Econ

Drought

Drought will cause massive energy shut down, blackout’s

Michael Webber, 12

“Will Drought Cause the Next Blackout?” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/opinion/will-drought-cause-the-next-blackout.html?_r=0, accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

WE’RE now in the midst of the nation’s most widespread drought in 60 years, stretching across 29 states and threatening farmers, their crops and livestock. But there is another risk as water becomes more scarce. Power plants may be forced to shut down, and oil and gas production may be threatened. Our energy system depends on water. About half of the nation’s water withdrawals every day are just for cooling power plants. In addition, the oil and gas industries use tens of millions of gallons a day, injecting water into aging oil fields to improve production, and to free natural gas in shale formations through hydraulic fracturing. Those numbers are not large from a national perspective, but they can be significant locally. All told, we withdraw more water for the energy sector than for agriculture. Unfortunately, this relationship means that water problems become energy problems that are serious enough to warrant high-level attention. During the 2008 drought in the Southeast, power plants were within days or weeks of shutting down because of limited water supplies. In Texas today, some cities are forbidding the use of municipal water for hydraulic fracturing. The multiyear drought in the West has lowered the snowpack and water levels behind dams, reducing their power output. The United States Energy Information Administration recently issued an alert that the drought was likely to exacerbate challenges to California’s electric power market this summer, with higher risks of reliability problems and scarcity-driven price increases. And in the Midwest, power plants are competing for water that farmers want for their devastated corn crops. Unfortunately, trends suggest that this water vulnerability will become more important with time.

Blackouts cause nuclear meltdowns

Huffington Post, 11

“Long Blackouts Pose Risk To U.S. Nuclear Reactors” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/blackout-risk-us-nuclear-reactors_n_841869.html, accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

Long before the nuclear emergency in Japan, U.S. regulators knew that a power failure lasting for days at an American nuclear plant, whatever the cause, could lead to a radioactive leak. Even so, they have only required the nation's 104 nuclear reactors to develop plans for dealing with much shorter blackouts on the assumption that power would be restored quickly. In one nightmare simulation presented by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009, it would take less than a day for radiation to escape from a reactor at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant after an earthquake, flood or fire knocked out all electrical power and there was no way to keep the reactors cool after backup battery power ran out. That plant, the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station outside Lancaster, has reactors of the same older make and model as those releasing radiation at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which is using other means to try to cool the reactors. And like Fukushima Dai-ichi, the Peach Bottom plant has enough battery power on site to power emergency cooling systems for eight hours. In Japan, that wasn't enough time for power to be restored. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Institute trade association, three of the six reactors at the plant still can't get power to operate the emergency cooling systems. Two were shut down at the time. In the sixth, the fuel was removed completely and put in the spent fuel pool when it was shut down for maintenance at the time of the disaster. A week after the March 11 earthquake, diesel generators started supplying power to two other two reactors, Units 5 and 6, the groups said. The risk of a blackout leading to core damage, while extremely remote, exists at all U.S. nuclear power plants, and some are more susceptible than others, according to an Associated Press investigation. While regulators say they have confidence that measures adopted in the U.S. will prevent or significantly delay a core from melting and threatening a radioactive release, the events in Japan raise questions about whether U.S. power plants are as prepared as they could and should be.

Meltdowns cause extinction

Lendman, 2011

(Stephen, Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization, 03/ 13, “Nuclear Meltdown in Japan,”, The People’s Voice http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/13/nuclear-meltdown-in-japan, accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

Reuters said the 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage, up to then the most costly ever natural disaster. This time, from quake and tsunami damage alone, that figure will be dwarfed. Moreover, under a worst case core meltdown, all bets are off as the entire region and beyond will be threatened with permanent contamination, making the most affected areas unsafe to live in. On March 12, Stratfor Global Intelligence issued a "Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant," saying: Fukushima Daiichi "nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown." Stratfor downplayed its seriousness, adding that such an event "does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster," that already may have happened - the ultimate nightmare short of nuclear winter. According to Stratfor, "(A)s long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the (core's) breached but the containment facility built around (it) remains intact, the melted fuel can be....entombed within specialized concrete" as at Chernobyl in 1986. In fact, that disaster killed nearly one million people worldwide from nuclear radiation exposure. In their book titled, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko said: "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." "No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe. Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere." Stratfor explained that if Fukushima's floor cracked, "it is highly likely that the melting fuel will burn through (its) containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before," at least not reported. If now occurring, "containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible," making the quake, aftershocks, and tsunamis seem mild by comparison. Potentially, millions of lives will be jeopardized. Japanese officials said Fukushima's reactor container wasn't breached. Stratfor and others said it was, making the potential calamity far worse than reported. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said the explosion at Fukushima's Saiichi No. 1 facility could only have been caused by a core meltdown. In fact, 3 or more reactors are affected or at risk. Events are fluid and developing, but remain very serious. The possibility of an extreme catastrophe can't be discounted. Moreover, independent nuclear safety analyst John Large told Al Jazeera that by venting radioactive steam from the inner reactor to the outer dome, a reaction may have occurred, causing the explosion. "When I look at the size of the explosion," he said, "it is my opinion that there could be a very large leak (because) fuel continues to generate heat." Already, Fukushima way exceeds Three Mile Island that experienced a partial core meltdown in Unit 2. Finally it was brought under control, but coverup and denial concealed full details until much later. According to anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman, Japan's quake fallout may cause nuclear disaster, saying: "This is a very serious situation. If the cooling system fails (apparently it has at two or more plants), the super-heated radioactive fuel rods will melt, and (if so) you could conceivably have an explosion," that, in fact, occurred. As a result, massive radiation releases may follow, impacting the entire region. "It could be, literally, an apocalyptic event. The reactor could blow." If so, Russia, China, Korea and most parts of Western Asia will be affected. Many thousands will die, potentially millions under a worse case scenario, including far outside East Asia.

