Off case

Raising the debt ceiling is necessary, BUT agreement among democrats and
republicans is key in doing so
Bade and Everett 7/17/17 [Rachel, covers House leadership for POLITICO joined POLITICO in
September 2012 as a tax reporter, covering the IRS tea party targeting scandal and Hill efforts to reform
the tax code before moving to the Congress team in early 2015, Burgess, congressional reporter for
POLITICO. He previously was a transportation reporter for POLITICO Pro, Web producer, helping run
POLITICO’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, and a contributor to the On Media blog, “House Republicans
weigh massive partisan spending bill”, http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/14/house-republicans-
spending-bill-240565, Accessed 7/17/17] SZhang

Either way, Senate Republicans have made clear they prefer raising the debt ceiling before leaving for recess
“We’ll probably deal with that before we leave,” said Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican. The House has other plans. GOP leaders and staff have vowed for weeks to raise the debt ceiling before the
“X date” of default but also downplayed the possibility that the date would fall before the summer break. The Congressional Budget Office’s recent announcement that the nation won’t bump up against the debt ceiling until early-

Senate Republicans insist on acting before recess, however, they would need to send a bill to
to mid-October has only emboldened House Republicans to wait until September. If

the House in the next two weeks, before the lower chamber breaks for recess at the end of July. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has
told Republicans he will not keep them in town in August at all — unless the Senate sends them an Obamacare repeal bill. McCarthy said nothing about staying in session to address the debt ceiling. The reality is that striking a debt

Republicans will need Democrats to carry the legislation because conservatives

agreement will likely take much longer than two weeks.

won’t vote for a debt ceiling increase without steep spending cuts — a proposition at which Democrats
scoff. Senate Democrats have also suggested they may play hard to get, demanding policy changes for their
support. That all but ensures a multiweek negotiation process. There’s also been talk about striking a
bipartisan budget deal to raise federal spending caps along with a debt limit boost. In the House, more
than 20 members of the moderate Tuesday Group — the very members House GOP leadership will lean
on to help pass a debt ceiling bill — have asked for the two to go hand in hand. Negotiations on that front, however, have not even
started.

{{{{{INSERT LINK AFTER THIS, AND TAKE OUT CARD BELOW IF IT’S CASE SPECIFIC}}}}}

Education has hit a roadblock—democrats won’t pass debt ceiling after DeVos’s
confirmation as education secretary, without major GOP concessions
Camera, 2/9/17 [Lauren, education reporter at U.S. News & World Report. She’s covered education
policy and politics for nearly a decade, “Bipartisan Education Politics a Thing of the Past”,
https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-02-09/bipartisan-education-politics-a-
thing-of-the-past, Accessed 6/25/17] SZhang

“We have been able to work together well for the past two years, and it’s because we have worked in
good faith and across party lines to make sure we have what we needed to proceed,” Sen. Patty Murray,
D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate education committee, said prior to the committee vote that
cleared billionaire school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos, now Secretary of Education, for consideration
by the full Senate. Confirming DeVos in spite of staunch Democratic opposition, she warned committee Chairman Lamar
Alexander, R-Tenn.,was “a massive break with that strong bipartisan record, and it will dramatically impact our
ability to work together in good faith going forward.” Alexander, for his part, accused Democrats of unfairly holding up DeVos' confirmation
process. While DeVos' contentious confirmation garnered the lion’s share of media attention, across the Capitol and out of the spotlight House Republicans were

moving on something just as noteworthy: They passed two, separate resolutions that would block the
Department of Education from implementing rules set by the Obama administration. The first
resolution, which comes as states begin implementing the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act,
prevents the Department of Education from dictating prescriptive requirements for how they measure
that achievement, using metrics such as school ratings, timelines for interventions for failing schools and
student participation in state assessments. “By blocking implementation of the Obama administration’s accountability rule, we are giving states the
certainty they need to move forward with their own efforts to implement the law,” said Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., who authored the resolution.

The plan causes fights among democrats and republicans that bog down Congress and
waste time
Doran 17
Leo Doran (staff writer). “Education Policy Has Rarely Been This Politicized.” Inside Sources. February 6th, 2017.
http://www.insidesources.com/education-policy-rarely-politicized/

Nonetheless, Republican strategists in the new administration may consciously choose to allow some
time to elapse before pushing major education reform. Despite a recent House subcommittee hearing on “The Power
of School Choice” and a pair of GOP bills aimed at rolling back Obama administration ESSA rules, Cross said he does not expect “an ‘in your
face’” attempt by Republican leadership in the coming weeks to enact sweeping campaign promises, such as President Trump’s proposal to find
$20 billion for school choice grants. While a major school choice bill may get out of the House, the Senate committee that
oversees education is expected to be busy in the coming months with the large task of amending or
replacing the Affordable Care Act. Michael Hansen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy,
agrees with Cross that the confirmation fight is “larger than just Betsy DeVos.” Hansen also expressed the caveat, however, that DeVos’s
signature issue—school choice and related voucher programs—is somewhat more controversial than the issues typically championed by
prospective education secretaries. Unlike Cross, who sees the possibility for tensions to cool in the coming months, Hansen said that

education policy “is shaping up to be a space where there are a lot of partisan divides .” He said the
issue “is probably going to be political for a while.”

