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document.doc Dartmouth 20121

***1NC – OFF-CASE***1NC Topicality

(A) Interpretation: Infrastructure is defined by specific physical characteristics --- this differentiates transportation from utilities, communication, and energyInderst 9 (Georg, Financial Affairs Division – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Pension Fund Investment in Infrastructure”, OECD Working Paper, No. 32, January, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/9/42052208.pdf)

Definition of infrastructure assets The definition of infrastructure investment seems intuitive. The OECD uses a simple and general definition for infrastructure as the system of public works in a country, state or region, including roads, utility lines and public buildings. A standard dictionary‘s definition is: ―The basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society, such as transportation and communications systems, water and power lines, and public institutions including schools, post offices, and prisons.‖ (American Heritage Dictionary). Infrastructure assets are traditionally defined by their physical characteristics. One can split them into two main categories, and a range of sectors within those: Economic infrastructure transport (e.g. toll roads, airports, seaport, tunnels, bridges, metro, rail systems) utilities (e.g. water supply, sewage system, energy distribution networks, power plants, pipelines, gas storage) communication (e.g. TV/ telephone transmitters, towers, satellites, cable networks) renewable energy Social infrastructure education facilities health (hospitals and health care centres) security (e.g. prisons, police, military stations) others (e.g. parks). There is a lot of variety within infrastructure if it is defined by its physical nature, and people disagree what exactly should or should not count as infrastructure asset. For example, do utility companies count as infrastructure? When their activities span production, distribution and networks, where is the dividing line? More generally, where does public infrastructure end and private infrastructure start?

(B) Violation: The AFF modifies vehicles and accessibility. They build no physical infrastructure.

(C) Vote Negative

1) Limits- The AFF blows out limits by including programs that are not actually infrastructure. This allows the AFF to run thousands of programs that involve any sort of movement, vehicle, or re-design.

2) Grounds- They take away our core links to generic arguments. This destroys topic education by inhibiting clash.

1NC CAP K

Focus on identity politics legitimizes capital by removing superstructural contradictions while leaving the primary contradiction in place.Wexler, prof @ California State Northride, 08Steven Wexler prof. English at Cal State Northride. 2008. “(I’m) Material Labor in the Digital Age” http://cust.educ.ubc.ca/workplace/issue15/html/wexler.html

As I argued at 2007’s MLA, to suggest that rhetoric masks class relations and surplus value is not the same thing as saying rhetoric is the cause. I am interested in the way that knowledge economy rhetorics (e.g., “information society”) shift our attention from class to nationalism, racism, genderism, and more recently posthumanism . Stephen Tumino has stated convincingly that to explain social inequality in these identarian terms is to “legitimate capitalism” since capitalism is cleansed of its superstructural contradictions while the primary contradiction between owners and workers endures. We then “accept economic inequality as an integral part of human societies.” Tumino is responding to new Marxisms that augment class to a matrix of floating, discursive power struggles. These Marxisms speak of hybridity, information, difference, and multitude but rarely the labor theory of value, even though such relations are aspects and outcomes of exploitable labor. Consider, for example, the weight given to “open articulation” in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s

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postmodern radicalism, a radicalism that turns its back on Marxist teleology and base/superstructure naturalism: “If the worker is no longer a proletarian but also a citizen, consumer, and participant in a plurality of positions within the country’s cultural and institutional apparatus [. . .] then the relations between them become an open articulation which offers no a priori guarantee that it will adopt a given form” (36). This ontology stands in stark contrast to Marx’s: “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life” (Contribution 20). And no one to my mind levels the former’s privilege and paradox like David Harvey. I would like to quote him at length: The rhetoric of postmodernism is dangerous for it avoids confronting realities of political economy and the circumstances of global power. The silliness of Lyotard’s “radical proposal” that opening up data banks to everyone as a prologue to radical reform (as if we would all have equal power to use that opportunity) is instructive, because it indicates how even the most resolute of postmodernists is faced in the end with either making some universalizing gesture (like Lyotard’s appeal to some pristine concept of justice) or lapsing, like Derrida, into total political silence. (117)5 So while there is work beyond wage labor —and nationality, race, and gender could be kinds of work— there are only owners and workers, and this contradiction remains the principal source of value.

Neoliberalism creates multiple structural trends towards extinctionSzentes (a Professor Emeritus at the Corvinus University of Budapest) 8(Tamás, “Globalisation and prospects of the world society”, 4/22 http://www.eadi.org/fileadmin/Documents/-Events/exco/Glob.___prospects_-_jav..pdf)

It’ s a common place that human society can survive and develop only in a lasting real peace. Without peace countries cannot develop. Although since 1945 there has been no world war, but --numerous local wars took place, --terrorism has spread all over the world, undermining security even in the most developed and powerful countries, --arms race and militarisation have not ended with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, but escalated and continued, extending also to weapons of mass destruction and misusing enormous resources badly needed for development, --many “invisible wars” are suffered by the poor and oppressed people, manifested in mass misery, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, starvation and malnutrition, epidemics and poor health conditions, exploitation and oppression , racial and other discrimination, physical terror, organised injustice, disguised forms of violence, the denial or regular infringement of the democratic rights of citizens, women, youth, ethnic or religious minorities, etc., and last but not least, in the degradation of human environment, which means that --the “war against Nature”, i.e. the disturbance of ecological balance, wasteful management of natural resources, and large-scale pollution of our environment, is still going on, causing also losses and fatal dangers for human life. Behind global terrorism and “ invisible wars” we find striking international and intrasociety inequities and distorted development patterns , which tend to generate social as well as international tensions, thus paving the way for unrest and “visible” wars. It is a commonplace now that peace is not merely the absence of war. The prerequisites of a lasting peace between and within societies involve not only - though, of course, necessarily - demilitarisation, but also a systematic and gradual elimination of the roots of violence, of the causes of “invisible wars”, of the structural and institutional bases of large-scale international and intra-society inequalities, exploitation and oppression. Peace requires a process of social and national emancipation, a progressive, democratic transformation of societies and the world bringing about equal rights and opportunities for all people, sovereign participation and mutually advantageous co-operation among nations. It further requires a pluralistic democracy on global level with an appropriate system of proportional representation of the world society, articulation of diverse interests and their peaceful reconciliation, by non-violent conflict management, and thus also a global governance with a really global institutional system. Under the contemporary conditions of accelerating globalisation and deepening global interdependencies in our world, peace is indivisible in both time and space. It cannot exist if reduced to a period only after or before war, and cannot be safeguarded in one part of the world when some others suffer visible or invisible wars. Thus, peace requires, indeed, a new, demilitarised and democratic world order, which can provide equal opportunities for sustainable development. “Sustainability of development” (both on national and world level) is often interpreted as an issue of environmental protection only and reduced to the need for preserving the ecological balance and delivering the next generations not a destroyed Nature with overexhausted resources and polluted environment. However, no ecological balance can be ensured, unless the deep international development gap and intra-society inequalities are substantially reduced. Owing to global interdependencies there may exist hardly any “zero-sum-games”, in which one can gain at the expense of others, but, instead, the “negative-sum-games” tend to predominate, in which everybody must suffer, later or sooner, directly or indirectly, losses. Therefore, the actual question is not about “sustainability of development” but rather about the “sustainability of human life”, i.e. survival of mankind – because of ecological imbalance and globalised terrorism. When Professor Louk de la Rive Box was the president of EADI, one day we had an exchange of views on the state and future of development studies. We agreed that development studies are not any more restricted to the case of underdeveloped countries, as the developed ones (as well as the former “socialist”

