1NC – Emory Finals

Off
 1NC – DA
First off is the interest rates DA.
Inflation is low now. The Fed’s preferred indicators confirm that a rate cut is
expected – BUT, it’s NOT guaranteed.
Augusta Saraiva 1-28, 1-28-2024, "Fed’s Preferred Core Inflation Gauge Slows to Below 3% Rate,"
Advisor Perspectives, https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2024/01/28/feds-preferred-core-
inflation-gauge-slows-below-3-rate

The Fed eral Reserve’s preferred gauge of underlying inflation rose at the slowest annual pace in nearly
three years while consumers spent at a robust rate , keeping the debate alive as to whether officials will
soon cut borrowing costs.

The so-called corep ersonal c onsumption e xpenditures price index , which strips out the volatile food and energy
components, increased 2.9% in December from a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. From a month ago, it
advanced 0.2% .

Inflation-adjusted consumer spending climbed 0.5% in December for a second month, the biggest back-to-back
increase in nearly a year. Real disposable income , the main supporter of consumer spending, advanced
0.1% , the smallest in three months.

inflation retreat at a much faster rate than the Fed and Wall Street
Friday’s report caps a year that saw
economists anticipated , all while a sturdy job market kept powering consumer spending. While some of that
momentum is expected to moderate this year, many forecasters still see the economy dodging a recession .

Fed officials have been cautious to declare victory on inflation and have said they want to see
Even so,
sustainable signs of cooling before lowering borrowing costs . While they’ve started to discuss such a move,
policymakers are expected to keep interest rates at a two-decade high when they meet next week.

Treasury yields rose, while S&P 500 index futures were lower and the dollar pared losses. Traders are betting on about a 50% chance that
the Fed will cut rates in March.

The fed will react to a UBI with interest rate hikes – it guarantees inflation and
inflationary expectations.
Mitchell 17 [William Francis Mitchell is a professor of economics at the University of Newcastle, New
South Wales, Australia and Docent Professor of Global Political Economy at the University of Helsinki,
Finland.; “A Basic Income Guarantee does not reduce poverty”; Bill Mitchell; May 31, 2017;
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=36105]//eleanor

basic income proposal would achieve full employment by persuading the

Without an appropriate fiscal stimulus, the
unemployed to drop out of the labour force upon receipt of an income guarantee.
The economy would move towards full employment by stealth – pushing workers out of the labour force rather than
providing work for them.

But the
value of the currency would then fall given that nothing is provided in return for the
government spending.
The resulting inflation ary bias would invoke interest rate adjustments (given the current inflation-first approach
adopted by central banks) that would constrain the economy from achieving sufficient growth to offer real
employment options to all aspiring workers.
But then a further quandary emerges. The more generous BIG, would probably stimulate total spending such that there would be a shortage of
labour at ‘full employment’, resulting from the artificial reduction of the full employment level of employment, which then compounds the
inflationary pressure.

The alternative is that the

excess demand for goods would be increasingly met via imports with consequential
effects for the exchange rate and the domestic price level, which would accentuate the inflationary
pressure.

Thus the
introduction of a BIG policy is likely to be highly problematic with respect its capacity to deliver
both sustained full employment and price stability.
A sound policy also has to be viable if the extremes of that policy are encountered. It is obvious that the basic income proposal does not satisfy
that requirement.

As more an more individuals opted for the basic income without work, output
would drop dramatically and material
prosperity would be violated. Leisure and consumption are closely related.
Further, given the logic employed by the basic income proponents that the government providing the basic income is financially constrained, the
logic means that as increasing numbers of workers ‘liberated’ themselves by taking the basic income, the capacity of the government to sustain it
would diminish.

In other words, on its own grounds, the basic income proposal is limited in scope.

What about an MMT-style BIG? That is, one that recognises that the government would have no need to increase taxes to facilitate the
introduction of the BIG.

If there is mass unemployment, then the solution is for the government to expand its net fiscal impact (spending over taxation) and allow the
deficit to rise.

So shifting from a state of mass unemployment to the introduction of a basic income guarantee would require a net government stimulus (that is,
an increasing fiscal deficit).

In this regard, the

basic income guarantee (funded by an increasing fiscal deficit) constitutes an indiscriminate
Keynesian expansion and as it lacks any inbuilt price stabilisation mechanisms, inflationary pressures
would result .

Workers who draw income from the production cycle have also added output (via their labour) to that
cycle. For a given level of productivity (output per unit of input), the more people that have access to
income, spend that income at market prices, but do not add to output (that is, are supported in real terms
by the production of others), the greater the inflation risk .

Further, the
greater the share of income generated in any period that is received by people who offer nothing
in return, the higher the inflation risk.

Under these circumstances, the

more people pursue the ‘freedom’ on non-work under the basic income guarantee,
the worse the situation becomes because for given productivity, this would mean the supply side of the
economy keeps shrinking , while the demand side remains stable (depending on the level of the
stipend).
So we come back to the point that to minimise the inflation risk, the basic income stipend has to be small, which then, in turn, means the scheme
hardly addresses the dignity of an independent existence. People have income security but are in poverty.

We can explore this vulnerability further.

If the government increases net spending (its deficit) to fund a generous basic income stipend then the
demand for labour rises in
response to the higher aggregate spending in the economy. Clearly, labour demand would higher than
under a fiscally-neutral introduction of a basic income guarantee.
The real issue is what happens to labour supply.

If the stimulus was wrought via the payment of a generous basic income stipend, then it is reasonable to surmise that total labour supply would
decrease.

In other words, the levelof employment that coincides with ‘full employment’ where everybody who wants a job can find one is
artificially reduced in the presence of the basic income guarantee (if sufficiently generous).

The real resource space available for the stimulus is thus reduced. The
more people who took the stipend and withdrew
from the labour force, the less real capacity there would be in the economy to respond to nominal
spending growth .

With less productive workers available, the stimulus would cause what economists call ‘demand- pull’
inflation. The inflation rate is pulled up by an incompatibility of nominal spending relative to
productive capacity.

Firms would compete for increasingly fewer workers and drive up wages , which would have the
consequence of making the basic income stipend less attractive at the margin .
Some ‘Malibu surfers’ might decide to resume work again. The government might respond by raising taxes and/or reducing government
expenditure, which would tend to raise unemployment.

The central bank, under the current regime that governs monetary policy, would also respond by raising interest rates.
The combination of these policy responses would reduce the demand pressure, but to the extent that the inflationary process had assumed a cost-
push form (distributional struggle over available real income), wage and price inflation may only decline slowly.

It is thus possible that an

unsustainable dynamic could be generated in which there are periodic phases of
demand-pull inflation and induced cost-push inflation at low rates of unemployment, followed by
contractionary policy and high rates of unemployment.
These economic outcomes are consistent with indiscriminate (generalised) Keynesian policy expansions of the
past.
Our conclusion is that the introduction of a basic income guarantee which is designed to also sustain full employment
(that is, to give all those who want to work the opportunity) is likely to be highly problematic given the likely inflationary
consequences.

Sustained higher rates crush high tech and biotech innovation.

Rascoe and Williams 23 [Mark Williams is a professor of finance at Boston University's Questrom
School of Business. Ayesha Rascoe is the host of Weekend Edition Sunday and the Saturday episodes of
Up First.; “After layoffs at Spotify, high interest rates may come for other tech companies next”; NPR;
December 10, 2023; https://www.npr.org/2023/12/10/1218432988/after-layoffs-at-spotify-high-interest-
rates-may-come-for-other-tech-companies-n]//eleanor

Tech companies like Spotify have announced layoffs due in part to higher borrowing costs . NPR's Ayesha Rascoe
asks Boston University's Mark Williams what the future looks like for tech companies.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Borrowers in the U.S. have been hit with higher interest rates this year as the Federal Reserve tries to
push down inflation. And tech companies are no exception. Last week, Spotify announced it will cut roughly 17% of its
workforce in its third round of layoffs this year. And the company CEO blamed higher borrowing costs as one of the
reasons for the cuts. But Spotify isn't alone. Many tech companies borrowed and borrowed money when interest
rates were low to grow business . Mark Williams is a professor of finance at Boston University's Questrom School of Business,
and he joins us now. Welcome to the program.

MARK WILLIAMS: Well, thank you - happy to be here.

RASCOE: So why are higher interest rates hit ting the tech industry so hard in particular? Like, why is tech more
vulnerable to this?

high tech's all about growth . And for them, the formula of success
WILLIAMS: You know, if you think about high tech,
for growth was really taking on lots of debt . So they borrowed big, and they spent big. They took that
money. They hired a lot. They put a lot of money in advertising and research and development. And they
hope for growth . And over time, profit came.

RASCOE: And so the

hope is that you borrow, and then it pays off. But if interest rates get higher, it makes it
harder to borrow . And if you haven't already paid off, you know, what you already borrowed - does that
make sense?

WILLIAMS: Right. Their strategy was really risky. In 2021, it didn't seem so because rates were at ultra-low levels ,
50-year lows not seen since JFK was president. So they
just loaded up on debt. It was really cheap debt - almost at zero
interest rates. So within 18 months, by 2023, rates had skyrocketed. The Fed increased rates 11 times to now
ultra-highs not seen since, well, 22 years ago. So they're in a pickle.
RASCOE: Are tech companies the main industry hit hard by this? Are there other companies or, like - or are there certain tech companies in
particular that will be most impacted?

WILLIAMS: Well,high tech in particular because they are a growth company and a growth industry. So they focus on
taking on leverage and lots of debt to grow fast. I'll give you examples - Amazon and Google and Microsoft
and Meta , which, of course, was Facebook. All those companies just in the last year have fired about 49,000
people. So in essence, the overall loss of employees within the high-tech sector , it's been a mass firing
of over 281,000 employees fired since 2022.
RASCOE: But it seems like when you start talking about Amazon, you know, Meta, Google, don't these companies have lots of money? They're
not just startups.

WILLIAMS: Right. And that's a really important point. So Amazon, clearly, and Google and Microsoft and Meta - they're all going to weather
startups . And those are the ones that are really caught in this vice grip .
the storm. But really the story is about these small
Interest rates are really high. They can borrow less now. Their growth rates are definitely going to slow
down . Maybe the startups won't get the existing funding they need. These are novel drugs , new therapeutics
that may never go to market because they can't get funding anymore.
RASCOE: So you mentioned biotech, and I'm thinking when you're talking about development of therapeutics and stuff like that, but what
exactly is going on with biotech?

WILLIAMS: Well, biotech itself back in 2019 and 2020 when

interest rates were low, they received huge evaluations. So
they were able to get lots of funding. Now with a high interest rate environment, many investors are
skeptical of the level of risk and willing to take it. So these valuations now have been dropped. And many of
these biotechs are having and struggling to find valuations and actually funding for their operations going
forward. And they need a lot of money with R&D and investing and hiring to really get their product to
market. So the concern is that that spigot has been turned down dramatically with higher interest rates.
RASCOE: So forecasters and analysts say higher interest rates are here to stay, at least for a while. And you talked a bit about this, but what
are going to be the consequences for tech and biotech companies?
WILLIAMS: This is of concern. You know, innovation
is key not just for developing new therapeutic drugs that help people,
but also startups
create new jobs. So new job generation, green shoots and so forth appear to be - actually
going to be stilted. And then these lost opportunities I mentioned earlier on the therapeutics .

