the way in biology, it is sobering and important to remember
that even today, at least half of all important biological research is already done abroad. It often takes place in small facilities that are very hard if not impossible to
identify from remote sensing.113 For such reasons, it is eminently possible that an advanced “bug”—perhaps an influenza-born derivative of smallpox resilient
against currently available treatments, for example—could be developed by a future aggressor state. Such a bug could combine the contagious qualities of the flu
with the lethality of very severe diseases.114 This could dramatically alter the calculations of BW use. It is such a prospect that led University of Maryland scholar
John Steinbruner to note “One can imagine killing more people with an advanced pathogen than with the current nuclear weapons arsenals.”115 The state
developing this BW agent might simultaneously develop a vaccine against the new disease and use that vaccine to inoculate its own people. It might then use the
biological pathogen as a weapon, or a threat, against another country. That could be a country it was interested in conquering; it could also threaten use against the
United States and broader international community, to deter other countries from coming to the rescue of another state being attacked directly by the aggressor
(analogous to how Saddam Hussein would have liked to deter the U.S.-led coalition from coming to Kuwait’s aid in 1990-1991). If
the United States
faced the prospect of millions of its own citizens, or hundreds of thousands of its own troops, becoming
sick as it considered a response to aggression, and its only recourse was conventional retaliation, its range of options could be limited .
Indeed, the very troops called on to carry out the retaliation might become vulnerable to the disease,

jeopardizing their physical capacity to execute the conventional operation. Perhaps they could be wellprotected on the battlefield, once suited
up, but they could be vulnerable before deployment, along with the rest of the American population. A potential adversary, seeing these possibilities, might find the
concept of such an advanced pathogen very appealing. Would there be a clear and definitive policy or moral argument against the use of a nuclear weapon in
retaliation for a BW attack that killed hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of Americans? If the origin of the attack could be identified, as it might well be

under numerous scenarios like the one sketched above, and if huge numbers of American civilians had been targeted, the case for restraint
would be hard to make . At the least, it might be no stronger than the case for absorbing a nuclear weapons strike and choosing not to retaliate.
What if the United States thought a biological attack by an aggressor imminent? Or what if it had already suffered one attack and others
seemed possible? In such circumstances, there could be potential value in a nuclear retaliatory threat against
the belligerent state , warning that any future use of biological attacks against the American people or
U.S. allies might produce a nuclear response.116 In his classic book on just and unjust war, Michael Walzer asserted that “Nuclear war is
and will remain morally unacceptable, and there is no case for its rehabilitation.” He also argues “Nuclear weapons explode the theory of just war. They are the first
of mankind’s technological innovations that are simply not encompassable within the familiar moral world.” This would seem to argue (since biological weapons of
certain types predated nuclear technologies) that in fact nuclear deterrent threats could never be justifiable against a biological attack. However, the logic of
Walzer’s overall case against nuclear weapons is based explicitly on their indiscriminate and extreme effects—characteristics that advanced biological pathogens,
which did not exist when he wrote the above words, would share. It is hard to argue that nuclear deterrence of an adversary’s possible use of an advanced
pathogen that could kill a million or even ten million is less justifiable than the use of nuclear deterrence against an adversary’s nuclear arms.117 Indeed, it is
possible that a nuclear response to such a biological attack might be conducted in a more humane way than the BW attack. Nuclear responses might target military
bases and command headquarters, for example. To be sure, civilians would also be at risk in such a nuclear attack, but in proportionate terms a nuclear retaliatory
blow could well cause a smaller fraction of casualties among innocent civilian populations than would a biological pathogen.118 U.S. policymakers had to bear in
mind what is possible, at least theoretically, with advanced engineered pathogens. As Steinbruner notes, in discussing the contagiousness of certain flu-borne
ailments, “One strain infected an estimated 80 percent of the world’s population in a sixmonth period. Normally the incidence of disease among those infected is
relatively low, as is the mortality rate of those who contract the disease. However, aviary strains of the virus have killed virtually all of the birds infected, which
suggests the possibility of highly lethal human strains as well.”119 It was these kinds of considerations that led the Nuclear Posture
Review to incorporate a hedge with regard to biological weapons . While U.S. policy now is not to respond with nuclear
weapons for a CW or BW attack by a non-nuclear weapons state, the U.S. government retained the option to reconsider

nuclear retaliation with regard to BW if there were major advances in biotechnology that were put to use for BW purposes. But the
other side of the argument is not inconsequential, either. Advanced biological pathogens may never be developed; nuclear weapons already have been not only
developed but mass-produced and used. Retaining the threat of nuclear retaliation based on hypothetical concerns about possible future developments with
biological agents that are far from inevitable may be unnecessary and unjustified. Surely it would be seen as cynical in the eyes of some, as a barely veiled attempt
to find an excuse to maintain dependence on nuclear arms, and could undercut the value of the policy change in reducing the relevance of nuclear weapons.
Moreover, if a biological weapon with mass casualty features ever were developed and utilized to devastating effect, the
United States would not be constrained in its retaliatory options in any event. If a million
Americans, Germans, Italians or Japanese were killed by a superbug, it would be hard to imagine a particularly strong
international criticism if Washington reversed its previous pledges and responded with nuclear arms .
If necessary, this point could be conveyed privately through diplomatic channels to U.S. allies in advance, as a way of shoring
up the credibility of the American extended deterrent even as the formal role of nuclear weapons was publicly constrained by announcement of a new doctrine.
This could offer a way to avoid allowing the unlikely and extreme scenario of horrific biological attack to stand in the way of the more immediate agenda of reducing
the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy.
Case
 Adv---Inequality
‘Stagnation’ is thumped globally---institutions.
1AC Zoellick ’22 [Robert; March/April; served as U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005 and as
President of the World Bank from 2007 to 2012; Foreign Affairs, “Before the Next Shock,”
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2022-02-22/next-shock]

<<SHRUNKEN TEXT BEGINS>>

The legacy institutions of earlier economic orders are struggling to adjust to these changes. The
I nternational M onetary F und (IMF) and the World Bank have to add climate and pandemic policies to their development
missions. The W orld T rade O rganization has been unable to modernize its rules through negotiations, and

the U nited S tates has paralyzed the WTO dispute-settlement system by blocking appointees to
appeals panels.

It’s structural and harmless.

Vollrath ’20 [Dietrich; February 22; Professor of Economics at the University of Houston; London
School of Economics Blog, “Slow economic growth is a sign of success,”
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/02/22/slow-economic-growth-is-a-sign-of-success/]

We’re accustomed to looking at the growth rate of GDP to evaluate the health of our economy. Which is why the
recent slowdown in growth appears so troubling. In the US, GDP growth for 2019 was 2.3 %,
meaning it has been nineteen years since growth hit 4%, and nearly as long since it touched 3%. For the UK the story is
similar, as it has been fifteen years since growth hit 3%. In the Eurozone as a whole, growth last came close to 4% in 2000. These

slowdowns across developed economies predates the financial crisis , and leads to natural questions: what went
wrong with the economy, and how do we fix it?

But the slowdown we’re observing isn’t something we can fix – or that we would want to fix – because the slowdown was
never a consequence of things that went wrong. Instead, as I show my new book, the slowdown is a consequence of things that went right.

From a simple accounting perspective, there are two main factors behind slower growth: the fall in fertility during the 20th century, and the
shift of our expenditures away from goods and towards services. And both of those explanations can be traced back to economic success.

The fall in fertility had a significant impact on economic growth for decades, particularly in the US .
The baby boom generated a one-time wave of human capital that hit the economy during the middle of the
proportion of workers to population rose substantially ,
20th century. As those new workers hit the workforce, the
as evidenced by the fall in the youth dependency ratio between 1960 and 1980 (see Figure 1). Combined with the
relatively high educational attainment of the baby boomers compared to prior generations, this provided a substantial boost to the growth rate,
increasing it around 1.25 percentage points in 1990 compared to immediately after World War II.

As that wave of human capital receded , so did the growth rate. Starting in the early 2000s, the old age dependency
ratio started to rise (see Figure 1) the inevitable consequence of the drop in youth dependency back in the 1960s and 1970s. As workers

aged out of the workforce – and continue to do so – this dragged down the growth rate of the aggregate
economy. That 1.25 percentage point boost during the 20th century disappeared in the 21st, explaining most
of the slowdown in the US.
But why should we see these demographic shifts as a success? The drop in fertility after the baby boom which explains the shifts was
driven by several successes. Expanded access to college ed ucation pushed back the age at which
people were willing to marry. The opening up of many professions to women , along with growth in overall
wages, meant that it made sense for many women to delay marriage. Finally, advances in contraceptive technology meant it was possible for
women to take advantage of the new educational and professional opportunities that arose. The growth slowdown today is a consequence of
family decisions made decades ago in response to rising living standards and the expansion of women’s rights.

The second source of the slowdown, the shift from goods to wards services , was also driven by
success. In the past one hundred years we became incredibly efficient at producing goods like clothes, food,
furniture, and computers. The consequence was a steady reduction in the price of those goods relative to services. We could have
used that reduction to buy even more goods than we did, but instead we took advantage of the savings to purchase more services like
education, healthcare, and travel. Therefore the composition of our expenditures shifted away from goods and towards services (see Figure 2).
We still consume more goods than before; it is just that they got so cheap that their share of our
total expenditure fell relative to services.
This had a consequence for overall economic growth, however. Productivity growth in services is lower than for goods. That wasn’t a failure of
services in the last few years. It appears to be an inherent quality noted by economist William Baumol in the 1960s. If a restaurant — a service
— tried to operate with half their normal staff, you’d complain about the slow service and lack of attention. In comparison, if a manufacturer
produced a laptop – a good – with half as much labour, you’d never know. This makes productivity growth harder for services than for goods.
As we shifted expenditures towards services, aggregate productivity growth was thus bound to fall. Between the middle of the 20th century
and today, that probably shaved another 0.2 to 0.25 percentage points off of the growth rate. But note that this only happened because of the
productivity growth we experienced in the first place, a success.

Relative to the successes in the demographic shifts and spending shifts, the usual suspects are not capable of explaining the growth slowdown.
Tax rates fell right as the slowdown started, and evidence from across states and industries shows that, if anything, more regulation was
associated with faster growth, not slower. Trade with China exploded in the last twenty years, but evidence suggests that this had little effect
on growth for the economy as a whole, even though individual regions and industries saw booms or busts. Economy-wide measures of the
mark-up of price over cost rose, but it turns out that this didn’t lower growth. The shift of activity to high mark-up industries kept economic
growth rates from falling even further than they did, as it meant we produced more valuable products.

If you’re still uncertain that the growth slowdown is a consequence of success , ask yourself what
you’d give up to bring growth back to 4%. We could destroy half of all our goods : cars, couches, TVs, laptops,
houses, trampolines, and so on. That would lead to a massive shift of spending towards goods as we scrambled to replace everything, and we’d
see a jump in productivity growth. Alternatively, we could roll back contraceptive rights and women’s participation in the workforce in the
hopes of starting a new baby boom. Wait twenty years and we’d have another surge of human capital into the economy. Would either of those
be worth it just to see growth hit 4% again, perhaps not until 2040? Assuming the answer is “no”, that tells us the growth slowdown happened
because of things that went right, things we would not sacrifice.

Oppenheimer’s writing about four forces, not just stagnation, AND says it’s thumped
by a laundry list.
1AC Oppenheimer ’21 [Michael; 2021; Clinical Professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York
University, M.A. in International Affairs from the University of Virginia; The Future of Global Affairs, “The
Turbulent Future of International Relations,” Ch. 2]

Four structural forces will shape the future of International Relations: globalization (but without liberal
rules, institutions, and leadership)1; multipolarity (the end of American hegemony and wider distribution of power among states and

non-states2); the strengthening of distinctive, national and subnational identities, as persistent cultural differences are
accentuated by the disruptive effects of Western style globalization (what Samuel Huntington called the “non-westernization of IR”3); and
secular economic stagnation, a product of longer term global decline in birth rates combined with aging populations.4 These
structural forces do not determine everything. Environmental events, global health challenges, internal political developments, policy mistakes,
technology breakthroughs or failures, will intersect with structure to define our future. But these four structural forces will impact the way
states behave, in the capacity of great powers to manage their differences, and to act collectively to settle, rather than exploit, the inevitable
shocks of the next decade.
Some of these structural forces could be managed to promote prosperity and avoid war. Multipolarity (inherently more prone to conflict than other configurations of power, given coordination problems)5 plus globalization can work in a world of prosperity, convergent values, and
effective conflict management. The Congress of Vienna system achieved relative peace in Europe over a hundred-year period through informal cooperation among multiple states sharing a fear of populist revolution. It ended decisively in 1914. Contemporary neoliberal institutionalists,
such as John Ikenberry, accept multipolarity as our likely future, but are confident that globalization with liberal characteristics can be sustained without American hegemony, arguing that liberal values and practices have been fully accepted by states, global institutions, and private actors
as imperative for growth and political legitimacy.6 Divergent values plus multipolarity can work, though at significantly lower levels of economic growth-in an autarchic world of isolated units, a world envisioned by the advocates of decoupling, including the current American president.7
Divergent values plus globalization can be managed by hegemonic power, exemplified by the decade of the 1990s, when the Washington Consensus, imposed by American leverage exerted through the IMF and other U.S. dominated institutions, overrode national differences, but with
real costs to those states undergoing “structural adjustment programs,”8 and ultimately at the cost of global growth, as states—especially in Asia—increased their savings to self insure against future financial crises.9

But all four forces operating simultaneously will produce a future of increasing internal polarization and cross border conflict, diminished economic growth and poverty alleviation, weakened global institutions and norms of behavior, and reduced collective capacity to confront emerging
challenges of global warming, accelerating technology change, nuclear weapons innovation and proliferation. As in any effective scenario, this future is clearly visible to any keen observer. We have only to abolish wishful thinking and believe our own eyes.10

Secular Stagnation

This unbrave new world has been emerging for some time, as US power has declined relative to other states, especially China, global liberalism has failed to deliver on its promises, and totalitarian capitalism has proven effective in leveraging globalization for economic growth and political
legitimacy while exploiting technology and the state’s coercive powers to maintain internal political control. But this new era was jumpstarted by the world financial crisis of 2007, which revealed the bankruptcy of unregulated market capitalism, weakened faith in US leadership,
exacerbated economic deprivation and inequality around the world, ignited growing populism, and undermined international liberal institutions. The skewed distribution of wealth experienced in most developed countries, politically tolerated in periods of growth, became intolerable as
growth rates declined. A combination of aging populations, accelerating technology, and global populism/nationalism promises to make this growth decline very difficult to reverse. What Larry Summers and other international political economists have come to call “secular stagnation”
increases the likelihood that illiberal globalization, multipolarity, and rising nationalism will define our future. Summers11 has argued that the world is entering a long period of diminishing economic growth. He suggests that secular stagnation “may be the defining macroeconomic
challenge of our times.” Julius Probst, in his recent assessment of Summers’ ideas, explains:

…rich countries are ageing as birth rates decline and people live longer. This has pushed down real interest rates because investors think these trends will mean they will make lower returns from investing in future, making them more willing to accept a lower return on government debt
as a result.

Other factors that make investors similarly pessimistic include rising global inequality and the slowdown in productivity growth…

This decline in real interest rates matters because economists believe that to overcome an economic downturn, a central bank must drive down the real interest rate to a certain level to encourage more spending and investment… Because real interest rates are so low, Summers and his
supporters believe that the rate required to reach full employment is so far into negative territory that it is effectively impossible.

…in the long run, more immigration might be a vital part of curing secular stagnation. Summers also heavily prescribes increased government spending, arguing that it might actually be more prudent than cutting back – especially if the money is spent on infrastructure, education and
research and development.

Of course, governments in Europe and the US are instead trying to shut their doors to migrants. And austerity policies have taken their toll on infrastructure and public research. This looks set to ensure that the next recession will be particularly nasty when it comes… Unless governments
change course radically, we could be in for a sobering period ahead.12

The rise of nationalism/populism is both cause and effect of this economic outlook. Lower growth will make every aspect of the liberal order more difficult to resuscitate post-Trump. Domestic politics will become more polarized and dysfunctional, as competition for diminishing resources
intensifies. International collaboration, ad hoc or through institutions, will become politically toxic. Protectionism, in its multiple forms, will make economic recovery from “secular stagnation” a heavy lift, and the liberal hegemonic leadership and strong institutions that limited the
damage of previous downturns, will be unavailable. A clear demonstration of this negative feedback loop is the economic damage being inflicted on the world by Trump’s trade war with China, which— despite the so-called phase one agreement—has predictably escalated from
negotiating tactic to imbedded reality, with no end in sight. In a world already suffering from inadequate investment, the uncertainties generated by this confrontation will further curb the investments essential for future growth. Another demonstration of the intersection of structural
forces is how populist-motivated controls on immigration (always a weakness in the hyper-globalization narrative) deprives developed countries of Summers’ recommended policy response to secular stagnation, which in a more open world would be a win-win for rich and poor countries
alike, increasing wage rates and remittance revenues for the developing countries, replenishing the labor supply for rich countries experiencing low birth rates.

Illiberal Globalization

Economic weakness and rising nationalism (along with multipolarity) will not end globalization, but will profoundly alter its character and greatly reduce its economic and political benefits. Liberal global institutions, under American hegemony, have served multiple purposes, enabling
states to improve the quality of international relations and more fully satisfy the needs of their citizens, and provide companies with the legal and institutional stability necessary to manage the inherent risks of global investment. But under present and future conditions these institutions
will become the battlegrounds—and the victims—of geopolitical competition. The Trump Administration’s frontal attack on multilateralism is but the final nail in the coffin of the Bretton Woods system in trade and finance, which has been in slow but accelerating decline since the end of
the Cold War. Future American leadership may embrace renewed collaboration in global trade and finance, macroeconomic management, environmental sustainability and the like, but repairing the damage requires the heroic assumption that America’s own identity has not been
fundamentally altered by the Trump era (four years or eight matters here), and by the internal and global forces that enabled his rise. The fact will remain that a sizeable portion of the American electorate, and a monolithically proTrump Republican Party, is committed to an illiberal
future. And even if the effects are transitory, the causes of weakening global collaboration are structural, not subject to the efforts of some hypothetical future US liberal leadership. It is clear that the US has lost respect among its rivals, and trust among its allies. While its economic and
military capacity is still greatly superior to all others, its political dysfunction has diminished its ability to convert this wealth into effective power.13 It will furthermore operate in a future system of diffusing material power, diverging economic and political governance approaches, and
rising nationalism. Trump has promoted these forces, but did not invent them, and future US Administrations will struggle to cope with them.