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countries) are also facing development problems, such as those of structural and institutional (and even system-) transformation, requirements of changes in development patterns, and concerns about natural environment. While all these are true, today I would dare say that besides (or even instead of) “development studies” we must speak about and make “survival studies”. While the monetary, financial, and debt crises are cyclical, we live in an almost permanent crisis of the world society, which is multidimensional in nature, involving not only economic but also socio-psychological, behavioural, cultural and political aspects. The narrow-minded, election-oriented, selfish behaviour motivated by thirst for power and wealth, which still characterise the political leadership almost all over the world, paves the way for the final, last catastrophe. One cannot doubt, of course, that great many positive historical changes have also taken place in the world in the last century. Such as decolonisation, transformation of socio-economic systems, democratisation of political life in some former fascist or authoritarian states, institutionalisation of welfare policies in several countries, rise of international organisations and new forums for negotiations, conflict management and cooperation, institutionalisation of international assistance programmes by multilateral agencies, codification of human rights, and rights of sovereignty and democracy also on international level, collapse of the militarised Soviet bloc and system-change3 in the countries concerned, the end of cold war, etc., to mention only a few. Nevertheless, the crisis of the world society has extended and deepened, approaching to a point of bifurcation that necessarily puts an end to the present tendencies, either by the final catastrophe or a common solution. Under the circumstances provided by rapidly progressing science and technological revolutions, human society cannot survive unless such profound intra-society and international inequalities prevailing today are soon eliminated. Like a single spacecraft, the Earth can no longer afford to have a 'crew' divided into two parts: the rich, privileged, wellfed, well-educated, on the one hand, and the poor, deprived, starving, sick and uneducated, on the other. Dangerous 'zero-sum-games' (which mostly prove to be “negative-sum-games”) can hardly be played any more by visible or invisible wars in the world society. Because of global interdependencies, the apparent winner becomes also a loser. The real choice for the world society is between negative- and positive-sum-games: i.e. between, on the one hand, continuation of visible and “invisible wars”, as long as this is possible at all, and, on the other, transformation of the world order by demilitarisation and democratization. No ideological or terminological camouflage can conceal this real dilemma any more, which is to be faced not in the distant future, by the next generations, but in the coming years, because of global terrorism soon having nuclear and other mass destructive weapons, and also due to irreversible changes in natural environment.

Our alternative is to reject the Aff’s capitalist model of development

Movements against capitalism are possible now, our job as intellectuals is to attack the imperialist system at every turnWise (Director of Doctoral Program in Migration Studies & Prof of Development Studies; Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico) 9 (Raúl Delgado, Forced Migration and US Imperialism: The Dialectic of Migration and Development, Crit Sociol, 35: 767, ProQuest)

The theoretical framework outlined in this article for understanding the dialectic relationship between development and migration has four critical components. A Critical Approach to Neoliberal Globalization Contrary to the discourse regarding its inevitability (on this see Petras and Veltmeyer, 2000), we posit that the current phase of imperialist domination is historical and can and should be transformed. In this regard, it is fundamental to notice that ‘[t]he principal factor generating international migration is not globalization but imperialism, which pillages nations and creates conditions for the exploitation of labor in the imperial center’ (Petras, 2007: 51–2). A Critical Reconstitution of the Field of Development Studies The favoring of a singular mode of analysis based on the belief that free markets work as powerful regulatory mechanisms, efficiently assigning resources and providing patterns of economic convergence among countries and their populations, has clearly resulted in failure. New theoretical and practical alternatives are needed, and we propose a reevaluation of development as a process of social transformation through a multi-dimensional, multi-spatial, and properly contextualized approach, ‘using the concept of imperialism as an alternative explanatory framework of international capitalist expansion and the growing inequalities’ (Petras and Veltmeyer, 2000). This integral approach requires the consideration of the strategic and structural aspects of the dynamic of uneven contemporary capitalism development, which should be examined at the global, regional, national, and local levels. For this purpose it is crucial to understand, inter alia, a) the central role played by foreign investment in the process of neoliberal restructuring of peripheral economies, and b) the new modalities of surplus transfer characterizing contemporary capitalism. The Construction of an Agent of Change The globalization project led by the USA has ceased to be consensual: it has only benefited capitalist elites and excluded and damaged an overwhelming number of people throughout the world. Economic, political, social, cultural and environmental changes are all needed but a transformation of this magnitude is not viable unless diverse movements, classes, and agents can establish common goals. The construction of an agent of change requires

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not only an alternative theory of development but also collective action and horizontal collaboration: the sharing of experiences, the conciliation of interests and visions, and the construction of alliances inside the framework of South-South and South-North relations. A Reassessment of Migration and Development Studies The current explosion of forced migration is part of the intricate machinery of contemporary capitalism as an expression of the dominant imperialist project. In order to understand this process we need to redefine the boundaries of studies that address migration and development: expand our field of research and invert the terms of the unidirectional orthodox vision of the migration-development nexus in order to situate the complex issues of uneven development and imperialist domination at the center of an alternative dialectical framework. This entails a new way of understanding the migration phenomenon.

1NC States CP

Text: The 50 states should substantially increase its investment in Universal Design transportation infrastructure in the United States.

State governments have the ability to effect Universal Design and promote the development of systems.Connolly 05, Maureen Connolly, writer for Maine’s Opportunity, 04-16-05, “Universal Design: Maine’s Opportunity to Lead the Way to Information Access for Everyone,” http://www.mainecite.org/docs/wpaper.htm

State government and municipalities, including School Administrative Units, have the ability to not only effect universal design of its own information systems but to promote the development of fully accessible products and systems in the private sector . According to Conference advisor Steven E. Miller, director of the Mass Ed OnLine Project, it is not acceptable for technology developers to require users to figure out how to adapt products after their purchase. Inclusive features need to be incorporated into the product's structural and functional design. State government, as a regulator of the telecommunications and major customer of the technology and software industries, can influence designers and manufacturers to incorporate universal design into their products so they are ready-out of the box-for use by people with a wide range of abilities and needs. Many manufacturers simply don't understand how and why universal design is critically important . Others assume that the cost of universally designed products would be prohibitive. But the world of technology already has proven how access can be designed into a product, often at little or no additional cost. Glide points included on computer keyboards, for example, can be easier to manipulate than a mouse and improve access for people with mobility impairments. Alan Hurwitz, Director of the Northeast Technical Assistance Center at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, NY, called for designers and manufacturers of information systems and products to build in "redundancy of access." All products, he said, need to accommodate at least two methods of access. "Make visual information available audibly, audio information available visually, and both available tactilely," Hurwitz said. Mary Beth Walsh of Maine Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired said that every graphical image used on a Web page should have descriptive text that someone who is blind can access with the assistance of a sound card included in most computers. Jim Tobias, a nationally known consultant in access technologies, called on the State of Maine to collaborate with other states in promoting and implementing universal design and to use its influence to engage telecommunications companies to foster universal design . He suggested providing technical assistance to manufacturers and using the State's buying power to influence change.

1NC Jackson Vanick

A. Uniqueness –Jackson Vanik will pass– top of the agenda – separate from Magnitsky. Wassan and Needham 5-25 [Erik, Vicki, Hill reporters, “Russia trade, farm bill not on House summer calendar” The Hill -- http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1005-trade/229563-russia-trade-farm-bill-not-on-house-summer-calendar]Meanwhile, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has said he plans to hold a June hearing on granting permanent normal trade relations to Russia. Camp and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) have urged the White House to focus its efforts on convincing skeptical lawmakers that the long-standing and outdated Jackson-Vanik should be repealed and normal trade relations granted to Russia as that nation votes to join the World Trade Organization this summer. U.S. trade officials

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have said that ending Jackson-Vanik is a top priority of the White House because Russia joining the WTO gives the United States a new tool to enforce and handle any disputes over trade laws. Granting Russia permanent normal trade relations does not require the United States to make any changes to its tariffs and, if not completed, would leave U.S. exporters at a disadvantage with other international trading partners that would enjoy reduced duties. President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet at the Group of 20 meeting next month in Mexico where the topic is likely to be discussed. The Russian Duma has until July 23 to vote on WTO membership and is currently scheduled to adjourn on July 15. Once the Duma votes, and Russia quickly notifies the WTO, its membership goes into effect in 30 days. Camp and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have said they would not hold up PNTR with Russia over questions of human-rights issues that they say would only hurt U.S. trade interests by indefinitely delaying lower tariffs for U.S. exporters with Russia. "Our ongoing relationship with Russia is a complex one, but to obtain the benefits of the concessions Russia made to join the WTO, we must grant Russia permanent normal trade relations," Camp said in April.