Failure to raise the debt ceiling causes an economic decline

Swonk 6-14
Diane Swonk (founder and CEO of DS Economics, an economic consulting firm. Prior to that, she spent more than 30 years in the financial
services industry. As a well-known macroeconomist, she advises the Federal Reserve Board and its regional banks. She also served two terms on
the economic advisory board to the Congressional Budget Office. She has been named a fellow by the National Association for Business
Economics (NABE) for outstanding contributions to the field). “Congress again pushing US toward brink of financial calamity.” The Hill. June 14th,
2017. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/337832-congress-again-pushing-us-toward-brink-of-financial

The standoff poses a real risk that we could once again find ourselves on the verge of a U.S. Treasury
default. The showdown in 2011 unnerved financial markets and resulted in the first downgrade in our
country’s credit in August 2011. Economic growth slowed to a standstill as uncertainty spiked. We ended up
with across-the-board budget cuts, which eliminated fiscal stimulus at a critical time in the recovery. That shifted more of the burden of
supporting the economy onto the Federal Reserve, which has few tools. Worse yet, those contractionary moves did nothing to rein in
ballooning deficits over the medium term, which was the stated goal. The cuts did not address the elephant in the room: spending on Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, which are already rising at a faster pace as baby boomers age into retirement. The irony is that the
debt ceiling was initially designed to facilitate rather than constrain the Treasury’s flexibility to issue debt. Congress gave President Woodrow
Wilson the ability to issue bonds as needed to fund World War I. Though the debt ceiling has undergone many iterations, it remains critical to
Treasury’s financing government commitments that have already been approved. It does not include new spending initiatives; thus, holding the
debt ceiling hostage does nothing to align spending with revenues. Failing
to raise the debt ceiling would force the
Treasury to stop making interest payments on our debt, including all bonds and bills. That would mean
breaking the contract with all holders of U.S. Treasuries, which would be akin to a large number of Americans defaulting on all of their debt
It would make the mortgage defaults during the housing crisis look small in
obligations simultaneously.
comparison. Interest rates would spike as the world would lose faith in the U.S. as a safe haven. The
value of the dollar would plummet. Government spending would contract, threatening retirees
dependent on Social Security. A financial crisis would erupt and push the U.S. economy into recession or
worse, a protracted depression.

Economic decline leads to nuclear war

Stein Tønnesson 15, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Leader of East Asia Peace
program, Uppsala University, 2015, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International
Area Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 297-311

recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and
Several

under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the
risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say interdependence may both
inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or
unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to wars among
states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an
inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the
US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a

global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on
the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers
to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own

nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments,
contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of
socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a
third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count

on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but

that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace
more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress,
and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear

deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so.
Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-
war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.
 Off Case
Passing the infrastructure plan is key, and will pass, BUT bipartisanship is necessary
Marquet 2/21/17, (Jim Marquet, opinion contributor for the Hill, “Bipartisanship? It’s
possible when it comes to America’s Infrastructure”, The Hill,
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/320293-bipartisanship-under-
trump-its-possible-when-you-talk , Accessed 12/25/17, Ashmeet Saini)

As we near the end of Donald Trump’s first month of presidency, his potential impact on the current nationwide construction boom is beginning to take shape.
The construction industry generated $650 billion in 2016, the highest amount since 2008, according to
the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The new administration has plans to spur significant growth in an
often overlooked area, infrastructure. In his Contract with the American Voter, released prior to his election, Trump outlined that he would
“leverage public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion

in infrastructure investment over 10 years.” Weeks later, in his acceptance speech, then president-elect Trump again vowed to
rebuild America’s infrastructure, including not only roads, bridges and tunnels, but also schools and hospitals. And in the days following his
election, the financial market responded to these promises as U.S. construction companies’ stocks skyrocketed. On top of Trump’s expressed desire to revitalize U.S.
infrastructure, a 2016 report from the American Society of Civil Engineers found that the U.S. will face a funding shortfall of more than $1.4 trillion by 2025 for roads
and bridges, drinking and wastewater facilities, electrical infrastructure, aviation, and water ports. Clearly, the president — and researchers — feels that there is
an urgency to address infrastructure issues. Should a Trump infrastructure program pass through
Congress, major projects could get off the ground quickly, which could have significant insurance and risk management
ramifications. After the 2008 recession, countless skilled workers and frontline leaders left the construction industry. As a result, many construction companies are
struggling to find highly qualified, safe, and productive employees. The potential increase in spending on infrastructure projects will require companies to attract
and train new employees. Training these new employees to operate safely and with a high level of productivity and quality is critical to ensuring that companies
avoid the cost and complication of injuries and burdensome construction defect claims. Passing
a comprehensive infrastructure plan is
certainly something that will take time, but it is an important item on Trump’s agenda. And it’s not only on his to-
do list. The National Governors Association recently identified infrastructure as a key area where

bipartisanship is needed in 2017. And while the desire to improve infrastructure has at times received
bipartisan support, Republicans and Democrats typically differ in their views on how to pay for it. Thus,
progress has been stagnant and investments have been low due to lack of consensus. According to the Congressional Budget Office, total public spending on
transportation and water infrastructure has been on the decline for nearly 60 years — with the exception of 2009, when the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act was passed following the 2008 financial crisis. President Obama’s more recent proposals were blocked, with critics saying the plans would result in increased
government spending and higher taxes for many Americans. Unlike in previous years, with potential support from both sides
of the aisle, President Trump could pass a large infrastructure plan. In fact, last month, House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi said that Democrats are interested in working with Trump “to pass a bill very fast.”
While Trump’s proposed plan would require some federal spending, it would rely heavily on private

funding. The administration’s initial outline of the plan would incentivize investment in infrastructure projects by offering a tax credit to private investors. While
the tax credits would cost the government money, taxes collected from the workers and companies participating in these infrastructure projects would offset the
costs, according to the outline. Revitalized
roads, railways, bridges will allow for the safe transport of both people
and goods in the modern era. After a divisive election, this could represent important common ground. Infrastructure is an issue that both
Republicans and Democrats can work on together in order to benefit all Americans.