What will illiberal globalization look like? Consider recent events. The instruments of globalization have been weaponized by strong states in
pursuit of their geopolitical objectives. This has turned the liberal argument on behalf of globalization on its head. Instead of interdependence
as an unstoppable force pushing states toward collaboration and convergence around market-friendly domestic policies, states are exploiting
interdependence to inflict harm on their adversaries, and even on their allies. The increasing interaction across national boundaries that
globalization entails, now produces not harmonization and cooperation, but friction and escalating trade and investment disputes.14 The
Trade and investment friction with China is the most
Trump Administration is in the lead here, but it is not alone.

obvious and damaging example, precipitated by China’s long failure to conform to the W orld T rade
O rganization (WTO) principles, now escalated by President Trump into a trade and currency war disturbingly reminiscent of the 1930s that
Bretton Woods was designed to prevent. Financial sanctions against Iran , in violation of US obligations in the

J oint C omprehensive P lan O f A ction (JCPOA), is another example of the rule of law succumbing to geopolitical
competition. Though more mercantilist in intent than geopolitical, US tariffs on steel and aluminum ,
and their threatened use in automotives , aimed at the EU, Canada, and Japan,15 are equally
destructive of the liberal system and of future economic growth, imposed as they are by the author of that system, and will
spread to others. And indeed, Japan has used export controls in its escalating conflict with South Korea 16

(as did China in imposing controls on rare earth,17 and as the US has done as part of its trade war with China). Inward f oreign d irect

i nvestment restrictions are spreading. The vitality of the WTO is being sapped by its inability to
complete the Doha Round, by the proliferation of bilateral and regional agreements, and now by the Trump Administration’s hold on
appointments to WTO judicial panels. It should not surprise anyone if, during a second term, Trump formally withdrew the US from the WTO.
At a minimum it will become a “ dead letter regime .”18
As such measures gain traction, it will become clear to states—and to companies—that a global trading system more responsive to raw power

than to law entails escalating risk and diminishing benefits. This will be the end of economic globalization , and
its many benefits, as we know it. It represents nothing less than the subordination of economic globalization, a system which many
thought obeyed its own logic, to an international politics of zero-sum power competition among multiple actors with divergent interests and
values. The costs will be significant: Bloomberg Economics estimates that the cost in lost US GDP in 2019- dollar terms from the trade war with
China has reached $134 billion to date and will rise to a total of $316 billion by the end of 2020.19

Inequality’s declining.
Wright et. al ‘19 [Joshua D., Elyse Dorsey, Jonathan Klick, and Jan M. Rybnicek; University Professor
and Executive Director, Global Antitrust Institute at Scalia Law School; Attorney Advisor to Commissioner
Noah Joshua Phillips, United States Federal Trade Commission; Professor of Law, University of
Pennsylvania; Counsel in the antitrust, competition, and trade practice of Freshfields, Bruckahus
Deringer LLP; Arizona State Law Review, “REQUIEM FOR A PARADOX: The Dubious Rise and Inevitable
Fall of Hipster Antitrust,” vol. 51]

2. The Empirical Evidence : Is Inequality Really Growing ?

that inequality has increased in recent years. This view is fairly

All of the papers discussed above assume
common among economists and would seem to be borne out as seen in Figure 2 below, which presents
the Gini coefficient for U.S. incomes for the last fifty years.166

Figure 3, which plots the ratio of the share of US income among the fifth quintile of income-earning households to the share among the first
quintile of households167 tells a similar story.
Robert Kaestner and Darren Lubotsky underscore the point that inequality measures can be significantly affected by a
failure to account for government transfers and employee benefits that presumably substitute
for cash income .168 Given that healthcare costs have grown faster than inflation in recent years, a
failure to account for health insurance benefits could significantly affect economic inequality
measures. Reviewing estimates from the literature, Kaestner and Lubotsky find that including health insurance
substantially reduces the gap between incomes at the high end of the distribution and those at the
low end.169 Interestingly, however, the authors find that there is still an upward trend in inequality over time when
the cash equivalent of health insurance and government transfers are included .170 The trend, however ,
is substantially muted .171 Specifically, including government transfers and the imputed value of
employer subsidized health insurance, Kaestner and Lubotsky indicate that the ratio of income between
households at the ninetieth percentile and the tenth percentile was about five in 1995, growing to 5.2
in 2004 and to 5.6 in 2012.172
 Adv---Rural Health
Food insecurity is unlinked from war.
Cliffe 16 – Sarah F. Cliffe, the director of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation,
International Relations and International Economic Policy MA at Columbia University. [Food Security,
Nutrition, and Peace, 4-3-16, https://cic.nyu.edu/news_commentary/food-security-nutrition-and-
peace]//BPS

However, current research does not yet indicate a clear link between climate change, food insecurity and
conflict, except perhaps where rapidly deteriorating water availability cuts across existing tensions and weak institutions. But a series of
interlinked problems – changing global patterns of consumption of energy and scarce resources, increasing demands for food imports (which
draw on land, water, and energy inputs) can create pressure on fragile situations. Food security – and food prices – are a highly political issue,
being a very immediate and visible source of popular welfare or popular uncertainty. But their link to conflict (and the wider links between
indirect rather than direct . What makes some countries more resilient than others? Many
climate change and conflict) is

countries face food price or natural resource shocks without falling into conflict . Essentially, the two
important factors in determining their resilience are: First, whether food insecurity is combined with other
stresses – issues such as unemployment, but most fundamentally issues such as political exclusion or human rights abuses. We sometimes
read nowadays that the 2006-2009 drought was a factor in the Syrian conflict, by driving rural-urban migration that caused societal stresses. It
may of course have been one factor amongst many but it would be too simplistic to suggest that it was the primary
driver of the Syrian conflict. Second, whether countries have strong enough institutions to fulfill a social
compact with their citizens, providing help quickly to citizens affected by food insecurity, with or without international

assistance . During the 2007-2008 food crisis, developing countries with low institutional strength experienced more food price protests
than those with higher institutional strengths, and more than half these protests turned violent. This for example, is the difference in the events
in Haiti versus those in Mexico or the Philippines where far greater institutional strength existed to deal with the food price shocks and protests
did not spur deteriorating national security or widespread violence.

‘Defense’ dispersal impact is wrong---it assumes a nuclear would occur hurting

centralized cities.
No meltdowns and no impact to them.
Bradley 16 Arthur T. Bradley, PhD in electrical engineering, works at NASA. [Would a Long-Term
Blackout Mean Nuclear Meltdown? The Survival Mom blog, 2-21-2016,
http://thesurvivalmom.com/long-term-blackout-nuclear-meltdown/ ]
Worst-case power-loss scenario With backup systems to the backup systems, it would seem that there’s nothing to worry about, right? Under
all but the direst of circumstances, I think that assessment is correct. However, one
could imagine a scenario in which the grid
was lost and the diesel generators ran out of fuel. Speaking of fuel, how much is actually stored onsite? It depends on the
plant, but at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, for example, there is enough fuel to run the emergency diesel generators for at
least 42 days . I say at least because it would depend on exactly what was being powered. Once the reactor was cooled down, a much
smaller system, known as the Residual Heat Removal System, would be all that was required to keep the
fuel assemblies cool, both in the reactor and the spent fuel rods pool. The generators and onsite fuel supply could
power that smaller cooling system for significantly longer than if they were powering the larger reactor cooling system. Even if
we assumed a worst case of 42 days , it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which that would not be
enough time to bring in additional fuel either by land, water, or air. Nonetheless, let’s push the question a little
further. What would happen in the unlikely event that the diesel fuel was exhausted? Even with the reactor having
been successfully cooled, the biggest risk would continue to be overheating of the fuel rod assemblies, both in the reactor and the spent fuel
rods pool. Without circulation, the heat from the fuel rod assemblies could boil the surrounding water, resulting in steam. In turn, the water
levels would drop, ultimately exposing the fuel rods to air. Once exposed to air, their temperatures would rise but not to the
levels that would melt the zirconium cladding . Thankfully, that means that meltdown would not occur .
The steam might well carry radioactive contaminants into the air, but there would be no release of hydrogen and, thus,
no subsequent explosions . The situation would certainly be dangerous to surrounding communities,
but it wouldn’t be the nuclear Armageddon that many people worry about.

Medicare for All is either economically destructive or turns poverty.

America’s Future ‘20 [Partnership for America’s Health Care Future; February 4; Partnership for
America’s Health Care Future, "Medicare For All Could ‘Decimate’ The Economy,"
https://americashealthcarefuture.org/medicare-for-all-could-decimate-the-economy/]

WASHINGTON – The unaffordable costs , tax increases and negative economic consequences of proposed one-
size-fits-all new government health insurance systems – such as Medicare for All, Medicare buy-in and the public option – continue to
make headlines. A new analysis from Penn Wharton reveals that Medicare for All could “could shrink U.S. GDP
by as much as 24% by the year 2060,” Yahoo Finance reports.

… [T]he model warns, if the plan is deficit-financed – paid for by government borrowing – “the negative effects of larger
deficits on labor supply, capital accumulation and GDP would significantly outweigh the positive effects on
the economy that come from a larger and healthier workforce.”

… According to studies, the cost of Medicare for all sits at roughly $32 trillion over the next decade. But, as the analysis
notes, [Senator Bernie] Sanders’ universal health care plan doesn’t have a built-in financing mechanism … Sanders’

wealth tax would generate $1 trillion less in revenue than he stated … The real trouble comes when Medicare for all is
financed by deficits. With government borrowing, universal health care could shrink the economy by as much as
24% by 2060, as investments in private capital are reduced.

The one-size-fits-all government health insurance system “could decimate the economy,” the Washington Examiner adds.

This contributes to the mounting evidence that Medicare for All would burden American families with unaffordable new
costs, as the Urban Institute finds “that federal spending on health care would increase by roughly $34 trillion under a
single-payer plan similar to Medicare for All,” CNN reports. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) finds

higher taxes on the middle class” and would “require the equivalent of
that “fully offsetting the cost would require

tripling payroll taxes or more than doubling all other taxes.” Senator Sanders previously acknowledged that
Americans making more than $29,000 per year would “pay more in taxes” for Medicare for All.

“No matter how you cut the numbers, there is absolutely no

way to pay for Medicare for all without tax increases – or
spending cuts – on the middle class,” Marc Goldwein of CRFB told POLITICO. “There’s no question it hits the middle class,” Kenneth
Thorpe, Chairman of the Health Policy and Management Department, Emory University told The Washington Post.

“Although [Medicare for All’s supporters] have frequently stressed that the middle class would see overall costs go down,
a wide range of experts … say it is impossible to make those guarantees based on the plans that the candidates have
outlined so far … ‘It’s impossible to have an ‘everybody wins’ scenario here,’ said Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the health policy

department at Emory University … ‘There’s no question it hits the middle class ,’ he added. John Holahan, a health policy expert
at the nonpartisan Urban Institute agreed: ‘Even though high-income people are going to pay a lot more, this has to hit the middle
class.’… ‘Most of the proposals to move to Medicare-for-all would involve substantial tax increases that would affect most
people,’ said Katherine Baicker, an economist at the University of Chicago who specializes in health policy. ‘These are going
to be big tax increases.’ … ‘I think it seems likely under most proposals taxes would have to go up substantially unless you dramatically
cut the health care you’re getting,’ she added,” The Washington Post reports.

And, “economists say that most taxpayers would pay more in taxes than they would save from having the federal
government absorb the cost of health-care premiums,” The Post also reports. Additionally, “ 71% of households with
private insurance would wind up pay ing more than they would under the current system,” Kenneth Thorpe, chairman
of the health policy and management department at Emory University, told The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, a study by Tom Church, Daniel L. Heil, and Lanhee J. Chen, Ph.D. of the Hoover Institution with support from the
Partnership for America’s Health Care Future reveals that the public option – often branded a “moderate” alternative to Medicare
for All – “could require tax increases on most Americans, including middle-income families” and could “add over $700
billion to the 10-year federal deficit, with dramatically larger losses in subsequent years.”

According to the new study, “a politically realistic public option would add over $700 billion to 10-year deficits.
By 2049, the plan would increase long-run debt projections by 30 percent of GDP or require tax increases
equal to nearly 20 percent of projected income tax revenue. These tax increases may affect even middle-income
taxpayers, raising their marginal income tax rates by several percentage points.” This would make the public option “the third
largest line item on the federal budget, behind only Medicare and Social Security.”

Economists agree, that the public option would burden American families with unaffordable costs. “The public option
would cause premiums for private insurance to skyrocket ,” Dr. Scott Atlas of Stanford University writes in The Wall
Street Journal. “A single-payeroption is not a moderate, compromise proposal. Its inevitable consequence is the
death of affordable private insurance … Massive taxation would be needed to expand Medicare, whether
optionally or not,” Atlas continues.
2NC
CP---UCF
 Perm: Do Both---2NC
2. BARGAINING---states must triumph in a policy conflict---the perm vaporizes opposition
both by preempting the condition AND aligning the states with the fed.
Leonard ’10 [Elizabeth; Fall 2010; Professor of Law at the University of Kansas and Visiting Professor
of Law at the University of Georgia, J.D. from the University of Georgia; Hofstra Law Review, “Rhetorical
Federalism: The Value of State-Based Dissent to Federal Health Reform,” vol. 39]
A. Uncooperative Federalism

Uncoop erative federalism, a theory articulated by Jessica Bulman-Pozen and Heather Gerken, suggests that even when
states actively refuse to cooperate with the fed eral government, their resistance may be beneficial. To
understand uncooperative federalism, it is helpful to place the theory in the context of other federalism theories. Bulman-
Pozen and Gerken offer the following matrix , which I slightly modify, in their footnote 18.

The vertical axis represents the normative position of what states should do: either they should serve as
rivals or challengers to the federal government, or they should serve as friends or allies with the
federal government. The horizontal axis identifies two strategies to facilitate healthy federal-state relations: either the power of states
as sovereigns, or the power of states as servants. The authors note that most existing scholarship falls in Box 1, the state autonomy or dual
sovereignty view of federal-state relations, or Box 4, the cooperative federalism view. Their theory fills Box 2, the affirmative
case for states as rivals and challengers from the posture of servants .
For Box 3, Bulman-Pozen and Gerken suggest Roderick Hills's "functional theory." Hills favors state autonomy not so that states can operate as dual or separate sovereigns, but so that they can
bargain effectively for their role within a cooperative, integrated federal regime. States, under their reserved powers, hold a property right to refuse to lend state administrative processes to
implement federal policies, which right they can sell in a freely negotiated trade, like any other private contractor. Cooperation is a good thing, but only when the federal government
"purchases" state services through voluntary agreements.

Dual sovereignty or state autonomy, like uncooperative federalism, urges states to rival and challenge the federal government but from the posture of sovereign powers. Values associated
with the dual sovereignty view include providing alternative, more accessible forums for citizen participation in the political process. In addition, different territories may have different tastes
and needs, especially on social policy matters. The diversity of approaches creates a "political market," allowing citizenry a choice of "laws, customs, and attitudes," and ultimately, exit rights.
States also serve as laboratories of democracy, experimenting and crafting solutions to problems, which approaches can be borrowed by other states and the federal government.

The dual sovereignty scholarship recognizes the value of dissent , especially state-level dissent, within the federal system.
Dissent "contributes to the marketplace of ideas, engages electoral minorities[,] … and facilitates self-expression." The
Framers
envisioned friction , clashes, and jarring as part of the constitutional design. States may act as lobbyists and litigants,
challenging federal policies and laws. Objections may be voiced by states qua states, or by states as spokespersons for individuals.

Cooperative federalism, by contrast , envisions the federal government and states working
together as partners to address common problems or implement legislation. States serve as supportive allies, freely and
voluntarily, albeit often with strong encouragement, implementing federal policies. Conditional spending programs, such as Medicaid, are prime examples of cooperative federalism. Under its
spending power, Congress entices states to enact laws or implement programs by conditioning federal funding on states' compliance with broad federal requirements, even though the federal
government cannot directly regulate states or "commandeer" state regulatory authorities to implement, administer, or enforce federal programs. ACA employs several cooperative federalism
strategies, including conditional spending, conditional preemption, grants, and contracts, to engage state cooperation in implementing the massive package of health care reforms.

Uncooperative federalism focuses on the power that states wield precisely because of their subservient
posture vis-a-vis the federal government. The theory emphasizes the "power of the servant" and "the ways in which integration can serve as a distinct source
of strength." Lacking adequate financial resources or regulatory reach to implement comprehensive programs, the federal government often depends on states to implement and administer
federal policies. Because Congress cannot simply mandate states to administer federal programs, it must offer carrots, such as conditional funding or block grants, or sticks, such as conditional
preemption or threats to usurp state implementation. In so doing, the federal government cedes considerable power and discretion to states. For example, under Medicaid, states must
comply with broad federal requirements but otherwise are free to tailor their state plans to meet their citizens' particular needs, still receiving federal matching dollars for every state dollar
spent. Even though the federal government ultimately holds the threat of revoking federal funds or taking over state programs, financial, political, and practical realities may render that threat
an empty one.
States' power as servants also derives from their integration into federal program implementation. State
regulators and policymakers have regular interaction with federal authorities in administering complex,
cooperative programs. State actors may develop subject-matter specialization within certain areas, such as environmental or health policy, which transcends federal and
state lines of authority. A related source of power derives from the fact that states serve two masters: the federal government and their state constituents. Voters' dissenting views give states
the political will and capital to challenge federal policies.