K

First, Our Interpretation: The resolution asks the question of desirability of USFG action. The Role of ballot is to say yes or no to the action and outcomes of the plan.

Second, is reasons to prefer:

(___) A. Aff Choice, any other framework or role of the ballot moots 9 minutes of the 1ac

(___) B. It is predictable, the resolution demands USFG action

(___) C. It is fair, Weigh Aff Impacts and the method of the Affirmative versus the Kritik, it’s the only way to test competition and determine the desirability of one strategy over another

Finally, It is a voter for competitive equity—prefer our interpretation, it allows both teams to compete, other roles of the ballot are arbitrary and self serving.

No Link: Based on things such as fossil fuels no link to the plan.

We should compare different theoretical approaches to the environment using cost benefit analysis

Alonsob et al, 2008

[Enrique Alonsob, Biodiversity UNESCO Chair, ESCET-Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain, and Pablo Martínez de Anguitaa, Department of Environmental Technology, ESCET-Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain, and María Ángeles Martínc, Department of Natural Resources, University San Pablo CEU, Madrid, Spain, “Environmental economic, political and ethical integration in a common decision-making framework.” Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 88, Issue 1, July 2008, Pages 154–164, Accessed online via science direct] /Wyo-MB

A value is an enduring conception of the preferable which influences choice and action (Brown, 1984). Traditionally, neoclassical utility theory has assumed a value monism, i.e., all values are commensurable and ultimately reducible to a single measure: some form of implicit or explicit cost-benefit analysis or calculation lies behind almost every human action, object and behaviour (Frank, 1997). Based on this metric, we should be able to measure people's preferences and values for environmental goods.

It isn’t enough to just be aware: empirically proven that awareness and consciousness fail to translate into urgency or action ensuring the alt fails.

Krakoff 11

(Sarah, Professor and Associate Dean for Research, University of Colorado Law School, Selected Works from Sarah Krakoff, “Planetarian Identity Formation and the Relocalization of Environmental Law,” January 2011, http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=sarah_krakoff//wyo-mm)

For a brief period between 2005-2008, several factors seemed to heighten both awareness and concern about climate change. The fourth IPCC report 62 and increased media discussion of climate change in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, among other causes, seemed to increase public knowledge and concern. 63 Yet awareness and concern have failed to translate into a widespread sense of urgency. Even more troubling, public acceptance that climate change is occurring and is caused by human activity has again declined. A study by the Pew Center for Research and the Press found that public acceptance that climate change was occurring dropped from seventyone percent in April, 2008 to fifty-seven percent from in October, 2009. During the same period, public acceptance that any warming was caused by human activity dropped from forty-seven percent to thirty-six percent. 64

Alt fails, we need consumption policies established through the government because it’s the only effective mechanism to deal with the problems we’re enduring.

Power and Mont 10

(Kate and Oksana, European Topic Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production, Copenhagen, Denmark, Collaboration & Learning for Sustainable Innovation ERSCP-EMSU conference, “Dispelling the Myths about consumption behavior,” 2010, accessed via asp//wyo-mm)

The framing of behaviour change policy instruments is of crucial importance in promoting the values of society: reinforcing materialistic and self-interested values is unlikely to provide the longer-term acceptance of systemic policy interventions that is needed to tackle the many environmental issues we face today. We need the economic and infrastructural changes that reward “doing the right thing” and normalise sustainable lifestyles; and we also need a change in values and public opinion that makes sustainable levels and patterns of consumption desirable. We need consumption policies that are based on an understanding of consumption at the societal, rather than individual level.

If there’s a 1% risk that our scenario is correct you vote aff: scientific consensus indicates the planet doesn’t have time to come to an absolute understanding.