{{{{{Insert Link}}}}}
Education hit a roadblock—dems won’t bite after DeVos confirmation without major
GOP concessions
Camera, 2/9/17 [Lauren, education reporter at U.S. News & World Report. She’s covered education
policy and politics for nearly a decade, “Bipartisan Education Politics a Thing of the Past”,
https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-02-09/bipartisan-education-politics-a-
thing-of-the-past, Accessed 6/25/17] SZhang

“We have been able to work together well for the past two years, and it’s because we have worked in
good faith and across party lines to make sure we have what we needed to proceed,” Sen. Patty Murray,
D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate education committee, said prior to the committee vote that
cleared billionaire school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos, now Secretary of Education, for consideration
by the full Senate. Confirming DeVos in spite of staunch Democratic opposition, she warned committee Chairman Lamar
Alexander, R-Tenn., was “a massive break with that strong bipartisan record, and it will dramatically impact our

ability to work together in good faith going forward.” Alexander, for his part, accused Democrats of unfairly holding up DeVos' confirmation
process. While DeVos' contentious confirmation garnered the lion’s share of media attention, across the Capitol and out of the spotlight House Republicans were

moving on something just as noteworthy: They passed two, separate resolutions that would block the
Department of Education from implementing rules set by the Obama administration. The first
resolution, which comes as states begin implementing the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act,
prevents the Department of Education from dictating prescriptive requirements for how they measure
that achievement, using metrics such as school ratings, timelines for interventions for failing schools and
student participation in state assessments. “By blocking implementation of the Obama administration’s accountability rule, we are giving states the
certainty they need to move forward with their own efforts to implement the law,” said Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., who authored the resolution.

The plan causes fights among democrats and republicans that bog down Congress and
waste time
Doran 17
Leo Doran (staff writer). “Education Policy Has Rarely Been This Politicized.” Inside Sources. February 6th, 2017.
http://www.insidesources.com/education-policy-rarely-politicized/

Nonetheless, Republican strategists in the new administration may consciously choose to allow some
time to elapse before pushing major education reform. Despite a recent House subcommittee hearing on “The Power
of School Choice” and a pair of GOP bills aimed at rolling back Obama administration ESSA rules, Cross said he does not expect “an ‘in your
face’” attempt by Republican leadership in the coming weeks to enact sweeping campaign promises, such as President Trump’s proposal to find
$20 billion for school choice grants. While a major school choice bill may get out of the House, the Senate committee that
oversees education is expected to be busy in the coming months with the large task of amending or
replacing the Affordable Care Act. Michael Hansen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy,
agrees with Cross that the confirmation fight is “larger than just Betsy DeVos.” Hansen also expressed the caveat, however, that DeVos’s
signature issue—school choice and related voucher programs—is somewhat more controversial than the issues typically championed by
prospective education secretaries. Unlike Cross, who sees the possibility for tensions to cool in the coming months, Hansen said that

education policy “is shaping up to be a space where there are a lot of partisan divides .” He said the
issue “is probably going to be political for a while.”
Failure to improve our infrastructure leads to economic decline
Navales 16 (Ethel Navales, she is a writer, who is also the assosciate editor for Right of
Way magazine, and she wrote her own book, “Paying the price”, p.18-22,
http://www.irwaonline.org/eweb/upload/web_jul_aug_16_PayingthePrice.pdf ,
July/August 2016, Accessed 12/25/17, Ashmeet Saini)

America’s infrastructure is crumbling at our feet Truthfully, most of us haven’t fully grasped the full
Let’s face it, .

extent of damage that such an issue has on our country. Even worse, many have simply grown
accustomed to hearing about our collapsing infrastructure and have turned a blind eye to the crisis
altogether But keeping up this mentality will ultimately lead to our detriment We can no longer ignore
. .

the [negative] impact that our deteriorating infrastructure has on our nation’s economy, business and
industry productivity, gross domestic product (GDP), international competitiveness, employment,
personal income and costs to households. our failure to act has widened further losses For years, the investment gap, and