Bulman-Pozen and Gerken conclude that uncooperative federalism can be useful within a well-functioning federal
system. Friction between the federal government and states fosters a rich dialogue , clarifies
accountability , and encourages political participation . Doctrinal implications of the uncooperative federalism
theory suggest that commandeering, which is considered unacceptably intrusive on state autonomy to Box 1 adherents, perhaps should be
allowed or encouraged under Box 2 because it engenders dissent. Uncooperative federalism, like state autonomy or dual
sovereignty, prefers narrow preemption but not because state power should be interpreted as broadly as possible but, rather, as a way to
create larger overlapping spheres of federal and state regulatory authority thereby ensuring ongoing conflict
and jarring .
The authors are equivocal on the value of conditional spending programs like Medicaid in advancing the uncooperative federalism thesis. The
amount of power that states wield as servants under conditional spending schemes depends on how badly states need the federal money. If
states have no real choice but to accept the federal funds, conditional spending essentially becomes commandeering, sparking various

forms of beneficial state resistance and dissent. But if states can freely decline the federal government's offer or
bargain for additional terms, little meaningful dialogue remains . States that freely opt-out of cooperative federalism
programs have little reason to object, while states that bargain effectively may have their objections appeased .

3. SIGNAL---the public image will be mutual agreement, not strong defiance.

Gardner ’18 [James; 2018; Distinguished Professor at the University of Buffalo School of Law at the
State University of New York, J.D. from the University of Chicago, B.A. in Economics and Political Science
from Yale University; William & Mary Law Review, “The Theory and Practice of Contestatory
Federalism,” vol. 60]
3. Defiance

Defiance, as I use the term here, is the nonviolent refusal of subnational governments to accept specific exercises
of power by the central government. Defiance can take many forms, but it is useful to distinguish
between strong and weak forms of defiance.
A. Strong Defiance

What I will call strong defiance consists of the open , nonviolent refusal by a subnational government to accede to
some policy or action of the national government. A subnational government may defy national power by passive
refusal to comply with disliked national policies, or by taking more elaborate, affirmative steps to undermine the
operation or success of the national policy or action at issue within its borders.
The states under study furnish many examples of strong defiance. In the United States, southern states engaged in a lengthy period of open
defiance of national enforcement of the political rights of African-Americans, including outright disregard of the Fifteenth Amendment, which
prohibits states from denying the right to vote on account of race. Some U.S. states repeatedly defy national constitutional protection of the
right to abortion by enacting highly restrictive laws. In Argentina during the 1990s, the government of Santa Cruz province refused repeatedly
to comply with orders of the Argentine Supreme Court requiring reinstatement of a provincial Attorney General who had been removed from
office after embarking on investigations into the activities of provincial government officials. In another incident, provincial courts in San Luis
province refused to enforce a national law regulating methods of determining the surnames of newborns. In 2017, the Catalan government
defied a series of court orders designed to prevent a referendum on independence from Spain.

Subnational units engage from time to time in strong defiance even in states, such as Germany and Switzerland, that have a reputation for
amicable intergovernmental relations, and in which, my interlocutors assured me, such tactics would never be used. For example, the German
Land of Bavaria in 1983 enacted a law requiring the display of a crucifix in every public school classroom. Upon challenge, the Constitutional
Court ruled the law unconstitutional, but Bavaria has since refused to comply with the order. In Switzerland, the canton of Appenzell refused
for nearly two decades to implement a 1971 national law mandating female suffrage until forced to do so by the federal courts. Similarly, the
canton of Nidwalden has refused repeatedly to comply with a national law requiring cantons to share in the storage of nuclear waste.

B. Weak Defiance

Weak defiance, as I use the term here, refers to actions intended to thwart, undermine, or diminish the force or success of
national policies to which the subnational unit objects, but which do not rise to the level of open refusal . Use of the tactic
exploits the margin of discretion afforded to subnational units in the implementation of national policies. The tactic can be invoked
by cultivating a public appearance of compliance and cooperation with a disliked national policy,
but then implementing or following it so half-heartedly, or even downright uncooperatively, as to undermine the policy's force and effect
within the jurisdiction.
 Perm: Do CP---2NC
The “United States federal government” is the three branches.
U.S. Legal ’16 [U.S. Legal; 2016; Organization offering legal assistance and attorney access; U.S. Legal, “United States Federal
Government Law and Legal Definition,” https://definitions.uslegal.com/u/united-states-federal-government/; RP]

The United States Federal Government is established by the US Constitution . The Federal Government shares
sovereignty over the United Sates with the individual governments of the States of US. The Federal
government has three branches : i) the legislature, which is the US Congress, ii) Executive, comprised of the President and Vice
president of the US and iii) Judiciary. The US Constitution prescribes a system of separation of powers and ‘checks and
balances’ for the smooth functioning of all the three branches of the Federal Government. The US Constitution limits the powers of the
Federal Government to the powers assigned to it; all powers not expressly assigned to the Federal Government
are reserved to the States or to the people .

Competition should solely involve mandates---permuting effects kills ground because

any action could cause the plan.
Wood ’13 [Jamie; June 10; Writer; Avatel EVP, “The Butterfly Effect – What a Fascinating Theory!”
https://avatel.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/the-butterfly-effect-what-a-fascinating-theory/]

Every action or decision has some kind of effect on something or someone, if only in an indirect way. How
we approach these decisions or actions we take can have a huge impact, not just on those directly involved, but on others we could hardly
fathom would be affected. You never know what little action may be the tipping point for another action and or reaction.

When you hear the words “The Butterfly Effect”, most of you will probably think of the movie. That was about the chaos theory, meaning one
series of events leads to another and the effect of changing the course of those events.

Actually the term “The Butterfly Effect”, was a phenomenon proposed in a doctoral thesis written in 1963 by Edward Lorenz. It states that a

butterfly, by flapping its wings in one place and time is able to create a major weather event in another place and
time , eventually having a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent events.

cause and effect are applicable in the universe even if the pattern is
The butterfly effect suggests that

indecipherable and the precise cause of our predicaments, rooted far away in time and space, are ultimately
unfathomable. More than just an esoteric science, the chaos theory works off the concept that the relation between any two things is
rarely linear in nature, that any reaction is usually the result of an accumulation of causative factors small and large, intentional and accidental.
 Federalism---U---AT: Squo Solves---2NC
Federalism’s crushed but would be restored by bold state action.
Marshall ’22 [Steve; May 20; Attorney General for the State of Alabama, J.D. from the University of
Alabama; National Review, “Why Are Red States Yielding to Biden’s Blue Government?”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/why-are-red-states-yielding-to-bidens-blue-government/]
As Republican gubernatorial and congressional candidates seek to ride the red wave into this year’s election cycle, one issue has been
conspicuously absent from the discourse: the dramatic erosion of state sovereignty under Joe Biden ’s
presidency. If the co rona virus pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we must fight for the basic
principle of federalism so that states may continue to operate as separate and distinct
lab oratorie s of democracy. Put simply, our constitution contemplates the need for Americans to be able to flee Gavin Newsom’s
oppression and seek asylum with Ron DeSantis in the free State of Florida.

But Biden’s federal government aims to cancel “voting with your feet” by imposing inescapable federal edicts on matters that the Constitution
leaves to the states. Quelling red-state rebellion appears to be the president’s motive. But so far, the Republican response to
an overweening executive has been underwhelming .

In the 16 months since President Biden took office, federal encroachment on state sovereignty has
become routine. Yet all too often, that sovereignty is not taken — it is sold. The federal government prints money at a furious pace and
dangles it before the states, knowing that state officials often ignore the fine print before accepting it. State leaders then find

themselves shaking one fist at the federal government while holding the other hand out for money
that comes with strings attached. As James L. Buckley wrote in 2014, “Congress is licensed to dabble in areas in
which it is forbidden to act, which it does by bribing the states to adopt Congress’s approaches to problems that are the states’

exclusive responsibility.”

This phenomenon goes relatively unnoticed , until an activist administration abuses the awesome power that
has been transferred from the states directly to federal agencies, thanks to the joint negligence of Congress and
state leader s .
Consider the provision in the American Rescue Plan Act that purported to prohibit states from “directly or indirectly” lowering taxes for three
years after accepting relief funding. While Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen could not articulate what “indirectly” even meant, each state was
instructed to certify that it would comply with the mandate if it wanted the money, lest it face federal enforcement action. Joined by twelve
other states, the State of Alabama sued and successfully blocked this provision of the act from being enforced. This win, though important, was
overshadowed only seven months later when the Biden administration announced its vaccine mandates.

While the State of Alabama litigated successfully against three of the administration’s mandates, the health-care-worker vaccine mandate, still
in effect, presents the gravest threat to state sovereignty. The federal government’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services threatened
to defund health-care services provided by state agencies for refusal to comply with the vaccine mandate and is still attempting to commandeer
state employees into policing compliance on behalf of the federal government for in-state Medicaid and Medicare providers. This is especially
offensive in states such as Alabama, where state employees are now subject to a government vaccine mandate, which state law prohibits.
Federal officials have even told Alabama officials to solicit proof of vaccination from health-care workers around the state, again, in violation of
state law. In the wake of this unprecedented overreach, Republican leadership has been surprisingly aloof. Republicans in Congress have not
picked up the mantle of Medicaid block grants, nor have state leaders meaningfully demanded it.

Now, the Justice Department has made threats against any state that passes laws to protect children from unproven and irreversible “gender
affirming” medical treatments, citing various streams of federal funding that may be discontinued for those that dare to follow the science in
defiance of the Biden administration. Yet again, this administration is relying on the states’ addiction to federal funding to overcome the
convictions of the citizenry on a vital issue.
The United States S upreme C ourt has struggled to define the limits on this kind of federal coercion and has proven, as it did in the
cannot be consistently relied on to save “ separate and independent sovereigns ” from
CMS case, that it

their failure to “ act like it .” While Republican attorneys general will continue the fight in court, it will ultimately be left
to state leader s and their respective congressional delegations to reclaim state sovereignty. Ultimately, freedom — not
merely state control — is on the line. The Framers knew that our system of federalism “secure[d] to citizens the liberties that derive from the
diffusion of sovereign power.” Or as Justice Scalia put it, “No matter how you write it, it won’t work if we don’t believe in federalism.”

Initial victories spill over to state agenda-setting.

Gerken ’17 [Heather; Summer 2017; Professor of Law at Yale University, J.D. from the University of
Michigan, A.B. from Princeton University; Hofstra Law Review, “Distinguished Scholar in Residence
Lecture: A User's Guide to Progressive Federalism,” vol. 45]

We should value the role that cities and states play in our democracy no matter what our politics. Uncoop erative federalism may
sound antithetical to certain legal values, but it's not antithetical to democratic ones. It is good to have a source of friction,

dissent, and debate inside the behemoth we call the "Fourth Branch." Moreover, federal dependence on states and

localities creates incentives for moderation and compromise . Just ask President Obama, who had to compromise a
great deal to bring Obamacare to the red states. President Trump may not have to cooperate with Democrats on the Hill, but he's going
to need the support of blue states and cities if he wants to get things done.

We should also value spillovers . To be sure, it is uncomfortable to recognize that we are all sometimes forced to live under
someone else's law. But there are many democratic virtues associated with spillovers. For example, in today's heated political environment,
state officials lack incentives to compromise with those from the other side. But when a blue policy spills over into a red state (or vice versa),
legislators can't ignore the opposition. They must reach across state (and party) lines to fix the problem. Spillovers thus force state and local
officials to do what they are supposed to do: politic, find common ground, and negotiate a compromise that no one likes but everyone can live
with.

The most important role that federalism plays is in furthering change. Free speech is a precondition for democracy to function. These days,
however, dissenters have little problem getting their message out; they have trouble getting it across. Federalism and localism matter to
anyone trying to get a message across. Federalism and localism supply different platforms and different forms of advocacy for would-be
dissenters. By giving social movements a chance to "dissent by deciding" - converting abstract appeals into concrete policies - decentralization
confers a variety of benefits on democracy's outliers that the First Amendment, standing alone, cannot supply.

Decentralization also facilitates agenda setting . When those seeking change put in place a real-life
instantiation of their ideas, the majority can't ignore them, as majorities are wont to do.
Decentralization thus helps social movements shift the burden of inertia and force the majority to
engage. Federalism and localism also give those who seek change a chance to move from the abstract to the
concrete . They don't have to talk about how a policy would work in theory. They can show that it does work
in practice . Better yet, it allows advocates of change to build their movement one step a time . It is
hard to jumpstart a national movement. That's why virtually every national movement began as a local one.
 Solvency---Say Yes---2NC
1. LEVERAGE---it suspends all cooperation, not just economic policy. That takes
immigration, drugs, infrastructure, and environmental policy off the table, forcing the fed’s
hand.
Resevz ’17 [Joshua and Heather; Spring 2017; Civil Attorney at the United States Department of
Justice, J.D. from Yale University; Professor of Law at Yale University, J.D. from the University of
Michigan, A.B. from Princeton University; Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, “Progressive Federalism: A
User’s Guide,” no. 44]

But if progressives can simply look outside the Beltway, they will find that they still have access to one of the most powerful
weapon s in politics: federalism . Using the power they wield in states and cities across the country, progressives can do a
good deal more than mourn and obstruct. They can resist Washington overreach, shape national policies , and force the
Republicans to compromise. Cities and states have long been at the center of the fight over national values. And it’s time
progressives recognized that federalism isn’t just for conservatives.

Unfortunately, the moment one mentions federalism many progressives stop listening. The language of “states’ rights” has an ugly history,
invoked to shield slavery and Jim Crow. Federalism’s checkered past led political scientist William H. Riker to remark in 1964 that “if one
disapproves of racism, one should disapprove of federalism.” Even today, many progressives think of federalism as a parochial anachronism,
better suited for stymieing change than for effecting it. But they are making a mistake. This is not your father’s federalism. These days, state
and local governments are often led by dissenters and racial minorities, the two groups progressives think have the most to fear from
federalism. And this has allowed them to not only take advantage of the enormous power that federalism confers
within their own cities and states, but to affect national debates, influence national policy, and force national
actors to the bargain ing table. Their success shows that federalism is a neutral and powerful tool for change,
not an intrinsically conservative quirk of U.S. government.

The call for progressive federalism is not a new one. In 2004, Duke law professor Ernie Young invited liberals to come to the “Dark Side” and
embrace the power of the states. (And one of the authors of this essay has spent more than a decade arguing—including in the pages of this
journal— that federalism doesn’t have a political valence.) But having a Democrat in the White House was just too tempting for most
progressives. They turned their attention to Washington while neglecting what was going on in California, Massachusetts, or New York City. We
suspect that most progressives aren’t even aware that the Democrats have lost 27 state legislative chambers since 2008. But perhaps the 2016
election will help progressives shake loose the notion that D.C. is the center of the political universe.

Needless to say, though, the devil is in the details. So below we offer a “user’s guide” that identifies four ways that progressive leaders—from
Jerry Brown and Bill de Blasio to small-city mayors—can push back against federal policy and force compromise. And, in doing so, we hope to
persuade even the most fervent nationalist to become a fan of federalism. While we fashion this as a progressive user’s guide, it could, in
theory, work just as well for conservatives should they lose the presidency in 2020. That’s precisely the point.

Types of Resistance

We often forget that the fed eral government ’s admin istrative capacity is modest , relatively speaking. Excluding the
military, it employs just short of three million personnel. Its 2015 budget (excluding defense, Social Security, and

mandatory spending obligations) was less than $600 billion. Together, state and local government s dwarf these

figures, with more than 14 million workers and a combined budget of more than $2.5 trillion .

Because of this, Washington can’t go it alone. When Congress makes a law, it often lacks the resources to enforce it.
Instead, it relies on states and localities to carry out its policies. Without those local actor s , the feds
can no t enforce immigration law, implement environment al policy, build infrastructure , or
prosecute drug offense s . Changing policies in these areas—and many more—is possible only if cities and states
lend a hand. This arrangement creates opportunities for federal-state cooperation. But it also allows for “ uncoop erative
f edera lism ”: State and local official s can use their leverage over the feds to shape national policy .

This means that states can shape policy simply by refusing to partner with the fed eral government. This form of
resistance involves more than mere obstruction. It allows progressive states to help set the federal agenda by forcing

debates that conservatives would rather avoid and by creating incentives for compromise. When states opt out of
a federal program, it costs the federal government resources and p olitical c apital. That’s why President Trump
has a lot more incentive to compromise with Democrats in Sacramento than with those on the Hill.