The US is winning the tech race – continued tech investment and innovation is key
to avert an authoritarian PRC-led economic order that destroys the LIO.
Kerry et al. 10/3/2023 – *Ann R. and Andrew H. Tisch Distinguished Visiting Fellow – Governance Studies, Center for Technology
Innovation at Brookings, J.D., magna cum laude, Boston College Law School, **Mary E. Lovely, Professor Emerita, Economics Department at
Syracuse, Ph.D., University of Michigan, Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow – Peterson Institute, ***Pavneet Singh, Nonresident Fellow –
Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at Brookings, M.S., International Affairs, Georgetown University,
****Liza Tobin Senior Director for Economy – Special Competitive Studies Project, *****Ryan Hass Director – John L. Thornton China Center,
Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center, Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in
Taiwan Studies, ******Patricia M. Kim Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center,
*******Emilie Kimball Senior Project Manager – Foreign Policy at Brookings [Cameron, “Is US security dependent on limiting China’s
economic growth?,” Series of Opening Statements Given by Various Experts, Brookings, 10/3/2023, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-us-
security-dependent-on-limiting-chinas-economic-growth/]

Rather than aiming for the vague objective of slowing China’s growth, U.S.
policymakers should pursue two specific goals regarding Chinese
tactics: degrading
China’s military and technological capabilities and countering its anticompetitive and
coercive economic tactics. Fear that these policies will result in slower GDP growth in China should not
hold Washington back. Slower PRC growth should already be baked into every policymaker and business
leader’s calculus. The strategic importance of taking a strong stand against PRC brute force economics —
and rallying allies and partners to pool their domestic market demand to counter the gravitational pull
of the China market — outweighs the additional economic pain that those policies could cause on the
margins.
Orienting to compete
There are many unknowns surrounding China’s economic trajectory and the path it will follow in the coming years. Irrespective of this uncertainty, leaders in the
United States must recognize that China’s strategic intent to “catch up and surpass” the United States as the world’s
economic and technological superpower presents significant risks to the U.S. national interest. This is especially
the case in light of three factors. First, the global economy is undergoing an industrial revolution headlined by rapid,
simultaneous advances in emerging technologies. Second, the PRC is executing a multi-decade, whole-of-
nation strategy to achieve primacy in future technologies. Finally, while the United States has initiated a
response, in order to prevail in this techno-industrial competition, it must significantly increase and
coordinate its investment in American strengths , correct existing e conomic and financial
misalignments, and experiment with new tools that address the dynamic challenge from China.
The unique technological moment is the linchpin for the entire competition. In previous decades, the United States was the first to achieve dominance in miniaturized
overlapping
electronics, the internet, GPS, and software capabilities which ultimately delivered outsized economic, political, and military influence. Today,
progress in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum information sciences, cyber, and space systems are
similarly primed to alter the geoeconomic landscape. Geopolitical powers are sponsoring indigenous
capability and the race for technological and economic leadership is now a central geostrategic
battleground . Nations that lead in the resulting industries will govern decades of economic
exchanges, reap commercial benefits, and develop military advantage.
China is singularly focused on the importance of technology leadership. Beijing is executing a multi-
decade plan to transfer technology to increase the size and value-add of its economy, increase its research
and development (R&D) intensity, and mobilize academia, business, and the government behind grand-
scale technology innovations such as quantum communications, genetic engineering, high-resolution
Earth observation, and manned space flight, among others. In this pursuit, Beijing is employing a range of mercantilist trading
policies to overwhelming advantage, augmented by a full spectrum of licit and illicit transfer of intellectual property. Additionally, through its industrial policy, China
prioritizes import substitution which, if successful, will transfer global market leadership to China in many markets such as semiconductors, computer hardware and
software, networking and communications, automobiles, and genetic engineering.
Internationally, China
is expanding its economic sphere of influence through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),
which is opening markets for Chinese goods and companies. Nested within the BRI is the Digital Silk
Road (DSR), which creates a technology infrastructure to support economic development and power
projection. Through a network of cross-border fiber optic cables, coupled with remote sensing, communications, and other satellite services, the DSR aims to
enable everything from e-commerce to smart cities, significantly shaped by Chinese companies and interests.
Fortunately, there
is bipartisan awareness of the challenges China presents. Leaders in successive
administrations introduced meaningful defensive interventions such as sanctions, inbound and outbound
investment restrictions, tariffs, and export controls and offensive interventions such as investments in
microelectronics and clean energy. Moreover, there is broad agreement at a policy level on discrete
technologies that will dictate future competitiveness. These actions are only the start. Over the coming years, the United States
will need to make sizeable investments and intensify coordination to accomplish its strategic goals.
The first step is to bolster the ingredients that historically powered U.S. economic strength. Based on the
recognition that basic science is the seed for future innovations, the United States should increase federally-funded R&D to at least 2% of GDP, up from less than 1%
today. Further, policymakers need to be serious about building a STEM talent pipeline for the future workforce. This implies investing in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics education today, particularly at the K-12 level. Finally, to lead in research and development and to be able to translate prototypes into
manufactured products at scale, the United States needs workers with talent at all levels. This implies developing and executing an immigration policy that welcomes
a balance of high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants.
To further optimize these efforts, policymakers must correct policy and regulatory misalignments that prevent private actors from investing in and commercializing
critical technologies. Two prominent areas that merit scrutiny include the short-term bias in U.S. capital markets and the lack of a trade and investment policy to
match trends in technology development.
Currently, U.S. corporations focus on return on capital at the expense of long-term R&D and technology development. A combination of quarterly-earnings pressure
and the increased power of activist shareholders shifted corporate attention to short-term profits and capital efficiency rather than balancing these goals with
investments for long-term capability development. To strike the right balance, U.S. firms do not have to abandon their market instincts. There are a range of proposals
on how to influence financial incentives, extend investment horizons and promote capability development. These include reforming capital gains tax provisions,
creating dual-class shares with sunset provisions, enforcing mandatory holding periods, or increasing R&D tax credits. Given the criticality of the private sector in this
competition, finding a workable solution amongst policymakers, corporate leaders, employees, and shareholders is an urgent priority.
Similarly, the United States needs a coherent market access policy to ensure that U.S. companies are able to compete globally. Currently, firms are disadvantaged in
foreign markets — partly because of U.S. legal constraints governing business practices and partly because they are competing against firms supported by various
state-backed mechanisms. Since withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the United States has not created a forward-looking trade arrangement and it is not
yet clear whether the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework will create the market access, investment opportunities, and enduring revenue opportunities that firms require
to take on riskier technological investments. Rationalizing U.S. policy on trade is essential to preventing public investments from going to waste.
Officials can also experiment with different resources that are relevant to the current domains of competition. One concept worth exploring is informally referred to as
the National Capital Stack. While much has been made of the formidable $1.5 trillion of patient capital that China is deploying against deep technologies, the U.S.
government has a more robust capability to de-risk investment and activate the animal spirits of the U.S. capital markets. To date, the tools, resources, and authorities
are dispersed across various departments and are deployed more as point solutions rather than being combined to take technologies to scale. Recently, however, the
Department of Energy (DOE) has demonstrated a pipeline for companies to leverage DOE grants, loans, insurance and tax credits to advance costly energy projects.
Similarly, the Defense Innovation Unit and the newly created Office of Strategic Capital at the Defense Department are contemplating tools to catalyze entrepreneurs
to take on challenges relevant to national security. This activity could be comprehensively applied across the government, to include tools from Agriculture,
Homeland Security, Commerce, Small Business Administration, the Export-Import Bank, and NASA at a minimum. Cohering non-dilutive R&D grants and loans
with advance market commitments and procurement capability would signal to the private sector that the government can be a constructive partner at every stage of
the technology development cycle.
China’s strategic intent is clear. The PRC seeks to displace the United States economically and
technologically, which will have significant ramifications for international rules and norms, military
positioning, and ideological competition. The pace and confluence of technology development and resulting economics make the risk of
displacement viable. Regardless of China’s economic growth or decline, the United States needs to adequately prepare for a
multigenerational techno-industrial contest with a rival. The good news is that the United States has the
necessary expertise, resources, and tools resident throughout society. The key will be whether U.S.
leaders can orient these endowments to compete.

Loss of tech competitiveness causes nuclear war

Kroenig ’21 [Matthew; Winter; professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University
and the director of the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative at the Atlantic Council; Strategic Studies Quarterly,
“Will Emerging Technology Cause Nuclear War?: Bringing Geopolitics Back In,” Vol. 15, Issue 4]
 states
How will states use such a newfound advantage? Technology rarely fundamentally changes the nature or objectives of states. More often,
use technology to advance preexisting geopolitical aims . Moreover, enhanced power can result in greater
ambition. Given the geopolitical landscape described, it is likely the United States and its Allies and partners at
the core [end page 66] of the international system will behave differently with new military tech nologies than
will revisionist powers, such as Russia and China.
The spread of new technology to the United States and its Allies and partners would likely serve, on balance, to
reinforce the existing sources of stability in the prevailing international system. At the end of the Cold War, the
United States and its Allies and partners achieved a technological- military advantage over its great power rivals, with the US using its unipolar
position to deepen and expand a rules-based system. They also employed their military dominance to counter perceived threats from rogue states
and terrorist networks. The United States, its Allies, and partners did not, however, engage in military aggression against great power, nuclear-
armed rivals or their allies.

In the future, these status quo powers are apt to use military advantages to reinforce their position in the
international system and to deter attacks against Allies and partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. These
states might also employ military power to deal with threats posed by terrorist networks or by regional
revisionist powers such as Iran and North Korea . But it is extremely difficult to imagine scenarios in
which Washington or its Allies or partners would use newfound military advantages provided by
emerging technology to conduct an armed attack against Russia or China.

Moscow and Beijing would likely use any newfound military strength to advance their preexisting
Similarly,
geopolitical aims . Given their very different positions in the international system, however, these states are likely to employ
new military technologies in ways that are destabilizing . These states have made clear their dissatisfaction with the existing
international system and their desire to revise it. Both countries have ongoing border disputes with multiple neighboring countries.

If Moscow developed new military technologies and operational concepts that shifted the balance of power
in its favor, it would likely use this advantage to pursue revisionist aims . If Moscow acquired a newfound
ability to more easily invade and occupy territory in Eastern Europe, for example (or if Putin believed Russia had such a
capability), it is more likely Russia would be tempted to engage in aggression .

Likewise, if China acquired an enhanced ability through new technology to invade and occupy Taiwan or
contested islands in the E ast or S outh C hina S eas, Beijing’s leaders might also find this opportunity tempting . If new
technology enhances either power’s anti-access, area-denial network, then its leaders may be more confident in their ability to
achieve a fait accompli attack against a neighbor and then block a US-led liberation .

These are precisely the types of shifts in the balance of power that can lead to war . As mentioned previously,
the predominant scholarly theory on the causes of war— the bargaining model —maintains that imperfect
information on the balance of power and the balance of resolve and credible commitment problems result in
international conflict .52 New technology can exacerbate these causal mechanisms by increasing
uncertainty about, or causing rapid shifts in, the balance of power. Indeed as noted above, new military technology
and the development of new operational concepts have shifted the balance of power and resulted in
military conflict throughout history.

Moscow
Some may argue emerging military technology is more likely to result in a new tech arms race than in conflict. This is possible. But
and Beijing may come to believe ( correctly or not ) that new technology provides them a usable military
advantage over the U nited S tates and its Allies and partners. In so doing, they may underestimate Washington.
If Moscow or Beijing attacked a vulnerable US Ally or partner in their near abroad, therefore, there
would be a risk of major war with the potential for nuclear escalation . The United States has formal treaty commitments with
several frontline states as well as an ambiguous defense obligation to Taiwan. If Russia or China were to attack these states, it is likely, or at least
possible, that the United States would come to the defense of the victims. While many question the wisdom or credibility of America’s global
commitments, it would be difficult for the United States to simply back down . Abandoning a treaty ally could cause fears
that America’s global commitments would unravel. Any US president, therefore, would feel great pressure to come to an Ally’s defense and
expel Russian or Chinese forces.

Once the United States and Russia or China are at war, there would be a risk of nuclear escalation . As noted
previously, experts assess the greatest risk of nuclear war today does not come from a bolt-out-of-the-blue strike but from nuclear
escalation in a regional , conventional conflict.53 Russian leaders may believe it is in their interest to use
nuclear weapons early in a conflict with the United States and NATO.54 Russia possesses a large and diverse arsenal, including
thousands of nonstrategic nuclear weapons, to support this nuclear strategy.

In the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, Washington indicates it could retaliate against any Russian nuclear “de-escalation” strikes with limited
nuclear strikes of its own using low-yield nuclear weapons.55 The purpose of US strategy is to deter Russian strikes. If deterrence fails ,
however, there is a clear pathway to nuclear war between the United States and Russia. As Henry Kissinger pointed out decades ago, there is
no guarantee that, once begun, a limited nuclear war stays limited .56

There are similar risks of nuclear escalation in the event of a US-China conflict . China has traditionally possessed a
relaxed nuclear posture with a small “lean and effective” deterrent and a formal “no first use” policy. But China is relying more on its
strategic forces . It is projected to double—if not triple or quadruple —the size of its nuclear arsenal in the
coming decade.57

Chinese experts have acknowledged there is a narrow range of contingencies in which China might use nuclear weapons first.58 As in the case of
Russia, the US Nuclear Posture Review recognizes the possibility of limited Chinese nuclear attacks and also holds out the potential of a limited
US reprisal with low-yield nuclear weapons as a deterrent.59 If
the nuclear threshold is breached in a conflict between the
United States and China, the risk of nuclear exchange is real .

In short, if
a coming revolution in military affairs provides a real or perceived battlefield advantage for Russia or
China, such a development raises the likelihood of armed aggression against US regional allies , major
power war , and an increased risk of nuclear escalation .
Implications

Future scholarship should incorporate geopolitical conditions and the related foreign policy goals of the states in question when theorizing the
effects of technology on international politics. Often scholars attempt to conceptualize the effects of weapons systems in isolation from the
political context in which they are embedded.