will continue to accumulate if we don’t take action and address the needed maintenance and improvements. To monitor our progress, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) came up with
The Report Card for America’s Infrastructure . This report, which is published every four years, grades national infrastructure categories on a fa miliar “A” through “F” scale. Unfortunately, we have held “D” averages since 1998. Most recently, the ASCE released Failure to Act: Closing the
Infrastructure Investment Gap for America’s Economic Future , which updates previous Failure to Act reports from 2011 and 2012. The series outlines the impact of infrastructure investment on America’s economic future and takes a closer look at each sector, giving a more precise idea
of the effects that each system has on businesses, households and the overall economy. More specifically, Failure to Act details how severely our country will be hurt by 2025 if we continue to ignore the infrastructure investment gap within each system. THE PRICE PAYING JULY/AUGUST
2016 Right of Way 19 20 Right of Way JULY/AUGUST 2016 SURFACE TRANSPORTATION Surface transportation infrastructure includes highways, bridges, commuter rails and all other transit systems. Over the years, there have been a number of funding efforts, such as the Fixing America’s
Surface Transportation Act, which utilizes $56.2 billion per year of federal funds for highway and transit programs. Unfortunately, these efforts have only kept the problem at bay. While we have been able to avoid immediate failure of key facilities and stabilize the downward trend in
highway investment, it is not enough for effective functioning of the national highway system. In other words, the deterioration is still continuing and leaving a mounting burden on the U.S. economy. In fact, it seems that every effort we make for improvement has its consequences. While
maintenance on roads and highways has improved, delays caused by highway congestion have grown by 36 percent. Funds received for public bus and rail transportation end up being used for maintenance of the aging vehicles and fixi ng damages caused by poor roadway surfaces. Our
funds are diverted to the difficult task of damage control instead of prevention. According to Failure to Act , the average annual investment gap for surface transportation through 2025 is expected to increase to $110 billion, and the deficiencies are projected to cost the national economy
almost $1 trillion in GDP by 2025. What does this mean for American citizens? Travel time will increase due to poor roadway conditions and out-of-service transit. Increased travel time for service providers will lead to increased cost of services and products. This will ultimately impact
sales, which makes U.S. products less competitive with foreign imports. Overall business income and wages will be suppressed and the U.S. economy will move away from research, knowledge- based and technology-related sectors. WATER AND WASTEWATER It’s no surprise that out of
all the infrastructure types, water is the most fundamental. Water systems collect water from rivers and lakes, remove pollutants and distribute the safe water. Similarly, wastewater systems collect sewage and used water, remove contaminants, and release the clean water back into the
lakes and rivers. Obviously, both systems are incredibly essential. Despite our heavy reliance on water and wastewater systems, the conditions of these systems remain extremely poor. Aging pipes and inadequate capacity leads to the estimated discharge of nearly 900 billion gallons of
untreated sewage each year. These kinds of failures can lead to a variety of disruptions and even damage to other types of essential infrastructure. Clearly, the public will not overlook the water and wastewater systems. In fact, current standards for public health and environmental safety
require a significant number of water and wastewater infrastructures to be built. For instance, some have called for more than 7.3 million lead service pipelines around the country to be replaced. However, investments are simply unable to keep up. According to Failure to Act , the annual
investment gap for water and wastewater through 2025 is expected to decrease from $11.2 billion to $10.5 billion thanks to pr ojects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, the nation will still have lost over $508 billion in GDP. 46% $941 BILLION FUNDED $1.1
TRILLION UNFUNDED 30% $45 BILLION FUNDED $105 BILLION UNFUNDED FUNDED FUNDED JULY/AUGUST 2016 Right of Way 21 ELECTRICITY Electricity relies on generation facilities and high- voltage transmission lines that connect it to major populations. These generation, transmission
and distribution facilities were built over the course of a century. As such, they all have varying ages, conditions and capacities – and many of these facilities are in dire need of an upgrade. Unfortunately, complicated and inefficient regulations make decisions more complex. Failure to Act
points out that more investments must be put toward maintaining and replacing aging infrastructure before making expensive, new generation investments. If aging equipment and increased demands are not addressed, we can expect greater electricity interruptions. For instance, every
power interruption costs an average of $2,600 - $6,600 for industrial firms and an average of $900 - $1,700 for commercial firms. These power outages result in higher production costs, which again affects the competitiveness of American industries. AIRPORTS, INLAND WATERWAYS AND
MARINE PORTS Although the U.S. has well over 3,000 airports, only 30 “core” airports serve nearly 70 percent of commercial passengers and 79 percent of all domestic and international airfreight. And with the need for airport spending growing everyday, we become even more at risk for
air and ground congestion at these major airports. The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that construction needs and congestion relief will require $19.9 billion in investment through 2025. The inland waterway system and marine ports are in no better shape. Domestically, 20
percent of all crude petroleum, 6 percent of all coal and 14 percent of other fuel oils are transported over water. This alone affects all of the nation’s economic sectors that rely on energy. Additionally, 63 percent of U.S. imports and 73 percent of our exports are transported by water.
Despite this heavy reliance on water transportation, difficult economic conditions have led to unmet port and transportation system needs. As a result, Failure to Act estimates losing nearly $800 billion in GDP by 2025. Historically, the U.S. has had a competitive advantage by having
relatively inexpensive transportation costs. However, if airport and water port infrastructure continue to age and deteriorate, the cost to move goods will rise significantly. Deficiencies in airports and marine ports will directly harm our national competitiveness . 81% $757 BILLION
FUNDED $177 BILLION UNFUNDED 73% 59% $115 BILLION FUNDED FUNDED FUNDED FUNDED $22 BILLION FUNDED $42 BILLION UNFUNDED $15 BILLION UNFUNDED 22 Right of Way JULY/AUGUST 2016 will also reverberate throughout. Just as one weakened infrastructure system can
bring the others down, a strengthened one can positively affect the various systems as well. The Failure to Act series shows that closing each infrastructure investment gap is actually possible, and the economic consequences are avoidable with investment. After all, the nation’s inland
waterways, marine ports, airports, and electricity and water infrastructure have all shown modest signs of investment gap improvements. Ultimately, it is insufficient funding which brings down economic productivity. Although creating innovative answers and long-term solutions for this
national crisis will be no easy task, one thing is certain: if we continue to turn a blind eye to the widening infrastructure investment gap, then the expectations of the Failure to Act report will surely turn into a reality. J For more information and to download the full report, visit

Infrastructure is critical to every nation’s prosperity, public health and welfare.

http://www.asce.org/failuretoact/ IT’S TIME TO ACT

Despite this, we have only been paying roughly half of America’s infrastructure bill, leaving a giant
funding gap that hurts the economy, businesses, workers and families . All of the Failure to Act reports conclude that business costs and prices will increase if

In fact, if none of the infrastructure gaps are

surface transportation worsens, if airports and waterways become too congested and outdated, or if water and electricity syst ems deteriorate.

addressed, the nation is expected to lose 2.5 million jobs, $4 trillion in GDP, $34,000 in disposable
income per household and $7 trillion in lost business sales by 2025. This is largely because the weakening of even one of the infrastructure systems has an effect on
the others. For example, if airports become too congested, passengers may turn to surface transportation. But what happens if surface transportation infrastructure is too deteriorated to take on the extra strain? And what happens when power plants that provide electricity do not have a
reliable source of clean water? Ultimately, these infrastructure systems depend on one another and the deterioration of just one will have a cascading impact on the other systems. Do these circumstances mean we are destined to crumble? Not necessarily. The silver lining is that
economic benefits of infrastructure investment

Economic decline leads to nuclear war

Stein Tønnesson 15, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Leader of East Asia Peace
program, Uppsala University, 2015, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International
Area Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 297-311
 recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and
Several

under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the
risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say interdependence may both
inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or
unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to wars among
states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an
inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the
US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a

global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on
the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers
to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own

nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments,
contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of
socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a
third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count

on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but

that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace
more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress,
and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear

deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so.
Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-
war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.
 Off case
Trump support stays high – approval rating is consistent
Robinson 17 (Kevin, reporter for the Pensacola News Journal, December 9th, “For Trump Base,
Support is Unwavering”, http://www.pnj.com/story/news/2017/12/09/trump-base-support-
unwavering/935460001/) GM