Massive public opposition to funding transportation infrastructureCouncil on Foreign Relations, June 2012 (Road to Nowhere: Federal Transportation Infrastructure Policy, p. 5)

WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS Though Americans share Obama’s enthusiasm for making infrastructure improvement a priority, nationwide opinion polls suggest they oppose typical options for funding it. A 2011 Rockefeller Foundation poll found that nearly 80 percent of voters agree that “in order for the United States to remain the world’s top economic superpower we need to modernize our transportation infrastructure and keep it up to date.”15 Two out of three voters believed improving the country’s transportation infrastructure is “highly important.” Yet similar margins do not want to have to pay for it: 71 percent oppose increasing the gas tax, 64 percent oppose new tolls on existing roads and bridges, and 58 percent oppose paying more for each mile driven.

C. Internal link - Capital is key to the repeal – it’s key to Russia relationsStokes 11. [Bruce An Agenda, If You Can Keep It, 1/26, National Journal, p. http://www2.nationaljournal.com/member/daily/balance-of-payments

After years of relative quiescence, Congress actually has a trade agenda in 2011 : possible votes on the Korea, Colombia, and Panama trade agreements, and on Russia’s application to join the World Trade Organization. Whether, when, how, and which elements of this agenda will be completed will largely depend on political calculations in the White House and on Capitol Hill. “The first question,” observed William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, “is, how many of these fights does the administration want to have?” At the top of the list will be the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which President Obama made his own by arm-wrestling the South Koreans for fixes to benefit the American auto industry. Now, that it has the support of Ford and the United Auto Workers, most observers agree that the deal with South Korea has sufficient votes for passage. And Obama has said he wants Congress to act on it by June. But the business community also wants action on the Colombia and Panama agreements negotiated by the George W. Bush administration. “From our perspective,” said Calman Cohen, president of the Emergency Committee for American Trade, “they are like three children. We want them all to go forward.” Congressional GOP leaders agree. “I strongly believe that we should consider all three agreements in the next six months,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said at a trade hearing this week. Objections to the Panama accord, based on tax and labor issues, seem to pose no major obstacles. Organized labor continues to highlight the murders of union organizers in Colombia and other labor-rights abuses there, but Ways and Means ranking member Sander Levin, D-Mich., a longtime critic of Colombia’s record on these issues, suggested in testimony this week that some accommodation might be possible. “I believe there is now an opportunity for the two governments to work together mutually to achieve real progress on the ground,” he said. Republican leaders in Congress have talked of voting on all three trade deals, possibly one right after the other, to facilitate the legislative calendar and, the administration suspects, to aggravate divisions among Democrats. Parliamentarians, meanwhile, will have to decide if fast-track negotiating authority still applies to the Colombia agreement. Because Congress failed to act on it when it was first submitted, the fast-track authority for the deal expired. This is not a problem in the House, where Republicans control the Rules Committee, but it is in the Senate, where fast-track is needed to facilitate a vote. Business lobbyists think that the Korea deal could move by itself before the August recess but that doing all three together will take considerably more time, contrary to Camp’s ambitions. Members of the business community are less sanguine about legislation blessing Russia’s application to join the WTO, where membership can be held up by any current member. Georgia has yet to give its assent to Russia’s application, which might make the need for U.S. action moot. To give Moscow the green light, Congress would have to accord Russia most-favored-nation trading status, thus granting it the lowest possible U.S. tariffs. That , in turn, requires waiving the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 trade act, effectively

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acknowledging that emigration from Russia is no longer a U.S. concern. Although Washington has no complaints about Russian emigration policy, Jackson-Vanik has long been seen as useful leverage over Moscow that many in Congress may be loath to relinquish. Capitol Hill staffers warn that passage of Russian WTO membership will be an uphill fight . Moscow has few champions in Congress, where Senate debate late last year over the New START deal demonstrated deep-seated suspicion among conservatives. Russia’s piracy of intellectual property and its past use of health and safety standards to bar the importation of U.S. poultry have also soured business interests. Buyers’ remorse over China’s admission to the WTO fuels congressional reluctance to make the same mistake twice. And Moscow’s past history of quixotic actions—cutting off gas to Ukraine, for example—makes advocates of WTO membership wary of going out on a limb only to have Moscow cut it off. Moscow is anxious to join the WTO, however, and membership is a key element in the administration’s “reset” of U.S.-Russia relations. Moreover, a Russia that is subject to international rules and dispute settlement might be better than a Russia operating outside the law. Ever since the financial crisis began in 2008, Russia has been one of the most frequent instigators of protectionist trade practices. WTO membership could help discipline such behavior. Veterans of past trade battles on Capitol Hill advise that the administration might have to give Congress something to vote for —some new oversight or restraint—to ease the pain of voting to waive Jackson-Vanik . When China was granted admission to the WTO, for example, Congress created a commission to report on Beijing’s human-rights record. After two years of relegating divisive trade issues to the back burner, in 2011 the administration now has a legislative trade agenda. The question is how much political capital it is willing to invest to get it through Congress. The White House can anticipate hand-to-hand combat in budget negotiations with Republicans over discretionary spending. Such conflict will unavoidably preoccupy administration strategists, who may want to husband their resources for more electorally attractive issues. Congress could accomplish a fair amount on trade this year, but doing so could be an uphill slog .

D Impact -- Repeal key to solve relations – on the brink now. RT 12. [Dec 26 -- “Russia urges US to repeal Cold War era legislation” -- http://rt.com/politics/russia-jackson-vanik-lavrov-679/]With US-Russian relations sliding from reset to regret, one way to brighten the economic and political picture is to repeal the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik amendment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Monday. Interestingly, Lavrov said that Jackson-Vanik is more of a hindrance to American businesses than it is to Russian ones, especially with Russia set to enter the WTO in 2012. “Russia's entry into the WTO opens broad vistas for more intensive business contacts and a quality change of the entire economic relationship, naturally, on the condition the U.S. Congress repeals the notorious Jackson-Vanik amendment, which actually makes U.S.business its hostage," the minister said. Lavrov asserted Russia’s dedication to improving bilateral relations with the U nited S tates Russia "will continue to improve the atmosphere of bilateral cooperation and build confidence and mutual understanding. We aim for an air dialogue even on the most difficult subjects," he said. The Russian membership in the WTO is a totally new stage of the Russian integration into the world economic system, Lavrov said, which will redound to the world’s benefit. "We are ready to promote global economic stability, efficient solutions to crises, and strengthening of international institutions," the minister said. In 1972, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev introduced the so-called "diploma tax” as a means of covering the cost of would-be emigrants who had received a higher education in the Soviet Union. This move caused US Congress in 1974 to enact Jackson-Vanik, which denied ‘most-favored nation’ status for states limiting the emigration rights of their citizens. In March, 2011, US Vice President Joe Biden urged a repeal of the law.