Studies treat technology as disembodied from geopolitics and as exerting independent effects on the international system. But technology does
not float freely. Technology is
a tool different actors can use in different ways. Bakers and arsonists employ fire
in their crafts to strikingly different ends. In the current international environment, Russia and China
would tend to employ technology toward advancing revisionist aims. Technological advances in these
countries are therefore much more likely to disrupt the prevailing international order and nuclear
strategic stability .

This approach also suggests the

potential threat new technology poses to nuclear strategic stability is more
pervasive than previously understood. To undermine strategic stability, new tech nology need not directly
impact strategic capabilities. Rather, any technology that promises to shift the local balance of power in
Eastern Europe or the Indo-Pacific has the potential to threaten nuclear strategic stability .
This understanding of this issue leads to different policy prescriptions. If the tech nology itself is the
problem, then it must be controlled and should not be allowed to spread to any states. In contrast, the
framework outlined here suggests a different recommendation: preserve the prevailing balance of power
in Europe and Asia. Technological change that, on balance, reinforces the prevailing international system
should strengthen stability.

Leading democracies, therefore, should increase investments in emerging tech nology to maintain a
tech nological edge over their adversaries. Export control and nonproliferation measures should be designed to deny emerging
military technology to Russia and China. Arms control should be negotiated with the primary objective of sustaining the current international
distribution of power. Making
progress in these areas will be difficult. But the consequences of failure could be
shifts in the international balance of power , conflict among great powers , and an increased risk of
nuclear war .
 1NC – CP
Next off is the Benefits PIC.

The United States federal government should increase progressive taxes.

The counterplan solves the welfare advantage – their Gale card is the solvency
advocate. It says that progressive taxation can generate trillions of dollars of
revenue which is sufficient to resolve government debt and Social security
expenditures.
Case
 Inequality Advantage
1. Basic income increases poverty and inequality – and indicts to Alaska, Finland,
Kenya, and Y Combinator.
Minogue ’18 [Rachel; 5-24-2018; International Trade Specialist for Professional Services,
International Trade Administration, B.A. in International Studies from Emory University, M.A. in
International Economics from Johns Hopkins University; “Five Problems with Universal Basic Income”;
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/five-problems-with-universal-basic-income]
Jobs are changing

Many of the most ardent UBI supporters believe the policy is an answer to a world where work is vanishing. This is
a popular view in Silicon Valley, where many predict widespread technological unemployment is just around the corner.4 But there is almost no evidence that work is
ending. Instead, work is changing.

The US economy employs more people today than ever , with 37 million jobs added since the introduction of Microsoft Windows in
1993 and 190,000 new jobs created per month over the last year on average.5

As Baby Boomers retire, the US working-age population will grow more slowly than the economy as a whole. For that reason, the US is just as likely to experience a
shortage of labor to fill growing jobs as it is to have a labor market oversaturated with workers.6

Many professions are rising in demand today, including those in health care, advanced manufacturing, skilled construction, education,
technology, hospitality, and business management.

At this very moment, there are 6 million job openings across the country, more than half of which are middle-class jobs or better.7

While we may see a net gain in jobs over the coming years, disruption will still be rampant. These jobs will be in different locations, require different skills, and offer
different benefits. That’s why we
need policies that help workers adjust to these new realities—not surrender .
Reinventing postsecondary education to create more options outside of a four-year college degree, as well as redesigning worker pay
and benefits , would do far more for the next generation of workers.
Economic growth would suffer

With a foundational, albeit limited, income under UBI , some Americans may choose to work part-time instead of full-
time . Others may leave the labor force for years when they would have otherwise worked. Eduardo Porter writes that, as almost one quarter
of US households make less than $25,000 a year, a $10,000 check each for two parents could change their decisions on

how to balance work, child care, and other obligations, resulting in less full-time participation in the
labor force.8

If people transition away from full-time work, the

US economy would suffer . Macroeconomic theory holds that economic growth is
dependent on three factors: increases in capital , advances in technology , and growth of the labor force.
UBI has the potential to directly decrease the growth of the US economy, namely GDP growth, through reductions to labor force participation. With GDP shrinking,
tax revenues would fall . This would in turn mean fewer resources to help the disadvantaged or to invest in the
future, resulting in lower overall prosperity .
UBI is incredibly expensive

The numbers speak for themselves: UBI is either very expensive or very stingy . The progressive version of UBI is
expensive to the point of impossibility , while the conservative version is penny-pinching and punitive .
Looking first at the former, consider an annual grant of $12,000 for all American adults aged 18 to 64, like Stern proposes. Stern

estimates his plan would cost between $1.75 trillion and $2.5 trillion . The high end of this range seems realistic. Almost two-thirds of the

population, or 200 million people, would receive a monthly UBI check for $1,000, with a cost of approximately
$2.4 trillion every year, or one-eighth of GDP .9 Social Security beneficiaries currently receiving less than $1,000 a month would also get
a supplement, adding an estimated $52 billion a year.10 By
comparison, our entire existing social safety net costs $2.6
trillion. That includes S ocial S ecurity, Medicare , Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, and veterans’
benefits .11

Unless these critically important programs are eliminated, a UBI program would need to be paid for with higher taxes . It’s not
clear whether it’s even possible to raise enough revenue for this initiative. The fed eral government took in approximately $3 .3

trillion in 2017, so a taxes-only approach to funding Stern’s UBI would require an unheard-of 73% increase in
federal revenue .12 Even if defense spending was slashed by one-third, for example, a 52% tax increase would still
be required.13 Funneling all of a tax increase into UBI would also neglect our existing programs, like S ocial S ecurity,

which needs financial support to remain solvent past 2034.14

Poor families could be left more vulnerable

If significant tax hikes aren’t viable, then the question remains: what gets cut in order to fund UBI? Under this scenario, UBI becomes stingy and punitive, as a vast
amount of important government programs would be on the chopping block.

Murray, the conservative

UBI proponent, recommends that a $13,000 annual basic income replace all social
assistance programs . Consider the value of the benefits people would lose : Medicaid, Medicare, Disability Insurance,
the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income,
Unemployment Insurance, SNAP, Section 8 housing vouchers, Pell Grants, the Earned Income Tax
Credit, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. As Dylan Matthews writes, “$13,000 a year doesn’t mean much
if you lose insurance that was paying $60,000 a year on chemotherapy.”15

Even a UBI that retains much of the existing social safety net could hit the disadvantaged harder , depending on which tax
credits and government assistance programs get cut . Stern listed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Earned
Income Tax Credit (EITC), and housing assistance as potential policies to end in favor of UBI. But consider one example. In Queens, New York, a single,
low-income working parent with three children can receive up to $31,100 worth of benefits annually from
SNAP, the EITC, and Section 8 housing vouchers alone, and for good reason.16 Replacing those benefits with a
$12,000 UBI for the parent would reduce the family’s income and benefits by $19,100.

tradeoffs necessary for funding would likely cause harm to

A fundamental motivation for UBI is to eliminate poverty, but the

vulnerable populations . This begs the question: If the main difference between UBI and our current safety net is
that UBI gives relatively more to people who don’t need help, what would make UBI worthwhile ? Some
proponents have suggested UBI could be restricted to certain populations in need, but that would defy the
universality at the idea’s core. At this point, what they are really proposing is an expansion of the existing
safety net. That’s a worthwhile conversation to have, but it’s not about a universal basic income.

The idea has been scarcely tested

There are a handful of past and ongoing experiments with UBI. Unfortunately, the experiments have been flawed or are too small to effectively prove that UBI could
live up to some of its proponents’ claims:

Finland’s national social insurance institute, Kela, launched a UBI trial experiment in 2017, with 2,000 Finns aged 25 to 58 receiving
approximately $645 per month. A year into its implementation, the Finnish government refused to continue its

funding in April 2018, choosing instead to pursue alternative social welfare projects.17

The Alaska Permanent Fund provides an annual cash dividend to all Alaskan residents from oil reserve royalties. The grant’s
amount, in recent years roughly $2,000 per person, is far too small to be a livable income and thus has minimal

effects on the labor market and is a poor comparison to popular UBI proposals.18
An experiment in Kenya launched by Give Directly in late 2017 compares different UBI methods across 120 villages. According to Business Insider, residents of
40 villages receive $270 annually for 12 years, “effectively doubling most people’s income,” while 80 villages receive the same amount for 2 years.19 While this
experiment could produce more compelling evidence than prior trials, Kenya’s economy is at a very different stage of development
compared to the US which limits the study’s relevance .

Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2017 began a five-year experiment in giving 1,000 people $1,000 per month and 2,000
people $50 a month, aiming to assess changes to the labor force and quality of life.20 This evaluation could yield important results given its similarities to leading
proposals but is still early in the experiment.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of future studies and experiments. But policymakers
should be wary of studies that
simulate the upside of UBI (a monthly income) without simulating its downsides , namely sweeping benefit
cuts or tax increases .

2. No automation
Nahia Orduña 21. Manager Solution Architecture at Amazon Web Services (AWS) , Master of
Networking Engineering with specialization in Telematics from University of Deusto, M.B.A. from
University of Sunderland. “Why Robots Won’t Steal Your Job.” Harvard Business Review, 19 March
2021. https://hbr.org/2021/03/why-robots-wont-steal-your-job
Science-fiction films and novels usually portray robots as one of two things: destroyers of the human race or friendly helpers. The common theme
is that these stories happen in an alternate universe or a fantasy version of the future. Not here, and not now — until recently. The big difference
is that the robots have come not to destroy our lives, but to disrupt our work.

Last year, the

World Economic Forum released a report estimating that by 2025, 85 million jobs may be
displaced by a shift in labor division between humans and machines .
For new grads entering the workforce, or young professionals looking to land their first jobs, this is news worth paying attention to. Entry-level
positions that include routine tasks are precisely the ones disappearing.

What exactly is happening?

Thanks to advances in technology, some computers are able to conduct business processes without our margin of
error. Natural Language Processing (NLP) allows chatbots to understand speech and provide technical support to customers in a variety of
industries, including food and retail services. HR departments and finance companies use robotic process automation (RPA) to verify payroll
systems, create email reports, and manage expenses, among other tasks typically handled by employees. And computer vision now makes it
possible for machines to scan barcodes and track packages without the help of human hands.

[Chart omitted]
You may be thinking that it’s finally happened: The robots have won.

even more roles will open as a

But don’t panic just yet. The same report that predicts robots will soon steal our jobs also says that
result of this shift — 97 million to be exact. These are the “jobs of the future,” and they are actually better
opportunities , specifically for early-career professionals.
There are two reasons why:

The more computers are trained to conduct high-repetitive tasks that are often assigned to entry-level
employees, the more roles focused on complex tasks with competitive salaries will arise in their place.
This means that young professionals may have a wider range of interesting careers to choose from.
People just entering the workforce usually struggle to land roles with higher salaries because they have to
compete with senior candidate s . This competitive disadvantage disappears as new types of roles — roles
that no one has done before — are created. Younger workers are less likely to be forced to compete with their seniors, and more
likely to be pioneers
That said, if you are just entering the workforce, you may feel overwhelmed by the plethora of the new (and sometimes confusing) opportunities.
To figure out which path you want to take first, you’ll need spend some time researching what areas feel right for you.

3. Inequality is statistically insignificant

Wright et. al 19, Joshua D. Wright, University Professor and Executive Director, Global Antitrust
Institute at Scalia Law School; Elyse Dorsey, Attorney Advisor to Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips,
United States Federal Trade Commission; Jonathan Klick, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania;
Jan M. Rybnicek, Counsel in the antitrust, competition, and trade practice of Freshfields, Bruckahus
Deringer LLP, “Requiem for a Paradox: The Dubious Rise and Inevitable Fall of Hipster Antitrust,”
Arizona State Law Review, 2019, vol. 51

2. The Empirical Evidence : Is Inequality Really Growing ?

All of the papers discussed above assume

that inequality has increased in recent years. This view is fairly
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
Although yearly estimates of this more complete measure of income inequality are not available, and the time series span is somewhat limited,
another approach might be to examine consumption inequality since consumption will be a function of effective income, and consumption data
are more readily available. Also, consumption
might be a better measure of welfare as argued by Bruce Meyer and James
Sullivan.173 When determining the desirability of antitrust enforcement to address economic inequality,
presumably one not only wants to examine the indirect effects on people’s incomes and wealth , but also
the direct effect on consumer welfare, for which consumption might be a useful proxy.