Coplan 12

(Karl S., Professor of Law at Pace Law School and Co-Director of its Environmental Litigation Clinic since 1994 and practiced land use and environmental litigation for eight years, “Climate Change, Political Truth, and the Marketplace of Ideas,” 2012, Social Science Research Network//wyo-mm)

These two foundational First Amendment ideas – free speech as truth-discovery and free speech as self-government – coalesce into the notion that in a representative democracy like the United States, the only truths worthy of government action are those that have prevailed in the political marketplace – “political truths.”22 There is no government orthodoxy, and decisions dependant on competing theories about the best social, economic, environmental, or foreign policy are to be decided according to the power of these competing ideas to prevail in the political marketplace. When it comes to global climate change, however, the scientific consensus, that catastrophic global warming is likely as long as current patterns of energy production and consumption continue, has not achieved popular acceptance.23 Scientific consensus holds that immediate global action to reduce fossil fuel consumption is necessary to avert this catastrophe.24 Assuming that the scientific consensus represents “truth” (or at least a sufficiently close approximation to truth), the planet does not have time for this truth to overcome the incorrect political consensus in “the long run.” If First Amendment marketplace of ideas principles and self-governance principles demand that the United States forego painful measures to reduce fossil fuel consumption until it is too late, does this indicate that our system of self-government is not up to the task of responding to a slow-motion global catastrophe like climate change?

Consumption-only focus fails, it ignores production-oriented environmental degradation

Holmes 7

(Dave, “A socialist view of global warming: change the system, not the climate!”, Google Books, accessed: 6/26/12)

Such views among genuine environmental activists reflect a well-meaning but ultimately utopian belief that if only enough of us decide to drastically reduce our demand on the world’s resources — via greatly reduced personal consumption, purchasing from firms with sustainable production techniques and non-polluting technologies — big business and governments will respond to “market signals” and accept and adapt to a slow-growth or no-growth economy. Of course, we should not dismiss the importance of environmental consciousness and radicalisation, which is often expressed in attempts to live in ways consistent with sustainability. It is a good thing if people try to organise their lives so that they live more ecologically. But we have to be clear that that alone will not be enough to halt the crisis. It certainly cannot be the main strategy of the mass environment movement, as it will let the real culprits off the hook and divert precious activist energy away from the underlying systemic dynamic that is driving ecological degradation. As Marxist ecologist John Bellamy Foster explained in a very useful and accessible article published in the Monthly Review magazine in February 1995,6 behind most appeals for individual “ecological morality”, “there lies the presumption that we live in a society where the morality of the individual is the key to the morality of society. If people as individuals could simply change their moral stance with respect to nature and alter their behaviour in areas such as propagation, consumption, and the conduct of business, all would be well.” However, Foster continues: “What is all too often overlooked in such calls for moral transformation is the central institutional fact of our [capitalist] society: what might be called the global ‘treadmill of production’.”

Our Aff is not the type of consumption they criticize- Wind panels don’t consume anything rather are just a transfer energy into a different form

Cohen, 10

Dustin Cohen 2010 March 10 Some Notes on Heidegger’s Question Concerning Technology (Enframing, Standing Reserve and Virtual Technologies) http://cybject.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/some-notes-on-heidegger%E2%80%99s-question-concerning-technology-enframing-standing-reserve-and-virtual-technologies/

Martin Heidegger was concerned about the status of the human amidst modern technology. Tied to the changing status of the human is his assertion (and a major theme of Cybject) that modern technology displaces the “wordliness” of the world and puts a human-world in its place.¶ Heidegger uses the term “enframing” to explain the way humans, as users of modern technology, have come to relate to (and literally “frame”) the world. To demonstrate the characteristics of this modern technological “enframing” of the world he contrasts a windmill with a modern hydroelectric power plant. In describing how the windmill differs from the type of “revealing” that characterizes modern technology, he explains that the “old windmill’s…sails do indeed turn in the wind; [but are] … left entirely to the wind’s blowing. …the windmill does not unlock energy from the air currents in order to store it”.¶ In describing how the windmill differs from the type of revealing that characterizes modern technology, Heidegger explains: “But [do the the properties of contemporary technologies] not hold true for the old windmill as well? No. Its sails do indeed turn in the wind; they are left entirely to the wind’s blowing. But the windmill does not unlock energy from the air currents in order to store it.” With the windmill, the wind turns the turbines, the wind-energy instantaneously powers the turbines. At no point is the wind’s energy manipulated or stored up as a different kind of energy. The windmill only transfers motion, it “reveals” wind energy, but does not commandeer nature’s energy or store it for future use (Mitcham).

Alt is just wishful thinking: Heidegger never attained a solution to technoscience.

