Dizzle Ranch Debate

AT: Spending DA/Fiscal D High Speed Rail Aff

We outweigh Magnitude: We outweigh, wars over oil and those due to economic competitiveness affect billions of people, and CAUSE economic collapse and resource wars. Prefer our solvency, we solve for more scenarios of resource conflict. Their only impact is an economic collapse while ours is widespread nuclear war over oil and wars due to competition between nations. Timeframe: Our impacts could occur at any moment now. If the US doesnt lower its dependence on oil US-Iran relations will be further hampered which WILL lead to the breaking point. And if the US doesnt fix its transportation infrastructure by implementing a proper high-speed-rail system it will lose economic primacy and the impacts will ensue. Probability: We have a 100 percent chance of our impacts occurring. Without investing in a high-speed-rail system US dependence on oil will continue and the current state of the transportation infrastructure won't change. Also, prefer our systemic impacts versus their one shot disad thats based on speculation. We KNOW that if oil becomes scarcer it WILL lead to oil wars, AND if the US loses economic primacy and competitiveness power wars will result. Extend our Heinberg 03 and Zhang 11 cards. High-speed-rail is CRUCIAL to stopping such impacts from occurring that affect BILLIONS of lives.
Non-unique Hurricane Isaac struck the southern mid-west regions of the US recently and costs millions of dollars of damage. Congress is forced to spend money in issues like Hurricane Isaac so spending is inevitable in the status quo. Also congress passes bills and spends on a daily basis. The negative's impacts should have happened already.

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AT: Spending DA/Fiscal D High Speed Rail Aff

The US spends billions of dollars on a daily basis and politicians refuse to stop SATTERFIELD 4 28 11

Terry Satterfield, Politicians can't cut spending, http://www.marionstar.com/article/BF/20110428/OPINION02/104280348/Politicians-can-t-cut-spending?odyssey=nav|head

democracy can exist only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves access to the public treasury. While we don't know for certain who originally made this observation, he or she might have added a parallel: When politicians discover that they can buy votes through uncontrolled spending, economic collapse is assured.
Recently, we were told that Congress and the president had agreed to "the largest spending cut in American history." The reality, however, is that the agreement did very little. As reported by several financial news sources, a large portion of what is being called "cuts" was merely creative budget manipulation. (For example, unspent money from the 2010 census was included as a "cut" even though, given that the 2010 census is now complete, that money would not have been spent anyway.) David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York, stated that the "cuts" amount to "no more than a rounding error in this year's deficit." David Stockham, Director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration, after observing this latest round of political shenanigans, referred to Congressional committees responsible for budget appropriations as "cesspools of deceit." Yet, as

In the 18th century, as democratic ideals were taking hold both on this content and in Europe, it was observed that a

we head toward 2012, we will be inundated with political ads proclaiming a new era of fiscal responsibility. Republicans will tell us that they engineered this "largest spending cut," and democrats, of course, will claim to have a master plan that will both cut spending and increase government's ability to meet our every need. In short, we will be lied to by both sides. The reality is far too frightening for any career politician to acknowledge. Our nation borrows $6 billion per day. In 2010, government spending on entitlement programs alone exceeded total tax revenue. Today, one in six Americans receives money directly from the treasury. Every conceivable want and need of the masses is assumed to be government's responsibility. And, in the pursuit of votes, politicians have been only too willing to take it all on.
Of course, we can't place the blame entirely on Congress. Polls consistently show that while Americans are for "spending cuts" generally, they are unwilling to target specific programs. So even while we recognize that our government is out of control, we are unwilling to curtail our own access to its treasury. The president, of course, espouses increased taxes as the answer to our problems. Unfortunately, Congress has proven over and over that it cannot control itself when presented with increased tax revenue. A widely publicized study completed by economists at Ohio University showed that, since the 1940s, for every dollar Washington received due to a tax increase, it increased spending by $1.24. Make no mistake; this Congress -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- will do exactly the same with any new tax revenue.