Considering the arguments raised above regarding the desirability of using antitrust to fight inequality, one
might reason that higher
prices coming from increased concentration make both the well-off investors and executives and the
lowly consumer worse off , but the investors and executives are compensated through high incomes due
to their monopoly profits . Under these arguments, we should see an upward trend in the consumption ratio
between the haves and the have-nots. Figure 4, which uses data on average consumption by households in the various income
quintiles from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey,174 shows that while the ratio has grown over
time, the growth is much smaller than that found for income itself. Further, unlike income, the growth is
not nearly as consistent with periods of increasing inequality and decreasing inequality alike.
Based on potentially better (i.e., more complete) measures of income and better metrics of welfare (i.e., consumption), perhaps the concerns
raised in the papers discussed above are a little overblown . If so, perhaps the calls for a ramp-up of antitrust enforcement are not justified
(at least on inequality grounds). That said, even by these measures, it appears inequality is growing, albeit slightly; therefore, it is worth
discussing whether there is any association between antitrust enforcement and inequality.

4. No impact to inequality.
Elise Must 16, PhD student at LSE, this was her PhD thesis, 8/1/16, “When and how does inequality
cause conflict? Group dynamics, perceptions and natural resources”,
http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3438/1/Must_When_and_how_does_inequality.pdf
Does economic inequality lead to conflict? This question has attracted the attention of prominent scholars at least since the time
of Aristotle (Nagel 1974). The frequent assumption that unequal distribution somehow fuels rebellion has resulted in a vast amount of theoretical
results remained mixed . Despite countless qualitative studies asserting that inequality is a major
as well as empirical work. For long,
reason for conflict outbreak, quantitative studies struggled to establish a firm relationship between the two
(Blattman and Miguel 2010, Cramer 2005, Lichbach 1989).

These quantitative studies, including the most influential ones by Collier and Hoeffler (2004) and Fearon and Laitin (2003), rely on
analysis of individual measures of inequality. However , as most prominently set forth by Frances Stewart, it is
minority groups or collectives of individuals who rebel, not the whole population , nor individuals
(Stewart 2002). Stewart’s theoretical development has given rise to several quantitative studies which uniformly support the role of economic
group inequality in inducing conflict (Buhaug, Cederman, and Gleditsch 2014, Cederman, Weidmann, and Bormann 2015, Cederman,
Weidmann, and Gleditsch 2011, Deiwiks, Cederman, and Gleditsch 2012, Østby 2008a, b, Østby, Nordås, and Rød 2009). Hence, there is an
emerging consensus in the literature that inequality causes civil conflict when it overlaps with relevant group identities.

Promising as these studies are, they nevertheless neglect a potential crucial part of the inequality-conflict causal
chain. Seemingly all studies of inequality and conflict, including those measuring group inequalities, are based on objective
inequalities . Yet, as Stewart (2010, 14) herself notes, ‘People take action because of perceived injustices rather
than because of measured statistical inequalities of which they might not be aware ’. Economic inequality
measured by the Gini coefficient , or by local GDP data, is most commonly used as proxies, leaving completely
aside how economic inequality is actually interpreted and perceived by both groups and individuals
(ref. Zimmermann 1983). It remains obvious, however, that in order for people to take action to address inequalities, the first step is to recognize
them and to consider them unjust (Han et al. 2012). The use then, of objective measures in current empirical studies, is based on the assumption
that both objective and perceived horizontal inequalities essentially amount to the same thing. Put another way it is assumed that all objective
inequalities are actually perceived as inequalities by relevant groups, and conversely all perceived inequalities have an objective basis. These are
strong claims that are so far largely untested. Existing studies of the link between objective and perceived horizontal inequalities range from
concluding that there is no such link (Langer and Smedts 2013) to documenting imperfect correlations – ranging from 0.27 to 0.30 depending on
indicators and datasets (Holmqvist 2012).

While cross-country analyses of conflict have neglected perceptions of inequality , the case study literature does
offer some examples demonstrating their importance. Interviewing Muslim immigrants in London and Madrid, Gest (2010, 178) finds that what
distinguishes democratic activists from those who engage in anti-system behavior, is the nature of their individual expectations and perceptions
about shared economic realities. Moving on to larger conflicts, a recent World Bank report concludes that the so called ‘Arab Spring’ was driven
by a decrease in popular subjective satisfaction, while the objective economic situation actually improved in the years before the widespread
mobilization (Ianchovichina, Mottaghi, and Shantayanan 2015). The report also points to the importance of inter-group inequality as opposed to
individual inequality.

My main argument is that in order to better capture the role of inequality in inducing civil conflict, measures
have to account for
relevant groups as well as for the perception of inequality in these groups . In addition, my analyses fill two other gaps
in the literature. While Stewart emphasizes how groups can mobilize around different identities, current studies have almost exclusively focused
on ethnic groups. However, a regional identity might be just as relevant (ref. Posner 2004). I will therefor look at the effect of regional economic
inequality on civil war. And finally, most of the studies, and all of those with a global scope, rely on time invariant measures of economic
horizontal inequality. This is commonly defended by referring to the demonstrated ‘stickiness’ of horizontal inequalities (see e.g. Stewart and
Langer 2008, Tilly 1999). Still, a recent study covering 1992 to 2013 demonstrates a global decline of ethnic inequality (Bormann et al. 2016),
while Kanbur and Venables (2005) compare case studies of 26 developing countries and conclude that regional inequalities are rising. The data
used in this analysis also show that horizontal inequalities change quite substantially over time. Using inequality data from one particular year to
analyze decades of conflict incidents is therefore questionable. Hence, my study represents the first time-variant analyses of the effect of both
objective and perceived regional inequality on civil war covering developed and developing countries in all world regions14 .

Analysing data for the period 1989 to 2014 from the World Values Survey (WVS), I find that countries with a
high level of perceived regional economic inequality have an elevated risk of civil war outbreak. On the other hand, mere objective
regional economic inequalities do not have any significant effect . The group aspect remains essential, as neither
objective nor perceived individual inequality is linked to increased civil conflict risk.
 Welfare Advantage

1. Social security is sustainable. The trust fund running out will have minimal
impact and intervening actors solves.
Perfas 23 [Samantha Laine Perfas is a Harvard Staff Writer; “Social Security, Medicare far from
doomed, policy expert says”; 3/21/23; Harvard gazette;
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/are-social-security-medicare-sustainable/]//dollinger
Is all the doomsaying on Social Security and Medicare a bit premature? A number of experts say yes, but the issue is complex. Both programs are
often portrayed as standing on financially unstable ground. The population of those 65 and older is surging, and it’s raising concerns about
whether proceeds from payroll taxes paid by younger workers will be able to keep pace. Financial
projections from the Congressional
Budget Office show the programs flirting with peril as reserves dwindle in the near future.

But they are just that: projections . To get a little more context on the issue, the Gazette spoke with Louise Sheiner, who received
her undergraduate degree from Harvard in ’82 and a Ph.D. in economics in ’93. She’s also a senior fellow and policy director for the Hutchins
Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q&A

Louise Sheiner

GAZETTE: There are a lot of people out there talking about the unsustainability of Social Security. What are we seeing right now that leads them
to that conclusion?

SHEINER: The Social Security Administration and the Congressional Budget Office do projections of both sides of the Social Security balance,
which is 1) what money is coming in, and 2) what money is going out. The money that comes in mostly comes from payroll taxes. The money
coming out is set by a formula based on how many people are eligible and what their wages were, among other things. So the fundamental driver
of the issues we’re seeing in the projections is population aging. What’s happening is that workers — the ones paying the taxes — are a
generation younger than the beneficiaries. Because the Baby Boomers are a big generation, followed by smaller generations, it means that for any
given payroll tax, there’s not enough revenue to pay the benefits. This gets the system into financial difficulty. It’s
not coming from the
fact that Social Security benefits have gotten really generous . It’s really a structural change in the economy that makes it
difficult to sustain. Now, there is something called the Trust Fund, which creates some cushion . But that’s what’s
expected to be depleted, based on current projections, after 2034.

GAZETTE: What happens then?

SHEINER: Does it mean that Social Security goes belly-up? No . It’s actually not clear what happens. There are two
laws that are in conflict with each other. One law is that you get your Social Security benefits based on
your top 35 years of earnings. But then the other law says if the money is not available, it can’t be paid out. So what happens? Let’s
say the amount coming in is enough to pay 75 percent. Does everybody get 75 percent, or just a few?
Nobody really knows. Most people think Congress will do something to address this. But there’s a big question about
what to do when you’ve had a structural change in the economy, coming from population aging. Baby Boomers are retiring, and some people are
acting like it’s a one-time thing. But so
many factors will affect the future: fertility rates, life expectancy, how many
kids someone has, how many old to middle to young workers there are. It’s always a projection, but trends are not
going in the direction of going back to three kids, right? So we think it’s going to be a permanently older economy.

“There are two laws that are in conflict with each other. One is that you get your Social Security benefits based on your top 35 years of earnings.
The other says if the money is not available, it can’t be paid out.”

GAZETTE: Having worked in this space for a long time, did going through the pandemic change your thinking on this issue?

SHEINER: One of the things that happened at the beginning of the pandemic is that people were worried
that [the economic and employment fallout] were going to accelerate the depletion of the Social
Security Trust Funds. That didn’t happen . The economy did a lot better than people thought it would. There was a lot of
mortality, which, unfortunately, helped shore up Social Security. But people did recognize that we are in a situation now where it’s precarious.
The more the Social Security Trust Fund gets withdrawn, the more we’re worried about having to do something that won’t put these benefits at
risk. We don’t want to get to a point where we suddenly have to act quickly, and people aren’t sure if they’re going to get their benefits.

GAZETTE: Some people think that programs like Social Security and Medicare should be totally gutted or at least reformed heavily. Does it
seem inevitable that this is going to happen?

SHEINER: I don’t think it’s inevitable. It’s not the case for Social Security that spending has grown because
of inefficiencies. The social credit benefits are not hugely generous. They’re helpful, but it’s not a case of spending gone wild.
The problem is a structural change in the economy. Now, Medicare is a whole different issue, because Medicare is not just
a provision of money, but the provision of health services. And we know that we’ve had very rapid growth in health spending for decades in this
country. We spend a lot of money relative to other countries on health. Some people would say we should just gut Medicare and go through
universal health care and completely revamp the system. But we’re not anywhere close to doing that, and how to get from here to there is really
uncertain. I do think there will be reforms to Medicare, as there have been decade after decade after decade. In fact, Medicare spending growth
has really been quite moderate in recent decades, to some extent, because of reforms that have happened.

2. Debt is good for growth, especially now.

Robert Kuttner 23. Co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at Brandeis
University’s Heller School. "This Economy Is Breaking All the Rules—and Thriving". American
Prospect. 8-22-2023. https://prospect.org/economy/2023-08-22-economy-breaking-all-the-rules/

What , then, is responsible for the impressive record of growth combined with declining inflation ?
There are two prime candidates.

One is the federal deficit , scorned by fiscal conservatives and prized by Keynesians , especially when
it is used to finance public outlay and not inefficient tax cuts for the rich.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the

federal deficit was 5.2 percent of GDP in fiscal year 2022, 5.3 percent in 2023, and
will be 6.1 percent in the next fiscal year , which begins October 1. That’s a lot of stimulus.
For comparative purposes, the deficit averaged 3.6 percent of GDP between 1973 and 2022.

The deficit hawks would have us believe that this red ink is leading to economic catastrophe . But the
same CBO report projects that the national debt held by the public will grow only modestly, from 98 percent of GDP now to 118 percent of GDP
ten years from now in 2033.

The reason is that all that spending and public investment fuels growth . CBO’s growth
projections may be too conservative , showing annual growth rates at only 1.8 percent from 2028 to
2033 . If growth is stronger than that, the debt ratio will be even better .
The other seldom-remarked source of economic stimulus is consumer spend-down of savings and increased use of credit cards and other forms of
household debt. The U.S. net personal savings rate (savings minus borrowing) averaged below 7 percent in the five years before COVID. In April
2020, it hit an astronomical 33.8 percent, and was still over 20 percent in 2021. The reason was twofold: Anxious consumers reduced their
spending, and with most in-person services like restaurants and sporting events shut down for a year or more, there was less to buy.

But since the pandemic has ebbed, people have maintained living standards by spending down savings and increasing their borrowing. This
summer, the net personal savings rate has declined to below 5 percent. Meanwhile, household debt has risen to over $17 trillion, led by credit
card borrowing.