Sikka 11

(Tina, Review of Communication, “Technology, Communication, and Society: From Heidegger and Habermas to Feenberg,” Vol 11 issue 2, 2011, Taylor and Francis, accessed via UW Libraries//wyo-mm)

That Heidegger was unable to resolve the difficulties satisfactorily may have deep roots in the phenomenon of modernity, an epoch that liquidates the intellectual resources that earlier times employed to think about the nature of value and meaning, such as the concept of essence, while simultaneously bringing value and meaning as such into focus as a problem for thought. Heidegger's unique contribution was to address that problem in an ontology rather than through ontic categories such as culture. 58 In his thought technoscience as a universal framework for validity both obliterates philosophy as outmoded and provokes philosophy to a new and more radical conception of itself and of being. Heidegger struggled with this dilemma throughout his long career without achieving a final resolution. As a result, Heidegger appears to describe enframing as an incurable disease with a cure. Meditative thinking, marginal practices, education, become philosophical analogues to prayer for a cure that is no ordinary cure but a kind of divine intervention.

Heidegger’s ontology is terrible: it reaffirms the status quo, its essentialist, and ends after the initial questioning of language.

Strathausen 06

(Carsten, University of Missouri-Columbia, Postmodern Culture, “A Critique of Neo-Left Ontology,” 2006, accessed via ProjectMuse//wyo-mm)

The recent interest in political ontology thus departs from the traditional leftist position to equate ontological thinking (via Heidegger) with German fascism. Since Heidegger and up until the mid-1980's when a deconstructive version of Marxism emerged in the works of Laclau, Mouffe, Zizek, Badiou, a.o., ontology was synonymous with Heideggerianism: "Contemporary philosophical 'ontology' is entirely dominated by the name of Heidegger," Alain Badiou correctly stated in 1988 (Being and Event 9). Badiou himself, of course, will break with this tradition; yet this general identification of ontology and Heidegger allowed most leftist intellectuals at the time to dismiss the entire ontological tradition as a dangerous aberration in Western thought. As a philosophical tradition, ontology is not only suspect among leftist intellectuals. It is part of an oppressive super-structure that affirms rather than challenges the existing status quo. "In all its mutually excluding and defaming versions, ontology is apologetic," Adorno unequivocally states in 1966 (69).4 For Adorno, the basic fault of ontology in general, and of Heidegger's "foundational ontology" in particular, is its essentialism, which seeks the eternal, self-identical truth underneath the flow of history. "Heidegger," we read, "refuses to reflect [the difference between expression and thing]; he stops after only the first step of the language-philosophical dialectics" (117).

Even if ontology is good in the abstract, those who advocate it fail to grapple with real-world problems.

Mulligan et al 06

(Kevin, Peter Simons, and Barry Smith, Springer Science, “What’s wrong with contemporary philosophy?” 2006, http://www.springerlink.com/content/e6hl522358431760/fulltext.pdf//wyo-mm)

Another example of the lack of interest in the real world in analytic ontology and metaphysics is provided by the sad story of current work in such ﬁelds as bioinformatics, artiﬁcial intelligence, and the so-called ‘‘Semantic Web’’. Ontology and metaphysics ought surely to be acknowledged as of great importance in ﬁelds such as these. 1 In fact, however, philosophical confusion is the order of the day, because AP-philosophers with some knowledge of ontology, manifesting their horror mundi, have shown little interest in grappling with the problems thrown up by these ﬁelds, leaving it instead to philosophically naı¨ve exponents of other disciplines to wreak ontological havoc. Philosophers, for their part, occupy themselves with in-house puzzles, ignorant of the damage their neglect is wreaking in the wider world.

State

Third, 50 State Fiat is bad unless it contains a solvency advocate that assumes every level of fiat including uniformity.

No literature base kills education- No one advocates all 50 states making one action at the same time- means not real world

Steals all aff offense by fiat-ing all the plan- makes it impossible to be aff on domestic topics- kills fairness

Voter for fairness and education

California’s economy is slowly recovering [GREEN]

Levy 6/15 ( Steve Levy, Director and Senior Economist of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy (CCSCE) in Palo Alto, “California on path of recovery yet?”, California Economic Summit, 6/15/12, http://www.caeconomy.org/blog/entry/california-on-path-to-recovery-yet, 2012)

I haven’t written for a while but today’s jobs report caps a week of more positive news. Today’s jobs report is a positive and hopeful sign for the California economy. 33,900 jobs were added and the unemployment rate dropped again to a still high 10.8% statewide. For the past two months an average of 17,000 jobs per month were added. The monthly data bounce around and it is better to take a longer term perspective on these trends. Last week the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that California was one of the fastest growing states for GDP growth in 2011. Today’s jobs report confirms that California is now outpacing the nation in job growth while reminding us that the recovery is continuing but that unemployment rates will come down only slowly. California’s job recovery is led by Bay Area tech gains concentrated in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. But the May report shows signs of recovery in Southern California as well led by Orange County and including job growth, finally, of 1% or more in Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire. The strongest job growth is in Silicon Valley (the San Jose metro area) with a gain of 3.5% year over year or 31,100 jobs. San Francisco is next among the large metro areas with a gain of 2.8% or 26,800 jobs. The comparable state gain is 1.6% slightly above the 1.4% national gain. Both Southern California and the Bay Area are reporting higher homes sales and a firming of prices is another piece of hopeful news. The job gains reflect California’s strength in technology, trade and tourism led by professional, scientific and technical services, wholesale trade and hotels and amusements. Construction jobs