Despite the chorus of criticisms from the Democratic party, some media outlets and even some
Republicans, Donald Trump supporters have one message for the president. Keep doing what you're
doing. Thousands of people braved the cold, wind and rain to see Trump at a "Make America Great Again" rally at the Pensacola Bay Center
on Friday. Recent controversies in the national news has done little to dim their support for Trump, and
in many cases, has just galvanized his base even more. “There’s a lot of push back, a lot of forces that are fighting him,”
said Milton resident Sharon Alexander. “He needs to stand strong, the Republican side needs to stand strong and support him. The only way
we’re going to get anything done is if we stand behind him. If those opposing forces aren’t going to work with him, we’ve got to move on.”
From immigration policy, to proposed tax reforms making their way through the legislature, to his
dealings with foreign powers, Trump's base gave him consistently high marks for his job performance.
George Sturges, standing in a line that stretched around the Bay Center, said he was disappointed Congress hasn't been more supportive of
Trump's agenda. "He keeps his promises, but other people do not," he said. Navy veteran Charles Ferry, who was a registered Democrat before
Jimmy Carter's presidency, has since voted Republican. "I like (Trump) because he's not a politician and he doesn't owe anybody anything," he
said.Many of Trump's supporters see him as a scrappy underdog. A modern-day folk hero of sorts. One
who is not afraid to say what's on his mind, and who is not afraid to fight against the powers that be.
Trump's brash style of governing has endeared him to a percentage of the population, but it's turned
off a great many others. Since his election, Trump's approval rating has consistently hovered around
the 40 percent mark. His supporters, however, remain strong in their beliefs that politics and anti-
Trump bias are the driving forces behind an investigation of the alleged collusion between the Trump
campaign and Russia. The past year has also brought controversy over everything from Trump's aggressive efforts to control the
country's borders, to his battles against protesters in the NFL, to his support of controversial U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore. None of it is
enough to dissuade Trump's supporters. Aurora Uylengco wasn't eligible to vote when she came to the U.S. 12 years ago, but when she became
eligible in 2016 she cast her first vote for Donald Trump, and she hasn't looked back. "The first time I saw Donald Trump I thought, 'This is the
man we need.'"

States’ rights conservatives oppose federal involvement in education

Whitman 15 (David, Sept., Contributing Editor at Education Post and was a reporter for nearly two decades for U.S. News
& World Report. From June 2009 to November 2014, he was chief speechwriter for U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan,
“The Surprising Roots of the Common Core: How Conservatives Gave Rise to ‘Obamacore’”, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2016/06/Surprising-Conservative-Roots-of-the-Common-Core_FINAL.pdf)

Last but not least—and irrespective of previous conservative efforts to develop voluntary national
standards—some Tea Party leaders and Common Core critics remain purists about federalism. They
firmly oppose the Common Core State Standards on constitutional and ideological grounds for infringing
on state and local control of education—an unenumerated power they believe is reserved solely to
individual states under the 10th amendment, and not to consortiums of states or to the federal
government. Last year, Governor Nikki Haley, a Tea Party favorite, signed a bill requiring South Carolina
to adopt new standards replacing the Common Core State Standards. “We don’t ever want to educate
South Carolina children like they educate California children,” Haley said.
If Trump’s popularity declines, he’ll lash out & start a war
Vyse 2/10 (Graham, staff @ New Republic, “Trump Has a Plan for the Next 9/11. Democrats Need One”,
https://newrepublic.com/article/140556/trump-plan-next-911-democrats-need-one)
At least one elected Democrat is already pushing this message. At last Saturday’s Congressional Progressive Caucus retreat in Baltimore,
Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state raised the issue in a room full of liberal lawmakers planning their political strategy.
“There’s another thing that’s going to throw us off message, and that’s if we have any kind of an attack
or a war,” she said. “I just want us to be thinking about that because there are lots of things that are happening right
now that you could argue are setting us up for an attack. I believe that’s true of the executive orders, and we know
what happened after 9/11, and we have to be thinking about what is our jiu-jitsu move to actually prepare the stage so that if
something does happen it’s clear who created that and who created the environment for that to happen.” After the attacks on the the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, congressional Democrats almost uniformly rallied around President George
W. Bush, authorizing the Republican’s use of military force in Afghanistan. Representative Barbara Lee, whom
Jayapal calls “a great hero of mine,” was the lone “no” vote in Congress. It was a period of intense nationalism and jingoism, and it’s easy to
imagine Trump trying to exploit a similar sentiment in the service of his authoritarian agenda—or simply to improve
his dismal poll numbers. “I mean, I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” Jayapal told her colleagues, “but I really do believe that war is a
great way to get your poll numbers up. We just need to be thinking about what happens when that comes forward and how we
prepare the stage right now with our message so that the blame goes exactly where the blame should be and we don’t all have to rally around
in patriotism.”

Causes nuclear war with China – Checks don’t apply because of populism
Menon 2/14 (Rajan, staff @ Toms Dispatch via AlterNet, “Is President Trump Headed for a War With China?”,
http://www.alternet.org/world/president-trump-headed-war-china)