One other factor that has allowed robust growth and job creation to coexist with very low price pressures is the steady increase in the rate of labor
force participation. For prime-age women, the rate of participation hit an all-time record of 77.8 percent in June. As COVID has subsided, more
people have returned to the labor force. They need the income. Slightly better service-sector wages have also helped attract them.

This complex economic story has elements of bad news and good news. The bad news is that despite the overall strong economy, most people
aren’t that flush. Otherwise, they would not have to take more jobs or tap savings to maintain consumption. A related piece of bad news is that
people can’t keep doing this indefinitely. They either run out of savings or reach the limits of their ability to borrow and to work more hours. And
the pandemic-era supports to the poor—increases in food stamp benefits, higher numbers on the Medicaid rolls, and more—have all gone away.
But the good news is that the several improbable features of this economy seem to be acting in a rare
combination that portends a continued recovery . The gradual disinflation, due to post-COVID increased supply, is
offsetting the strong macroeconomic stimulus, enough to maintain strong growth and job creation but without triggering new inflation. The
high interest rates have tempered growth just a bit, but have not done as much damage to the recovery as
one might expect. And the manufacturing construction increases will, once the structures are built, translate into more production of goods,
which is positive for jobs and supply chains, further benefiting the virtuous cycle.

Think of a Calder mobile. All

of these factors seem to roughly balance each other, and in a most
nontraditional fashion .
The economic historians will long be debating these dynamics. In the meantime, the Fed should take its foot off the brake, and Summers owes the
public (and Biden) an apology.

3. The US has no constraints on their debt, but trying to balance it causes a

global economic crisis.
David Scharfenberg & Mark Blyth 23. Interview with Mark Blyth, Professor of Political Economy
at Brown University. "The federal deficit doesn't matter, says economist Mark Blyth". Boston Globe. 10-
30-2023. https://archive.ph/UQt9o#selection-4097.5-4097.17
The deficit reached $2 trillion this year — double what it was a year ago. Don’t we have to rein it in at some point?

So the argument about this is, ‘Oh, look at the financing costs. Interest rates have gone up. When it was zero, this didn’t cost anything to roll
over. And now it costs a fortune.’ There’s certainly something in this, but there’s also a bit of sleight of hand in these arguments. It’s not as if the
entire federal debt stock becomes the same interest rate overnight. The vast majority of the debt stock is not at the current peak interest rate of just
under 5 percent. So that’s a bit of a scare tactic to start with.

Should we be concerned? One way of looking at it is, you’re going to be spending that money on interest
payments and you could be spending on something else. The chances are , though, we don’t spend on
something else. We just give it away in the next round of tax cuts , particularly if the Republicans get in.
I mean, the hypocrisy on this is astonishing. They’re screaming about deficits, and the first thing they’ll do when they come in is have tax cuts.
And those tax cuts lead to bigger deficits. That’s exactly what happened under Donald Trump.
One argument you hear is: The economy is pretty good now. If you’re going to reduce the deficit, now is the time. Do you buy that?

Well, I would if we filled the gap by taxing people that pay absolutely no tax — such as our billionaire class. But it’s just another argument for,
‘therefore we can’t invest in education, therefore we can’t invest in decarbonization, therefore we must cut it back to the essentials.’ And those
essentials tend to conform to the preferences of conservative Republicans.

So we can just go on forever with deficit spending?

Look, here’s the deal.

At the end of the day we built a world economy, and you’ve got to think of this globally.
When there are too many exporters, they have to sell to the importers. We are the biggest importer . The only way that they
can actually offload all the stuff they make is to accept dollars.
They don’t use dollars in their domestic system, so they give them to the central bank, and the central bank turns them into Treasury bills. That
lowers our long-term interest rates , gives us more consumption power, and we buy more of their
exports. If we actually balance the books , the economies of China , Japan , and Germany would
explode , because there will be nobody to buy the massive amount of stuff that they produce that
their own economies couldn’t possibly absorb .

Now, if you think of the world that way, the deficit is a sign that people either want to — or have to — hold our
currency and our debt . If that is the case, there’s no alternative . You’re not going to hold Chinese bonds. You’re
not going to hold crypto. It’s too volatile. It’s run by crooks. So we have a structural advantage.
Now, if you want to spend all your time fretting about an accountancy thing called the size of the deficit — when you
look at us as a company, like a balance sheet — go ahead. I think it’s nonsensical.

So we’re exempt from the economic rules that govern the rest of the planet?

Look, if you’re a normal country, you have a thing called the “ current account constraint .” Over the long term, you
have to export to balance your imports, right? And if you’ve got a soft currency, one that isn’t regarded as a savings asset, then all these things
matter. The size of your deficit really matters.

If you are the global financial hegemon , you just don’t have these constraints .
It’s very similar to bringing the household analogy into the austerity debate. Trying to say the United States is just like any other country, and it
has to “live within its means” — either you don’t know what you’re talking about or you’re mendacious.
2NC
Counterplan
Advantage 2
 UBI Increases Inequality – 2NC
1. The plan is not enough – The living wage is around $70,000/year.
Isabel Engel, 4-4-2023, “The salary you need to live comfortably in 15 major U.S. cities,” CNBC,
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/04/the-salary-you-need-to-live-comfortably-in-15-major-us-cities.html,
KL
Securing both financial success and career opportunities comes at a cost — one that is growing each year. Overall, Americans need an
average post-tax income of $68,499 to live comfortably in the U.S. , according to recent data from SmartAsset.
SmartAsset’s study analyzed the after-tax income needed to live in the nation’s 25 largest metro areas comfortably. To determine the required
salary for a single individual with no kids in each city, SmartAsset employed the 50/30/20 rule, which defines a comfortable lifestyle as one in
which 50% of after-tax income is applied to basic living expenses (needs), 30% to discretionary income (wants) and 20% to savings and debt.

The MIT Living Wage Calculator was used to calculate basic living expenses for each city.

2. UBI increases inequality

Greenstein 19 [Robert Greenstein is the founder and President Emeritus of the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities. He is considered an expert on the federal budget and a range of domestic policy issues,
including anti-poverty programs and various aspects of tax and health care policy.; “Commentary:
Universal Basic Income May Sound Attractive But, If It Occurred, Would Likelier Increase Poverty Than
Reduce It”; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; June 13, 2019;
https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-opportunity/commentary-universal-basic-income-may-sound-
attractive-but-if-it#:~:text=If%20you%20take%20the%20dollars,inequality%20rather%20than%20reduce
%20them.]//eleanor
UBI’s daunting financing challenges raise fundamental questions about its political feasibility, both now and in coming decades. Proponents
supporters on the right advocate. They generally
often speak of an emerging left-right coalition to support it. But consider what UBI’s
propose UBI as a replacement for the current “ welfare state.” That is, they would finance UBI by
eliminating all or most programs for people with low or modest incomes.

Consider what that would mean. If you take the dollars targeted on people in the bottom fifth or
two-fifths of the population and convert them to universal payments to people all the way up the
income scale, you’re redistributing income upward . That would increase poverty and inequality
rather than reduce them.

Yet that’s the platform on which the (limited) support for UBI on the right largely rests. It entails abolishing
programs from SNAP (food stamps) — which largely eliminated the severe child malnutrition found in parts of the
Southern “black belt” and Appalachia in the late 1960s — to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Section 8 rental
vouchers, Medicaid, Head Start, child care assistance, and many others. These programs lift tens of
millions of people, including millions of children, out of poverty each year and make tens of millions
more less poor.

3. BI doesn’t solve inequality OR poverty---skyrockets cost of everything else.

Charles Blain 20, 12/29/2020, founder and executive director of Urban Reform, “Universal Basic
Income Fails to Get to the Root of Urban Poverty,” https://fee.org/articles/universal-basic-income-fails-
to-get-to-the-root-of-urban-poverty/
While the policy is well-intentioned, it’s
far from the most effective way to eradicate poverty in America’s cities and, in the long-term,
could have unintended consequences on the exact people the mayors hope to help.
As COVID-19 began to wreak havoc across the country, state and local governments started shutting down businesses within their borders and
economists predicted a massive uptick in unemployment and ultimately poverty rates.

Unemployment did increase , but because of an influx of government aid , we have yet to see a corresponding increase in
poverty rates. But that is just a delay , not a fix, those rates will increase as government aid starts to trail off. To combat that, a
group of mayors have started the push for a guaranteed income within their cities.

The effort is led by Stockton’s mayor, Michael Stubbs who implemented the program in 2019.

Stockton’s program provides roughly 130 residents in the city, who make below the median income, a $500 monthly no-strings-attached stipend.
Initial research shows that most of those who received the funding spent it on day-to-day expenses such as transportation, utilities, healthcare, and
debt.

Following Stubbs’ lead, the mayors of Newark, NJ; Columbia, SC; Atlanta, GA; Compton, CA; St. Paul, MN; Los Angeles; Jackson, MS;
Shreveport, LA; Oakland, CA; and Tacoma, WA have all formed the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income coalition.

Chicago, Newark, and Atlanta have formally formed task forces to explore the issue and Milwaukee city council approved a guaranteed income
pilot program.

One glaring problem with allowing this program to exist for any extended period of time is that, unless it is privately
funded, it would be too expensive to maintain and would require substantial tax increases across the board.

The group’s page even admits that, saying, “there’sa number of ways to pay for guaranteed income , from a s overeign
w ealth f und in which citizens benefit from shard national resources like the Alaska Permanent Fund, to bringing tax rates on the
wealthiest Americans to their 20th century historical averages.”

Tax increases on businesses and wealthy individuals could lead to a reduction in investment in other areas like
skills training which can, in turn, lead to a less skilled workforce as noted in a study by the National Bureau of Economic
Research.

Cities issu ing fewer building permits limit housing supply, mandating minimum parking requirements on new
development reduces the amount of square footage for a home or business, and minimum lot size requirements prohibit large
lots from being subdivided for multiple units. All of these drive up the cost of development which is then
passed on to a renter or buyer.

The other problem is that while the initial amount may lower today’s burden on cash-strapped families, as
housing costs continue to
increase in these cities and metropolitan areas, the cost of living will increase as well. So, unless the guaranteed income
tracks with cost of living, in just a few short years it will be of little effect to the families who need the support the
most.

As noted in Urban Reform Institute’s annual Standard of Living Index, 80 percent of cost of living can be attributed to
housing costs , and housing costs are driven up by excessive regulation, especially in major metro areas.
The ever-increasing cost of housing is often blamed on the “market,” but in most metropolitan areas it truly isn’t a free market, instead it is a
market artificially inflated by government regulation.

Cities issuing fewer building permits limit housing supply, mandating minimum parking requirements on new development reduces the amount
of square footage for a home or business, and minimum lot size requirements prohibit large lots from being subdivided for multiple units. All
of these drive up the cost of development which is then passed on to a renter or buyer.
In many areas of the country, like San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles, regulations have driven up costs so much that few
middle-income households can even qualify for a mortgage on a median priced house.
 guaranteed income doesn’t reduce the cost of living, it acts as a substitute that draws attention
A $500 per month
away from the actual problem .
 AT: Inequality – declining – 2NC
Inequality is declining in the US – increased government welfare, healthcare, and
income growth are reducing poverty and closing the material gaps between the rich
and the poor – that’s Wright.
Prefer our evidence – the affirmative’s quereshi evidence says that global inequality
is increasing – that may be true, but the aff has no ability to solve global inequality
because it only increases Social security benefits in the US.

Topline numbers don’t account for rising social benefits---pricing those in,
inequality’s not growing
Catherine et al. 20, University of Pennsylvania, Law School & Wharton, “Social Security and Trends
in Wealth Inequality,” SSRN Scholarly Paper, ID 3546668, Social Science Research Network,
02/29/2020, papers.ssrn.com, doi:10.2139/ssrn.3546668
9 Conclusion

Prior studies find large increases in U.S. wealth inequality over the last three decades based on measures of
wealth concentration that exclude Social Security . This paper builds on past work by incorporating
Social Security into inequality estimates. We find that top wealth shares have not increased once the old
age retirement program is accounted for .

This is because Social Security wealth has risen : In 1989, Social Security represented 23.9% of the wealth held by the
bottom 90% of the wealth distribution. By 2019, this share had grown to 66.1%. Even after adjusting for systematic risk, Social Security rose
from only 20.0% of the total wealth of the bottom 90% to 59.4%.

Since Social Security and private wealth are substitutes (Feldstein, 1974), a narrow definition of wealth paints
an incomplete picture of inequality trends . Our riskadjusted estimates suggest that between 1989 and 2019 the top 10% share
declined by 2.9 percentage points and the top 1% share increased only slightly by 0.1 percentage points. This differs drastically from recent work
that excludes Social Security and finds the top 10% and 1% shares rose by around 10 percentage points over this period.