2. REVENUE---states won’t report taxes OR provide staff---that grinds Congress to a

halt.
Smith ’21 [Fred; 2021; Associate Professor at Emory University Law School; Wisconsin Law Review,
“Federalism in the States: What States Can Teach About Commandeering,” p. 1257-1279]
1. Federalism and Collective Action

With autonomy comes resistance , or “ uncooperative ” postures by state and local government s .133 And
with this autonomy to resist comes a potential complication: inhibit ing a central government’s ability to deal with
collective action problems. This tension is as old as the republic.134 “Collective action” problems refer to situations in which (1)
the normatively optimal result requires multiple entities or persons to act in a certain manner; but (2) each individual entity has incentive to act
in an alternative, counterproductive manner (or not to act at all).135 These moments are ripe for negative “externalities,” in which many of the
negative costs of an entity’s non-optimal behavior are internalized by others.136 It can also result in positive “spillovers,” in which entities
acting in non-optimal ways benefit from the expenditures of other actors; this also reduces the incentive for each to act optimally given that
they can enjoy benefits without paying for them.137

Prior to the adoption of the Constitution, under the Articles of Confederation, states’ considerable autonomy and sovereignty
facilitated collective action problems .138 The fed eral government could not raise revenue without state
approval, for example.139 One result of this arrangement was that the central government had substantial difficulty
solving collective action problems.140 If some states made contributions to the federal government, all states enjoyed the resultant
spillover effects, reducing the incentive for any individual state to contribute. Professors Robert Cooter and Neil Siegel have argued that even if
the Founders did not have the language of “collective action” as they confronted these problems, those were among the chief issues they
aimed to solve in adopting the Constitution.141 In those two scholars’ view, this overarching purpose of the Constitution should inform one’s
understanding of the intended scope of congressional powers in Article I of the Constitution.142 As they thoughtfully put it:

The Framers lacked the tools and language of modern social science, but they knew a collective action problem when they saw it.
When activities spilled over from one state to another, the Framers recognized that the actions of individually rational states
produced irrational results for the nation as a whole—the definition of a collective action problem.143

2. Commandeering and Collective Action

The collective-action strand of federalism literature informs debates about the efficacy and proper scope of
anticommandeering doctrine. Indeed, the facts of New York v. United States itself presented a classic collective problem.144 Congress
commanded that states take title to their low-level radioactive waste in part because some states were amenable to allowing safe disposal
states and others were not.145 And by not properly disposing of such waste, the state necessarily exported the negative externalities (by way
costs and risks) to neighboring states.146 Justice Stevens’s partial dissent observed this feature of the problem Congress was aiming to solve,
criticizing a doctrine that disabled Congress’s ability to deal with this pressing collective action problem.147

Scholarly critics of the doctrine have similarly described ways that anticommandeering can make it difficult for the
central gov ernmen t to mitigate collective action problems. Professor Siegel has observed that the federal law at
issue in New York v. United States “was obviously directed at solving serious, multistate collective action problems.”148 Moreover, now-Judge
David Barron has argued that because anticommandeering doctrine can harm a central government’s ability to solve such problems, the
doctrine can actually undermine, rather than protect, local autonomy. He explains,

[If Congress] wishes to empower localities to overcome the irresponsible actions of holdouts, then it must enact a rule system that permits collective solutions, even though they
are not approved unanimously. That is the kind of choice central law faces when it seeks to protect local autonomy. In making that choice, the central government will not
unambiguously vindicate local autonomy no matter how it acts; it will infringe it by attempting to promote it or by choosing one idea of local autonomy at the expense of others.
But that is inevitably the case when the limits on local power come from some source other than the visible intervention of the central government itself.149

3. State Commandeering and Collective Action

It is difficult to seriously dispute that commandeering can help resolve collective action problems. To understand how commandeering can resolve collective action problems, one need do
nothing more than read the facts of New York v. United States. 150 Still, there are at least two relevant questions that could be more comprehensively answered by consulting intrastate
arrangements.

First, what are the circumstances in which commandeering has been used to resolve collective action problems? One prominent problem is
exclusionary zoning, wherein local governments (formally or functionally) ban low-income housing within their jurisdiction.151 The results of
such laws often are not limited to the single town that enacts it. Instead, the “adverse consequences extend to neighboring communities.”152
Localities need teachers , police officers , sanitation workers , and grocery store stocker s to
function. When one town in a region excludes moderate and low-income residents, another town picks up the slack. The net result is that
some wealthy, exclusive jurisdictions have large tax bases with fewer expenditures.153 Meanwhile, other inclusive jurisdictions in the region
have smaller tax bases while subsidizing a need that aids the entire region.154 This is a classic collective action problem. If exclusionary zoning
is adopted, the negative results can create negative externalities for other communities in the same region.155 And while all in the region
would benefit if each political subdivision contributed to, or created, affordable housing, individual political subdivisions can gain an unfair
benefit by passing the costs to other jurisdictions.156

Some of the tools that states have adopted to deal with this problem can fairly be called commandeering. The Massachusetts Low-and Moderate-Income Housing Act, which is often called an
“anti-snob zoning law,” permits a state agency to override local decisions that block affordable housing.157 The New Jersey Fair Housing Act of 1985, created in response to a seminal state
supreme court opinion,158 created a state council that assesses the need for low to moderately priced affordable housing for each of the state’s regions.159 The initial act required every
municipality to create a plan demonstrating how it would provide its fair, relative share of affordable housing in its region.160 Moreover, California, Florida, and Oregon have required local
governments to adopt plans for affordable housing.161 States, then, provide opportunities to study the role of commandeering in resolving collective action problems by examining the
problems commandeering has been used to resolve; patterns in the political economies that facilitate these interventions; and how often commandeering is used for these purposes as
opposed to others.

Second, the recent pandemic has provided reason to ask the opposite question: how and when is commandeering used in ways that worsen collective action problems? The infectious disease
COVID-19 has created or exposed collective action problems on multiple levels, including the individual level and polity level. On an individual level, the choices one makes impact others.
Physical isolation reduces the risk of spreading the virus.162 And yet isolation can prove costly if it interferes with one’s ability to earn a living. Given the costs of isolation, there are sometimes
economic incentives to make decisions that are not for the good of the whole. Likewise, on the governmental level, the choices one jurisdiction makes have externalities for other
jurisdictions.163 And still, making choices that reduce the spread of the virus—such as closing non-essential businesses and gatherings—could prove costly by interfering with a community’s
economy.164 If all make these choices, the virus might spread less quickly, creating the possibility that it could be controlled, and all economies could more safely open.165 But given the costs,
there are economic incentives to make policy decisions that are good for the polity in the short term but not for the good of the whole.

While states have used their commandeering power over the course of the pandemic to mitigate collective action problems, they have also used those powers in ways that do not self-
evidently make that choice. Recently, the governor of Florida prohibited local school districts from requiring the use of facemasks to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.166 The governor of
Georgia also banned local governments from requiring facemasks, suing the City of Atlanta when it asked locals to wear masks when in public and indoors.167 These choices remind that
amidst critical collective action problems, commandeering by a central government will not necessarily resolve those problems. It may actually worsen them in two ways: (1) by consolidating
political choices in ways that allow that central government to pass on costs to other jurisdictions dealing with the same problem; and (2) by incentivizing individuals to make choices that harm
the collective group.168 This cost of commandeering—monopolizing political choices in ways that worsen collective action problems rather than mitigate them—is an important part of any
comprehensive conversation about anticommandeering doctrine.

III. Implications from the States

This Essay has advocated for what I call “intrasystemic comparative analysis” to examine the lessons that can be learned from comparing
horizonal and vertical federalism are
multiple institutional legal arrangements in a single federal system. In the United States,

oft-discussed features of the relationships between the fed eral government and states and between the states
themselves. But within states, there are federalist systems, too, which set up some of the same questions about democratic accountability and
collective action that guide dialogue about the federal-state relationship. By way of example, this Essay has shown how commandeering plays a
role in intrastate federalism that is fundamentally distinct from the role that it plays in interstate federalism. Moreover, the role of
commandeering can
commandeering differs amongst the states themselves. Accordingly, this Essay has shown how intrastate

inform discussions about how anticommandeering doctrine interacts with both democratic accountability and collective
action problems.

These observations have practical or doctrinal import . When it comes to federal anticommandeering, the principle of
democratic accountability is a core and foundational aspect of extant doctrine.169 Indeed, the record is mixed as to whether the doctrine is
sustainable on other grounds.170 It is difficult to justify it as a matter of text, and some scholars have argued that it is not justifiable as a matter
of history.171 Further, even those who have defended anticommandeering as a matter of history have argued that extant doctrine nonetheless
outpaces that history.172 Thus, theorems about the probable behavior of voters and government officials are not a sideshow when it comes to
anticommandeering doctrine. Democratic accountability is the plot, the stage, and the set in the main event. If the premise is wrong, another
justification is needed for the doctrine. If the premise is overstated, perhaps a softer version of the doctrine is warranted. If the premise is right,
but there are other equally or more important constitutional premises that anticommandeering doctrine also affects, this also suggests that
revisions to the doctrine might be justified.

Over the decades, scholars like Professors Vicki Jackson and Neil Siegel have offered visions about what such a reformed doctrine might look
like. Professor Jackson has broadly advocated for

focusing on the adequacy of congressional process to justify assertions of federal power over private citizens, and attending to the
actual risks of politically nonaccountable behavior in particular programs of commandeering state facilities would help move the
doctrine toward a “sufficiently principled” basis for achieving the goal of maintaining states as constitutionally important locations of
power in a strong and effective national union based on the rule of law.173

Relatedly, Siegel has proposed a presumption against anticommandeering under some specified circumstances absent a compelling
government interest.174

The goal here is not to identify the precise metes and bounds of what a reformed anticommandeering doctrine should look like. Rather, when

working to achieve the optimal balance , we can learn lessons by looking to state lab oratorie s .
Consulting the results of their experiments reduces the risks of American federalism’s atom-
splitting .

3. POLITICS---gridlock makes politicians depend on states for their agenda. They’ll

capitulate for political gain.
Metzger ’16 [Gillian and Jessica Bulman-Pozen; May 21; Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional
Law at Columbia University, J.D. from Columbia Law School; Betts Professor of Law and a director of the
Center for Constitutional Governance at Columbia Law School, J.D. from Yale Law School; Publius, “The
President and the States: Patterns of Contestation and Collaboration under Obama,” vol. 46]
Current accounts portray President Obama’s tenure as dominated by executive policymaking and vigorous challenges from the states. We
argue that such accounts overlook how federal–state collaboration has been critical to achieving Obama Administration ends. Partisan

polarization has gridlock ed Congress and made the President depend ent on the states to advance
his central policy initiatives . As a result, these initiatives are both more responsive to state demand s
and more bipartisan than they might appear. After exploring tools by which the President works with the states, we discuss implications for
state role in shaping federal regulation
federalism, the separation of powers, and partisan polarization. In particular, the

raises the possibility that states are both aggrandiz ing and check ing pres idential power.
If popular reports and political attacks are any guide, President Obama’s second term has been marked by presidential policymaking and sharp
state opposition. With Congress incapacitated by polarization, the President has turned to administrative action to achieve his goals, pushing
his agenda on the nation under a justificatory “We Can’t Wait” mantra. Meanwhile, states have led the opposition to such executive action.
Governors refuse to participate in Administration initiatives, and state attorneys general sue the federal executive branch for overreach in a
variety of areas.

There is much truth to this account. Congress is gridlocked and unable to enact substantive laws on major policy issues. A number of political
and structural factors contribute to legislative paralysis, but the widening ideological divide between the parties and the parties’ split control of
Congress and the presidency are leading culprits. In the absence of congressional action, federal agencies have employed their powers
assertively, often stretching, if not violating, underlying statutes ( Freeman and Spence 2014 ; Metzger 2015 ). And the White House has been
closely involved in administrative initiatives, with the President publicly instructing agencies to act and claiming ownership of the resulting
decisions ( Watts 2016 ). Examples of such presidentially instigated, assertive agency actions include the Department of Education’s grant of No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers, the Department of Homeland Security’s deferred action immigration programs, the Internal Revenue Service’s
waiver of the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act ( ACA 2012 ), and the Clean Power Plan by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

A number of states have opposed these and other admin istrative undertaking s . Many governors and
state legislatures have refused to expand Medicaid pursuant to the ACA; more than half of the states have
filed suit over the Administration’s executive actions on immigration; in a nearly unprecedented move, twelve states
challenged the C lean P ower P lan in court before the Environmental Protection Agency had even finalized it, and more than two
dozen states are now challenging the final plan ( Texas v. United States ; In re Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA ; West Virginia v. EPA ). Just as

partisan polarization provides the critical explanation for congressional inaction, it also furnishes the key to
such state resistance . Today’s Democratic and Republican parties are thoroughly integrated across the state–federal divide, so
Republican-led states are leading the challenges to a Democratic President ( Bulman-Pozen 2014).

Looked at more closely, however, central initiatives of the Obama Administration are more collaborative, and indeed more bipartisan, than they
first appear. Many federal exec utive undertaking s depend on state participation . If for no other
reason than to achieve that participation, the Obama Admin istration has been sensitive to state
interest s and concerns, including those of Republican-led states. Waivers granted by the Administration have allowed some states to
expand Medicaid in ways that deviate from traditional Medicaid and incorporate Republican policy preferences. The Administration’s Clean
Power Plan incorporates state policy choices into its substantive standards, as does its rule setting out minimum essential benefits for health
insurance under the ACA. NCLB waivers were a response to state requests for regulatory relief and built on educational assessment metrics
devised by red and blue states alike. And, in declining to enforce the federal Controlled Substances Act with respect to
marijuana offenses in Colorado and Washington, the Administration has accommodated those states’ decisions to
legalize recreational marijuana use.

Even as the President sets policy without Congress and a subset of states vigorously opposes his decisions, then, federal–state

collaboration is critical to realizing Administration ends. National policy is increasingly determined by

presidentially instigated executive branch action, but it is executive action taken in conjunction with the states. The result ant
national policy is responsive to state demands , often accommodating state policy preferences
from across the political spectrum. Against a background of polarized national politics and a gridlocked Congress, the
state role in shaping federal regulation and federal programs is thus particularly significant . It raises the
possibility that states are simultaneously enabling and checking federal executive branch initiatives, it means that federal policy may be
nonuniform and differentiated by state, and it lends the President’s initiatives more of a bipartisan character than popular accounts allow.
 Federalism---CP Key---2NC
The result is a feedback loop that guides other cases.
Fallon ’17 [Richard; November 14; Professor of Law at Harvard University; Arizona State Law Journal,
“Federalism as a Constitutional Concept,” vol. 49]
3. Disruptive or Uncooperative Federalism

The idea of disruptive or uncoop erative federalism, and in particular its characterization as potentially attractive or
beneficial, has emerged in recent, imaginative writing by Heather Gerken and others. In the view of defenders of this conception, federalism-
based elements of the Constitution's design not only limit federal power; they also create a feedback loop in which states and
state officials can resist or temper otherwise lawful assertions of fed eral authority in potentially creative,
informative , and productive ways.
Like the states' rights and experimentalist conceptions, a conception of disruptive or uncooperative federalism could not purport to capture the
full complexity of the concept of constitutional federalism. It could only plausibly aspire to guide constitutional or statutory
interpretation in some range of contested cases--and to do so without specifying in detail how the values that it serves
relate to, cohere with, or in some instances possibly trump other constitutional values. Leading proponents of uncooperative federalism so
acknowledge. For example, Dean Gerken and Professor Bulman-Pozen write that they do not "offer a single, authoritative account of
federalism," that they "do not mean to suggest that contestation will always be desirable," and that they "merely argue that the benefits
of uncooperative federalism have not been fully appreciated in the literature."

Initial victories spill over to state agenda-setting.

Gerken ’17 [Heather; Summer 2017; Professor of Law at Yale University, J.D. from the University of
Michigan, A.B. from Princeton University; Hofstra Law Review, “Distinguished Scholar in Residence
Lecture: A User's Guide to Progressive Federalism,” vol. 45]

We should value the role that cities and states play in our democracy no matter what our politics. Uncoop erative federalism may
sound antithetical to certain legal values, but it's not antithetical to democratic ones. It is good to have a source of friction,

dissent, and debate inside the behemoth we call the "Fourth Branch." Moreover, federal dependence on states and

localities creates incentives for moderation and compromise . Just ask President Obama, who had to compromise a
great deal to bring Obamacare to the red states. President Trump may not have to cooperate with Democrats on the Hill, but he's going
to need the support of blue states and cities if he wants to get things done.

We should also value spillovers . To be sure, it is uncomfortable to recognize that we are all sometimes forced to live under
someone else's law. But there are many democratic virtues associated with spillovers. For example, in today's heated political environment,
state officials lack incentives to compromise with those from the other side. But when a blue policy spills over into a red state (or vice versa),
legislators can't ignore the opposition. They must reach across state (and party) lines to fix the problem. Spillovers thus force state and local
officials to do what they are supposed to do: politic, find common ground, and negotiate a compromise that no one likes but everyone can live
with.

The most important role that federalism plays is in furthering change. Free speech is a precondition for democracy to function. These days,
however, dissenters have little problem getting their message out; they have trouble getting it across. Federalism and localism matter to
anyone trying to get a message across. Federalism and localism supply different platforms and different forms of advocacy for would-be
dissenters. By giving social movements a chance to "dissent by deciding" - converting abstract appeals into concrete policies - decentralization
confers a variety of benefits on democracy's outliers that the First Amendment, standing alone, cannot supply.
Decentralization also facilitates agenda setting . When those seeking change put in place a real-life
instantiation of their ideas, the majority can't ignore them, as majorities are wont to do.
Decentralization thus helps social movements shift the burden of inertia and force the majority to
engage. Federalism and localism also give those who seek change a chance to move from the abstract to the
concrete . They don't have to talk about how a policy would work in theory. They can show that it does work
in practice . Better yet, it allows advocates of change to build their movement one step a time . It is
hard to jumpstart a national movement. That's why virtually every national movement began as a local one.

It’ll be modeled due to the demonstration effect.