Career politicians cannot and will not curtail spending. Funding government programs is the means by which they buy votes in order to remain in power. Next year, as political ads showing everything from hungry children to needy seniors flow across our TV screens, it won't take a PR genius to recognize that proposing specific, meaningful cuts is simply not an option. So, we must endure another round of oxymoronic campaign speeches ("I want to reign in the deficit and increase funding
for education!") and nonsensical attacks ("My opponent doesn't care about the deficit and she cut programs for our senior citizens!").

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AT: Spending DA/Fiscal D High Speed Rail Aff

Turn lack of infrastructure development is killing the economy, plan solves Ferry, 2011 (8/2/11, Daniel, Summer Associate at America 2050, B.A. in Poli Sci and Philosophy from Tufts University, grad student in
City & Regional Planning and Real Estate Development at Cornell University, formerly worked in the Office of Planning for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Infrastructure Costs Americans More to Neglect than Maintain, America 2050, http://www.america2050.org/2011/08/infrastructure-costs-americans-more-to-neglect-than-maintain.html)

The American Society of Civil Engineers has released a report, Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Surface Transportation Infrastructure, finding that deficiencies in transportation infrastructure cost Americans billions of dollars per year and hundreds of thousands of jobs. In 2010 alone, the poor condition of our highways, railroads, bridges, and transit systems cost $130 billion. This sum represents the higher operating costs of running
vehicles on poor facilities, the expense of damages to vehicles inflicted by crumbling infrastructure, the value of the time wasted by travelers, and the added cost of repairing or replacing facilities after they have deteriorated or collapsed, rather than maintaining them in good condition.

As our investment in infrastructure fails to keep pace with our maintenance needs, the mounting cost of our transportation deficiencies is projected to rise dramatically, to nearly $3 trillion by 2040. For comparison, to bring our infrastructure back up to minimum standards and avoid this harm to the economy, the United States would need to invest only $846 billion over 9 years, or $94 billion per year. Turn Transportation infrastructure key to maintaining competitiveness USCOC, 2008 (April 2008, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Transportation Challenge: Moving the U.S. Economy, taken from the
Executive Summary, http://www.uschamber.com/reports/transportation-challenge)

While the U.S. business community has adapted well to the changing dynamics of global economies and has achieved impressive increases in productivity, the margin of U.S. competitive advantage is threatened in key sectors of the economy. Across all sectors, a transportation network providing reliable, fast, and costeffective performance is critical to maintaining this advantage. Transportation infrastructure is vital to the success of the five major economic sectors that account for 84% of the U.S. economy: services,
manufacturing, retail, agriculture and natural resources, and transportation providers. The services industry is the largest and fastest-growing economic sector in the United States, now accounting for one-half of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) and one-half of all jobs. The U.S. manufacturing sector, with fewer employees but more automation, still leads the world in output. U.S.

industries in all sectors manage lean, on-demand supply chains that stretch around the globe. The local truck that delivers goods to a neighborhood store is often the last link in a supply chain that spans half the world, with the final retail price of those goods reflecting 10,000 miles of hard-gained freight transportation efficiencies within that chain. While demand outpaces capacity and the performance of the U.S. transportation system erodes, global competitors are investing heavily in their transportation systemsbuilding highways, public transit systems, rail lines, ports, and airports that will soon provide them with transportation capacity and logistics capabilities equal to or exceeding those of the United States. If the United States continues to underinvest in its transportation system and fails to meet the transportation needs of its key industry sectors, the U.S. economy will become less productive and less globally competitive. The services industry needs access to large markets and big
pools of skilled workers to keep costs down. Metropolitan congestion, however, makes it difficult for service industry workers to get to work and for service industry customers to get to offices, medical facilities, schools, and other service centers. Congestion has forced many service businesses to add extra centers across metropolitan areas; to subsidize employee commuting costs; and to add drivers, equipment, and travel time to ensure delivery of their services to customers. In the manufacturing and retail sectors, staying competitive in the changing global economy means shifting from large inventories and consolidated shipments to lean inventories and smaller, more frequent shipments that support just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing and replenishment-on-demand retailing. These sectors must build complex global supply chains to ensure competitive sourcing of materials, parts, and labor. Low-cost, reliable transportation