Nuclear warAllison 11. [Graham, Director @ Belfer Center for Science and Int’l Affairs @ Harvard’s Kennedy School, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Robert D. Blackwill, Senior Fellow – Council on Foreign Relations, “10 Reasons Why Russia Still Matters”, Politico -- October 31 -- http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=161EF282-72F9-4D48-8B9C-C5B3396CA0E6]That central point is that Russia matters a great deal to a U.S. government seeking to defend and advance its national interests. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s decision to return next year as president makes it all the more critical for Washington to manage its relationship with Russia through coherent, realistic policies. No one denies

that Russia is a dangerous, difficult, often disappointing state to do business with. We should not overlook its many human rights and legal failures. Nonetheless, Russia is a player whose choices affect our vital interests in nuclear security and energy. It is key to supplying 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan and preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Ten realities

require U.S. policymakers to advance our nation’s interests by engaging and working with Moscow. First, Russia remains the only nation that can erase the United States from the map in 30 minutes. As every president since John F. Kennedy has recognized, Russia’s cooperation is critical to averting nuclear war . Second, Russia is our most consequential partner in preventing nuclear terrorism. Through a combination of more than $11 billion in U.S. aid, provided through the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction

program, and impressive Russian professionalism, two decades after the collapse of the “evil empire,” not one nuclear weapon has been found loose. Third, Russia plays an essential role in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile-delivery systems. As Washington seeks to stop Iran’s drive toward nuclear weapons , Russian choices to sell or withhold sensitive technologies are the difference between failure and the possibility of success . Fourth,

Russian support in sharing intel ligence and cooperating in operations remains essential to the U.S. war to destroy Al Qaeda and combat other

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transnational terrorist groups . Fifth, Russia provides a vital supply line to 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan. As U.S. relations with Pakistan have deteriorated, the Russian lifeline has grown ever

more important and now accounts for half all daily deliveries. Sixth, Russia is the world’s largest oil producer and second largest gas producer. Over the past decade, Russia has added more oil and gas exports to world energy markets than any other nation. Most major energy transport routes from Eurasia start in Russia or cross its nine time zones. As citizens of a country that imports two of

every three of the 20 million barrels of oil that fuel U.S. cars daily, Americans feel Russia’s impact at our gas pumps. Seventh, Moscow is an important player in today’s international system. It is no accident that Russia is one of the five veto-wielding, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, as well as a member of the G-8 and G-20. A Moscow more closely aligned with U.S. goals would be significant in the balance of power to shape an environment in which China can emerge as a global power without overturning the existing order. Eighth, Russia is the largest country on Earth by land area, abutting China on the East, Poland in the West

and the United States across the Arctic. This territory provides transit corridors for supplies to global markets whose stability is vital to the U.S. economy. Ninth, Russia’s brainpower is reflected in the fact that it has won more Nobel Prizes for science than all of Asia, places first in most math competitions and dominates the world chess masters list. The only way U.S. astronauts can now travel to and from the International Space Station is to hitch a ride on Russian rockets. The co-founder of the most advanced digital company in the world,

Google, is Russian-born Sergei Brin. Tenth, Russia’s potential as a spoiler is difficult to exaggerate . Consider what a Russian president intent on frustrating U.S. international objectives could do — from stopping the supply flow to Afghanistan to sell ing S-300 air defense missiles to Tehran to joining China in preventing U.N. Security Council resolutions. So next time you hear a policymaker dismissing Russia with rhetoric about “who cares?” ask them to identify nations that matter more to U.S. success, or failure , in advancing our national interests.

***1NC – CASE***

1. The status quo is not the medical model.The medical model of disability is not enforced in the status quo, people with disabilities are expanding their availability to goods and services.Brenman 11, Marc Brenman, Senior Policy Advisor Office of Civil Rights Office of the Secretary U.S. Department of Transportation, “Delivering on the Promise: U.S. Department of Transportation – Self-Evaluation to Promote Community Living for People with Disabilites,” Report to the President on Executive Order 13217, 06-11-11, http://www.hhs.gov/newfreedom/final/pdf/dot.pdf

These are principles to increase the mobility of people with disabilities and/or expand their access to goods and services. 1. Availability: Transportation must be available if it is to be used to reduce immobility. For example, urban bus service can be enormously productive economically, and its curtailment, even in low-patronage, off-peak hours, can create added travel costs, income losses, and immobility that exceeds by many times the dollar savings to transit agencies from service reductions. (See “Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social, and Human Costs of Personal Immobility,” Transit Cooperative Research Program, Crain & Associates with Ricardo Byrd and Omniversed International, 1999) 2. Equity: Everyone should enjoy at least a basic level of access, even if it requires extra resources to accomplish. 3. Seamlessness: Transition between transportation modes should be accessible. For example, Project Action has noted that many existing transit stations have direct connections to commercial, retail, and residential facilities, but the route is often not accessible. Project Action proposes that the transportation agency should include language in agreements it has with the facilities that require or encourage the provision of an accessible route from the direct connection point into the connected transit facility. 4. Inclusiveness: Technology, housing, transportation and other aspects of community life should be designed to accommodate people with disabilities to ensure a more inclusive and productive society for all Americans. 5. Equivalence: Service for people with disabilities should extend throughout the general service area and operate during the same hours as the system used by the general public. Contrary to some assumptions, people with disabilities are dispersed throughout the general population and their ultimate travel needs are not significantly different from the general population. 6. Efficiency: We should explore strategies that will ensure access and full participation in society for the greatest number of people at the lowest and most rationally allocated cost. 7. Safety: Accessibility in transportation infrastructure should be safe, including for people with disabilities. Changes being contemplated in transportation infrastructure that may at first appear to be isolated from disability concerns may have such implications. Customer safety concerns extend to the passenger and user with disabilities in ways directly related to their disabilities. For example, the Access Board has noted that very preliminary and limited research suggests that roundabouts discourage pedestrian use and that they are a significant barrier to pedestrians with vision, mobility, and cognitive impairments. Some safety issues for people with disabilities are not obvious. For example, in Oregon in 1999 it was found that many drivers hired to transport people with disabilities had criminal records. Background checks had not been done. To this end, the Department of Justice has published “Guidelines for Screening Persons Working with Children, the

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Elderly, and Individuals with Disabilities in Need of Support,” Publication Number NCJ 167248. Finally, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 pointed out some of the special problems faced by people with disabilities in emergency situations. Transportation providers and infrastructure partners must see to it that the needs of people with disabilities in emergency situations are met. This will require emergency planning by working together with people with disabilities. 8. Reliability: Transportation should be reliable. All transportation infrastructure users want the systems to be reliable. Yet, for people with disabilities, mechanical systems breakdowns may result in a complete denial of access. For example, out of service elevators and escalators in a transit system may be a mere inconvenience to nondisabled users, but may be an inaccessible barrier to users with disabilities. 9. Reality-Based: Plans for use of transportation infrastructure elements in the U.S. should be cognizant of the realities of technology now, but be cognizant that technology improvements and changes are almost inevitable. 10. Consultation: People with disabilities should be thoroughly involved in the decision-making process for improved accessibility and mobility. Throughout each stage of planning and implementing actions for improved accessibility and mobility, disability advocacy organizations and knowledgeable resource individuals within the disability community should be active partners in creating a transportation network that is fully usable by people with varying types of disabilities.

Society has changed to include people with disabilities – transportations systems are available for themRITA 10, Research and Innovative Technology Administration Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 05-28-10, “Freedom to Travel,” http://www.bts.gov/publications/freedom_to_travel/html/data_analysis.html

The majority of disabled and nondisabled bus riders and subway, light rail, and commuter train users use the transportation service two or fewer days per week for local travel, as do paratransit riders3 (see figure 7 and appendix table 18 and table 19). However, more of those with disabilities (42 percent) use the bus three or more days per week than do the nondisabled (28 percent). When using a bus; subway, light rail, and commuter train; or paratransit service, most riders take one or two one-way trips. More than 90 percent of disabled and nondisabled public bus users; more than 88 percent of disabled and nondisabled subway, light rail, and commuter train users; and 95 percent of disabled paratransit users take one or two one-way trips (see appendix table 20 and table 21).