New spending destroys budget stability and wrecks the California economy

Robert Krol, is a professor of economics at California State University Northridge and author of a forthcoming Cato Journal paper on state budget institutions, 2012, “California Needs a Spending Limit”, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/california-needs-spending-limit

California's budget is once again in the red. The governor signed a balanced budget in August of last year, but before the ink was dry, a slowing economy, the real estate bust and a spate of unplanned spending resulted in a significant budget crunch. The Legislative Analyst's Office now projects a deficit of about $10 billion over the next 18 months, and Gov. Schwarzenegger says the shortfall may be as high as $14 billion. To be sure, the slowing economy has reduced revenues, but excessive spending remains the root cause of California's persistent financial troubles. The governor plans to declare a "fiscal emergency," requiring legislators in Sacramento to correct the deficit. The resulting legislation will likely include spending cuts, fee increases and borrowing. Details aside, Schwarzenegger must insist that any legislation contain an enforceable framework to help prevent future fiscal crises and allow for a voter referendum on a constitutional spending limit. The time is right. California's taxes are already high, so the solution is to control spending with a constitutional constraint limiting expenditure growth to inflation plus population growth. Schwarzenegger proposed a spending limit in 2005, but it was poorly designed, and voters had little incentive to support it. Now, the fiscal crunch is much worse. A new proposal should require legislators to get voter approval for any expenditures above the limit, and include a component allowing taxpayers to decide for themselves whether they want higher spending or a tax refund. Such a law would lessen the severity of budget shortfalls in economic downturns. Recent experience provides an example of how this would work. The state's revenues began to rise in the 2004-05 fiscal year. Since that time, pegging spending increases to inflation and population growth would have allowed spending to grow by 15 percent. Instead, expenditures increased by more than twice that much. If spending growth had been limited to 15 percent since 2004-05, we'd be facing a $7 billion surplus rather than a $2 billion deficit for the current fiscal year. Thirty states already have some form of a tax or government spending limit. Most of the limits link the growth of state expenditures to growth in personal income. California overwhelmingly passed a population growth plus inflation spending constraint in 1979, but it was amended by voters in 1990 to limit expenditure growth to increases in population plus growth in personal income. This more generous limit has never effectively constrained state spending. Linking spending growth to increases in population plus inflation is a more effective way to establish fiscal discipline in Sacramento. We know from other states that tax and spending limits can constrain the expansion of government. Research shows that the most effective limits are constitutional, written by voters and limit increases in spending rather than revenues. As an added bonus, financial markets reward states with expenditure limits by demanding lower interest rates on state borrowing. This offers significant savings over time. During economic booms, if revenues increase more than inflation plus population growth, the surplus should be refunded to taxpayers or used to shore up California's rainy-day fund. If state leaders wanted to spend some of the additional revenues, they should put their proposals up for a vote. California has little choice but to get its spending under control. Higher taxes are not an economically viable option. The Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., ranks California 46th in its 2007 State Business Climate Rankings. Our neighboring states – Arizona, Nevada and Oregon – rank considerably better. Despite healthy revenue growth over the last few years, the California budget has been mismanaged. Schwarzenegger has been unable to make good on his pledge to reform Sacramento and get state lawmakers off of what he called "autopilot" spending. In the 2003 recall election, he ran as a budget reformer, promising he would "tear up the credit cards" and rein in runaway spending. He has failed to live up to his promises. A spending limit would give California some much-needed budget stability, and allow the governor to salvage his legacy. With a new fiscal mess brewing, it's time for him to try again.