helps manufacturers and retailers keep production costs down, increase productivity, and deliver quality products to their customers. In
the manufacturing sector, congestion, deteriorating travel-time reliability, and escalating costs are draining away the benefits of global supply chains and JIT manufacturing, increasing costs for consumers and leaving supply chains less resilient when disrupted. In the retail sector, port

congestion, tightening highway and transcontinental rail capacity, and mounting metropolitan road congestion are making it more difficult for retailers to ensure that they have the right products on the shelves

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AT: Spending DA/Fiscal D High Speed Rail Aff

at the right time and at the lowest prices. This situation drives up the cost of doing business for retailers and the cost of living for consumers. The agriculture and natural resources sector depends on efficient, reliable, and low-cost transportation to move U.S. agricultural commodities to trade gateways for export. The costs of new environmental regulations imposed
on the industry and the explosive growth of global competitors make keeping transportation costs low very important. However, tightening infrastructure capacity and increased fuel prices threaten to drive up transportation costs and further squeeze the profit margins of these commodity producers. Industry

and household spending on transportation accounted for nearly 10% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2006, or about $1.3 trillion, much of it spent to purchase transportation servicesmoving people and
goods via trucks, railroads, public transportation, aviation, and ships and barges. The productivity and success of the transportation services sector is tied directly to the capacity and performance of the nation's transportation infrastructure. When transportation service sector productivity drops and costs go up, clients in the manufacturing, retail, agriculture, natural resources, and service sectors feel the effects immediately. U.S.

transportation infrastructure capacity has not kept pace with the growth in the transportation nation's piecemeal approach to rebuilding and improving our transportation system is not going to remedy this situation.
demands of these sectors, and the

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AT: Spending DA/Fiscal D High Speed Rail Aff

Transportation infrastructure key to the economy Washington Post, 2011 (7/27/11, Ashley Halsey III, Decaying infrastructure costs U.S. billions each year, report says,
Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/decaying-infrastructure-costing-us-billions-reportsays/2011/07/27/gIQAAI0zcI_story.html) As Congress debates how to meet the nations long-term transportation needs, decaying roads, bridges, railroads and transit systems

are costing the United States $129 billion a year, according to a report issued Wednesday by a professional group whose
members are responsible for designing and building such infrastructure. Complex calculations done for the American Society of Civil Engineers

deficiencies add $97billion a year to the cost of operating vehicles and result in travel delays that cost $32billion. If investments in surface transportation infrastructure are not made soon, these costs are expected to grow exponentially, the ASCE said. Within 10 years, U.S. businesses would pay an added $430 billion in transportation costs, household incomes would fall by more than $7,000, and U.S. exports will fall by $28 billion.
indicate that infrastructure

Oil dependence makes economic growth and recovery impossible Lefton, Researcher for Progressive Media, January 13, 2010 [American Progress - Rebecca,

Oil Dependence is a Dangerous Habit, Transportation%20Topic/Looked%20At/Oil%20Dependence%20Is%20a%20Dangerous%20Ha bit.webarchive, Accessed 6/9/12] SM

A recent

report on the November 2009 U.S. trade deficit found that rising oil imports widened our deficit, increasing the gap between our imports and exports. This is but one example that our economic recovery and long-term growth is inexorably linked to our reliance on foreign oil. The United States is spending approximately $1 billion a day overseas on oil instead of investing the funds at home, where our economy sorely needs it. Burning oil that exacerbates global warming also poses serious
threats to our national security and the worlds security. For these reasons we need to kick the oil addiction by investing in clean-energy reform to reduce oil demand, while taking steps to curb global warming.