Dinan ’11 [John; Summer 2011; Professor of Political Science at Wake Forest University, Ph.D. from the
University of Virginia; Albany Law Review, “Contemporary Assertions of State Sovereignty and the
Safeguards of American Federalism,” vol. 74]
Recent state statutes and constitutional amendments challenging federal health care legislation and other federal laws have attracted
significant attention, both from critics who view them as nullification acts that are inconsistent with the Supremacy Clause and from some
supporters who have been equally willing to embrace the nullification label for the purpose of defending such legislation. Upon closer
examination, it becomes possible to view these measures as falling short of invoking the clearly repudiated doctrine of nullification and as
assertions of state
capable of contributing under certain conditions to safeguarding federalism principles. An analysis of these recent

sovereignty - whether regarding health care, guns, drivers' licenses, or medical marijuana - can contribute to a better
understanding of the range of opportunities for states to wield influence in the U.S. federal
system by showing that state statutes challenging federal law can play a role , alongside of, and
occasionally in place of , traditional mechanisms by which states can advance their interests in
the national political process.
CP---Sunsets
 Theory: Condition CPs---2NC
3. EDUCATION---subnational bargaining’s predictable but understudied.
Herian ’11 [Mitchel; February 16; Research specialist at the University of Nebraska Public Policy
center, Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Governing the States and the Nation:
The Intergovernmental Policy Influence of the National Governors Association, Kindle]

The U.S. political system provides governors with opportunities to shape policy at many levels. From working with
localities and quasi-governmental bodies, to crafting state budgets, to testifying before congressional committees in Washington, D.C., the
modern-day governor fills many roles and is the key player at many of the crucial decision point s in
the development of policy. In recognition of this important fact, political scientists have worked to increase
both the quality and quantity of the research on this office in the past three decades. Scholars such as
Joseph Schlesinger, Larry Sabato, Thad Beyle, and Nelson Dometrius have helped push the field forward and have led the move
toward truly understanding the office of the governor as it currently exists. Common knowledge of the formal and informal powers of
governors, the factors that impact gubernatorial elections, and the factors that affect the ability of governors to work with state legislatures, for
instance, has been made available as a result of the efforts of these scholars and countless others.

But even though scholars have focused on systematically examining the internal policy-making efforts and powers of
governors, relatively little research has been dedicated to understanding the ways in which governors
work to influence policy outside the borders of their home states . On its face, the lack of focus on external
gubernatorial powers may not seem like a significant point of weakness in the lit erature. After all, governors derive their
authority and political power from the voters who place them in office, and they must work with the legislatures that is directly elected by
those same voters in each state. Thus, it is only logical that scholars study governors as they work in that particular context, and it is likewise
imperative that researchers examine governors in that environment. But by ignoring the ability of governors to shape
policy outside the borders of the states they preside over, researchers fail to capture one of the most
important aspects of the modern governorship. As governors regularly testify in front of Congress, provide input on the
development of rules and procedures being adopted by federal agencies, and actually implement many federal policies within their states,
they are provided with ample opportunities to shape policy and are given effective control over the
direction of considerable sums of federal resources.
Adv---Inequality
 Stagnation D---2NC
It’s totally misunderstood AND inevitable due to demographics.
Krugman ’22 [Paul; June 21; American economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at
the Graduate Center of the City University of New York; New York Times, “Is the Era of Cheap Money
Over?” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/opinion/inflation-interest-rates-fed.html]
The basic answer is that since 2000 and especially since the global financial crisis, businesses have persistently been unwilling to maintain a
level of investment spending that used all the money households wanted to save, unless interest rates were very low. This condition has the
unfortunate name “secular stagnation” — unfortunate because it ’s widely and wrongly construed as an assertion that
it means slow growth, not low interest rates. The idea of secular stagnation was introduced in the 1930s, but the postwar boom made it seem
irrelevant. Then Japan began experiencing persistent weakness and very low interest rates in the 1990s, and in the aftermath of the 2008
financial crisis, the whole advanced world found itself in a similar condition.

What causes secular stagnation? The best guess is that it’s largely about demography. When the working-age
population is growing slowly or even shrinking , there’s much less need for new office parks, shopping malls, even housing,
hence weak demand . And as you can see in this chart, America’s prime-working-age population, which grew rapidly for many decades,
began stagnating just about the time interest rates began sliding:

And these demographic forces aren’t going away. If anything, they’re likely to intensify , in part because the rate of
immigration has dropped off. So there’s every reason to believe that we’ll fairly soon go back to an era of low interest rates.

Empirical studies prove it has no effect.

The Economist ’15 [The Economist; March 5; Internationally regarded British newspaper; The
Economist, “Still, not stagnant,” https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2015/03/05/still-
not-stagnant]

Is America stuck in a rut of low growth, feeble inflation and rock-bottom interest rates? Lots of economists believe in the idea of “secular
stagnation”, and they have plenty of evidence to point to. The population is ageing and long-run growth prospects look dim. Interest rates,
which have been near zero for years, are still not low enough to get the American economy zipping along. A new paper published by the
University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, however, reckons that secular stagnation is not quite the right diagnosis for America’s ills.*

A country in the grip of secular stagnation cannot find enough good investments to soak up available savings. The drain on demand from these
underused savings leads to weak growth. It also leaves central banks in a bind. If the real (ie inflation adjusted) “equilibrium” interest rate (the
one that gets an economy growing at a healthy clip) falls well below zero, then central bankers will struggle to push their policy rate low enough
to drag the economy out of trouble, since it is hard to push nominal (ie, not adjusted for inflation) rates deep into negative territory. Worse, in
the process of trying, they may end up inflating financial bubbles, which lead to unsustainable growth and grisly busts.

Stagnationists argue that this is not a bad description of America since the 1980s. Real interest rates have been falling for years, they note, a
sign of a glut of savings. Recoveries from recent recessions have been weak and jobless. When growth has perked up, soaring asset prices and
consumer borrowing appear to have done the heavy lifting.

The authors of the Chicago paper—James Hamilton, Ethan Harris, Jan Hatzius and Kenneth West— dispute this interpretation
of events. Stagnationists are right, they note, that real interest rates have been falling, and have in fact been negative for much of the past 15
years. But low real rates do not necessarily imply that future growth will be weak, as many economic models assume. The authors
examine central-bank interest rates, inflation and growth in 20 countries over 40 years . They find at best a
weak relationship between economic growth and the equilibrium rate. If there is a long-run link , they
argue, it tends to be overshadowed by other factors .

After the second world war, for example, government controls on rates (“financial repression”) prevented the market from having its say. In
recent years short-run woes have dragged down the equilibrium rate, such as the “50-miles-per-hour headwinds” that Alan Greenspan, the
chairman of the Federal Reserve, described in 1991, when bad loans pushed big American banks to the brink of insolvency. The authors note
that such stormy periods are usually short-lived , and that when the headwinds abate the equilibrium rate tends to pop back up.

They also reckon the stagnationists are misinterpreting some of the evidence . Growth in the 19 90s
was not illusory, they argue. The stockmarket boom only really got going in 1998, after America’s unemployment rate had already fallen
below 5%.

The expansion of the 2000s looks like a better example of secular stagnation. Investment in housing, which rose from 4.9% of GDP in 2001 to
6.6% at the market’s peak in 2006, helped sustain the boom. Rising house prices made Americans feel flush, propelling consumer spending.
Expanding credit added about one percentage point to growth each year, says the paper.

Yet the behaviour of the economy in this period looks more like a product of distortion than stagnation . At the
time China and oil-producing states were running enormous current-account surpluses with America and building up large foreign-exchange
reserves, contributing to what Ben Bernanke, Mr Greenspan’s successor as Fed chairman, labelled a “global saving glut”. Expensive oil and rising
Chinese imports placed a drag on growth that more or less offset the boost from housing. Take away the savings glut and the housing boom,
and the American economy would not necessarily have grown any faster or slower, just more healthily.

There’s no impact---underlying conditions for stability remain intact.

Posen ’16 [Adam; March 2016; Government and Economics PhD from Harvard, economic advisor to
the Congressional Budget Office, faculty of the World Economic Forum, consultant for the International
Monetary Fund and the United States government; Peterson Institute for International Economics
Briefing 16-3, Reality Check for the Global Economy, “Why We Need a Reality Check,” Ch. 1]

Greater confidence in the world economy’s resilience and near-term prospects is justified . Market fears about the
ability of policy to stabilize growth and promote inflation, if understandable, are exaggerated or in some cases unfounded . All
the more reason then not to allow ourselves to be distracted by a financial market tail wagging the macroeconomic dog. At a fundamental
level, most of the major economies, starting with China and the United States, are growing more sustainably now than a
decade ago, at their slower rates . That growth is not built on rising private or public leverage, with the notable exception of China—and
even in China some restructuring is under way with ample savings to cushion the process. Even where the situation is not so rosy, many in the
markets seem to be confusing strains and suboptimal situations with acute instability, not just for Italian banks and for Brazilian budgets but
also for Latin America more generally or for trends in global trade. A more normal muddling through with poor but
stable conditions is a far better bet . And where some in the markets moving prices fear that normal economic laws have
been reversed—that monetary policy is ineffective or that low oil prices are on net harmful—they are likely to be proven clearly wrong, as they
were previously on inflation and commodity prices. Having some clarity to distinguish between the more solid
underlying economic outlook and the shadows thrown by financial puppetry is critical to making the right
policy decisions to avoid an unnecessary recession.

A combination of public policies and decentralized private-sector responses to the crisis have increased our economic
resilience , diminished the systemic spillovers between economies, and even created some room for
additional stimulus if needed. Large parts of the global financial system are better capitalized, monitored, and frankly more risk
averse than they were a decade ago, with less leverage. The riskier parts of today’s global economy are less directly linked to the center’s
growth and financing than when the troubles were within the United States and most of Europe in 2008. Trade imbalances of many key
economies are smaller, though growing, and thus accumulations of foreign debt vulnerabilities are also smaller than a decade ago. Most central
banks are now so committed to stabilization that they are attacked for being too loose or supportive of markets, making them at least unlikely
to repeat some policy errors from 2007–10 of delaying loosening or even excessive tightening. Finally, corporate and household balance sheets
are far more solid in the US and some other major economies than they were a decade ago (though not universally), and even in China the
perceptions of balance sheet weakness exceed the reality in scope and scale.
 Inequality D---2NC

Census data proves.

Gramm ’21 [Phil and John Early; March 23; a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a
visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; served twice as assistant commissioner at the
Bureau of Labor Statistics; Wall Street Journal, “Incredible Shrinking Income Inequality,”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/incredible-shrinking-income-inequality-11616517284;]

Twice over the past 50 years, the Census Bureau has significantly changed how it collects and records
income statistics. In 1993 and 2013 the Census Bureau changed its methods in an effort to collect better
information from high-income households. These changes created two major discontinuities and distorted the

time-series so that the change in measured income inequality in those years was as much as 15 times
the average annual change found for the entire 50-year period. At the time, the Census Bureau

explained in detail what it had done. It also explained the limitations the changes imposed on the use
of its income-inequality measure to look at changes over extended periods . In subsequent use of the
data by the Census Bureau and others, however , those warnings have been neglected .

The simple solution would have been to isolate the distortions caused solely by the changes in data-
collection techniques and adjusted the previous years’ measures to reflect the effect of the changes. We
made these adjustments and they are shown in the nearby figure. The blue line is the actual reported Census
Bureau measurement of income inequality. The yellow line eliminates the effects of the 1993 and 2013
discontinuities caused solely by changes in measurement technique. The black line shows income inequality
when the value of all transfer payments received is counted as income, income is reduced by taxes paid, and the two technical corrections are
made.

Lo and behold— income inequality is lower than it was 50 years ago.

The raging debate over income inequality in America calls to mind the old Will Rogers adage: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into
trouble. It is what you do know that ain’t so.” We are debating the alleged injustice of a supposedly growing social problem when—for all the
reasons outlined above—that problem isn’t growing, it’s shrinking . Those who want to transform the greatest
economic system in the history of the world ought to get their facts straight first .

Including rental and self-income data shows inequality hasn’t changed in nine
decades.
Atkinson ‘21 [Robert; 3/10/21; Founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation
Foundation, Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina; "How
Progressives Have Spun Dubious Theories and Faulty Research Into a Harmful New Antitrust Doctrine,"
https://itif.org/publications/2021/03/10/how-progressives-have-spun-dubious-theories-and-faulty-
research-harmful-new]
Myth 7: Market Concentration Has Caused Labor’s Share of Income to Fall26
Neo-Brandeisians have argued that increased market concentration has reduced the share of national
income going to labor. The idea is that as companies gain more market power, they take an increased
share of economic output, with workers getting less.

But according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, virtually none of labor’s lost share of income
goes to increased profits , as a theory of market power might predict. Rather, the gains are almost
totally from increases in both rental income —imputed rent (the value an owner would get from renting the home they
occupy at market rates) homeowners receive and actual rent renters pay— and to some extent the mismeasurement
of self-
employment income. And when looking at the change in combined worker, rental, and self-employment
income as a share of net national income , versus combined profits and net interest income, the
former ratio is essentially unchanged over the last 90 years. (See figure 4.) In other words, the declining
share of labor income has almost nothing do with monopoly power .

It’s decreasing now.

Elwell ’19 [James, Kevin Corinth, and Richard V. Burkhauser; 2019; Joint Committee on Taxation;
Council of Economic Advisers; Cornell University Department of Policy Analysis & Management; National
Bureau of Economic Research, “Income Growth and its Distribution from Eisenhower to Obama: The
Growing Importance of In-Kind Transfers (1959-2016),” working paper no. 26439]

Gini Coefficient Trends. The single most common scalar measure of income inequality is the Gini Coefficient.
Using our seven measures of income in Table 2 we report Gini values for peak years of all business cycles over the period 1959-2007 as well as
for the most recent year of our data 2016. For all business cycle peak years and for 2016, Gini values are highest (most unequal)
when we use our most restrictive income definitions — labor earnings or market income —and a tax
unit as both our sharing unit and our unit of analysis and fall as we increasingly take into account government taxes
and transfers .

This is reassuring since one of the goals of government tax and transfer policy is to transfer market income
from Americans living in higher income households to Americans living in lower income households , and this
occurred in all years. But what our new data set now shows is how Gini value trends have changed across each of these income measures since
1959. Focusing solely on the market income of tax units or the household size-adjusted market income of
persons, Gini values increase over the period from 1959 to 1979—0.488 to 0.495 and 0.411 to 0.419 respectively. However ,
the reverse is the case when government in-cash transfers are taken into account. Gini values fall

from 0.392 to 0.366 . Gini values decline even more when using our preferred lower and upper bound
measures of disposable income which fell from 0.362 to 0.304 and 0.350 to 0.288 respectively. Since 1979, income inequality has
increased over all business cycles peak to peak years regardless of how we measure income. However, it is also the case that over the entire
period from 1959 to 2007, income inequality has risen less, the fuller the measure of income chosen. As discussed previously, the current
business cycle began in 2007 and is not yet complete since median income continued to grow from its business cycle trough up through 2016,
our last year of data. Over the period 2007 through 2016 income inequality has also grown but it is still the case that this growth is slowest in
our fuller measures of income.

There are no correlations with anything.

Hasanov ’11 [Fuad; 2011; Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and an Adjunct
Professor of Economics at Georgetown University; Journal of Regional Science, “Income Inequality,
Economic Growth, and the Distribution of Income Gains: Evidence from the United States,” vol. 51 no. 3]
In the United States, the last few decades witnessed both an increase in inequality and strong economic
growth . The Gini coefficient , a measure of inequality, had risen by about 12 percent from 1979 to 1999. A similar trend was
observed at the state level.1 The increase in the state Gini coefficients ranged from 7 percent (Nebraska and Iowa) to 19 percent (New York)
and 22 percent (Connecticut). During the same time period, real personal income per capita had grown by an
annual average rate of about 1.5 percent .
In recent years, many governments have been involved in the implementation of policies aimed toward achieving economic growth.2 Yet it will
be hard to justify these policies or convince a majority to support them if the gains from economic growth are not shared by all income groups
or are concentrated mostly among the richest quintile (Q5). In this paper using the U.S. states data, we explore the inequality channel of growth
policy and assess the distribution of income gains among different income groups.3

Our contribution to the inequality-growth literature is twofold. First, unlike the previous literature that uses the
U.S. states data and national CPI deflator (e.g., Frank, 2009; Panizza, 2002; Partridge, 2005, 1997), we use a state cost of
living (COL) index as a deflator for state nominal income (measured as state personal income per capita). The empirical evidence
indicates that prices are different among states (e.g., McMahon and Melton, 1978; Nelson, 1991). This evidence also points out to a large
degree of variability of inflation rates among states. We believe that the use of the national CPI as a deflator for all states can
cause a bias in the estimation of the effect of inequality (measured as the Gini coefficient) on economic
growth since it introduces a bias into the state real growth rates of income.4,5 We find that using the state
COL index rather than the national CPI improves specification tests of our models.

Second, we comprehensively study nonlinearities in an inequality-growth relationship using the U.S. states
data. The previous studies used cross-country data , and various forms of nonlinearities were not systematically
examined. Banerjee and Duflo (2003) presented a theoretical argument based on models of “hold-up” by political groups and of wealth
redistribution that the relationship between a change in inequality and growth was nonlinear. The authors rejected linearity in the cross-
country data and found that any increase or decrease in inequality would lower growth. Barro (2000) found that the impact of
inequality on growth depended on a country’s development level (measured by log real per capita GDP). In poor
countries, higher inequality reduced growth but increased it in rich countries. In our estimations, we test for three forms of nonlinearity, Gini
squared, Gini/income interaction, and a change in Gini terms, and assess which model is more relevant to the data.