Spending causes state economic collapse—crushes the global economy

Navarro 08 (Peter Navarro, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University,“California nightmare for the world economy”, San Fransicso Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/California-nightmare-for-the-global-economy-3273234.php, 2008)

Will the California budget crisis tip the United States into recession? The California economy is certainly large enough to inflict such damage. It's the seventh-largest economy in the world and home to close to 38 million Americans. California's budget deficit is by any reasonable measure enormous. This budget deficit is estimated at $17.2 billion and represents more than 17 percent of the state's general fund expenditures (about $101 billion). In contrast, New York, which faces the second-worst budget gap in the nation for fiscal year 2009, has a gap of about $5 billion, which represents less than 10 percent of its budget. In closing its past budgetary gaps, California has acted more like the federal government rather than merely one of 50 states. Indeed, unlike the federal government (or sovereign nations), each state is required to balance its budget each year; and no state, at least in principle, has the authority to engage in the kind of discretionary deficit spending both the federal government and nations around the world routinely use to stimulate their economies. In the past, a profligate California has gotten around this balanced-budget requirement by using a technique that effectively allows the Golden State to administer its own fiscal stimulus. In particular, California - under both Democratic and Republican governors - has simply issued new bonds every time that it has spent far beyond its means. California's problem this time, however, is that its deficit is so big, its balance sheet is so bad, and world credit markets are so tight that issuing new bonds alone is no longer a viable option. Instead, California's politicians are inexorably being forced toward a solution that will prominently feature both a large tax increase and significant spending cuts. Indeed, this is not a partisan matter of choosing one's poison. The budget deficit is so large that it cannot be eliminated without raising taxes, anathema to the state's Republicans, and spending cuts, equally unpalatable to California Democrats. Of course, the faster the state Legislature accepts this harsh reality, the faster the deadlock can be broken. Viewed from a macroeconomic perspective, there is an even harsher reality. Increased taxes and reduced spending will send a very nasty contractionary shock through a California economy that is already reeling from a housing market meltdown and punishing gas prices. Should Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budgetary medicine - including firing many state employees - trigger a recession, this may well serve as a tipping point for a national recession and, in the worst case scenario, even a global recession. In considering these dangers, it is worth noting that California provides close to 13 percent of America's real GDP growth. In contrast, the second-largest contributor to U.S. gross domestic product is Texas, and it provides only half that stimulus. It also worth noting that California is an important destination for both U.S. manufactured goods and world imports, particularly from Asia. Already, California's unemployment rate is more than 6.8 percent and well above the national average of 5.7 percent. At least some economists believe California may already be experiencing negative growth. The economy is likely to get a lot worse before its gets better. If there is any one civics lesson to be learned from this fine mess, it is that the state's politicians must learn to resist overspending in good times so that the state won't face bankruptcy when bad times hit. It should be equally clear that any damn fool can issue bonds to balance a budget. However, it takes real political courage and economic foresight to put a state budget on an even keel through fiscally conservative tax-and-spend policies. At this juncture, California is nowhere close to that - and the rest of the country, and perhaps the world, may soon pay the Golden State's piper.

Businesses prefer federal policy over state policy—prefer uniformity over patchwork approaches

Mann, 2011

[Roberta, Professor and Dean’s Distinguished Faculty Fellow, University of Oregon School of Law, “FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL TAX POLICIES FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: COORDINATION OR CROSS-PURPOSE?” 4-25-11, Lewis and Clark Law Review, Online, http://www.lclark.edu/live/files/8326-lcb152art4mann] /Wyo-MB

¶ Several groups of researchers have examined the potential ¶ ¶ interactions between federal and state climate policies.¶ ¶ 54¶ ¶ Andrew Aulisi¶ and other researchers from the World Resources Institute examined case ¶ ¶ studies to determine when leading state policies would “vertical[ly] ¶ ¶ diffus[e]” and be adopted by the national government.¶ ¶ 55¶ ¶ The most ¶ ¶ significant factors for successful vertical policy diffusion were the push for ¶ ¶ diffusion by state champions, policy learning by example and innovation, ¶ ¶ and the spillover effect.¶ ¶ 56¶ ¶ State officials may press for federal adoption of ¶ ¶ their policies because those policies may fail without expansion to the ¶ ¶ national level, due to “competition with other states with conflicting ¶ ¶ policies or weaker commitments to the policy goal.”¶ ¶ 57¶ ¶ State policies may ¶ ¶ demonstrate that a policy can be implemented and be effective. The ¶ ¶ spillover effect is “the extent to which the perceived benefits and costs of ¶ ¶ state policies cross over state lines to other states” or the nation.¶ ¶ 58¶ ¶ The ¶ ¶ results of vertical diffusion may be full or partial preemption of the issue ¶ ¶ by the federal government, issuance of grants or incentives by the federal ¶ ¶ government to the states to perpetuate the activity, or federal mandates, ¶ ¶ with or without funding.¶ ¶ 59¶ ¶ The researchers concluded that the RGGI capand-trade program contained all the significant vertical diffusion factors, ¶ ¶ including the somewhat less significant factor of business support for ¶ ¶ federal action.¶ ¶ 60¶ ¶ The researchers predicted that the federal government is ¶ ¶ “likely to use partial preemption to respond to the RGGI . . . standards.”¶ ¶ 61¶ ¶ The House-passed climate change bill (ACES) would have fully ¶ ¶ preempted existing regional cap-and-trade programs.¶ ¶ 62¶ ¶ The choice of full ¶ ¶ preemption in the legislation may have been driven by the concerns of ¶ ¶ business constituents. Business interests have considerable influence on ¶ ¶ policymaking in the United States.¶ ¶ 63¶ ¶ Business support for federal action is ¶ ¶ motivated by the desire for uniform standards, which enables businesses ¶ ¶ to avoid a patchwork of varying state rules that would increase ¶ ¶ compliance costs and create competitive advantages.¶ ¶ 64¶