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AT: Spending DA/Fiscal D High Speed Rail Aff

No Impact

The economy is resilient Great Power peace, declining inflation and tech connectivity Fareed Zakaria, Editor of Newsweek International, 12-21-2009, The Secrets of Stability,
Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/id/226425 Others predicted that these economic shocks would lead to political instability and violence in the worst-hit countries. At his confirmation hearing in February, the new U.S. director of national intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, cautioned the Senate that "the financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging-market nations over the next year." Hillary Clinton endorsed this grim view. And she was hardly alone. Foreign Policy ran a cover story predicting serious unrest in several emerging markets. Of one thing everyone was sure: nothing would ever be the same again. Not the financial industry, not capitalism, not globalization. One year later, how much has the world really changed? Well, Wall Street is home to two fewer investment banks (three, if you count Merrill Lynch). Some regional banks have gone bust. There was some turmoil in Moldova and (entirely unrelated to the financial crisis) in Iran. Severe problems remain, like high unemployment in the West, and we face new problems caused by responses to the crisissoaring debt and fears of inflation. But overall, things look nothing like they did in the 1930s. The predictions of economic and political collapse have not materialized at all. A key measure of fear and fragility is the ability of poor and unstable countries to borrow money on the debt markets. So consider this: the sovereign bonds of tottering Pakistan have returned 168 percent so far this year. All this doesn't add up to a recovery yet, but it does reflect a return to some level of normalcy. And that rebound has been so rapid that even the shrewdest observers remain puzzled. "The question I have at the back of my head is 'Is that it?' " says Charles Kaye, the co-head of Warburg Pincus. "We had this huge crisis, and now we're back to business as usual?" This revival did not happen because markets managed to stabilize themselves on their own. Rather, governments, having learned the lessons of the Great Depression, were determined not to repeat the same mistakes once this crisis hit. By massively expanding state support for the economy through central banks and national treasuriesthey buffered the worst of the damage. (Whether they made new mistakes in the process remains to be seen.) The extensive social safety nets that have been established across the industrialized world also cushioned the pain felt by many. Times are still tough, but things are nowhere near as bad as in the 1930s, when governments played a tiny role in national economies. It's true that the massive state interventions of the past year may be fueling some new bubbles: the cheap cash and government guarantees provided to banks, companies, and consumers have fueled some irrational exuberance in stock and bond markets. Yet these rallies also demonstrate the return of confidence, and confidence is a very powerful economic force. When John Maynard Keynes described his own prescriptions for economic growth, he believed government action could provide only a temporary fix until the real motor of the economy started cranking againthe animal spirits of investors, consumers, and companies seeking risk and profit. Beyond all this, though, I believe there's a fundamental reason why we have not faced global collapse in the last year. It is the same reason that we weathered the stock-market crash of 1987, the recession of 1992, the Asian crisis of 1997, the Russian default of 1998, and the tech-bubble collapse of 2000. The current global economic system is inherently more resilient than we think. The world today is characterized by three major forces for stability, each reinforcing the other and each historical in nature. The first is the spread of great-power peace. Since the end of the Cold War, the world's major powers have not competed with each other in geomilitary terms. There have been some political tensions, but measured by historical standards the globe today is stunningly free of friction between the mightiest nations. This lack of