Facing off against China, President Trump could find himself in a similar predicament, having so emphasized
his toughness, his determination to regain America’s lost respect and make the country great again. The
bigger problem, however, will undoubtedly be his own narcissism and his obsession with winning, not to mention his inability to
resist sending incendiary messages via Twitter. Just try to imagine for a moment how a president who blows his stack during a
getting-to-know-you phone call with the prime minister of Australia, a close ally, is likely to conduct himself in a confrontation with a country
he’s labeled a prime adversary. In the event of a military crisis between China and the United States, neither side may want an escalation, to say
nothing of a nuclear war. Yet Trump’s
threats to impose 45% tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. and his
repeated condemnation of China as a “currency manipulator” and stealer of American jobs have already
produced a poisonous atmosphere between the world’s two most powerful countries. And it was made
worse by his December phone conversation with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, which created doubts about his
commitment to the One China policy the United States has adhered to since 1972. The Chinese authorities apparently made it clear to the
White House that there couldn't even be a first-time phone call to Xi unless the new president agreed to stick with that policy. During a
conversation with the Chinese president on February 9th, Trump reportedly provided that essential assurance. Given the new American
president’s volatility, however, Beijingwill be playing close attention to his words and actions, even his symbolic
ones, related to Taiwan. Sooner or later, if Trump doesn’t also dial down the rest of his rhetoric on China, its
leaders will surely ratchet up theirs, thereby aggravating the situation further. So far, they’ve restrained
themselves in order to figure Trump out—not an easy task even for Americans—and in hopes that his present way of dealing with the world
might be replaced with something more conventional and recognizable. Hope, as they say, springs eternal, but as of now, in repeatedly insisting
that China must do as he says, Trump and his surrogates have inserted themselves and the country into a complicated territorial dispute far
from America’s shores. The hubris of Washington acting as the keeper of world order, but regularly breaking the rules as it wishes, whether by
invading Iraq in 2003 or making open use of torture and a global network of secret prisons, is an aspect of American behavior long obvious to
foreign powers. It looks to be the essence of Trumpism, too, even if its roots are old indeed. Don’t
dismiss the importance of
heated exchanges between Washington and Beijing in the wake of Trump’s election. The political
atmosphere between rival powers, especially those with massive arsenals, can matter a great deal when they face off in a crisis. Pernicious
stereotypes and mutual mistrust only increase the odds that crucial information will be misinterpreted in the heat
of the moment because of entrenched beliefs that are immune to contrary evidence, misperceptions, worst-case calculations, and up-the-ante
reactions. In academic jargon, these constitute the ingredients for a classic conflict spiral. In such a situation, events take control
of leaders, producing outcomes that none of them sought. Not for nothing during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 did President John Kennedy
look to Barbara Tuchman’s book, Guns of August—a gripping account of how Europe slipped and slid into a disastrous world war in 1914. There
has been lots of anxiety about the malign effects that Donald Trump’s temperament and beliefs could have domestically, and for good reason.
But indomestic politics, institutions and laws, civic organizations, the press, and public protests can serve,
however imperfectly, as countervailing forces. In international politics, crises can erupt suddenly and unfold
rapidly—and the checks on rash behavior by American presidents are much weaker. They have considerable leeway to use military
They can manipulate public opinion from the
force (having repeatedly circumvented the War Powers Act).

Bully Pulpit and shape the flow of information. (Think back to the Iraq war.) Congress typically rallies
reflexively around the flag during international crises. In such moments, citizens' criticism or mass protest invites charges of disloyalty.
This is why the brewing conflict in the South China Sea and rising animosities on both sides could produce something resembling a Cuban-
Missile-Crisis-style situation—with the United States lacking the geographical advantage this time around. If
you think that a war
between China and the United States couldn’t possibly happen, you might have a point in ordinary
times, which these distinctly aren’t.

Syria establishes the brink – It smooths the way for Trump to escalate future conflicts
& makes tying popularity to military action inevitable
Fridersdorf 4/7 (Conor, staff @ The Atlantic, “Trump's Syria Strike Was Unconstitutional and Unwise”,
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/president-trumps-syria-strike-was-unconstitutional-and-unwise/522228/)

Congress erred by doing nothing when Obama waged war illegally in Libya. It will compound that error if there are no consequences now for
Trump. Every legislator who has expressed the belief that it would be illegal to strike Syria without their permission should start acting like they
meant what they said. Given what recent presidents have been permitted, impeachment over this matter alone would understandably lack
popular legitimacy. But I wouldn’t mind if anti-war legislators created a draft document titled “Articles of Impeachment,” wrote a paragraph
about this strike at the top, and put Trump on notice that if he behaves this way again, a coalition will aggressively lobby their colleagues to
oust him from office. The
alternative is proceeding with an unbowed president who is out of his depth in
international affairs, feels entitled to wage war in ways even he once called illegitimate, and thinks of waging war
as a way presidents can improve their popularity.
Or as Trump himself once put it: Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is
desperate.

Today, Trump is desperate. He is flailing from failure to failure in domestic policy, with dismal approval
ratings and no clear way to increase them—except by trying to exploit the American public’s historic
tendency to rally around a president at war. There has never been a stronger case for preemptively reining in a president’s
ability to unilaterally launch military strikes on foreign countries that are not attacking us.
 Disads Turn Case

Nuke war turns structural violence

Joshua S. Goldstein, pub. date: 2001, Prof. of IR @ American University, Washington D.C. He is the author of a
broad range of research works on international conflict, cooperation, and political economy, with a central focus on
great-power relations and world order, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa,
Cambridge University, pp. 412

First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working for peace. Many peace scholars and activists support the
approach, “if you want peace, work for justice.” Then, if one believes that sexism contributes to war, one can work
for gender justice speicifically (or perhaps among others) in order to pursue peace. This approach beings strategic allies to the peace
movement (women, labor, minorities), but rests on the assumption that injustices casue war. The evidence in this book suggests
that causality runs at least as strongly the other way. War is not a product of capitalism, imperialism, gender,
innate aggression, or any other single cause, although theses influence wars’ outbreaks and outcomes. Rather, war has in part fueled
and sustained these and other injustices. So, “if you want peace, work for peace.” Indeed, if you want justice (gender and others), work for peace.
Causality does not run just upward through the levels of analysis, from types of individuals, societies, and governments up to war, It runs
downward too. Enloe suggests that changes in attitudes towards war and the military may be the most important way to “reverse women’s
oppression.” The dilemma is that peace work focused on justice beings to the peace movement energy, allies, and moral grounding, yet in light
of this book’s evidence, the emphasis on injustice as the main cause of war seems to be empirically inadequate. 10
 1nc – T Pre-Existing