Our focus here has been on the role of Social Security in top 10% and top 1% wealth shares, as these are
objects of interest of the literature. Social Security is massively important for low and middle-income
wealth, but less so for understanding the differences between those in the top of the distribution, where
private wealth accumulation is likely the main driver of differences between groups.

The top wealth estimates in this paper are still overstated because we exclude programs like disability
insurance and Medicare , which accrue disproportionately to the bottom of the wealth distribution.
Overall, this paper shows that public transfer programs like Social Security make the U.S. economy
more progressive , and it is important for inequality estimates to reflect this . Much more work is needed
to arrive at a fuller understanding of wealth concentration in America.
Inequality’s declining.
Phil Gramm 21, and John Early; 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, 5/23/21, “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 .

Wealth inequality steady

Scott Lincicome 21, senior fellow in economic studies at the CATO Institute, “Lies, Damned Lies, and
Inequality Statistics,” Cato Institute, 7-28-2021, https://www.cato.org/commentary/lies-damned-lies-
inequality-statistics

Finally, we find similar definitional problems in the “ wealth inequality” debate, which has been a prominent issue since
Piketty’s 2014 book, Capital in the 21st Century, alleged a troubling historical rise in wealth concentration among the world’s richest people. As
my Cato colleagues Ryan Bourne and Chris Edwards documented in 2019, however, numerous
economists and other experts
have found that the much‐heralded book suffers from serious methodological flaws . They also find that
subsequent work on wealth inequality from Piketty, Saez, and Gabriel Zucman substantially overstated the growth in
U.S. wealth inequality since the mid‐1970s due to several dubious methodological assumptions . (Feel free
to read the paper for the details.) When other economists corrected those assumptions or used other (better) data,
the troubling rise in wealth inequality becomes far less troubling : depending on the source, the share of wealth
held by the “one percent” is essentially flat since the 1960s or up modestly in recent years. Bourne and
Edwards conclude that U.S.
wealth inequality is probably rising, but not nearly at the consistent and high
speed we hear from the populists.

Low now
Scott Lincicome 21, senior fellow in economic studies at the CATO Institute, “Lies, Damned Lies, and
Inequality Statistics,” Cato Institute, 7-28-2021, https://www.cato.org/commentary/lies-damned-lies-
inequality-statistics
A brand new paper from the Boston Federal Reserve makes similar findings: standard measures of
household net worth (and thus wealth inequality) routinely omit the value of retirement funds —defined
benefit plans (e.g., pensions or annuities), defined contribution plans (e.g., 401ks or IRAs), and social
security—and thus significantly understate the wealth of most Americans and overstate U.S. wealth
inequality . When these widely‐held benefits are included, the share of wealth held by the top 5 percent
drops from about 72 percent to 45 percent in 2019, and its growth since 1989 goes from 18.2 percentage
points (53.3% to 71.5%) to just 10.2 percentage points (35.2% to 45.4%). The Boston Fed authors also find—somewhat
incredibly—that approximately one in four Americans aged 40 to 49 was a millionaire in 2019 when
you include the present value of their retirement benefits in total their household net worth . (The
total is almost certainly even higher today, given what’s happened to home prices and the stock market since
2019.) As economist David Weil notes, adding other forms of government “transfer wealth” would further
improve these results .

So, onceagain, troubling depictions of wealth inequality—often cited to justify more government
redistribution —become far less troubling after considering the full picture of people’s wealth,
especially existing government redistribution programs .
 AT: Inequality – 2NC
No impact to poverty or inequality – There’s no correlation between inequality and
violence, few people backlash, and perceptions don’t math real inequality – that’s
Must.

Inequality and poverty do not drive populism.

Philippe Van Parijs, 4-1-2023, Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics at the University of
Louvain, "Insecurity and the rise of populism," Friends of Europe,
https://www.friendsofeurope.org/insights/insecurity-and-the-rise-of-populism/, KL

Not poverty , not inequality , but insecurity is at the root of the worldwide upsurge in populism and
disenchantment with democracy . This insecurity is in the first place economic. Globalisation, understood as the expansion of
world trade, has produced undeniable benefits. The poverty rate in India and China, for example, would not have shrunk as much as it has done
had it not been for massive exports. But globalisation has also shattered economic security in many places as a result of international competition
annihilating millions of decently paid stable jobs and threatening to annihilate many more.

Globalisation, however, is not the only source of economic insecurity. Technological change is equally important. Projections about the rate of
replacement of humans by machines may be exaggerated, but the ubiquitous invasion of automated digital services is now part of everyone’s
daily life. The
insecurity created by fast technological change does not only affect workers whose jobs may be lost or
unpleasantly redefined. It also affects
consumers and users of public services who are constantly expected to
acquire new skills if they are not to be left behind, deprived of access to what they are entitled to or
subjected to heavy costs that the technologically up-to-date can avoid .
These two major sources of economic insecurity have been very perceptible for some time. They were more recently joined by three more:
climate change, the pandemic and the war. Climate change creates insecurity not only because of its haphazard physical
manifestations but also because of the economic disturbances created by the urgent changes in production and consumption required to address it.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted economic activities throughout the world both directly, through illness, lockdowns and other restrictive
measures, and indirectly, by creating havoc in supply chains. And the Russia-Ukraine War has not only affected the livelihood of the residents of
the war zones and the economies of the two countries at war. It has also made access to energy and food problematic in countless places very
remote from the fighting.

Economic insecurity, whether generated by globalisation, digitalisation or any other cause, is not the sole culprit . Cultural
insecurity also plays an important independent role. It is triggered when people feel that the identity of
their community is threatened by the arrival , or the growth in numbers or power, of people who do
not share their native language, cultural references, religious beliefs, civic customs, dress and other
everyday practices. The upsurge in populism is sometimes strongest in places where a thriving labour
market provides economic security , but where real , alleged or prospective immigration boosts
cultural insecurity .

Both economic and cultural insecurity breed democratic disenchantment because of the feeling that
democratic national governments, often bridled by international treaties or constitutional constraints, are
unwilling or unable to address them effectively . Because of the largely unstoppable cross-border movement of capital,
goods, services and people, and because of the need to keep pace with technological progress, governments often have to capitulate to market
Faced with the
forces or resort to laborious supranational decision-making processes, more or less remote and more or less undemocratic.
impotence of democratic governments, the temptation to call for strong leaders and to embrace
simplistic nationalist solutions can seem irresistible .
Right-wing populism is driven by non-economic causes.
Olga Khazan, 4-23-2018, staff writer at The Atlantic citing Diana C. Mutz, University of Pennsylvania
political scientist, "People Voted for Trump Because They Were Anxious, Not Poor," Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/existential-anxiety-not-poverty-motivates-trump-
support/558674/, KL
For the past 18 months, many political scientists have been seized by one question: Less-educated whites were President Trump’s most
enthusiastic supporters. But why, exactly?

Was their vote some sort of cri de coeur about a changing economy that had left them behind? Or was the motivating sentiment something more
complex and, frankly, something harder for policy makers to address?

After analyzing in-depth survey data from 2012 and 2016, the University of Pennsylvania political scientist Diana C. Mutz argues that it’s the
latter. In a new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, she added her conclusion to the growing body of evidence that
the 2016 election was not about economic hardship .

“ Instead ,” she writes, “it was about dominant groups that felt threatened by change and a candidate who took
advantage of that trend.”

“For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country,” Mutz notes, “ white
Americans are being told that they will soon
be a minority race .” When members of a historically dominant group feel threatened , she explains, they
go through some interesting psychological twists and turns to make themselves feel okay again. First, they get
nostalgic and try to protect the status quo however they can. They defend their own group (“all lives
matter”), they start behaving in more traditional ways, and they start to feel more negatively toward
other groups.
This could be why in
one study, whites who were presented with evidence of racial progress experienced
lower self-esteem afterward. In another study, reminding whites who were high in “ethnic identification” that
nonwhite groups will soon outnumber them revved up their support for Trump , their desire for
anti-immigrant policies, and their opposition to political correctness .
Mutz also found that “half of Americans view trade as something that benefits job availability in other countries at the expense of jobs for
Americans.”

Granted, most people just voted for the same party in both 2012 and 2016. However, between the two years, people—especially Republicans—
developed a much more negative view toward international trade. In 2012, the two parties seemed roughly similar on trade, but in 2016, Hillary
Clinton’s views on trade and on “China as a threat” were much further away from the views of the average American than were Trump’s.

Mutz examined voters whose incomes declined , or didn’t increase much, or who lost their jobs , or who
were concerned about expenses , or who thought they had been personally hurt by trade . None of
those things motivated people to switch from voting for Obama in 2012 to supporting Trump in 2016.
Indeed, manufacturing employment in the United States has actually increased somewhat since 2010. And as my
colleague Adam Serwer has pointed out, “Clinton defeated Trump handily among Americans making less than
$ 50,000 a year.”

Meanwhile, a
few things did correlate with support for Trump: a voter’s desire for their group to be
dominant , as well as how much they disagreed with Clinton’s views on trade and China. Trump supporters were also more
likely than Clinton voters to feel that “the American way of life is threatened,” and that high-status
groups, like men , Christians , and whites , are discriminated against .
This sense of unfounded persecution is far from rare , and it seems to be heightened during moments
of societal change . As my colleague Emma Green has written, white evangelicals see more discrimination against
Christians than Muslims in the United States, and 79 percent of white working-class voters who had
anxieties about the “American way of life” chose Trump over Clinton . As I pointed out in the fall of 2016, several
surveys showed many men supported Trump because they felt their status in society was threatened ,
and that Trump would restore it. Even the education gap in support for Trump disappears, according to one analysis, if you account
for the fact that non-college-educated whites are simply more likely to affirm racist views than those with college degrees. (At the most extreme
end, white supremacists also use victimhood to further their cause.)

These why-did-people-vote-for-Trump studies are clarifying, but also a little bit unsatisfying, from the point of view of a
politician. They dispel the fiction —to use another 2016 meme—that the majority of Trump supporters are
disenfranchised victims of capitalism’s cruelties . At the same time, deep-seated psychological
resentment is harder for policy makers to address than an overly meager disability check .
You can teach out-of-work coal miners to code, but you may not be able to convince them to embrace
changing racial and gender norms . You can offer universal basic income s, but that won’t
ameliorate resentment of demographic changes.

In other words, it’s

now pretty clear that many Trump supporters feel threatened , frustrated , and
marginalized — not on an economic , but on an existential level . Now what?
2NC
 Debt Good---Solves Growth---2NC
It stimulates the economy.
Charlotte Morabito 23. Producer at CNBC. “U.S. debt is nearly $33 trillion. But some economists say
not all debt is bad.”. CNBC. 9-10-2023. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/10/why-the-national-debt-can-
both-help-and-hurt-the-us-economy.html
The U.S. national debt is sitting at nearly $33 trillion dollars.

Every year since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more money than it takes in, which means it has to borrow money to make up for the
difference.

“Debt has many useful purposes,” said Kris Mitchener, professor of economics at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara
University. “The public debt has always been used for emergencies . It’s easier to finance by borrowing
than to burden the current generation with taxes.”
The national debt increased by more than 89% since the beginning of the pandemic, with many top economists in agreement that 2020 was not
the time to worry about the debt.

But now that the worst of the public health emergency has passed, the focus is back on how the ever-expanding debt can be harmful to the
economy.

“There are good uses of debt [and] there are bad uses of debt,” said William Gale, economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“The concern we have at the Peterson Foundation is not whether the national debt should ever be used,” said Michael Peterson, chairman and
CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. “It should be how it is used and how much it is used. And unfortunately, we’re using it for rainy days
and sunny days right now.”

Economists measure the severity of a nation’s debt based on its debt-to-GDP ratio. The U.S. debt held by the public is nearly at 100%. The
Committee for Economic Develop of the Conference Board says a responsible debt-to-GDP ratio for a country the size of the U.S. would be 70%.

“Debt helps your economy because you can take on large initiatives like infrastructure ,” said Lori Esposito-
Murray, president of the Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board. “You could take on crises like the pandemic, but you
have to watch where your debt-to-GDP ratio is because that really is the stability indicator of whether you can actually service this debt or
whether you’re tilting the balance.”

Servicing the debt can become difficult when interest rates are higher. The Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates since March 2022
with the goal of slowing down economic activity.

But some argue that servicing the debt at a high interest rate can actually stimulate the economy.