2. We shouldn’t continue to invest in the ADA – it causes more harm than good for disabled people.

The ADA didn’t help disabled people in their attempts of equalityStossel 10, John Stossel, graduate of Princeton University with a B.A. in psychology, host of a weekly program highlighting current consumer issues with a libertarian viewpoint, 09-01-10, “Good Intentions Gone Bad,” http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2010/09/01/good_intentions_gone_bad/page/full/

You own a business, maybe a restaurant. You've got a lot to worry about. You have to make sure the food is safe and tastes good, that the place is clean and appealing, that workers are friendly and paid according to a hundred Labor Department and IRS rules. On top of that, there are rules you might have no idea about. The bathroom sinks must be a specified height. So must the doorknobs and mirrors. You must have rails. And if these things aren't right -- say, if your mirror is just one inch too high -- you could be sued for thousands of dollars. And be careful. If you fail to let a customer bring a large snake, which he calls his "service animal," into your restaurant, you could be in trouble. All of this is because of the well-intentioned Americans With Disabilities Act, which President George H.W. Bush signed 20 years ago. The ADA was popular with Republicans and Democrats. It passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming majorities, 377 to 28 in the House and 91 to 6 in the Senate. What does it do? The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, requiring businesses to provide the disabled "equal access" and to make "reasonable accommodation" for employees. Tax credits and deductions are available for special equipment (talking computers, for instance) and modifying buildings to comply with the accessibility mandate. The ADA was supposed to help more disabled people find jobs . But did it? Strangely, no. An MIT study found that employment of disabled men ages 21 to 58 declined after the ADA went into effect. Same for women ages 21 to 39. How could employment among the disabled have declined? Because the law turns

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"protected" people into potential lawsuits. Most ADA litigation occurs when an employee is fired, so the safest way to avoid those costs is not to hire the disabled in the first place. Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of the Overlawyered.com blog, says that the law was unnecessary. Many "hire the handicapped" programs existed before the ADA passed. Sadly, now most have been quietly discontinued, probably because of the threat of legal consequences if an employee doesn't work out. Under the ADA, Olson notes, fairness does not mean treating disabled people the same as non-disabled people. Rather it means accommodating them. In other words, the law requires that people be treated unequally. The law has also unleashed a landslide of lawsuits by "professional litigants" who file a hundred suits at a time. Disabled people visit businesses to look for violations, but instead of simply asking that a violation be corrected, they partner with lawyers who (legally) extort settlement money from the businesses. Some disabled people have benefited from changes effected by the ADA, but the costs are rarely accounted for. If a small business has to lay off an employee to afford the added expense of accommodating the disabled, is that a good thing -- especially if, say, customers in wheelchairs are rare? Extra-wide bathroom stalls that reduce the overall number of toilets are only some of the unaccounted-for costs of the ADA. And since ADA modification requirements are triggered by renovation, the law could actually discourage businesses from making needed renovations as a way of avoiding the expense.

3. The exclusion of disabled people will not cause genocide. Disabled people have been excluded for a while before the implementation of policies. It is empirically proven that their exclusion will not cause genocide. THAT IS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS.

4. Universal Design is already in the status quoUniversal Design is found in transportation infrastructure today.IDeA 10, Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access, 06-12-10, “Universal Design New York,” http://www.ap.buffalo.edu/idea/udny/section1.htm

Universal design is an approach to the development of "products and environments that can be used effectively by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design" (North Carolina State University, 1997). It is an inclusive process aimed at enabling all of us to experience the full benefits of the products and environments around us regardless of our ages, sizes or abilities. By designing for a diverse population, universal designers integrate usability by everyone into their work on a routine basis. This approach leads to greater inclusion for many groups often neglected in the design process (e.g., children, the elderly, people of small stature, frail people, etc.). Universal design equalizes the ways people use products and services. For example, the stairless bus has a low floor section so that anyone can enter the bus from a pedestrian pathway using a short ramp that is extended to the pavement. This design makes entering the bus easier for everyone . This bus also has a system that verbally announces the next stop and displays it on an electronic message board at the same time, ensuring communication of essential information to all riders. Is universal design a utopian dream? Is it really possible? How can every graphic, product, place or system be usable by everyone? Universal design does not claim to accommodate everyone in every circumstance. Rather, it continuously moves toward this goal of universal usability. Consequently, a more appropriate term may be universal designing, a verb rather than a noun. Universal design acknowledges that both consumers and producers have to live with cost constraints. As a result, cost can make a difference in its successful introduction into the marketplace. Consider the case of the Oxo line of kitchen utensils, one of the most successful examples of universal design in terms of market penetration. The original set of products Oxo introduced was competitive with other utensils because the cost of production was controlled by using inexpensive plastic for most parts and designing all the utensils with an identical handle and interface. Oxo utensils have thick, resilient and non-slip handles that improve grasping.

5. Can’t solve – the aff has no evidence or warrants for they the medical model will be dissolved after they implement universal design. Prefer empirics: the universal design is already around in the status quo, yet the medical model wasn’t dissolved.

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***50 STATES CP***

Ext. that State governments have the ability to effect Universal Design and promote the development of systems. That’s Connolly 05

Ext States Solvency

Federal transportation initiatives failing — public only trusts state funding.Orski 12 [Ken Orski, editor and publisher of Innovation NewsBrienfs, served as Associate Administrator of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration under President Nixon and President Ford and, after leaving government, founded a transportation consultancy counseling corporate clients and agencies in federal, state and local government, 2/5/12, “Why Pleas to Increase Infrastructure Funding Fall on Deaf Ears”, New Geography, http://www.newgeography.com/content/002662-why-pleas-increase-infrastructure-funding-fall-deaf-ears] aw

There are various theories why appeals to increase infrastructure spending do not resonate with the public . One widely held view is that people simply do not trust the federal government to spend their tax dollars wisely. As proof, evidence is cited that a great majority of state and local transportation ballot measures do get passed , because voters know precisely where their tax money is going . No doubt there is much truth to that. Indeed, thanks to local funding initiatives and the use of tolling, state transportation agencies are becoming increasingly more self-reliant and less dependent on federal funding.

States are better at attracting private investment – individual regulations and tailored policies.Gillette 98 Clayton P. Gillette, State and government law professor at New York University, 82 Minn. L. Rev. 447, “Business Incentives, Interstate Competition, and the Commerce Clause,” 1997-1998

In this Article, I cast a skeptical look at these arguments. My objective is not to demonstrate that the alleged "war between the states" or "arms race" does not or could not exist. Rather, my concern is that the feared scope and consequences of such competition may be overblown, and that the benefits of such competition may be understated. Furthermore, the proposed remedy-federal intervention-imposes additional costs, both in removing from states the capacity to promote the values that underlie federalism and in introducing into legal analysis distinctions that cannot help but fly in the face of logical consistency. Indeed, the stronger form of my claim is that competition among states for businesses may actually facilitate the objective created by the Commerce Clause of achieving economic integration for the benefit of the nation as a whole.The very claim that competition for business location will have a negative impact seems odd. We typically think of competition as an effective mechanism for allocating scarce social resources to the party that values them most highly, and there initially seems little reason to believe that governmental bids vary from this principle. Although Tiebout models of local government services are usually directed at the market for residence,2 the same desire for preference satisfaction should apply to the market for firms. Indeed, the package of local public goods and services that a jurisdiction offers, and the tax prices charged for them, is frequently explained in terms of the jurisdiction's capacity and desire for attracting businesses.3 Just as localities offer a package of goods and services in order to attract a relatively homogeneous group of residents, and thus ensure the efficient delivery of local public goods, businesses that seek a particular type of environment , work force, or package of goods and services will gravitate to those locations that signal their desire to attract firms with similar preferences.Of course, the packages offered by states and localities do not indicate that they have unlimited desire to attract businesses, any more than their capacity for residents is uncapped. Instead, for each package of goods and services established by a state or locality, there is an optimal size population, including businesses, determined by the number of residents for which the package can be produced at the lowest average cost.Communities below the optimum will use incentives to attract residents (including businesses), and thus decrease average costs, while those above the optimum are likely to reduce services until a sufficient number of residents (including businesses) emigrate.5 Indeed, there is some reason to believe that states and localities are particularly adept at and appropriate for pursuing policies that match businesses and location. Paul Peterson, for instance, contends that developmental policies, those programs that enhance the economic position of a com-munity, albeit at the expense of neighbors, are best implemented by local or state, rather than national governments in order to permit greater satisfaction of preferences between those who provide and those who consume service packages.Locational incentives directed at businesses would appear, on their face, to serve these objectives of interstate competition. Indeed, much of what we normally think of as the characteristics that make a community attractive may easily be cast as "business incentives ," since they correlate well with

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the factors-for example, access to transportation, infrastructure, education, level of unionism, climate-that serve as a primary basis for business location decisions. From this perspective, governmental use of subsidies, exemptions, and abatements simply constitutes the business counterpart to well-accepted forms of competition among other state actors bidding for scarce resources. For instance, state universities bid for students by offering scholarships and positions on sports teams, and ad- vertising campaigns by states indicate fierce competition for tourism dollars. No one suggests that such actions are barred by the Commerce Clause. Certainly those law professors who contend that federal intervention is necessary to prevent states from engaging in explicit bidding for businesses have not suggested that there exists any Commerce Clause barrier to state law schools offering some salaries out of line with those of others in order to attract or retain faculty members.