We find that the impact of inequality on growth is nonlinear . The data mostly favor a change in Gini model, but there is some
indication that dropping a few outliers may weaken this result. Both models—a combined model with Gini squared and the Gini–income
interaction and a change in Gini model—suggest that at the 2000 average levels of inequality, lower inequality or relatively higher inequality (an
increase of more than 0.1) would reduce growth. Some increase in inequality is beneficial for growth, ac- cording to a change in Gini model.
Both models also suggest that a stable level of inequality would not be detrimental to growth.
Adv---Rural Health
 Food D---2NC

Food insecurity doesn’t escalate

Vestby et al 18--- (Jonas, Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Ida Rudolfsen is
doctoral researcher at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University and PRIO,
Halvard Buhaug is Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO); Professor of Political
Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU); and Associate Editor of the
Journal of Peace Research, May 18th 2018, PRIO, “Does hunger cause conflict?”
https://blogs.prio.org/ClimateAndConflict/2018/05/does-hunger-cause-conflict//veronica

It is perhaps surprising, then, that there

is little scholarly merit in the notion that a short-term reduction in access to food
increases the probability that conflict will break out. This is because to start or participate in violent conflict
requires people to have both the means and the will. Most people on the brink of starvation are not
in the position to resort to violence , whether against the government or other social groups. In fact, the urban middle
classes tend to be the most likely to protest against rises in food prices, since they often have the best opportunities, the most energy, and the
best skills to coordinate and participate in protests. Accordingly, there is a widespread misapprehension that social unrest in periods of high
food prices relates primarily to food shortages. In reality, the
sources of discontent are considerably more complex –
linked to political structures, land ownership, corruption, the desire for democratic reforms and general
economic problems – where the price of food is seen in the context of general increases in the cost of
living. Research has shown that while the international media have a tendency to seek simple resource-related explanations – such as
drought or famine – for conflicts in the Global South, debates in the local media are permeated by more complex political relationships. Even if
hunger is unlikely to be an important cause of violent conflict, changes in food security can affect the course and consequences of conflict.
When marginal areas benefit from a growth in valuable resources, for example through good harvests or aid distribution, this can – somewhat
ironically – attract violent groups who seek to exploit the situation. On the other hand, poor harvests, low incomes, and poor living conditions,
for example due to drought or forced migration, may make a population more vulnerable to radicalization and recruitment by armed actors,
thus contributing to an escalation of violence. While the concept of being hangry is widely used in popular culture, its relevance may be limited
as we seek to understand contemporary unrest events. PHOTO: Screenshot from Oxford English Dictionary In the short term,
humanitarian organizations working in conflict-affected areas face the challenge of reaching those most
in need while avoiding worsening conflicts by providing valuable resources that may be exploited by armed
groups. There are major opportunities here for innovation and improvement. Local and democratic support for
humanitarian operations, measures that strengthen rather than undermine local institutions and markets, and the use of technology
such as biometrics and blockchains to ensure that emergency aid reaches the intended target group , are examples
of how humanitarian organizations can meet the challenges they encounter in conflict-ridden areas. Short-term
humanitarian help is extremely important for reducing human suffering, even though it may not necessarily resolve
conflicts in the short term. In the long er term , targeted and long-lasting measures to improve food
security and alleviate poverty will help create stability and form the basis for economic
development, which in turn will lower the risk of future conflict. As an example of the latter type of measure, the
World Food Programme has implemented projects such as “Food Assistance for Assets” and school meals, which
explicitly seek to boost local institutional capacity and infrastructure, build interpersonal trust, and put
money in the hands of poverty-stricken families. Such projects address problems relating to food security
and create incentives to increase local production without destroying local markets by dumping cheap food
produced elsewhere. Long-term work through these types of programmes can also be a central part of the
solution when conflict-ridden societies attempt to build stability and peace. Poor education, poverty, and high
infant mortality – which are all exacerbated by food shortages – are among the most reliable predictors of civil war. Investing in
measures that improve living standards, improve educational opportunities for children and young people, and promote
the development of democratic institutions, will not only improve local food security in vulnerable societies, but will also
reduce acceptance of violence as a means of resolving conflicts.

No causality – their evidence is faulty.

Post et al. 15 – Riley Post, major in the US Army Special Forces, US Special Operations Command.
Darren Hudson, a professor, Combest Endowed Chair, and the Director of the International Center for
Agricultural Competitiveness at Texas Tech University. Patrick Bell, Economics Professor at the United
States Military Academy. Arie Perliger, Security Studies Professor at the University of Massachusetts-
Lowell. Ryan Williams, Agricultural and Applied Economics Professor at Texas Tech University.
[Rethinking the Water-Food-Climate Nexus and Conflict: An Opportunity Cost Approach, Applied
Economic Perspectives and Policy, 38(4),
https://academic.oup.com/aepp/article/38/4/563/2528241#47363706]//BPS

Complex Adaptive Systems and Institutions Because context matters , a discussion of opportunity costs in conflict indirectly brings us
back to the broader question of the causal link between hunger and conflict. Hunger and conflict do not happen in a

vacuum —they are societal outcomes that must be understood in their broader political,
economic, and social contexts (Tilly 1978). For the past twenty or more years, the majority of the conflicts around the world
have taken place in poor countries—countries that are also chronically food insecure. Hunger and conflict appear to be
symptoms of deeper problems associated with broken institutions and a dysfunctional political
system (Collier et al. 2003; Blattman and Miguel 2010). Does the relationship between food and human insecurity reflect a condition of
amplifying existing failure? For example, the drought in the Tuareg region of Mali created significant hardship, but it was the government's
reported theft of donated food aid that drove many to take up arms (Benjaminsen 2008). The more fragile the society, the more likely food
insecurity is to lead to violence (Bora et al. 2010) because food insecurity and fragile societies ultimately decrease the opportunity cost of
conflict. Strong grievances and few alternatives potentially drove hundreds of thousands of people to the streets in the MENA region in
2011and eventually to take up arms against their governments. Our figure 2 depicts a complex system of multiple sources of changing
conditions, feedback, and compound/countervailing factors. People adapt and evolve as conditions change. But, while systems are complex,
they need not be complicated (Holland 1992). That is, complex systems have a nearly unlimited supply of stimuli, but follow fairly simple
decision rules. In our case, people face an almost infinite set of conditions but condense decisions down into a simple opportunity cost
calculation. It is the almost infinite set of conditions that make the effective prediction of conflict difficult at best, and most likely fruitless.
simple linear causality and prediction can often lead to erroneous policy prescriptions
Further, focusing on

because they fail to recognize the interconnectedness of causal factors . Rather, focusing on research that
creates adaptive systems is likely more productive. Borrowing Taleb’s terminology, the outcome of this opportunity cost calculation reflects
fragile, robust, or anti-fragile states. In an anti-fragile world, the stressors created by actions inside the three pathways lead to new
opportunities where individuals can thrive, thereby leading to a choice of some other, more positive alternative action. But, more likely, the
state is either robust or fragile. In a robust (or resilient) state, for example, government security or social services are just enough to offset the
costs imposed by a reduction in economic well-being or migration resulting in a status quo choice by individuals. But in a fragile state, the
opportunity cost of conflict is less than the perceived marginal benefits because the system cannot adapt and absorb shocks, and conflict
ensues (Taleb 2014). While the existing literature that directly links food prices to conflict, or poverty to conflict, provides
insights on the statistical association, they are less informative about how to alter the potential risk of conflict.
For example, knowledge of the impact of government social services on relative depravation would help inform policy-makers of the
cost/benefit ratio of government services versus the probability of conflict. Thus, understanding the relationships between the nodes, as
opposed to between food security and conflict directly, should be our focus of research. This opportunity cost focus opens up obvious avenues
for research in behavior and/or game theoretic fields. A few obvious examples: Do information cascades (especially through social media)
change the opportunity cost calculations, and, therefore, increase the probability of migration and/or conflict? How do people perceive the
relative risk of conflict versus the outcome of stasis? What is their level of risk/loss aversion in this context? How do risk preferences or
calculations change when under the stress of food shortages, migration, or economic hardship? What are the roles/impacts of information
asymmetries in their opportunity cost calculations? What are their perceptions of the relative power/commitment of the potential combatants
(or more simply, how do they “pick sides” in a potential conflict)? The existing research base can be useful in placing values on choices in a
game theoretic explanation or providing parameters and hypotheses for behavioral research, but clearly many of the questions require a new
empirical vein of research for effective answers. Food Security and Conflict in Practice Turning our attention to the needs of practitioners and
the original question is whether shocks in the WCF nexus lead to conflict? The answer is
policy-makers,

no, per se . That is, climate change, for example, is just one of many potential beginning points in causal
chains that can lead to breakdowns in fragile systems and result in conflict. Climate change is neither necessary nor sufficient.
But is climate change as postulated by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) an impact multiplier? That is, climate change
may exacerbate the existing biological uncertainty of food production and may amplify the effects of failed/fragile governmental institutions in
handling natural disasters and population migration. As such, consideration of climate change (and the WCF nexus, in general) as a stressor or
precursor is relevant. But practitioners and policy-makers would be better served by focusing on the opportunity cost of individuals as the best
course of addressing system fragility and devising policies to avoid conflict.

It's not enough to cause conflict alone.

Notoras 11--- (Mark, former researcher in Peace and Security for the UNU Institute for Sustainability
and Peace (UNU-ISP). He holds a Masters in International Affair, August 31st 2011, United Nations
university, “‘Food Insecurity and the Conflict Trap” https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/food-insecurity-and-
the-conflict-trap //veronica

The ongoingfamine in war-prone Somalia has led to much speculation about the link between violent conflict
and food insecurity. Some commentators have also connected this year’s political revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia to record high food
prices. A recent paper released by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Policy Planning and Strategy Division analyses the link
between food insecurity and conflict, both political (e.g., revolutions, civil unrest) and violent (e.g., civil or interstate war). The report also
identifies ways, which are discussed below, in which national
governments and the international community can
provide food assistance that restores peace and builds social capital. In Food Insecurity and Violent Conflict: Causes,
Consequences and Addressing the Challenges, authors Henk-Jan Brinkman and Cullen S. Hendrix illustrate clearly that food insecurity is a
“threat and multiplier for violent conflict”. Based on their fairly broad review of the research, in which more than 100 sources were referenced,
“[f]ood insecurity, especially when caused by higher food prices, heightens the risk of democratic breakdown, civil conflict, protest, rioting, and
communal conflict.” Food insecurity is not enough Yet, food
insecurity alone is a not a condition
provocation for conflict. Like all cause and effect relationships, the link between the two forces is context-specific
and varies according to a country’s level of development and the strength of its political institutions and
social safety nets. The authors highlight that the more fragile the state in question, the more likely households are to rely upon food
imports (which are relatively more expensive) and thus the more vulnerable they are in times of food price volatility. The assumption
that “fragile states” are more likely to exhibit food insecurity seems intuitive. What is not so obvious is that highly repressive authoritarian
regimes, although they may “create incentives for clandestine action such as insurgency or revolution”, are better placed to suppress political
unrest and the risk that this can evolve into broader conflict. Still, in the long run, as recent events in Libya and other oppressive nations
demonstrate, brutal regimes are destined to fall if they fail to provide “bread and circuses” — something recognised by the Roman poet Juvenal
in 100 A.D as a method to prevent populations from uprising against their leaders. On the question of what role food prices are playing in the
on-going Arab Spring (now Summer) revolutions, Brinkman and Hendrix believe that the “statistical evidence is lacking” that they have been a
decisive factor. There is historical evidence to suggest, however, that higher food prices trigger violent riots (as distinct from civil conflict). This
correlation was evident during 2007/2008 when the then record-high food prices prompted riots across 48 countries, as Figure 1 illustrates.
Other facets that heighten the chance of conflict include demographic factors such as whether a country has a relatively large number of
(unemployment prone) youths. Often coinciding high rates of urbanisation increase the ratio of food consumers to producers. Related to this, a
recent report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) argues that the growth of “megacities” is triggering a breakdown of basic services including
water supplies which are vital for food security. Moreover, high levels of income inequality (especially between different ethno-linguistic or
religious groups, rather than between households) can complete a perfect storm of conflict triggers. A chicken and egg problem Brinkman and
Hendrix point out that the relationship between food insecurity and violent conflict is not one way. High food prices are both exacerbated by
and exacerbate the chance of civil unrest. In other words, food security is a pre-condition for political stability and political stability is a
precondition for food security. The question of what came first is perhaps not as relevant as attempting to understanding how to escape what
Collier and his colleagues refer to as the “conflict trap”. The paper identifies some general policies that even fragile states can take in times of
high food prices, in order to prevent conflict breaking out. These include reducing import tariffs and taxes and increasing subsidies to lower
prices, as well as releasing food reserves to increase supplies. In fact, in the 2007-2008 round of food price spikes, 77 of 84 developing countries
surveyed did implement such policies in order to stabilise prices. The challenge for policy-makers is to ensure that feeding people in the short
term does not exacerbate the food insecurity–conflict link in the long term. Subsidies, for example, seem sensible because they reduce food
prices for all people, including the most vulnerable. Yet, they are also inherently regressive since those who spend a
much smaller percentage of their income on food receive the same financial benefit in absolute terms. If
applied without care, subsidies can increase income inequality and thus augment the potential for
conflict down the track. Cure in the absence of prevention The WFP is in the most challenging business of saving people from starvation.
Thanks to the support of large food donors like the United States, they feed a significant 90 million people annually
across more than 73 countries. Despite their noble efforts in providing food assistance, their role is one of cure and not prevention.
 Defense Dispersal D---2NC
Nuke winter, ag.
Steven Starr 17. Director, University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program; senior scientist,
Physicians for Social Responsibility. 1/9/2017. “Turning a Blind Eye Towards Armageddon — U.S. Leaders
Reject Nuclear Winter Studies.” Federation of American Scientists. https://fas.org/2017/01/turning-a-
blind-eye-towards-armageddon-u-s-leaders-reject-nuclear-winter-studies/
Now 10 years ago, several of the world’s leading climatologists and physicists chose to reinvestigate the long-term environmental impacts of
nuclear war. The peer-reviewed studies they produced are considered to be the most authoritative type
of scientific research, which is subjected to criticism by the international scientific community before
final publication in scholarly journals. No serious errors were found in these studies and their findings
remain unchallenged .
Alan Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic
consequences,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 112 (2007).

Owen Brian Toon et al., “Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual
nuclear terrorism,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 7 (2007).

Michael Mills et al., “Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict,” Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences of the United States of America 105, no. 14 (2008).

Michael Mills et al., “Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict,” Earth’s Future
2.

Alan Robock et al., “Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 7 (2007).

Working at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Department of Environmental Sciences
at Rutgers, and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA, these scientists used state-of-the-art
computer modeling to evaluate the consequences of a range of possible nuclear conflicts. They began with
a hypothetical war in Southeast Asia, in which a total of 100 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs were detonated in the cities of India and Pakistan.
Please consider the following images of Hiroshima, before and after the detonation of the atomic bomb, which had an explosive power of
15,000 tons of TNT.

The detonation of an atomic bomb with this explosive power will instantly ignite fires over a surface area of three to five square miles.
In the recent studies, the scientists calculated that the blast, fire, and radiation from a war fought with 100 atomic bombs could
a “counterforce”
produce direct fatalities comparable to all of those worldwide in World War II, or to those once estimated for
nuclear war between the superpowers. However, the long-term environmental effects of the war could significantly disrupt the
global weather for at least a decade, which would likely result in a vast global famine.

The scientists predicted that nuclear firestorms in the burning cities would cause at least five million
tons of black carbon smoke to quickly rise above cloud level into the stratosphere, where it could not be
rained out. The smoke would circle the Earth in less than two weeks and would form a global
stratospheric smoke layer that would remain for more than a decade. The smoke would absorb warming sunlight,
which would heat the smoke to temperatures near the boiling point of water, producing ozone losses of 20 to 50 percent
over populated areas. This would almost double the amount of UV-B reaching the most populated regions of the mid-latitudes, and it
would create UV-B indices unprecedented in human history. In North America and Central Europe, the time required to get a painful sunburn at
mid-day in June could decrease to as little as six minutes for fair-skinned individuals.

As the smoke layer blocked warming sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface, it
would produce the coldest average surface
temperatures in the last 1,000 years. The scientists calculated that global food production would decrease by 20
to 40 percent during a five-year period following such a war. Medical experts have predicted that the shortening of
growing seasons and corresponding decreases in agricultural production could cause up to two billion
people to perish from famine.

The climatologists also investigated the effects of a nuclear war fought with the vastly more powerful modern
thermonuclear weapons possessed by the United States, Russia, China, France, and England. Some of the
thermonuclear weapons constructed during the 1950s and 1960s were 1,000 times more powerful than an atomic bomb.

During the last 30 years, the average size of thermonuclear or “strategic” nuclear weapons has decreased. Yet today, each
of the
approximately 3,540 strategic weapons deployed by the United States and Russia is seven to 80 times more
powerful than the atomic bombs modeled in the India-Pakistan study. The smallest strategic nuclear weapon has an
explosive power of 100,000 tons of TNT, compared to an atomic bomb with an average explosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT.

Strategic nuclear weapons produce much larger nuclear firestorms than do atomic bombs. For example,
a standard Russian 800-kiloton warhead, on an average day, will ignite fires covering a surface area of 90 to
152 square miles.

A war fought with hundreds or thousands of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons would ignite
immense nuclear firestorms covering land surface areas of many thousands or tens of thousands of
square miles. The scientists calculated that these fires would produce up to 180 million tons of black carbon soot
and smoke, which would form a dense, global stratospheric smoke layer. The smoke would remain in the
stratosphere for 10 to 20 years , and it would block as much as 70 percent of sunlight from reaching the surface of
the Northern Hemisphere and 35 percent from the Southern Hemisphere. So much sunlight would be blocked by the smoke
that the noonday sun would resemble a full moon at midnight.

Under such conditions, it would only require a matter of days or weeks for daily minimum
temperatures to fall below freezing in the largest agricultural areas of the Northern Hemisphere, where
freezing temperatures would occur every day for a period of between one to more than two years. Average surface temperatures
would become colder than those experienced 18,000 years ago at the height of the last Ice Age, and the
prolonged cold would cause average rainfall to decrease by up to 90%. Growing seasons would be
completely eliminated for more than a decade; it would be too cold and dark to grow food crops,
which would doom the majority of the human population .2
1NR
Adv---Rural Health
 Cities D---2NC
Smart cities are inevitable – population growth makes it impossible to avoid
Butler ’21 [Georgia, 10-18-2021, "Why smart cities are both incredible and inevitable ," Data Center
Dynamics, https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/marketwatch/why-smart-cities-are-both-
incredible-and-inevitable/, St. Mark’s, AM]

When we look into the future, we have a terrible habit of underestimat ing it. We look at the last 10 years, how far
technology has come in that time, and expect this development to be mirrored in the decade coming.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, progress follows the law of accelerating returns and the last 10
years saw significantly more growth than the decade before.