“The Fed is pushing up interest rates and this is feeding hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars
in additional income to bondholders ,” said Stephanie Kelton, professor of economics at Stony Brook University. “So people
who are holding government bonds, paying higher rates of interest, are getting a huge windfall in the
form of interest income and that income can be spent just like any other form of income .”
 AT: Debt Bad---2NC
Debt is irrelevant to the economic climate and policymaking.
William D. Lastrapes 19. Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia. “Why the $22 trillion
national debt doesn’t matter – here’s what you should worry about instead.” The Conversation.
2/14/2019. https://theconversation.com/why-the-22-trillion-national-debt-doesnt-matter-heres-what-you-
should-worry-about-instead-111805
With another round of anxiety-causing debt-ceiling debates likely to return in the coming months, like other economists, I believe it is worth
asking whether we should even care about the size of government debt .
Default isn’t imminent

First of all, it’s important to note current U.S. debt levels do not indicate any risk of imminent default.
As long as the U.S. federal government remains an “ongoing concern” – fiscal
institutions are strong and effective, taxing
authority is maintained and the long-run productive capacity of the nation’s economy is secure – there is
no economic reason to fear default on the nation’s debt. Political reasons, such as debt-ceiling mischief, are another matter.
To remain solvent and ultimately pay what it owes, the U.S.
Treasury – which sells notes and bonds to investors to raise
money to finance the budget deficit – needs only to balance its books over the long run, rather than over
an arbitrary unit of time like a year.
Historically low interest rates on government debt suggest that bond market participants agree with this
view and are not afraid of a sovereign debt default in the U.S. Indeed, with these low rates, sufficient economic
growth can allow the government to borrow indefinitely.

Why it’s irrelevant

Although $22 trillion is a large number, it is essentially

irrelevant to proper thinking about the economic role of the
U.S. government or about responsible fiscal policy.
Government debt simply reflects the timing of taxes. Higher spending levels today require more borrowing – and a larger debt – as long as the
taxes needed to pay for those expenditures are pushed into the future.

But regardlessof when taxes are collected, what ultimately matters is the quantity of the economy’s scarce
resources the federal government commands and controls, and how those resources are used, which essentially
depend on the level and composition of government spending. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, spending is taxing.

government debt can be a bad indicator of the stance of fiscal policy or its burden on the
In short,
private sector. The government can be wildly intrusive in the economy and thus a hindrance to growth
and welfare even if its debt is low. For example, Venezuela’s sovereign debt was only 23 percent of its GDP in 2017, yet its
economy has been in turmoil for several years.

Or it can effectively manage spending to promote welfare even if its debt is high. In 1945, the U.S. debt-
to-GDP ratio was 120 percent, immediately after the government mobilized the economy to win World War II.

High debt should not prevent the government from spending on worthwhile public endeavors . And
low debt does not prove that the level or composition of government spending is appropriate .
1NR – Emory Finals
DA
 AT: Debt
1. No consumer debt impact – its historically low and savings are high.
Demos 23 [Telis Demos writes about banking and money for Heard on the Street in The Wall Street
Journal's finance bureau in New York; “Is It Time to Worry About Consumer Debt? What Is Going On in
Seven Charts”; 8/16/23; wsj; https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/is-it-time-to-worry-about-consumer-
debt-what-is-going-on-in-seven-charts-d545f171
Delinquencies on various
One of the biggest debates in the market today is over what exactly is going to happen with consumer credit.
kinds of debt are rising , but the rate at which people are falling into outright distress remains low . How long
can that continue?

Until very recently, the

rate of late payments had trended below historical norms across virtually all
lending types and consumer groups . A frequent explanation is that Americans built up a cushion of extra cash savings during the
pandemic and still haven’t spent it down.

The good news is this looks to still be the case . According to anonymized and aggregated account data
tracked by the Bank of America Institute, the median savings and checking balances were at least 30%
higher in July than they averaged in 2019. Notably, balances are highest on a relative basis among households with lower income levels.
Yet the frequency with which people are becoming late with payments on their debts for some kinds of loans is returning not just to prepandemic
levels, but even moving beyond them. The percentage of credit-card and auto-loan balances transitioning into delinquency—that is, going from
current to becoming 30-days-plus late—is happening at a pace faster than that of 2019, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s
recently released second-quarter Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, which is based on a nationally representative sample of
anonymized Equifax credit data.

Where the stress appears the most acute is for borrowers with poor credit records. The 60-day-plus delinquency rate for subprime auto loans rose
to 5.37% in June, according to S&P Global Ratings’ latest composite performance tracker for U.S. auto loan asset-backed securities. That is well
above the 0.49% June rate for prime loans in the tracker, and the highest June level ever for subprime.

However, consumers aren’t moving into financial distress at the same level they did when card or auto
delinquencies were last occurring at those paces. The number of consumers facing new foreclosures and
bankruptcies is still at levels well below the prepandemic period . The New York Fed noted in its report that
foreclosures have stayed low even after a national pause on foreclosures that was included in the 2020 Coronavirus
Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or Cares Act, ended in 2021. Some forms of foreclosure relief or limitations continued.
 UQ

The economy is great now – growth is increasing and inflation is decreasing.

Brown & Irwin 1/25 [Courtenay; economics reporter at Axios, covering the global economy, central banks, financial markets and
macroeconomic trends; and; Neil; chief economic correspondent of Axios. Reporting on and analyzes the U.S. and global economies, the Federal
Reserve, economic policy, and financial markets; 1/25/2024; “What recession? Inside the gangbuster GDP report’; Axios;
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/25/gdp-report-us-economy-inflation-cooldown ;]//slow

Forget the much-discussed prospect of a soft landing for the U.S. economy. In 2023, there was no landing at all.

Why it matters:
Big economic rules broke last year. The latest data to confirm that is the new GDP report showing very
strong economic growth to conclude 2023, even amid a big cooldown in inflation .
Mainstream economists and policymakers believed a period of below-trend growth would be necessary to make progress on inflation.

Instead, above-trend
growth in 2023 coincided with inflation falling sharply, reflecting improvement in the
economy's supply potential.
Driving the news: The economy expanded at a 3.3% annualized rate in the fourth quarter, well above the 2% forecasters
expected. That followed the previous quarter's blockbuster 4.9% growth.

GDP was 3.1% higher in the fourth quarter than a year earlier.
That represents an acceleration from
0.7% GDP growth in 2022, and trounced the growth rates of most other advanced
countries — and the 1.8%-ish rate that economists consider the United States' long-term trend.
Details: The fourth quarter's hot growth resulted from bustling activity across the economy.
Consumers spent more on goods and services, with personal consumption expenditures rising at a 2.8% annualized
pace. That was responsible for nearly 2 percentage points of the fourth quarter's GDP rise.
Businesses spent on equipment, factories and intellectual property at a solid pace, with nonresidential fixed
investment increasing at 1.9% — up from the previous quarter.
The intrigue: For two years now, Fed officials have spoken of the need for a period of below-trend growth to bring inflation into line. Now, they
face the decision of whether to cut rates — to essentially declare victory on inflation — even as below-trend growth is nowhere to be seen.

A flourishing labor market, strong productivity gains and supply-side improvements — more workers
joining the workforce, for instance — has (at least so far) meant the economy can keep growing at a solid pace without
risking a pickup in price pressure.
"[W]e had significant supply-side gains with strong demand," Fed chair Jerome Powell said in his December press conference,
adding that potential growth may have been higher than usual "just because
of the healing on the supply side."
"So that was a surprise to just about everybody," Powell said.

What they're saying: "This report feels like a supersonic Goldilocks: very strong GDP reading with cool inflation ,"
Beth Ann Bovino, chief economist at U.S. Bank, tells Axios. "Good news is good news."

"With high productivity levels, we can have strong growth with less inflation . That was the case during the last soft
landing in the 90s," Bovino adds.
The economy is trending towards stabilization – the fed is projecting rate cuts
instead of hikes as inflation cools
Saphir 1-26 [Ann; Fed and economics reporter at Reuters.1-26-2024; "Five signs the Fed's pivot is underway before even a single rate
cut"; Reuters; https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/five-signs-feds-pivot-is-underway-before-even-single-rate-cut-2024-01-26/;]
//LASA-‫بالل‬

Federal Reserve policymakers have signaled they won't cut U.S. interest rates just yet; economists think they will wait until June,
given ongoing strength in household spending and uncertainty over the economic outlook, and market bets now
point to the April 30-May 1 policy meeting.

But U.S.central bankers, who have kept the Fed's benchmark overnight interest rate in the 5.25%-5.50% range
since last July, have already begun the pivot to easier policy.
The turn in communications may be yet more evident in the policy statement due to be issued next Wednesday after the end of the Fed's first policy meeting of 2024
and in Fed Chair Jerome Powell's post-meeting press conference, analysts said.

Data due to be released on Friday will likely show that inflation, using the Fed's preferred measure, will have been running below the
central bank's 2% goal on a six-month basis, according to economists polled by Reuters.

Officials so far say it's still not enough. But they don't want rate cuts, when they eventually are announced by the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee
(FOMC), to be a surprise.

"I think of it as turning a battleship," said Luke Tilley, the chief economist at Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors. "Their communication
has gone
from being way too hawkish and started to turn to what is more likely to happen and preparing for the
start of cuts . The switch takes a while and they are moving in that direction."
Here are five ways Fed policymakers have adjusted their steering so far:

FROM 'PAIN' TO A 'GOLDEN PATH'

Policymakers were initially pretty sure their inflation fight would boost the unemployment rate and cause households "pain," as Powell warned, opens new tab in
August 2022.

By mid-2023, unemployment was still well below 4% while inflation had dropped noticeably , and Chicago Fed
President Austan Goolsbee began talking up the possibility of finding a "golden
path" that skirted economic pain.
Earlier this month, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic adopted the metaphor, opens new tab, and said that progress towards it had led him to pencil in an earlier
start to rate cuts than before.

Powell has not used that turn of phrase, though in September he acknowledged the
path to a "soft landing," in which inflation slows
without triggering a painful recession or big loss of jobs, may have widened. Fed Governor Christopher Waller said recently the
combination of low unemployment and inflation "is almost as good as it gets."
"We think the FOMC cannot believe its luck that a soft landing is unfolding, and is focused on not screwing
this up – either by declaring victory too soon, or, waiting too long to start cutting," Krishna Guha, vice chairman at Evercore ISI, wrote in a note.
AVOIDING A 'MISTAKE'

"The biggest mistake we could make is really, to fail to get inflation under control," Powell said last November.

With inflation falling faster than expected with no further increases in the Fed's policy rate since July, that word is getting redefined.

"We're aware of the risk that we would hang on too long," Powell said last month. "We know that that's a risk, and we're very focused on not making that mistake."

Economists at Citi, Bank of America and a number of other firms said the Fed next week could give itself some added flexibility by dropping the reference to
"additional policy firming" which has been included in every post-meeting policy statement since March 2023.

EVEN HAWKS SEE RATE CUTS

In 2023, Fed policymakers were busy either actually delivering rate hikes, or keeping the door open to
them.
Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, among the most hawkish of Fed policymakers, early this month said her views have evolved,
opens new tab to allow for the possibility that rates may not need to rise further , and that cuts in borrowing costs
could be warranted if inflation keeps falling.

Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, also hawkish in her outlook, said that the March 19-20 meeting is "probably" too early for a rate
cut , though she, like the majority of her colleagues, sees several rate cuts this year.
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan this month said easing financial conditions mean a rate increase is still on the table, but she also noted "a lot of progress" toward a
more sustainable economy and a gradual rebalancing.
 Link
Records confirm the Fed expects inflation when SS is expanded, regardless of policy
details.
Romer 16 [Dr. Christina D. Romer & Dr. David H. Romer 16, PhD, Professor, Economics, University
of California, Berkeley; PhD, Professor Emeritus, Political Economy, University of California, Berkeley,
"Transfer Payments and the Macroeconomy: The Effects of Social Security Benefit Increases, 1952-
1991," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Vol. 8, No. 4, pg. 39-41, 2016, JSTOR]//eleanor

This paper shows that Social Security benefit increases over the period 1952-1991 were highly irregular in
timing and size , and presents evidence that the increases were not taken in response to current or prospective
macroeconomic developments or as part of larger policy programs. As a result, these benefit increases can be used to
estimate the short-run macroeconomic effects of changes in transfers.

Our first finding is that transfers matter . The estimates suggest that a perm increase in Social Security benefits
raises aggregate consumer spending in month the larger checks arrive roughly one-for-one. The estimated impact remains high
for about half a year, and then declines sharply. The initial impact is highly statistically significant , but the standard errors
increase as the horizon lengthens. The timing of the response corresponds more closely to when the higher benefit checks are received than to
when the increases are passed. Interestingly, the estimated response of consumption to temporary benefit increases is small and not statistically
significant.