“Increase” means to make greater and requires pre-existence

Buckley 6 (Jeremiah, Attorney, Amicus Curiae Brief, Safeco Ins. Co. of America et al v. Charles Burr et al,
http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/06-84/06-84.mer.ami.mica.pdf)
First, the court said that the ordinary meaning of the word “increase” is “to make something greater,” which it believed should not “be limited
to cases in which a company raises the rate that an individual has previously been charged.” 435 F.3d at 1091. Yet the definition offered by the
Because “increase” means “to make something greater,” there must
Ninth Circuit compels the opposite conclusion.
necessarily have been an existing premium, to which Edo’s actual premium may be compared, to determine whether
an “increase” occurred. Congress could have provided that “ad-verse action” in the insurance context means charging an amount
greater than the optimal premium, but instead chose to define adverse action in terms of an “increase.” That def-initional choice must be
respected, not ignored. See Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 392-93 n.10 (1979) (“[a] defin-ition which declares what a term ‘means’ . . .
excludes any meaning that is not stated”). Next, the Ninth Circuit reasoned that because the Insurance Prong includes the words “existing or
applied for,” Congress intended that an “increase in any charge” for insurance must “apply to all insurance transactions – from an initial policy
of insurance to a renewal of a long-held policy.” 435 F.3d at 1091. This interpretation reads the words “exist-ing or applied for” in isolation.
Other types of adverse action described in the Insurance Prong apply only to situations where a consumer had an existing policy of insurance,
such as a “cancellation,” “reduction,” or “change” in insurance. Each of these forms of adverse action presupposes an already-existing policy,
and under usual canons of statutory construction the term “increase” also should be construed to apply
to increases of an already-existing policy. See Hibbs v. Winn, 542 U.S. 88, 101 (2004) (“a phrase gathers meaning from the
words around it”) (citation omitted).

Plan creates new policy--- voting issue:

1. Limits --- they can create any form, the entire range of possible forms of regulation
or funding become topical --- overstretches Neg research burdens --- we allow a fair
number of existing types like ______________.
2. Ground --- best links assume existing policies, they change the debate from
improving current policy to creating new forms --- undermines core ground and
fairness

LOOK AT ME: concede the “there are sro regulations rn”

No solvency ev.

Nothing bad happens if we do the plan

 On Case
Solvency

No Solvency - so many challenges to planning and enforcing restorative justice in

schools – needs training, support, planning, and buy-in of the staff in order to change
school environments from punitive to restorative
Brummer, trainer, mediator, speaker, and facilitator and member of the board of directors for the
National Association for Community Mediation, 16

(Joe, “5 Reasons Implementation of Restorative Practices Fails in Schools,” JoeBrummer.com, 02/28/16,

accessed 07/27/17 at http://www.joebrummer.com/2016/02/28/5-reasons-implementation-of-
restorative-practices-fails-in-schools/, DDI-EJ)

1. Lack of Planning For many

schools, they just think they can wing RP and get it moving in the school. They see
the implementation as a constant response to behavior issues and skip on the other pro-social elements
of creating a restorative culture. These are the administrators who try to use restorative approaches to put out fires rather than
creating a school where there are not fires to put out. Schools do best when they have planned out all the pieces they will need to succeed. I
suggest every school has a restorative practices implementation team. This is the group responsible for supporting teachers and administrators,
looking at individual cases to see if they could have been handled more restoratively, and a group who can create and maintain community
partnerships. This group is also responsible for creating a roll out plan. The team is best made up of multiple voices from your school
community including teachers, administrators, students, and parents. Its important to make sure the team has the key players who will be most
involved in making the change happen. A big responsibility of the team is change management. Outsiders can guide
schools in learning RP and the only people who know the school well enough to gauge resources, manage players, and roll out a sustainable
plan are from inside the school community. There is a checklist of things the team needs to address: Staff Buy-in –
Doing a readiness assessment to see if the staff is open to restorative practices. Coming into a school
where staff are not collectively in agreement about restorative can make this whole process a waste of
time and resources. These practices require a huge shift in thinking. They ask people to change approaches and
values that were instilled in most people when they were just toddlers. Leaving punitive approaches
behind for restorative and collaborative solutions is impossible with a staff who doesn’t believe in the
change. They may hold on to retributive and punitive system unconsciously and that is expected. They just need to also believe those things
need to change if we are going to create the best learning environments for kids and the best working environments for staff. Progress
Checks – We need to be tracking the successes/challenges and progress of the plan. This means deciding what
data to collect and how to collect it. This could include focus groups, surveys, evaluation forms, and other forms of measurement of the schools
staff and students. When doing change management we need to be able to celebrate our short term wins and in order to have them, we need
to be collecting data. Because the process of change is slow, short term wins keep momentum and offer
meaning. Logistics – This group can work out the logistics of these practices. When will circles be held and where? How will referrals be
processed? Who takes the lead in inviting the participants to come? When can we do pro-social community building? I suggest having a
concrete one to three year plan that spells out these logistics. Systems of support – The team is also
responsible for creating professional learning opportunities, peer coaching, and supports for staff in the
day to day. They need to make sure training and learning happen to grow the shift in thinking that needs to happen for restorative to work
in a school. This means making the most of failures. Roll-out of the plan – The group also decides on how this all rolls out school-wide.
For larger schools, this may be grade by grade where smaller schools may choose to go whole-school right from the start. The group
needs to plan trainings, parent involvement, and the how-to of at least a 1-3 year plan. No school will
roll out this out the same because every school is different.