Fiscal Cliff

No compomise

Margaret Collins and Inyoung Hwang, “Stocks Swings to Rise on Fiscal Cliff, Pimco’s Kashkari Says”, 11/8/2012

Stock-market volatility will increase by the end of the year as Congress delays reaching a resolution on extending spending and tax cuts until 2013, according to Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Neel Kashkari. “There have been little signs of Republicans and Democrats really coming together to solve the fiscal cliff in a bipartisan matter,” Kashkari, 39, who heads global equities at Newport Beach, California-based Pimco, said at the Bloomberg Portfolio Manager conference in New York. His firm manages about $8 billion in stocks and $1.92 trillion in total assets. “More likely, we’re going to see brinkmanship like we saw with the debt ceiling a year ago.” Democrats maintained control of the U.S. Senate in the election results this week as Republicans kept their majority in theHouse of Representatives. Lawmakers face the so-called fiscal cliff, or $607 billion of tax increases and federal spending cuts set to kick in automatically in January. The Congressional Budget Office has said the economy would contract by as much as 0.5 percent next year if Congress doesn’t act.

Won’t pass, huge partisan gulf

Jake Sherman, 11/7

Politico, “No clarity on fiscal cliff after election” http://hamptonroads.com/2012/11/no-clarity-fiscal-cliff-after-election, accessed,11/7/12,WYO/JF

The partisan gulf is huge: Senate Democrats want to use money saved from letting tax rates expire to cancel the entire round of cuts to the Pentagon and domestic spending — $1.2 trillion. House Republicans would prefer to find roughly $100 billion to replace the first year of cuts to the Pentagon — and have signaled they’re open to increasing some revenue to help raise the money. Those are the two headline issues, but there’s more. Congress has to raise the nation’s borrowing limit before February, renew the nation’s farm policy, and update the formula by which the government reimburses doctors who care for Medicare patients — in addition to dealing with a host of tax provisions of particular import to corporate America. And once that docket is cleared, awaiting Congress is the once-in-a-generation challenge of overhauling the Tax Code and federal entitlements.

Obama has no PC for passage

Herb and Wasson 10/23 Jeremy Herb and Erik Wasson, writers for the Hill, “GOP: Obama's sequester remark during debate could reshape fiscal cliff talks”, October 23, 2012, http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/budget-appropriations/263523-obama-sequester-remark-could-reshape-fiscal-cliff-negotiations

President Obama’s vow at Monday’s debate that the sequestration cuts “will not happen” could come back to haunt him during Congress's lame-duck negotiations on the fiscal cliff if he is reelected.¶ Republicans were already licking their chops at Obama’s statement Tuesday, and the White House was quickly backtracking the remark after the debate.¶ Republicans said that Obama has given away leverage in any lame-duck talks.¶ “He has, which is why White House aides were immediately trying to walk it back,” said one GOP House aide.

The plan will not trade off, congress has multiple shots

David Dayen, 10/8

“Fiscal Policy, Even “Avoiding the Cliff,” Looks Negative for 2013” http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/10/08/fiscal-policy-even-avoiding-the-cliff-looks-negative-for-2013/, accessed 10/12/12,WYO/JF

The thing about the fiscal slope is that it’s a slope. Congress won’t have just one shot at an agreement, but a series of shots. People won’t pay thousands of dollars in new taxes and spending won’t reduce by billions right on January 1. So Congress will have time to ameliorate the situation even if they completely fail by the end of the year. That’s where this chart comes in handy, to increase pressure for a deal.

Plan is bipartisan: clean energy investment is gaining support from even the staunchest of Republicans.

Pernick 12

(Ron, co-founder and managing director of clean-tech research and advisory firm Clean Edge, Think Progress, “Crowdsourcing, Limited Partnerships And Other Tools For Financing Our Clean-Energy Future,” July 12, 2012, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/12/515065/crowdsourcing-limited-partnerships-and-other-tools-for-financing-our-clean-energy-future///wyo-mm)

Admittedly, we live in hyper-partisan times, but the effort to open up the clean-energy investment marketplace to more retail investors is well underway and gaining support across party lines. When even top GOP strategist Karl Rove supports extension of the production tax credit for wind power, you know there’s a glimmer of hope that clean energy can once again be about American jobs and competitiveness, and not a divisive post-Solyndra issue that separates Republicans and Democrats. MLPs, crowdfunding, clean energy-focused real estate investment trusts (REITS) and other emerging tools all offer the promise to bring much-needed capital to the clean-tech marketplace.