AT: No CooperationStates will work together for various projects – empirics proveCox 05, Cox, Craig, Craig Cox is the executive director of the Western Business Coalition for New Energy Technologies in Evergreen, 01-15-05 “Good News about Renewable Energy” http://windenergynews.blogspot.com/2005/01/western-states-to-spend-billions-on.html

Working together and individually, Western political leaders, utilities and nongovernmental organizations are transforming the region's energy infrastructure. Because of their work, the West is poised to assume a leadership role in the modern energy industry of the future. These efforts will provide many tangible economic and environmental benefits throughout the region for years to come. Here are just a few examples of how the West is laying the groundwork for a clean, reliable and modern energy infrastructure for the 21st century: • Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Bill Richardson of New Mexico are leading regionwide efforts to increase clean energy development in the West to 30,000 megawatts by 2015. They sponsored a resolution to this effect that the Western Governors' Association adopted at its annual meeting in June. • Colorado's voters, by a solid 54 percent to 46 percent margin in November, passed Amendment 37, creating a 10 percent renewable energy standard by 2015. Colorado is the 17th state to have such a standard, but is the first state to pass a standard by popular vote. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will begin rulemaking activities to implement the standard this year. • Richardson is spearheading efforts to build new transmission capacity from New Mexico (which has a renewable energy standard similar to Colorado's) to send hundreds, or possibly thousands, of megawatts of renewable energy to other states, such as California. • Wyoming Gov . Dave Freudenthal is pursuing new ways of upgrading Wyoming's energy infrastructure (such as transmission) to leverage his state's huge energy potential. • In Nevada, Gov. Kenny Guinn and the state's Public Utilities Commission have implemented a "Temporary Renewable Energy Development Trust" that is expected to spur new projects that had been stalled because of concerns over utility creditworthiness. • The Arizona Corporation Commission is looking to increase the state's renewable energy generation significantly, perhaps through creation of a standard similar to those in Colorado and New Mexico. • Utilities regionwide are increasing their intake of renewable energy technologies: Xcel Energy is reviewing bids for 500 megawatts of renewable energy projects in Colorado and has committed to accept all cost-competitive wind resource bids up to a 15 percent penetration level. PacifiCorp is looking for up to 1,100 megawatts of renewable energy projects in its service territory. Arizona Public Service will be seeking 100 megawatts of new renewable energy projects in the next year. Idaho Power is seeking 200 megawatts of renewable power by the end of 2007. California utilities, which operate under a 20 percent renewable energy standard, are seeking new projects throughout the state and the entire region. All of this new renewable energy development will provide new jobs, significant new local and county tax revenues, and new economic opportunities for states around the West. The investment potential from wind energy development alone in the West is likely to run into the billions of dollars. Rural and agricultural areas, which have not seen many new economic opportunities in recent decades, will reap particular benefits from many of these new developments, as new wind and biomass projects will mostly be located in rural parts of the West. This increased investment in renewable energy technologies should also have a stabilizing influence on electricity prices, since the low fuel costs for most renewables (and no fuel costs for wind and solar) are stable and predictable. As the West develops its sizable renewable energy resources, utilities are also looking at leveraging the region's coal resource in cleaner and more efficient ways. For instance, in a recent regulatory settlement with Colorado's environmental community, Xcel Energy has committed to support efforts to advance innovative technologies, practices and measures designed to reduce greenhouse gases. Clearly, 2005 will mark a turning point for the West's energy infrastructure. This region is preparing to lead the world in the adoption and implementation of an energy infrastructure that will benefit its citizens and enhance the environment.

AT: 50 State Fiat Bad

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1. Key to civic education – state vs. federal power is THE MOST IMPORTANT Constitutional issue and a huge question in the literature.

2. Key to limits – a federal key warrant is the only check against thousands of tiny cases that build any kind of infrastructure anywhere.

3. Tests the United States federal government – it is resolutionally predictable and leads to good decisions.

4. Reciprocal – the aff can use all branches of the federal government and all members of Congress – this is equally utopian

5. Not utopian – our solvency evidence proves there’s literature on states cooperating with Native Americans. Furthermore, the AFF is more Utopian,

6. Doesn’t kill aff ground – they just need a federal key warrant – port security, NextGen, and military can’t be done by states – any of these are acceptable

7. Reject the argument not the team – at worst, kick the counterplan and revert to the status quo – making it a voting issue over-incentivizes bad theory debates

8. States adopt uniform laws all the timePryor, 01 (C. Scott, Associate Prof – Regent U. School of Law, American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review, Spring)

NCCUSL is a national organization of practicing lawyers, judges, law professors, and others appointed by the governors of each of the states. NCCUSL drafts uniform laws in various fields and then proposes them to the various state legislatures for adoption. See Edward J. Janger, Predicting When the Uniform Law Process Will Fail: Article 9, Capture, and the Race to the Bottom, 83 IOWA L. REV. 569, 586 (1998) (describing problem of "capture" in drafting process); Alan Schwartz & Robert E. Scott, The Political Economy of Private Legislatures, 143 U. PA. L. REV. 595, 651 (1995) (stating that problems stemming from reliance on "ill-informed generalists" and influence of interest groups may be unavoidable for any official organization whose goal is to foster uniformity of state laws).

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AT: States Can’t Fund

1. We solve tradeoff – the counterplan text fiats that states fund water infrastructure as well as transportation infrastructure.

2. Fiat ensures funding – states can get the money by cutting back other programs

3. States have fiscally strenghted – they have the money to enact the plan.Gais and Fossett 05, Thomas Gais, director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government, and James Fossett, directs the Rockefeller Institute's research program in bioethics and federalism and is an associate professor of public administration and public health at the University at Albany, 7/18/2005, Chap. 15, Federalism and the Executive Branch, http://www.rockinst.org/pdf/federalism/2005-federalism_and_the_excutive_branch.pdf, TB

State fiscal capacities have grown markedly in recent decades . States greatly increased their reliance on sales and income taxes since the 1950s and decreased their dependence on property taxes, which had always been politically difficult to raise. The development of a broad-based and growing tax base meant that states could sustain their own spending priorities , even in the after math of severe federal budget cuts , as they did in the 1980s.48 States could even compensate for chronic federal underfunding. Since the early 1990s, for example, federal environmental grants changed little in real terms, despite the growth of state responsibilities. States responded by increasing their own spending, to the point that they now pay about 80 percent of the costs of federal environmental programs .49 Their greater political, administrative, and fiscal capacities have led many states to fashion their own policy responses to major problems. In the 1980s, states were on the forefront of efforts to deal with worker dislocation and retraining, when federal officials paid little attention to such issues.50 Interest in economic development has sometimes led states to take on novel functions,such as California’s decision in 2004 to fund stem cell research in order to draw academic researchers and biotech businesses unhappy with the Bush administration’s restrictions on federal research grants. States showed leadership in energy policies in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 2000s—the most recent years in response to electricity reliability problems, environmental concerns, and energy price spikes.51 Some states have even addressed the problem of global warming, while the federal government has done little, despite all the theoretical reasons that one would expect states to ignore such an issue.52 The openness and capacities of state political institutions, combined with the growth of federal involvement in so many domestic issues, produced by the late twentieth century an extremely dynamic, less constrained system of federalism—one in which it would be difficult to identify any major domestic policy issue in the United States that has not penetrated both federal and state political agendas. Federal and state governments may be more than ever “different agents and trustees of the people.” But one would be hard put to identify their “different purposes.