Plan can’t solve the Prison industrial complex, reform requires many actors- president,
congress, state judges, prosecuters, and public support to be successful
Radden 2015, Patrick Radden is an American writer and investigative journalist.
"Dismantling the Prison State," Century Foundation,
https://tcf.org/content/report/dismantling-the-prison-state/ 6/4/15
While this decentralized quality may inhibit prompt and fundamental reform, if there is enough of a national sea-change in attitudes to mass
incarceration, it could also prove to be an advantage.
The only solution that will have a sufficient impact will be a
holistic one, in which each of the relevant branches of government—at the federal, state, and local
levels—plays a role. Because the politics of criminal justice is fraught with grandstanding, some of the most effective
commonsense changes may not be immediately feasible at the national level. Amending federal law to
decriminalize marijuana, for example, would have a major impact on who we lock up, and for what, but it is unlikely to happen any time soon.
In testimony before the Colson task force this spring, Marc Mauer, the director of the Sentencing Project, suggested that because the vast
majority of criminals age out of criminal activity by middle age, federal prison terms should be capped at twenty years. This would be a sound, if
revolutionary, idea. But, politically, it isa nonstarter.25 Rather than any fell-swoop panacea from Congress, it seems likely that the solution will
be one in which smaller jurisdictions—states, but also cities—experiment with alternatives, and the innovations developed in these local
laboratories are ultimately adopted more broadly. This trend is evident already in new approaches to the status of marijuana: despite inaction
from the federal government, more and more states have been decriminalizing, or outright legalizing, the medical (and in some cases
recreational) use of cannabis. Some states have been driven purely by budgetary constraints to explore alternatives to incarceration, and a
number of jurisdictions are experimenting with “diversion” programs, which channel people into drug treatment or other rehabilitative
programs rather than jail, or with alternatives to the current system of probation and parole, which move away from systems in which any
violation of the terms of probation or release will land the individual back behind bars. This kind of tinkering is already yielding positive results
in some parts of the country, and can hopefully pioneer—and provide a replicable example of—a criminal justice policy that is more fiscally
responsible, but also less discriminatory, and more humane. But these piecemeal approaches are not enough. The vanguard of criminal justice
is really the culture and the specific professional incentives of prosecutors, which still align in favor of the most severe criminal penalties. The
prison state came into existence through a gradual accretion of millions of small discretionary steps—by police officers and by prosecutors, who
make decisions every day about who should be arrested, how they should be charged, and what punishment the government should seek.
Perhaps the greatest challenge of criminal justice reform therefore will be the gradual transformation of
the culture and institutional imperatives of the front lines of law enforcement, so that the stiffest
penalty is no longer the default objective. Judges also have a part to play. State judges are still elected in a majority
of U.S. states, and they will be subject to the same political pressure that legislators are, but federal judges enjoy lifetime tenure in part to
enable them to make the right decision in precisely this sort of situation. As Judge Rakoff has argued, if they feel constrained by sentencing
guidelines, then they should prevail upon lawmakers to give them more flexibility.The prison state took decades to reach its
current proportions, and it will not be dismantled overnight. Reductions and rollbacks will require an
effort that is concerted and incremental, one that involves presidential leadership and congressional
action, but also initiative by police officers, prosecutors, and judges. New investments must be made, not just in pilot programs for
alternatives to incarceration, but in better job training, education and post-release job placement for convicts, and in better drug treatment
and mental health programs—both of which are vastly more cost-effective, over the long run, than incarceration. This won’t be easy. It
will
require not only changes in policy, but also a fundamental change in how American culture views
criminal justice. But hopefully this cultural change is already under way—as evident in the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore, and in
states like California and Texas, which have begun, on their own initiative, to reduce their prison populations. The problem is
daunting, but the status quo is immoral and unsustainable. The way forward is clear, and the moment is upon us.
Zero tolerance good

Zero tolerance good, sends clear message and keeps kids safe
Sellors, date unknown. Positive Effects of the Zero-Tolerance Policy Used in Schools By
Alyssa Sellors. Alyssa teaches English and journalism, and is a full-time freelance writer.
http://classroom.synonym.com/positive-effects-zerotolerance-policy-used-schools-
4041.html
Zero tolerance policies were first enacted as a way to enforce suspension and expulsion policies in response to drugs, weapons, and violent acts
in schools. Critics of zero-tolerance policies argue that these policies have come to mean district wide policies to mandate harsh and pre-
determined punishments for a wide variety of offenses, but zero-tolerance policies have proven to be effective in keeping schools safe,
especially in areas where violence is a major problem. Offenses Addressed Zero-tolerance
policies are enacted as a way to
address weapons, drugs, and violent offenses as a way to protect students and maintain a safe learning
environment most conducive to learning. The U.S. Department of Education and Center for Safe and Responsive Schools found
that at least 75 percent of schools report having zero-tolerance policies for offenses such as firearms, weapons, alcohol, drugs, violence, and
tobacco. Consequences and Punishments Suspension is the most frequently used consequence when it comes to responding to these various
offenses. Expulsion is also used, but more commonly for more serious offenses such as weapons or firearms charges. Broad policies can mean
that minor and major offenses receive the same treatment, but if consequences are outlined along with offenses, schools can manage this
problem of sweeping consequences for all offenses. Parent and Student Reactions Although
students may see suspensions and
expulsions as unfair, parents and community members are strongly in favor of increased disciplinary
punishments if they fear the safety of children is at risk. If schools are clear when outlining punishments
and consequences for certain behaviors, students know what will happen should they choose to engage
in these offensive behaviors. Most schools put these guidelines in their handbooks. Schools should also be sure
to engage in positive interactions with parents and students first, before any intervention should be needed, to ensure a positive school
climate. Sending the Right Message The
goal of zero-tolerance policies is to have a uniform district wide approach
to both discourage disruptive behavior and maintain a safe school and learning environment for
teachers and students. Zero-tolerance policies remove difficult students quickly, a fast-acting
intervention that sends a clear message to all students of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
Teachers are especially supportive of zero-tolerance policies that help with classroom management and
keep their workplace safer. It is the responsibility of schools to protect teachers and students while also
addressing inappropriate or dangerous behavior that can affect other students. Zero-tolerance policies
can regenerate urban environments, reducing the amount of “dead ground” used for drug dealing and protecting school
property from vandalism. Raising the standard of living in high crime areas is a major goal and zero-
tolerance policies may send the necessary message to improve those.