Explained as simply as possible, the ‘law of accelerating returns’ is based on the principle that as
we develop more technology,
further growth becomes easier to conceive. We learn from experience, and faster due to the resources
available to us.

When we think about this velocity, smart cities seem just around the corner , and as a concept are heavily
reliant upon data centers for their success.

“The world population presently stands at approximately 7.7 billion people, with nearly four billion or 54 percent living in
cities today. By 2050, it's projected that more than two-thirds of the world population will live in urban areas, with seven billion of the
expected 9.7 billion people occupying cities globally.”

Marc Cram, the director of new market development for Server Technology, a brand from Legrand, sees these population densities as
directly related to the development of smart cities. This is, in part, due to necessity . As the population
expands, we need to find a way to manage it effectively in the highly dense areas. Resources will be
stretched and become reliant on efficiency.
DA---Politics
 U---AT: Thumpers---2NC
It’s on the brink, Republicans are leaning toward an agreement, but maintaining
bipartisanship is key.
Bade ‘9/1 [Rachel; September 1; Journalist; Matt Berg; “Schumer moves to split House and Senate
Republicans ahead of potential shutdown,” POLITICO,
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/01/government-shutdown-2023-schumer-00113714]

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’d blame House Republicans for any government shutdown
if they fail to pass spending legislation by the end of the month.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent Friday morning, Schumer sought to drive a wedge between House and Senate Republicans — offering praise
for both Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and ranking Republican Susan Collins (R-Maine), a lawmaker with whom Schumer
is often at loggerheads.

“We cannot afford the brinkmanship or hostage-taking we saw from House Republicans earlier this year when they
pushed our country to the brink of default to appease the most extreme members of their party,” Schumer wrote.

The chamber passed all 12 appropriations bills out of committee on a bipartisan basis, he boasts. That drew an implicit
contrast to the House, where Speaker Kevin McCarthy has broken faith on his spending caps deal with President Joe Biden, and is instead
pushing partisan proposals that don’t have a prayer of becoming law.

“The only way to avoid a shutdown is through bipartisanship , so I have urged House Republican leadership to
follow the Senate’s lead and pass bipartisan appropriations bills,” the majority leader continued.

Schumer’s letter comes just a day after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell underscored the need for bipartisanship to keep the
government open in a Kentucky speech that was quickly overshadowed by the Republican’s health scare.

“The speaker and the president reached an agreement, which I supported, in connection with raising the debt ceiling, to set
the spending levels for next year,” McConnell said. “The House then turned around and passed spending levels that were below that level. …
[T]hat’s not going to be replicated in the Senate.”

It’ll narrowly pass now despite tension.

Boak ‘8/31 [Josh; 2023; Reporter; “White House asks Congress to pass short-term funding bill to keep
government operating,” AP News, https://apnews.com/article/budget-congress-government-shutdown-
white-house-b6e4fd0d9409d59e4afe08551a24a379]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Thursday that Congress should pass a short-term funding
measure to ensure the government keeps operating after the current budget year ends Sept. 30.

An official with the Office of Management and Budget said lawmakers would very likely need to pass a temporary spending
measure in September to prevent a potential partial shutdown. The official was not authorized to discuss the administration’s plans
and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Without such congressional approval, parts of the federal government could shut down when the new
budget year begins Oct. 1. That would jeopardize federal programs on which millions of U.S. households and businesses
rely. The shutdown is a risk because of disagreements on the annual spending bills to be passed by the Republican-led House and

and Democratic-majority Senate. Neither side wants a shutdown despite their differences .
House Republicans are insisting on sharp cuts to many programs, reopening a tense debate about government finances from
earlier this year when the White House and Congress reached a compromise in June to extend the government’s legal borrowing authority
through January 2025.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre outlined the administration’s two-front push on government funding at Thursday’s briefing. On
August 10, the administration sent Congress a request for supplemental funding that would include money for disaster relief, aid to
Ukraine and programs to address fentanyl addiction. The supplemental is separate from Thursday’s request for a short-term funding plan to
keep the government open.

funding , the White House Office of Management and Budget is seeking additional
As part of the request for short-term

adjustments to avoid possible disruptions to food aid for women, infants and children. Without the adjustments, states
could put recipients on wait lists and cause them to go hungry, Jean-Pierre said.

“This is something that Congress can do — they can prevent a government shutdown,” Jean-Pierre said. “They need to
prevent a government shutdown.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News on Sunday that he “would actually like” to have a short-term funding
measure because a shutdown “hurts the American public.” He suggested an extension would allow the House to pass its own
spending plans and improve its leverage in talks with the Senate.

The Washington Post first reported on Thursday that the White House said Congress should pass a short-term funding
measure.
 Link---2NC
Republicans are united in cutting Social Security.
Lawson 4/26 Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works, April 26th, 2023, “217
Republicans Just Voted to Cut Social Security”, Social Security Works,
https://socialsecurityworks.org/2023/04/26/217-republicans-cut-social-security/, liam.

“Nearly every Republican in the U.S. House just voted to slash the already inadequate funding of the
Social Security Administration (SSA). If this bill becomes law, it will force SSA to close field offices, reduce
hours, and lay off thousands of workers. This will make it far harder for Americans to claim the benefits they’ve earned.

Cuts to SSA are cuts to Social Security, and we will hold every single one of these members accountable.

This vote shows that Republicans are united in support of cutting Social Security , while Democrats are united in
support of a clean debt limit increase with no cuts to Social Security or any other benefits.”

Republicans will backlash against the plan – they’re willing to do anything

Alex Lawson and Nathan J. Robinson 2-23 {Current Affairs editor-in-chief (Robinson) interviews the
Executive Director of Social Security Works and the convening member of the Strengthen Social Security
Coalition (Lawson)} - ("Why The Right Hates Social Security (And How They Plan to Destroy It),” Current
Affairs," published 2-23-2023, accessed 6-24-2023, https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/02/why-the-
right-hates-social-security-and-how-they-plan-to-destroy-it)//marlborough-wr/
ROBINSON

People do not talk enough about Social Security. Republicans want to kill Social Security but don’t like to talk about Social
Security, partly because they know the conversation is a losing one for them. But that does not change the
fact that every minute of every day, slowly, behind the scenes, they are working to destroy the program.
You, Alex Lawson, are trying to prevent that from happening. I want to start by going back in time to think about the achievement that Social Security represents. Could tell us about the fight to get it? We didn’t always live in an era where we had this important benefit.

LAWSON

That’s a great question and a great part of the story. We do have to actually look further back, before Social Security was created. Everyone more or less knows the story that Social Security was created in the Great Depression. At that time, the country was facing catastrophe. One in two seniors were living in poverty—50 percent. Poor houses are in every state in the country (except for one, New Mexico—I don’t know why). Poor houses are a concept that we don’t even have in our minds anymore. They were debtors’ prisons; it’s where you went if you ran out of money and didn’t have family to support you, and importantly, the doors were locked at night—this was not a place that you could leave. And, in fact, the poor house was the bogeyman that people used to push their children: “You better study in school—”

ROBINSON

“—or you will end up in a warehouse where we put poor people!”

LAWSON

Exactly. And importantly, there is a great one that I love, which is on the original Monopoly board, across from the jail on the other corner, was the poor house. So you could either go to jail, or end up in the poor house.

Now, you get Social Security, and the poor house is eliminated as a concept. It doesn’t exist anymore because Social Security is there to protect people in the retirement if they run out of wages—because in a capitalist society based on wages, if you don’t have wages, you have to figure out something to do. That something used to be the poor house, and then it was Social Security.

There’s more, but I will just say what I love is: Do you know what that space on the Monopoly board is now? It’s free parking! From the poor house to free parking.

ROBINSON

We’ve marked human progress through the progress of the Monopoly board.

LAWSON

But you do have to ask where those ideas come from. Obviously, it was during the crisis of the Great Depression that Frances Perkins and the New Dealers, working with FDR, saw the opportunity to implement these things. But these ideas come from before. You can read Eugene Debs and see a lot of these ideas that are in the New Deal were rejected previously, as he loses [his bid for presidency]. John Nichols has a great bit where he says, “What is losing when your ideas are winning?”

There was the capitalist billionaire class running the country, and periodic upheavals where every ten years the whole system blows up and everyone gets poor except for the billionaires. A countermovement said if we all work together, we can actually lessen the risk to all of us, and those ideas become Social Security. In the Social Security Act, there was also supposed to be national health care, because everyone saw that you can’t actually have security if you can go bankrupt by getting sick or injured. So, the original intent of Social Security was a big and expanding system of economic security for everyone in this country, and that is an important thing to remember when we’re talking about Social Security. It’s not just the system that eliminates or reduces your poverty to the same levels as the general population—which is too high, but it’s still not one in two. Also, Social Security didn’t do it alone for seniors, because we don’t really see the reduction to average numbers until we also get Medicare some decades later. It really is true that you can’t have economic security without that health component.

ROBINSON

Social Security is an achievement that was the culmination of a decades-long struggle. At the turn of the century, the situation is really desperate for people who can’t earn a living through labor; for the old and sick, there’s nothing there for them, and so there’s a fight. And it is also the case that, going back to those times, the right has always despised the idea of having the government care for people who cannot earn a living through their labor (or who deserve to not have to labor because they worked for many decades). Can you talk about the early history of the right’s attempt to thwart these social insurance ideas?

LAWSON

Absolutely. It is important to always remember, and I think your audience understands, that it’s a dynamic system. The fight didn’t happen when we won it. It required decades of fighting, and the reactionary forces hated everything about the ideas that Frances Perkins and the other New Dealers were pushing. They hated them, because in their hearts, they knew that it worked to do this, but they don’t want it. These are the plutocrats and the robber barons, the ones who are having the parties where they have jewelry in sand and dig out diamonds during the dinner party.

The only way that works is if you have a mass of people to exploit. And so they don’t want people to have economic security. The rich were winning, and then the Great Depression happens. The whole idea of capitalism was, for the first time really, held up as not going to work. [Fascism and communism were growing in Europe.] The idea of the New Deal was actually aimed at creating a form of capitalism that could work—a democratic socialism or something of that nature—but a very uniquely American idea on that as well. That’s where the New Deal comes in, as a saving force that people have been demanding.

It was a compromise. There was a much larger push for a much greater redistributive policy that was incredibly popular at the time called the Townsend Plan being pushed by grassroots groups. But importantly, the Republican, plutocrat, and reactionary forces hated it all the way through, and fought it tooth and nail into passage. Then, the first presidential candidate after it passed, Alf Landon, ran his entire campaign against Social Security. That was his whole platform. He’s most famous, for people who remember his name, as the dude who lost nearly every single state.

They have always been against these programs and systems that work, and has always been a deeply unpopular position to be in, but they’ve gotten sneakier at hiding.

ROBINSON

Social Security became so popular, so quickly, after it was put into place and people could see the benefits. By the 1950s, Eisenhower was saying that anyone who ran against Social Security would never win an election in the United States. But that doesn’t mean that the fight to end or gut Social Security ended. Just because it is extremely popular, does not mean that the fight to end it has stopped. You testified to the Senate Budget Committee, and in your testimony, you cited extraordinary quotes from conservatives in the Reagan era, laying out what they call a “Leninist plan to end Social Security”—the revolutionaries working behind the scenes.

LAWSON

Yes, and that is where it moved to. This throws people off. In my testimony, I said as well, that Reagan actually was one of the last of the Republicans who wasn’t totally hell-bent on destroying Social Security. He actually was, but he got grilled for it so hard that he gave us some of our best quotes when he says, “Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. It’s fully funded by the payroll tax.” It’s a great clip that I use to great effect still, because it’s Reagan.

But the truth is, it was big money that figured out how to take over or break our political system at the time. His win was a really shocking thing, but the money people and bag men behind him at the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation were plotting: “Now we’ve got our guy in there, how are we going to destroy Social Security?” They didn’t actually get it done. They thought they were going to do it in 1983 when some legislative action had to happen, and they thought Reagan was going to be able to destroy it. But they run into the buzz saw of public opinion and end up not.

But he does put in a grand bargain. There were benefit cuts in that package, with our retirement age raised to 67. Many people still think it’s 65, but Reagan raised it two years, which is just a 7 percent benefit cut for each year that’s raised. It’s just a mathematical calculation—you don’t actually have to retire on your retirement age, it’s just when you get your full benefits.

So, it had a big benefit cut in it, and some tax side stuff and many other things as well. But it’s right after that they really hit the gas on this Leninist strategy of knowingly lying about what they’re trying to do in order to pit different parts of the population against each other. Pitting the old against the young by telling the old they’re definitely not going to cut benefits and not to worry, and instead, they’re only going to cut the young people’s benefits; and telling the young Social Security is going to run out of money, they’re never going to get anything, and so they need to cut old people’s benefits—really stoking that intergenerational warfare with a divide and conquer strategy. But the main purpose of that Leninist strategy document is to say: lie to the people about what it is that we’re trying to do, because we have to destroy and gut Social Security, and the only way to do it is to lie. That has been their mantra and MO up to now.

ROBINSON
It’s understandable why they feel hell-bent on destroying Social Security . As you point out, it’s not just to
make exploitation easier—that’s part of it. But also, the success of Social Security disproves so many
conservative talking points . It’s the government providing welfare or universal benefits to people,
and it works. It makes people’s lives better and reduces poverty. One of the core conservative talking
points is nothing government does can be done right. Everything it does to try and fix a social problem
will inevitably backfire and cause disaster, misery, and bureaucracy. Social Security really
undermines their case.
LAWSON

It totally undermines their case. The other one is efficiency. Social Security is the most efficient thing you can imagine. It does everything it’s meant to. It provides benefits for people who retire in old age; for people who face a life changing illness or accident, become disabled, and can no longer work; and for their surviving children in the loss of a breadwinner, oftentimes in a disaster or mass casualty event, like 9/11 or something like that. The first touch grieving families have from the federal government is a Social Security survivor’s benefit to minor children and military families. The list goes on and on about how massive this system is. For example, because of the survivors benefits, by magnitude of dollars, Social Security is the largest children’s program in the United States.

It’s a universal program of huge magnitude— there’s nothing really else like it, and it does all of that for less than 1 percent in administrative costs. Less than one penny of every dollar that you pay into the system is used to pay for the whole thing. And look at Wall Street—that’s why they hate it. They like people scrambling and not being able to have enough time and comfort to think about, “Why do these guys have all the money?” That’s true, but they’re also just straight up greedy. They look at it and think, “We should be the only ones who offer products like that, and tack on a 35 percent fee.”

ROBINSON

It’s a pool of wealth that could be siphoned.

LAWSON

That’s it. They hate that they can’t get their greedy little hands on it. It really does disprove, backwards and forwards, the entire small “c” conservative, reactionary mindset. Yes, just like what the private health insurance industry operates on, “How can we get sick people to give us a portion of their wealth?”—which they successfully do. And that’s why they hate Medicare For All so much. They’re terrified of the people finding out about anything that guarantees healthcare, does a better job, works more efficiently than private insurance. They really don’t want people to find out that the VA [Veterans Affairs], which is fully socialized healthcare—different from Medicare For All, which is just one single payer—is consistently ranked higher than private insurance in terms of outcomes, quality, and what people feel about it.

So again, they really hate things that work. They have to lie and create this whole story that the private sector does everything better. “You want to wait to get a doctor’s appointment?” Have you tried to get a doctor’s appointment? You wait, right now! “You want to bring in bureaucracy?” Have you literally ever called a corporation? It’s the most nauseating bureaucracy you’ll ever deal with, and then they hang up on you. So that’s the system that they want.

I will end on this: those systems do work well, for the wealthy. That’s the key, they are never going to face the pain on those private systems. American health care actually works really well if you’re super rich. It’s a really well functioning rich person system. But for everyone else, it’s a disaster, a wealth extraction system, and not a healthcare system.

ROBINSON

We have to go into more depth about some of these lies and myths that have been pushed. It’s really important to help train people to see through this stuff, because as you’ve indicated, there is a strategy to talk publicly in positive terms about Social Security, with George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and the like, saying Social Security is very important. “We, Republicans, respect Social Security,” and then sneakily propose things that are designed to sound like they’re not commitments to undermine or destroy Social Security, but are.

Could you show us some of the ways in which Republican rhetoric about how they’re not going to touch Social Security conceals the true agenda?

LAWSON

We have a videographer and tracker on the Hill who’s asking Republicans, “What are you talking about when you say Social Security? What are you accomplishing with Social Security by holding the debt ceiling hostage?” And Republican Rick Allen, says, “People call me and say they want to work longer. So, I want to raise the retirement age to 75.” This dude is worth $52 million, and he’s fine with everyone else working until they die.

And I alluded to this before—Matt Breunig actually has a great piece on the math of this—but retirement age has nothing to do with the age at which you retire. It’s really annoying, it instead should be called “full benefits age” or something like that. But it’s a mathematical formula age is actually used to calculate, because you can retire “early or later.” If you retire before your full benefit age, your benefit is reduced 7 percent for every year that you retire early, and you can actually retire months early. It’s not done by the year, but by each month, and you can increase your benefit by retiring later. And in the exact same way that happens, the same magnitude 7 percent per year, any increase in the full benefit age, or the so-called retirement age, is just a 7 percent across the board benefit cut to Social Security. Moving it up to age 75, or from 67 to 70 (which you also hear a lot), is a 21 percent benefit cut. No one supports that. If you force Lindsey Graham, who pushes the 70-year-old [full benefit] often—I tried to do it when I was testifying on budget—you’ll see him dance around. If you ask anyone in this country who doesn’t work for Wall
Street if they support a 21 percent benefit cut to Social Security, they will reject you.