4. States have the funds to implement transportation infrastructure plansFreemark 2012 Yohah, writer for Transport Politics, 02-16-2012, http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2012/02/16/clearing-it-up-on-federal-transportation-expenditures/

Meanwhile, states and local governments are contributing massively to transportation funding already , just as Ms. Schweitzer asks them to. I studied Oregon and Illinois a year and a half ago and found that only about a quarter of Oregon’s Department of Transportation budget comes from Washington; about a third of Illinois’ comes from the national capital. What about those profligate transit agencies that are egged on by the federal government’s wasteful spending? Their operations spending comes from local, state, and fare revenues — not Washington . And expansion projects — especially the big ones — are mostly financed by local revenues, like dedicated sales taxes that voters across the country have approved repeatedly over the past twenty years. The six largest transit expansion projects currently receiving or proposed to receive funding from the Obama Administration this year each rely on the federal government to contribute less than 43% of total costs . Perhaps Detroit would have paid for the People Mover even if it had had to use its own revenues to do so. Now, even if we were to recognize the high level of devolution of power and funds that currently does exist in the U.S., some might still argue that the federal government exercises too much power. Its distribution formula for fuel tax revenues results in certain states getting more money than their drivers contributed (“donor” states) and certain states getting less (“donee” states). Why not simply allow states to collect their own revenues and spend money as they wish? Why should Washington be engaged in this discussion at all?

AT: Permutation

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http://www.rockinst.org/pdf/federalism/2005-federalism_and_the_excutive_branch.pdf


1. The Plan links to the net benefit. Federal Spending links to both Spending and Politics, and the CP solves both.

2. Perm fails – causes free ridingThe Economist 11[The Economist, 4/28/11, “Life in the slow lane”, http://www.economist.com/node/18620944] aw

Formula-determined block grants to states are, at least, designed to leave important decisions to local authorities. But the formulas used to allocate the money shape infrastructure planning in a remarkably block-headed manner . Cost-benefit studies are almost entirely lacking. Federal guidelines for new construction tend to reflect politi cs rather than anything else. States tend to use federal money as a substitute for local spending , rather than to supplement or leverage it. The Government Accountability Office estimates that substitution has risen substantially since the 1980s, and increases particularly when states get into budget difficulties. From 1998 to 2002, a period during which economic fortunes were generally deteriorating, state and local transport investment declined by 4% while federal investment rose by 40%. State and local shrinkage is almost certainly worse now.

3. Perm fails – federal-state funding causes government expansionMitchell 7 [Daniel J. Mitchell, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, 9/25/07, “SCHIP’S Perverse Incentives,” Cato, http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/schips-perverse-incentives/] aw

Picking the worst government program would be a huge challenge, but picking the worst funding system is much easier. Programs involving joint federal-state funding contain built-in incentives to expand the size of government because politicians at either level can buy more votes by expanding the program, knowing that they only have to pay (depending on the formula) a share of the cost. In other words, lawmakers can promise $1 worth of goodies for, say, 50 cents. This is one of the reasons why Medicaid is a fiscal disaster. It’s also why welfare reform was a step in the right direction (the old system funneled more money to states when they added more people on the dole, creating a terrible incentive system). Unfortunately, politicians generally make things worse rather than better, and a Wall Street Journal editorial (sub only)

AT: Rollback The Court can give power to the states –no rollback

Miller, 98 (Mark Miller, Lawyer for Baker Botts, 1998, Cleveland State L. Rev) The history of the Tenth Amendment is an appropriate starting point in the development of substantive federalism. For a long period of time, the Tenth Amendment operated as nothing more than a plain statement of the obvious that afforded little protection to the states. 249 In the aftermath of Garcia, state sovereignty was left to the political processes. 250 Tenth Amendment power was reborn in New York v. United States when the Court held that Congress could not commandeer the states' legislative function . 251 This protection is decreed no matter how strong the federal interest in the legislation may be. 252 Protections over state sovereignty were expanded again in the 1996 Term when the Court invalidated certain portions of the Brady Act. 253 According to Printz, Congress cannot force the states' executive branches to enact federal regulatory programs regardless of the federal interest involved. 254 Whenever the structural framework of dual sovereignty is compromised, the Tenth Amendment steps in to prevent a usurpation of federalism . 255 Printz and New York held that Congress was incapable of commanding the states to take a course of action that it could not undertake directly. 256 But what happens if Congress breaches the Tenth Amendment through an Article I power like the Spending Clause? Do the Court's enunciated protections extend to Article I? These are the questions that the theory of substantive federalism answers. The restraint on Article I began, to large extent, in Garcia when Justice O'Connor predicted that the Commerce power would be affirmatively limited [*191] by state autonomy. 257 The door was further opened in New York when the plenary nature of the Commerce Clause was labeled as "subversive" to the interests of state sovereignty. 258 United States v. Lopez put the first nail in the coffin when it struck down an exercise of the Commerce power as going so far as to approach a "police power of the sort retained by the States." 259 The Commerce Clause, in other words, authorizes control over interstate commerce, but does not authorize regulation of the states. 260 Seminole Tribe, however, lends the greatest support to the substantive federalism theory. The Eleventh Amendment -- a core guardian of state sovereign interests 261 -- withstands any attempt by Congress to pierce the shield of federalism with Article I. 262 Similar to the Tenth Amendment, the Eleventh Amendment once provided little protection to the states when Congress flexed its Article I muscle. 263 Along with the strengthening of the Eleventh Amendment, New York and Printz add to the growth of federalism and the devolution of unrestricted congressional power. The same 5-4 majority 264 has written the opinions in New York, Lopez, Seminole Tribe, and Printz, and it is only a matter of time before the rationale in Seminole Tribe is extended to the Tenth Amendment as a limit on the

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Spending Clause. 265 Substantive federalism presents the argument that the Tenth Amendment will be used in much the same manner as the Eleventh Amendment was used in Seminole Tribe. If a core principle of state sovereignty will be encroached upon by an Article I power, the Tenth Amendment prohibits the intrusion. 266 On the other side of the coin, Congress must look to the Tenth Amendment and ask whether its proposed legislation will impinge upon principles of federalism. If substantive federalism can operate to block congressional action under the Commerce Clause, then it can also curtail the Spending power.

AT: States are Racist1. The federal government is also racist as much as the states are. Empirics prove that the federal

government has been and will be racist. During hurricane Katrina, when money did become available to start rebuilding, the first federal contracts went to white businessmen, so that white people accumulated more wealth as a result of the disaster. Also racial profiling occurs frequently proving this point.

AT: State action lacks uniformity1. We fiat that it happens in a uniform manner.

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***CAP K***Ext. Wexler 08 that Identity politics—exactly what the Aff is doing—legitimizes capital. Focusing on separate people groups in the way of the aff distracts from the capitalist superstructure and perpetuates the problem.