A comparison of the impact of permanent Social Security benefit increases and relatively exogenous tax changes shows a marked contrast. While
the tax
changes are slower to affect consumption, their effects are much more persistent , more statistically significant , and
far larger over an extended period than those for benefit increases. As a result, tax changes affect broader economic
indicators, while benefit increases do not. Both types of changes have their primary impact on total consumption by raising expenditures on
durable goods.

Monetary policy appears to be important in explaining the differential impacts of a benefit increase and a tax cut at medium horizons. The
federal funds rate rises sharply and significantly following a permanent Social Security benefit increase,
but it moves little, or perhaps even falls, during the year following a tax cut. Narrative evidence from Federal Reserve records

confirms that monetary policymakers believed that the benefit increases stimulated the economy
and called for a contractionary response, whereas their beliefs about the appropriate response to tax changes were far more
complicated.

These findings have implications for both research and policy. On the research side, the most important implication is in some ways the most
prosaic: it is useful to look at the macroeconomic impact of transfers. The microeconomic evidence on the response of consumption to income
changes does not carry over seamlessly to the aggregate level. In the case of Social Security benefit increases between 1952 and 1991, a
systematic monetary policy response appears to have rapidly counteracted the impact of the increases on consumption. In addition to suggesting
caution in trying to generalize from individual-level studies to the macroeconomy, this implication highlights the importance of considering
monetary and fiscal policy jointly in both empirical studies and theoretical models.

Related to this, our study also casts doubt on the view of traditional Keynesian models and of such authors as Blanchard and Perotti (2002) that
the short-run macroeconomic effects of changes in transfers and changes in taxes are approximately equal and opposite. Our results
suggest
that the speed, persistence, and size of the responses of consumption and of monetary policy to a
permanent increase in transfers and to a tax cut of the same size may in fact be decidedly different. As a result, their impact s on
the broader economy may also be very different.

aggregate
While our study raises questions about whether individual-level studies of consumption carry over to the aggregate level, our
results may nevertheless contribute to our understanding of household consumption behavior . Most notably, our
findings about the very short-run response of consumption to benefit increases echo the results of many previous studies that
neither the permanent income hypothesis nor a simple hand-to-mouth model provides a complete description of consumption behavior. As
stressed by Wilcox (1989), the fact that aggregate consumption responds when permanent benefit increases are implemented even though the
changes are announced in advance contradicts the permanent income hypothesis. At the same time, a hand-to-mouth or liquidity constraints view
is contradicted by our finding that consumption does not respond to temporary benefit increases.

The effect is perceived as immediate, resulting in automatic rate hikes.

Rodríguez 18 [Dr. Susana P. Rodríguez 18, PhD, Economist, DG Economics, European Central Bank,
"The Dynamic Effects of Public Expenditure Shocks in The United States," Journal of Macroeconomics,
Vol. 56, June 2018, ScienceDirect]//eleanor

Fig. 3 shows the effects of an increase in social security benefits . The initial increase of 1% is reduced by half by the
fourth quarter; thereafter social security benefits gradually revert to the pre-shock level. An increase in social security benefits
implies a positive output response. Output rises 0.15% on impact and has a peak response in the second quarter of 0.2%. Although
the output response is positive during the entire forecast horizon, it is only significant the first four quarters. Benefits increases also
trigger a positive response of aggregate expenditure components. Consumption of non-durables and
services , and durable goods purchases show a significant increase in the short-run. Consistent with evidence at the
household level, durable goods purchases respond more than private consumption of non-durables and services; the impact responses are 0.57%
and 0.07%, respectively.8 The estimated consumption response is lower than estimates by Romer and Romer (2016). The estimated consumption
response is lower than the estimates of Romer and Romer (2016). They find that a permanent benefits increase of 1% raises aggregate
consumption by 1.2% in the month in which the checks arrive. The effect persists after four months. However, their estimates are also mainly
driven by a rise in durables consumption. Párraga-Rodríguez (2016a) also finds that innovations to old age pensions trigger a
large r response of durables purchases than non-durables. Non-residential investment increases significantly during the first 6
quarters, with a peak increase in the fourth quarter of 0.45%. One explanation for this positive response of non-residential
investment could be that businesses , like policymakers (as explained below), see increases in social security
benefits as expansionary . Moreover, Romer and Romer (2010) also find a strong response of investment to tax cuts which, as they
argue, could be because investment depends strongly on the overall economic conditions.

[Figure omitted]

Romer and Romer (2016) find that increases in social security benefits often include increases in payroll taxes in their legislation. Consistent with
this evidence, the rise in social security benefits is tax-financed. An increase in social security benefits is accompanied by a significant and steady
increase in the Average Marginal Income Tax Rate, which rises by 0.17 percentage points upon impact. The combined response of output and the
average marginal tax income rate imply an increase in tax revenues. This response of the AMITR is also consistent with the results obtained using
total tax revenues instead.

On the other hand, the narrative analysis does not find contemporaneous increases in other public expenditure. The rise in government spending
questions the identifying assumption that the proxies must be unrelated to all other shocks (see Eq. (4)), and could suggest that the output
response might be due to higher government spending. However, the instruments for government spending and income transfer shocks have a
correlation close to zero, i.e. −0.04.9 Moreover, the next section demonstrates that government spending shocks have a weaker impact on output
and aggregate expenditure components. For example, an increase in government spending yields a flat response of durable goods purchases.
Augmenting the baseline VAR with government spending does not significantly change the output response either. The positive government
spending response to increases in social security benefits could simply be an automatic response to higher tax
revenues. It could also reflect a stimulus to private spending on goods and services provided by the government at a price below the market’s
(e.g. health-care).

Benefits increases yield a slight, but persistent rise in the real wage of the business sector. This contributes
to higher inflation in the
medium term. The inflation rate responds with a delay to an increase in social security benefits. By the fourth quarter,
inflation has a maximum increase of 0.12 percentage points. The response of inflation is significant at standard levels for 8 quarters.10 More
importantly, the inflationary nature of increases in benefits triggers a response of monetary policy. Romer and Romer
(2016) document the counteracting monetary policy response to increases in social security benefits,
through examining the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee ( FOMC ) meetings. For example, the staff economic
report for the meeting on the 10th of August 1965, p. 28, states that
The mailing of checks to Social
Security beneficiaries, including both the new higher scale of payments and lump-sum retroactive benefits,
will be adding to disposable personal income shortly. [
] How rapidly, and for what goods or services, recipients of the benefits will spend their funds is a big unknown; we have very little basis for
estimating the consumption function for this older age group. But it is hard to believe that the bulk of it would not get into
the spending stream fairly promptly .
And in p. 65, we find

I would not want to ease policy right now, for a considerable degree of new fiscal stimulus lies immediately ahead of us. Some
of this will come from the enlarged Social Security payments.
Regarding labor market indicators, increases in benefits trigger a positive response of labor participation and employment from the 4th quarter.
The point estimates though are imprecisely estimated and insignificant at the 95% confidence level. On the other hand, hours do not respond in
the short run but fall in the medium and long run. The combined effect
of higher output and the same hours during the first four
quarters yields a significant increase in productivity in the short run. The negative response of hours in the medium and
longer-term indicates that increases in benefits distort the labor supply of labor market participants. This is consistent
with the view that higher taxes represent a weaker incentive to work (for example, Rogerson, 2007, Olovsson, 2009, Nickell, Stephen, Prescott,
2004; Ragan, 2013).

To summarize, increases in social security benefits yield a positive output response. While all of the consumption aggregates show a positive
response, households seem to spend a larger share of their increased benefits on durable goods. Businesses see increases in benefits as
expansionary and invest in their production capacity. However, increases in benefits also generate
inflationary pressures that induce monetary policy to tighten . Finally, increases in benefits are self-
financed and distort the labor supply of labor market participants in the medium and longer term.
 AT: Taxes Solve
“Revenue neutral” does not avoid the link – Redistributive UBI increases the
velocity of money – transfers from high-earners to low-earners with a higher
marginal propensity to consume – that reduces investment and increases spending
on consumer goods.
Boyce 19 [Paul Boyce is a Business Economics graduate from the University of Greenwich. He
currently works as a consultant in financial services; “Universal Basic Income Is a Pandora’s Box”; FEE
Stories; May 5, 2019; https://fee.org/articles/universal-basic-income-is-a-pandora-s-box/]//eleanor
Higher Prices and Inflation

A UBI would essentially transfer wealth away from higher earners toward low earners . This spurs
higher consumption because those with lower incomes have a higher propensity to consume . On a
macro basis, this may not necessarily create any inflation, as there is no new money entering the economy. However, it will create
inflation on a micro basis. Rather than money going toward investment, it is going toward consumer goods.
Instead of inflation occurring through a wide variety of areas, it is being concentrated.

Importance of Velocity

Yang says this is just using the existing money in the economy. In part, he is right. However, he fails to
consider the velocity of money. One of the reasons the US did not experience significant inflation after
quantitative easing was due to a slowing of consumption growth. If we put $12,000 into everyone's
hands, consumer demand will rise, and so, too, will velocity .

When velocity increases , the same $1 exchanges hands at a quicker rate . For example, A may buy a
television from B for $100. B will then buy a used iPhone from C for $100. C will then buy a used sofa
from D for $100. The initial $100 has circulated around the economy at a value of $300. This sends
demand signals to the relevant parties, who then respond with higher prices .

1. Romer’s study accounted for tax increases –

they had no effect on consumption and didn’t
offset the consumption effects of transfers
Christina Romer 14, professor of Economics at the Berkeley and a former chair of the Council of
Economic Advisers in the Obama administration, David Romer, co-director of the Program in Monetary
Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Professor of Political Economy at
Berkeley, May 2014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper, "Transfer Payments and
the Macroeconomy: The Effects of Social Security Benefit Changes, 1952-1991,"
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20087/w20087.pdf

The broader reason for expanding the analysis is to compare the impacts of taxes and transfers. In very simple Keynesian models,
taxes and transfers have equal and opposite effects. Even more sophisticated models tend to imply that the effects are broadly
inverse, as long as the incidence and incentive effects are not extremely different. A direct comparison of the estimated effects of taxes and
transfers can see if this is the case. To the degree that it is not, the comparison can suggest possible explanations and directions for further study.

A. Data and Specifications The tax measure we use is a variant of the one developed in Romer and Romer (2010). In particular, our measure here
is the sum of the tax changes that are the focus of that paper— legislated tax changes taken for long-run reasons or to reduce an inherited budget
deficit—and legislated changes to finance a roughly contemporaneous increase in Social Security benefits.23 In the earlier paper, we argue that
the first set of tax changes should not be systematically correlated with other factors affecting macroeconomic developments in the short run. And
once we control for Social Security benefit increases, the tax increases intended to help finance them should also be uncorrelated with other
factors affecting the macroeconomy.

Because our focus here is on consumer behavior and the comparison to Social Security benefit increases, we exclude tax actions that only
We do, however, include
affected businesses. For example, we exclude the large investment tax credit legislated in the Revenue Act of 1962.
any tax action that involved a substantial change in personal income, payroll, or excise taxes, even if some
business taxes were also changed by the action.24 To facilitate the comparison of tax and transfer changes, we follow the convention of
expressing tax cuts as positive and tax increases as negative.

One limitation of the tax measure is that it does not separate permanent and temporary tax changes. However, most tax changes in the postwar
period that were explicitly temporary were adopted for countercyclical purposes, and so are not included in our measure. As a result, the vast
majority of the tax changes in our measure are permanent.

Figure 4 shows our series for permanent Social Security benefit increases together with our series for tax changes. The figure makes clear that
there is not a simple correlation between benefit increases and tax changes. For example, it is not the case that there is always (or even often) a
tax increase in close proximity to the benefit increases. Similarly, benefit increases do not seem to occur systematically around the same time as
tax-based fiscal expansions.

To expand the empirical analysis, we estimate equation (1) described earlier including the tax variable. Since our earlier paper finds substantial
lags in the effects of tax changes, we include the contemporaneous value and 24 lags of the tax measure.

B. Results Controllingfor tax changes has essentially no effect on the estimated impact of a permanent increase
in Social Security benefits on consumption. At medium horizons, the impact is slightly larger when tax changes
are included: for example, after 7 months, the impact on consumption of a benefit increase of 1 percent of
personal income is 0.02 percent not controlling for taxes and 0.28 controlling for taxes . The difference is in the
direction one would expect, but small both in absolute terms and relative to the standard errors. Thus, the results suggest that excluding tax
changes from our previous analysis introduced relatively little omitted variable bias.25