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conflict is extremely rare in history. You would have to go back at least 175 years, if not 400, to find any prolonged period like the one we are living in. The number of people who have died as a result of wars, civil conflicts, and terrorism over the last 30 years has declined sharply (despite what you might think on the basis of overhyped fears about terrorism). And no wonderthree decades ago, the Soviet Union was still funding militias, governments, and guerrillas in dozens of countries around the world. And the United States was backing the other side in every one of those places. That clash of superpower proxies caused enormous bloodshed and instability: recall that 3 million people died in Indochina alone during the 1970s. Nothing like that is happening today. Peace is like oxygen, Harvard's Joseph Nye has written. When you don't have it, it's all you can think about, but when you do, you don't appreciate your good fortune. Peace allows for the possibility of a stable economic life and trade. The peace that flowed from the end of the Cold War had a much larger effect because it was accompanied by the discrediting of socialism. The world was left with a sole superpower but also a single workable economic model capitalismalbeit with many variants from Sweden to Hong Kong. This consensus enabled the expansion of the global economy; in fact, it created for the first time a single world economy in which almost all countries across the globe were participants. That means everyone is invested in the same system. Today, while the nations of Eastern Europe might face an economic crisis, no one is suggesting that they abandon free-market capitalism and return to communism. In fact, around the world you see the opposite: even in the midst of this downturn, there have been few successful electoral appeals for a turn to socialism or a rejection of the current framework of political economy. Center-right parties have instead prospered in recent elections throughout the West. The second force for stability is the victoryafter a decades-long struggleover the cancer of inflation. Thirty-five years ago, much of the world was plagued by high inflation, with deep social and political consequences. Severe inflation can be far more disruptive than a recession, because while recessions rob you of better jobs and wages that you might have had in the future, inflation robs you of what you have now by destroying your savings. In many countries in the 1970s, hyperinflation led to the destruction of the middle class, which was the background condition for many of the political dramas of the eracoups in Latin America, the suspension of democracy in India, the overthrow of the shah in Iran. But then in 1979, the tide began to turn when Paul Volcker took over the U.S. Federal Reserve and waged war against inflation. Over two decades, central banks managed to decisively beat down the beast. At this point, only one country in the world suffers from -hyperinflation: Zimbabwe. Low inflation allows people, businesses, and governments to plan for the future, a key precondition for stability. Political and economic stability have each reinforced the other. And the third force that has underpinned the resilience of the global system is technological connectivity. Globalization has always existed in a sense in the modern world, but until recently its contours were mostly limited to trade: countries made goods and sold them abroad. Today the information revolution has created a much more deeply connected global system. Managers in Arkansas can work with suppliers in Beijing on a real-time basis. The production of almost every complex manufactured product now involves input from a dozen countries in a tight global supply chain. And the consequences of connectivity go well beyond economics. Women in rural India have learned through satellite television about the independence of women in more modern countries. Citizens in Iran have used cell phones and the Internet to connect to their well-wishers beyond their borders. Globalization today is fundamentally about knowledge being dispersed across our world. This diffusion of knowledge may actually be the most important reason for the stability of the current system. The majority of the world's nations have learned some basic lessons about political well-being and wealth creation. They have taken advantage of the opportunities provided by peace, low inflation, and technology to plug in to the global system. And they have seen the indisputable results. Despite all the turmoil of the past year, it's important to remember that more people have been lifted out of poverty over the last two decades than in the preceding 10. Clear-thinking citizens around the world are determined not to lose these gains by falling for some ideological chimera, or searching for a

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worker's utopia. They are even cautious about the appeals of hypernationalism and war. Most have been there, done that. And they know the price. In fact, the most remarkable development in the last few years has been the way China, India, Brazil, and other emerging markets have managed their affairs prudently, taming growth by keeping interest rates up and restricting credit in the middle of the bubblejust as an economics textbook (and common sense) would advise. Instead it was the advanced industrial world, which had always lectured everyone else about good political and economic management, that handled its affairs poorly, fueling bubble after bubble, being undisciplined in the boom, and now suffering most during the bust. The data reflect this new reality. By 2014 the debt of the rich countries in the G20 will be 120 percent of GDP, three times the level of debt in the big emergingmarket countries. The students of the global system are now doing better than their teachers. Among the many realities that have become apparent in the last year, this is perhaps the most consequential. People in the West were quick to write off the developing nations after the crash, sure that they could not survive a recession in the centers of the global economy. But the strongest of the emerging markets have actually emerged. They have become large, mature, and connected enough that while affected by the West, their fortunes are not entirely dependent on it.

Turn: Our aff actually saves money in the status quo and continued funding will save money in the future because it improves our transportation infrastructure extend Washington Post 11. Also Turn: even if High Speed Rail requires spending, the costs far outweighs the price. High Speed Rails can solve our terrible transportation infrastructure by providing another, faster means of travel, AND it will lessen our dependence on oil extend Leften. And Turn: NOT DOING THE PLAN CAUSE THE IMPACTS OF THE DISAD extend Ferry. Our economy is going down and down fast; proactive government aid in needed to bounce back our economy.