Bipartisanship key to agenda

Mason 2011

[Julie Mason, White House Correspondent, 01.04.11, The Washington Examiner, http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/white-house/2011/01/obama-tapping-personal-charm-political-capital-combat-gop#ixzz1MAbvs6wl, uwyo//amp]

President Obama is sounding optimistic about prospects for the parties to work together, but two key battles await to test the limits of his personal and political capital. "I think that there's going to be politics, that's what happens in Washington," Obama told reporters as he headed back to Washington after 11 days in Hawaii. Among the obstacles awaiting him is a re-energized Republican Party itching for confrontation, with plans to begin chipping away at Obama's signature health care reforms followed by a protracted showdown over the federal budget. "They are going to play to their base for a certain period of time," Obama said of Republicans, "but I'm pretty confident that they're going to recognize that our job is to govern and make sure that we are delivering jobs for the American people and that we're creating a competitive economy for the 21st century."

Winners win—unlocks the agenda

Green 10

(David, professor of political science at Hofstra University, June 11, “The Do-Nothing 44th President”, http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Do-Nothing-44th-Presid-by-David-Michael-Gree-100611-648.html, accessed 10-31-2011,WYO/JF

Moreover, there is a continuously evolving and reciprocal relationship between presidential boldness and achievement. In the same way that nothing breeds success like success, nothing sets the president up for achieving his or her next goal better than succeeding dramatically on the last go around. This is absolutely a matter of perception, and you can see it best in the way that Congress and especially the Washington press corps fawn over bold and intimidating presidents like Reagan and George W. Bush. The political teams surrounding these presidents understood the psychology of power all too well. They knew that by simultaneously creating a steamroller effect and feigning a clubby atmosphere for Congress and the press, they could leave such hapless hangers-on with only one remaining way to pretend to preserve their dignities. By jumping on board the freight train, they could be given the illusion of being next to power, of being part of the winning team. And so, with virtually the sole exception of the now retired Helen Thomas, this is precisely what they did.

No impact—at worst they’ll just punt the deadline

Reuters, 9/21

Lawmakers May Delay 'Fiscal Cliff' Deadlines, www.foxbusiness.com/2012/09/21/lawmakers-may-delay-fiscal-cliff-deadlines/, accessed 10/10/12,WYO/JF

Slowly and quietly, the U.S. Congress may be arriving at a consensus on how to avoid falling off the "fiscal cliff" on December 31 - by simply putting off its own deadline for most of the major year-end budget and tax decisions. That approach would delay the day of reckoning while also allowing more time for compromise in a Congress that has battled for two years over how best to reduce huge budget deficits. No formal agreements have been reached, however, and turning a consensus into an actual deal that avoids jolting the markets or economy will depend on the results of the November 6 general election. The "cliff" refers to the year-end deadline for the expiration of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tax cuts and the triggering of $109 billion in across-the-board spending cuts. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has said the scenario could throw the country into recession. Congress created the hazardous end-of-year deadline in August 2011 when it agreed to a deficit deal as a way out of a deadlock over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. In recent weeks, lawmakers of all political stripes, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives, have alluded to surprisingly similar hopes for the high-stakes "lame-duck" work session that will follow the November presidential and congressional elections. They would put aside the $109 billion in "automatic" across-the-board spending cuts that otherwise would hit military and domestic programs equally. They would make some new, possibly smaller down payments on deficit-reduction for the near-term. Then they would write a new deadline - maybe March 31 or June 30 - to come up with a grand, $4 trillion deficit-reduction program over 10 years; and devise a new method for forcing a divided Congress to act. The entire exercise would be aimed at finding a long-term fix for U.S. fiscal problems without the jolt of indiscriminate spending cuts and tax hikes that would occur under current law. RUNNING FOR COVER The threat of a possible recession after such blanket spending cuts now preoccupies Washington. Among the fearful are the big-company CEOs represented by the Business Roundtable, for example, and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, who briefed members of Congress this week after declaring that "I don't think our tools are strong enough to offset the effects of a major fiscal shock" of the cliff. The most vocal Democrats and Republicans in Congress have turned the floors of the House and Senate into pre-election spin rooms as each side tries to pin the blame on the other. But a stream of ideas to delay the December 31 day of doom floats through Capitol Hill brainstorming sessions. * Liberal Democrat Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, has alluded to a six-month delay, coupled with a $40 billion to $50 billion deficit-reduction down payment for the first half of the year. * Conservative Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has touted a "mini deal" in November or December to delay decisions through March. It would contain a $20 billion deficit cut. * Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a longtime Democratic deficit hawk, said the "optimum outcome" would give Congress six more months to work out details on revamping the tax code and big government programs like Social Security and Medicare.