I go around this country and talk to many different types of people—it does not matter if it’s camo NRA hats in the audience or a bunch of electric vehicles in the parking lot—everyone loves Social Security. That’s why Republicans lie about it. And they say everyone’s working longer—that one is rejected, because even if people don’t understand the benefit cut side or the mathematical part, they don’t want to work longer. No, people do not want to work longer!

There are ones that are even more wonky and annoying. They go after the COLA [Cost-of-Living Adjustment], which is the automatic payment increase that happens to make sure that your benefits keep pace with inflation. For the last decade, it really hasn’t seemed that important, but now, people understand the beauty of this part of the benefit. It’s not a gift, it’s part of the benefit: an inflation protected social insurance annuity. It does not erode over time. So, they say, “Let’s use a different formula to calculate that. It’s more accurate.” All of it is BS. You can always call out by asking them if it “saves money.” And if it does “save money,” that means benefits are cut.

ROBINSON

Because the money only goes to one place.

LAWSON

Exactly. All of their proposals are savers in D.C. parlance, and that means they’re all benefit cuts.

ROBINSON

So when you hear the phrase “save money,” respond: “Save money on what? On paying old people?”

LAWSON

You’re saving my money directly into your pocket. There’s one, the PPI [progressive price index], that they love, because it has the word “progressive” in it, so then it really confuses people. I feel like they’re going to trot that one out this time around. But, we are dealing with a faction of Republicans in the House that are less sophisticated than the Tea Party, it seems to me. The Tea Party were the ones who pushed the chain CPI—the COLA adjustment. I’m not sure that Kevin McCarthy’s proposals aren’t going to be full-bore, “let’s decimate the program.”

The last one I’ll say is their favorite: “We don’t even know what we want.” That’s the tell right there. They know what they want, but they’re just scared of saying it. They say, “Let’s create a commission and give it the force of law through an up or down vote.” So, whatever the commission comes up with, then is guaranteed a vote. That’s Mitt Romney’s push, and the most dangerous one in my eyes.

ROBINSON

I think it’s also worth mentioning that there are some Democrats who cannot be trusted to fight for Social Security in
the way that we need, because this whole “let’s put together a commission” thing depends on having some people who are on the center of it, in the other party, to willing to rubber stamp

this. Bernie Sanders had to take on Barack Obama about this, I seem to remember.
LAWSON

Yes, I was there. It was a lonely fight at the time. I will say it’s totally different now. We’ve got way more allies. We didn’t have our own ability to tell our story about what’s actually going on, with the corporate media totally part and parcel of this assault on Social Security. And so we are in a different place.

A commission will rely on Democrats doing the wrong thing. I don’t accept any commission, but I will say that the Blue Ribbon Commission is actually less dangerous—my understanding is that is it does not have the force of law. So there’s a commission that puts together and releases a report, and then you could do nothing with it. But what they’ve always done are fast track commissions: written into the legislation that sets up the commission, it says, “Whatever findings the commission comes to, if it can pass out of the commission, it’s guaranteed an up or down vote.” Those are the ones that are super dangerous, because that’s taking it right into the smoky back room and negotiated without any of us, not in regular order or committee. Whatever comes out, they get a vote on it—super dangerous. It’s also like catnip to politicians: Democrats, including the media, rewards pablum about bipartisanship. The media would say, “This bipartisan plan to punch everyone in the face is so brave. It’s so brave for both parties to be doing the wrong thing.”

ROBINSON

Right. “This is Washington functioning at last! This is what we want.”

LAWSON

“At last, everyone will get punched in the face because Washington gotten its act together!” If a house is on fire, and one side is saying to use water to put it out, and the other side is saying use jet fuel, the right answer is not “half water, half jet fuel.” The media has such an annoying tendency—it’s written into their corporate identities. “This is big money.” But that’s the story they love telling, like somehow taking half bad and half good is better than just good. Ideas and policies have to be rated on whether they work for the people or not, not on some sort of weird, bipartisan fetish that exists in this town.

If a house is on fire, and one side is saying to use water to put it out, and the other side is saying use jet fuel, the right answer is not “half water, half jet fuel.”

ROBINSON

You mentioned the idea of negotiating through a commission in private, away from the public eye—I recall this bit of your testimony where you say Joni Ernst would have done George Orwell proud because she said we were going to have “an open and honest conversation” about Social Security, while advocating a closed-door commission that then produces binding recommendations that will inevitably reduce people’s benefits.

LAWSON

And that’s part of that Leninist strategy: just lie to the people about what you’re trying to accomplish. This is why truth tellers like you and your show are so important, to remind people that
the story is not about the “how,” because they’ll always come up with the how. It’s not even about the Democrats, who might do the wrong thing. The most important fact is that the

Republicans have one thing they do, and they wait decades for the opportunity to do it: destroy Social
Security. It’s like they carve it into their heart .

the last time the held the debt ceiling hostage the US sovereign
Think about what they’re doing. I know you know this, but just to state it:

debt was downgraded by S&P, not because of the inability for the United States to pay its bills, but
because of the political fact that a minority party can force the hand of the government and not
pay the bills . They use that threat not to make people’s lives better or do any of the things that they
run on—even the terrible things that they run on, like building a border wall or any of their other dumb ideas.

It’s important to remember that in the constellation of their dumb ideas, getting rid of Social Security is their North Star . It’s what they
always return to. And we have to remember that the villain here is the Republican ideology that says this system works and does not benefit our billionaire benefactors, and
therefore, we must destroy it. As soon as that is understood, then it’s easy. Any of their ideas are either a better or worse version of destroying the system. You don’t have to give it the benefit
of the doubt. You don’t have to take a knee and ask, “Tell me, Republican, what’s your idea to destroy the system?” You only have to defeat it. And the way we defeat it is by letting people
know what’s going on. The Republicans are coming to destroy our Social Security, and we have to defeat them.

ROBINSON

Right, and there are many ways they’re going to sneakily try and push things that seem unrelated to destroying
Social Security, but are actually about destroying it. For example, I think you cited this idea, “ We want all federal laws
to expire unless they’re reauthorized ,” or something like that. Which is another way that they can hopefully
find a way to make sure that Social Security is held hostage , and they have the power to cut it as much
as they like.
LAWSON

Because they leave out in that when they say, “We want to do it.” Ron Johnson, who is the dumbest person in Congress—and I know full well George Santos is a member and everything, an

every
achievement of some sort—wants to redo it. He said they want to bring up all the programs every year, and then Rick Scott said every five years. Both of them left off the fact that

five years or every year, they would be on the side saying, “Don’t fund it.” They leave out that really
important fact that they want it to be debated and voted on every year , and every time it’s voted
on, the Republicans would vote to end it or cut it. The Republicans would do what they’ve been doing for 40 years, which is lying to the face of the
American people as they surreptitiously move their plans to destroy Social Security.

ROBINSON

The Republicans are pretty unified on this. The Democrats are, as you said, getting a little better than they were
It’s pretty much all of them, too.

during the Obama years, but Republicans are all on board to destroy all federal benefits.

LAWSON

It’s true. And I always do wonder, do they get a manila envelope delivered to them? There are a lot of backbencher Republicans whose names no one knows, they all look the same—the
hardest part of tracking them on the Hill is actually knowing who they are. You can probably name ten of them in the House, or something like that, but there’s a lot more than that. They are
all like a machine, and actually very good at it. How did they put such discipline in this? What kind of manila envelope is delivered on day one? “Here’s what you must do: hurt people.”

This is absolutely true: outside of Washington, D.C., the bipartisan consensus on Social Security is massively in favor of expanding benefits and against cutting them. More people in this
country, according to public polling, believe in the Loch Ness Monster than want to cut Social Security benefits, by a significant amount. It’s hard to get across how deeply people in America

you look in on D.C., and there’s a story being told that there’s a
feel about Social Security, and that they love it. And then

bipartisan consensus on the grand bargain or something.

 Link---AT: Turn---2NC
Endless conflict over Social Security expansion means the plan causes delay and
conflict within Congress
Chappel 23—Associate Professor of History at Duke University (James. “The Frozen Politics of Social Security”.
Boston Review, 13 Feb 2023, https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-frozen-politics-of-social-security/,
accessed 23 Jun 2023)//zd

Social Security is back in the news. Some Republicans are angling to reduce benefits, while Democrats are posing as the valiant
saviors of the popular program. The end result, most likely, is that nothing will happen. We have seen this story before,
because this is roughly where the politics of Social Security have been stuck for about forty years. It’s a problem
because the system truly does need repair, and the endless conflict between debt-obsessed Republicans and stalwart
Democrats will not generate the progressive reforms we need.
More than any other single institution, Social Security keeps the United States from becoming a truly Dickensian world of poverty and despair.
Social Security, believe it or not, has a utopian heart: the idea that all Americans deserve a life of dignity and public support once they become
old or disabled. This vision does, for now, remain utopian: many Americans are right to worry that, without savings or private
pensions, their older years will be just as precarious and austere as their younger ones. Social Security is nonetheless the lynchpin of the U.S.
welfare system, such as it is. In 2022 some $1.2 trillion flowed from the system to nearly 66 million people. Most of those people are retired
workers, but not all of them. Millions are the spouses or dependents of retired workers; millions more are disabled people, or the spouses or
dependents of the disabled. All in all, about one in four Americans over the age of eighteen receives benefits from Social Security. If not for
Social Security, almost 40 percent of older Americans would be living in poverty.
It is not going too far to say that the Social Security system, more than any other single institution, keeps the United States from becoming a
truly Dickensian world of poverty and despair. Yet it has serious downsides, too. For one thing, benefits are low; even after much-needed cost-
of-living increases, the average recipient will receive just over $21,000 per year. And for another, the Social Security trust fund will run dry in
about twelve years, prompting an immediate benefit drop of about 20 percent (there is no realistic scenario in which benefits disappear
altogether). For a middle-class family, that difference might not matter all that much, but for an elderly and disabled widow, already near the
poverty line, it would be devastating.
You probably already know most of this. Indeed,
it’s become conventional wisdom that the Social Security system is
in trouble and shouldn’t be counted on. How many times have you heard people scoff about their Social Security taxes or warn a
younger coworker their benefits will never materialize? This shrugging nihilism might make sense for the wealthier among us, many of whom
are indulging in the distinctly American ritual of creating an entrepreneurial plan for our looming disability and death. But the majority of
Americans don’t have 401(k)s, and many millions, especially the poor and people of color, will rely on Social Security as their main source of
retirement income.
Despite this dire situation, there has not been a congressional vote, even in committee, on major
reforms to Social Security since 1983. This has not been for lack of trying, at least among Democrats. In both the House and the
Senate, there are serious bills, with significant support, to salvage the program. The most well-developed, known as Social Security 2100, has
more than 200 cosponsors in the House. It’s an audacious bill, planning to expand Social Security benefits for the first time since the 1970s,
focusing especially on the caregiving workforce. And in the Senate, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have put forth an even more
ambitious plan, which would raise taxes and benefits while expanding the program’s solvency for decades.
Still, the odds of anything happening with these bills are low, at least for now. In addition to the expected
Republican intransigence, Democrats themselves are not united. The relevant division is between a politics of
incrementalism and a politics of bold reform and expansion. Social Security 2100 is on the less ambitious end of the spectrum, especially as it
has recently been rewritten to keep Biden’s promise of not raising taxes on people making less than $400,000 per year. As such, the bill does
little to address the solvency issue. The Social Security Expansion Act in the Senate is bolder and does more to address both equity and solvency
—but few Democratic senators have cosponsored the bill, leaving it oceans away from the required votes.

Floor time – the plan knocks negotiations off the docket.

Heitshusen ’13 (Valerie; 3/18/13; Congressional analyst; Senate.gov, “The Legislative Process on the Senate Floor: An Introduction,”
http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%26*2D4Q%5CK3%0A)

The legislative process is laborious and time-consuming , and the time available for Senate floor
action each year is limited . Every day devoted to one bill is a day denied for consideration of other
legislation, and there are not enough days to act on all the bills that Senators and Senate committees wish to see
time pressures become even greater with the approach of deadlines such as the date
enacted. Naturally, the

for adjournment and the end of the fiscal year. So, for all but the most important bills, even the threat of a filibuster can be
a potent weapon. Before a bill reaches the floor or while it is being debated, its supporters often seek ways to
accommodate the concerns of opponents, preferring an amended bill that can be passed without
protracted debate to the time, effort, and risks involved in confronting a filibuster or the threat of one.
 Impact---AT: Defense---2NC
US-China cyberconflict escalates rapidly
Segal and Lan 16 (Adam Segal, PhD in Government from Cornell University, is the Ira A. Lipman Chair
in Emerging Technologies and National Security and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy
Program at the Council of Foreign Relations. Tang Lan is Deputy Director at Institute of Information and
Social Development, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR). “Can the United
States and China De-Conflict in Cyberspace?”. April 27, 2016. https://warontherocks.com/2016/04/can-
the-united-states-and-china-de-conflict-in-cyberspace/) swap

In spite of significant differences in views, Beijing and Washington appear committed to not letting cyber issues derail the U.S.-China
relationship or interfere with cooperation on other high-profile issues. Among the wide range of issues raised at their recent meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear
Security Summit, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping reiterated their commitment to last September’s breakthrough
cybersecurity agreement . The agreement included important cybersecurity measures, including a pledge to refrain from
stealing intellectual property or trade secrets to give domestic companies a competitive advantage. Both sides also agreed to
identify and endorse norms of behavior in cyberspace and to establish two high-level working groups and a hotline for crisis
response. The success and ultimate implications of which have yet to be determined and the two sides work cautiously

to build greater collaboration in cyberspace. While these are solid first steps , the two sides have very distinct views

about cyberspace. The United States has interest in the flow of information across borders, calling for countries to respect intellectual
property rights and the privacy of individuals. On the diplomatic front, Washington aims to ensure freedom of expression and the free
flow of data across national borders. The United States has also argued that international law, including the l aws o f a rmed c onflict, applies to

state behavior in cyberspace For Beijing, it is critical to balance security, domestic stability, and development. China wants to prevent various illegal online
actions that it views as harming the rapid growth of the digital ecomony, public security, and social stability. American calls for Internet freedom and cyber
deterrence are viewed as targeting China. Beijing also seeks to use legal and administrative measures to reduce dependence on
foreign technology, and improve its defenses . Internationally, Beijing has promoted the norm of cyber sovereignty. It is not hard to
imagine cyber issues becoming intertwined with a crisis that spiral s out of control. For example, U.S. and People’s Republic of China (PRC)
forces are in close contact in the South China Sea, and cyberattacks could cause an incident to escalate rapidly . Hackers

could target communication, computer, and transportation networks, degrading not only Beijing’s and
Washington’s ability to control their forces in the field , but also their ability to signal to the other side
their intentions to escalate or de-escalate the conflict. Non state actors, often known as patriotic hackers , could
further confuse the situation as policy makers would have a difficult time differentiating between official and independent attacks. Additionally, a
cyberattack that causes physical damage or widespread economic disruption could create domestic
pressure for action that leaders in Washington and Beijing would have a hard time ignoring.

That causes an accidental nuclear war

Peck 2018 - Contributing Writer for The National Interest. Senior analyst for Wikistrat
Michael, "How Russia, China or America Could Accidentally Start a Nuclear War," Aug 14,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-russia-china-or-america-could-accidentally-start-nuclear-
war-28692
Accidental nuclear war, that's what could happen.

That's the warning by a Washington think tank, which argues that the U.S. is inviting nuclear war by
using the same command and communications systems to oversee both nuclear and conventional
forces. But such "dual use" systems risk an inadvertent nuclear war, because an attack on non-nuclear
assets, such as satellites or radars, could be perceived as an attempt to cripple [harm] America's nuclear
deterrent.

The Trump administration's draft nuclear policy already states that cyberattacks against America, or
attacks on U.S. satellites, could constitute a strategic threat that merits a nuclear response. But this
raises a problem called "nuclear entanglement," where the traditionally bright lines between nuclear
and non-nuclear systems become blurred.

In a study earlier this year , the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace pointed out that Russia and
China were guilty of entanglement. For example, Russia keeps nuclear submarines and bombers at the
same bases as conventional ships and planes: thus a strike by conventional U.S. forces against
conventional Russian forces -- the sort of operation common in World War II -- could be mistaken by
Russia as an American strike on its nuclear forces, triggering Russian nuclear retaliation. China plans to
attack American satellites to disable U.S. command systems and smart weapons that rely on satellite
guidance, because China believes this to be a part of conventional warfare -- despite the Trump
administration declaring otherwise.

But a new Carnegie study says the U.S. is making the same mistake. "Starting in the last decade of the
Cold War, the United States has increased reliance on dual-use systems by assigning nonnuclear roles to
C3I assets that used to be employed solely for nuclear operations," writes James Acton, co-director of
Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program. "Until the mid-1980s, for example, U.S. early-warning satellites were
used exclusively for detecting the launch of nuclear-armed missiles. Today, they enable a variety of
nonnuclear missions by, for example, providing cuing information for missile defenses involved in
intercepting conventional ballistic missiles."

The U.S. has also scrapped its Cold War land-based communications systems for controlling nuclear
forces. Which means that satellites have become virtually the only means for nuclear command and
control, and those precious satellites are also handling non-nuclear communications.

Even as cyberwarfare and anti-satellite weapons have emerged as major threats, U.S. satellite systems
have become less redundant. In the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. had two satellite-based communication
systems for nuclear weapons. "Today, the United States is in the process of deploying just four
Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites that will be the nation's sole space-based system
for transmitting nuclear employment orders once legacy Milstar satellites have been retired," writes
Acton. Similarly, one of two radio networks for communicating with nuclear missile submarines has
been shut down.

Acton explores several scenarios where the U.S. could overreact. "Russia might attack ground-based or
space-based U.S. early-warning assets to defeat European missile defenses that were proving effective
in intercepting its nonnuclear missiles," he writes. "Washington might see such attacks, however, as
preparations to ensure that limited nuclear strikes by Russia could penetrate the United States'
homeland missile defenses."