Also ext. our alt. of rejecting the aff’s capitalistic model of development. It leads to extinction through wars; that’s Szentes 8

Additional Links To Disability

The Affirmative is nothing more than a token reform meant to sustain capitalism and pacify resistance. The disabled do not have problems because they are disabled; they have problems because capital deems them not as useful and thus systematically excludes them. The solution however relies not in including them, it is such a strategy that ends the anger that is the impetus for revolution, instead we must combat the capitalist system itself, it is only then that true inclusive politics is possible Labonte Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, 2004 (Ronald, “Social inclusion/exclusion: dancing the dialectic” HEALTH PROMOTION INTERNATIONAL Vol. 19. No. 1)

Consider, first, the list of the excluded in need of greater inclusion: women, racial minorities, the poor and the sick, those with disabilities, children and youth. Like members of our previously designated ‘high risk groups’, our attention turns to anyone who is not a white, middle-aged, middle-incomed male. Conceptually, social exclusion is an improvement over its predecessor; it defines disadvantage as an outcome of social processes, rather than as a group trait. But in attempting to take us away from a narrow focus on material or income inequality, the concept can falter on an even more subtle form of victim blaming. People are no longer at fault for their disadvantage. But their disadvantage is seen to lie in their exclusion, rather than in excluding structures; for which the solution is targeted efforts at remedial inclusion rather than more systemic reform of economic practices predicated on inequality. Let me explain. Striding alongside social inclusion’s references to acceptance by and participation in family, community and society is social exclusion’s complaint that people ‘do not have the opportunity for full participation in the economic and social benefits of society’ [(Guildford, 2000), p. 1]. People are excluded from these benefits, we are told, because they are poor. But people are poor because they lack these benefits. They lack these benefits because capital and state structures allow wealth to accumulate unequally, and powerful others benefit directly and immediately from this. People are excluded from these benefits, we are also told, because they are women. But women for the past two centuries have been cast economically as a source of cheap and surplus wage labour, and of free reproductive labour. Powerful others benefit directly and immediately from women’s relative exclusion from economic and social benefits. This has changed tremendously in the world’s wealthier nations over the past half century. But the identical script, directed by the same cast of scriptwriters, is now being enacted globally; and even in wealthier nations, the cost of social reproduction (the family) that used to be borne by one wage-earner now requires two people to bring home the equivalent bacon. People are excluded from these benefits, we are finally told, because they are black, or yellow, or red, or at least ‘not white’. But contemporary racism, though its roots may be obscured in historic competition over resources, is firmly planted in contemporary capitalism. As Brazilian writer, Eduardo Galeano, showed 30 years ago in his brilliant essay, Open Veins of Latin America (Galeano, 1973), only the wealth of the exploited colonies—their resources, their peoples, and their enslavement and the racist beliefs that arose as self-justification for the first major wave of global rape—allowed Western capitalism to depose feudalism. As British novelist Barry Unsworth recounts vividly in his Booker prize winning novel, A Sacred Hunger (Unsworth, 1993), African slavery was the fuel of both England’s early capitalist wealth, and of the American colonial wealth that gave birth to our southern neighbour. Slavery collapsed when it was no longer economically efficient, not without a bloody civil war, but not because of it either. Its undertow remains. Internationally, ethnic conflicts from the tribalism of Africa to the cleansings in the Balkans have powerful roots in the economic structures and political systems that allow wealth to accumulate unequally, and powerful others to benefit directly and immediately from this. I am not saying that the complexities of gender and race exclusion can be reduced to a simple stock of class and materialism. Patriarchal practices and racial exclusions predate feudal societies, much less capitalism. I am saying that every example of contemporary social exclusion based on gendered or racialized difference will also have a material and class-based component , with some people deriving benefit from it. When a recent Canadian study tells us that, all other things being equal, workers of colour earn 16% less than white workers, this is not only racism. This is also an economic advantage for employers (Globe and Mail, 29 November 2002, B2). Uncritical use of social inclusion can blind us to the use, abuse and distribution of power. Power has non-zero sum elements—the win/win empowerment of trusting, respectful relationships. So, too, does social inclusion. But power has distinctly non-zero sum aspects—the win/lose of dominance, exploitation and hegemony. This is manifest in social inclusion’s obverse of exclusion. We should not let the warmth of our inclusive ideal smother our anger over exclusivity’s unfairness. Anger is often the magnet of mobilization, and mobilization is often the tool for social transformation that shifts power relations in ways that allow societies to become more inclusive.

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The demand for inclusion of the disabled person is nothing more than an attempt to further control them inside of capital. Employing the disabled is the exact wrong approach, it contributes to the capitalist structures that are the root of the problem by making it easier for the disabled to be monitored and influenced. The disabled must instead engage in resistance to the very structures of capital by refusing to-down approaches like the plan and engaging in class struggle against capital Oliver Prof disability studies @ U Greenwich 1995 Last date cited (Michael, “Capitalism, Disability and Ideology: A Materialist Critique of the Normalization Principle”)

Normalization theory sees improving human services as a major platform for improving the quality of life for disabled people and indeed much time and energy is devoted to precisely this. Wolfensberger's position on this is unequivocal; he is vehemently opposed to services provided by institutions but has spent much of his working life developing and improving community based services. As I suggested earlier, this is because he views community based services as radically different from institutional ones in that they are not part of the social control apparatus of the state. While his position on community based human services may be unequivocal, it is certainly contradictory. In the paper he gave at the international disability conference in Bristol in 1987, he came very close to taking a materialist position on all human services , not simply institutional ones, when he argued that their real purpose (latent function) was to provide employment for the middle classes and in order to continue to do that "...merely enlarging the human service empire is not sufficient to meet all the requirements that a post-primary production economy poses. In addition, one has to make all the services that do exist as unproductive as possible - indeed one has to make them counterproductive if at all possible, so that they create dependency, and so that they create impaired people rather than habilitate them". (Wolfensberger 1988.34) The problem with this formulation is that it mistakes the symptom for the problem. If human services under capitalism are part of the state apparatus of social control as materialist theory would argue, the reason they employ the middle classes is simple; they are not the groups who pose a threat to capitalism and therefore, they do not need to be controlled, but instead can become agents for the control of others. It is precisely for this reason that the demands of disabled people allover the world are not, any longer, for improvements in existing services but control over them. And further, their struggles around welfare issues are about producing and controlling their own services through centres for independent living, direct payments to enable them to purchase these services for themselves and peer counselling to enable them to develop the necessary skills and support to meet their own self-defined individual and collective needs. This is not an anti welfare or anti human services position but one which raises fundamental issues of who is in control and in whose interest? In looking at the issue of political change, within normalization theory it is difficult to find anything beyond descriptions of the kinds of things devalued people should be entitled to. How to achieve these entitlements at the political level is not really discussed although Wolfensberger confidently asserts that if we want to valorize someone's social roles "...we know from social science what the overarching strategies are through which this can be accomplished if that is what one wants to pursue". (Wolfensberger 1994.96) I don't know what social science he is referring to but I have to say that I know very few social scientists who are, any longer, convinced that the concept of social roles has very much value to the development of social theory let alone for the promotion of political action. Not only are Talcott Parsons and Erving Goffman dead in a material sense but so are their products; the macro and micro versions of role theory. One can only assume from normalization writings that political change will be a gift from the powerful to powerless once they have come to a true understanding of disability through exposure to the teachings of normalization and social role valorization. Nowhere does normalization acknowledge that "...the conviction that one's group is worth fighting for has to come at least partly from within. The alternative is to wait passively for the advantaged group to confer limited equality which does not essentially alter the status quo, and which it may be motivated to avoid". (Dalley 1992.128) Again, materialist theory is much more upfront about political change. It will only be achieved through struggle, and that struggles will be by oppressed groups themselves against the forces that oppress them. In order to do this it is necessary for oppressed groups to organise collectively to confront this oppression. That inevitably means confrontation and conflict with powerful groups, interests and structures for there are few examples in human history of people willingly giving up power to others.

Neoliberalism seeks to include the disabled person into work for the purpose of strengthening itself, this focus on paid work is problematic and only enforces the very system that resulted in the exclusion of the disabled in the first place Wilton prof geography @ McMaster U and Schuer MA geography @ McMaster U 2006 (Robert, Stephanie, “Towards socio-spatial inclusion? Disabled people, neoliberalism and the contemporary labour market” Area (2006) 38.2, 186–195)

The impacts of neoliberalism are manifold and contextually specific (Peck 2001; Brenner and Theodore 2002). These include the restructuring of the welfare state, widespread deregulation (e.g. in the labour market and in employment relations), and the introduction of ‘market discipline’ and competition into many areas of social life , including health care, transportation systems and municipal services (Armstrong et al. 1997; McDowell 2004). These changes have been facilitated by pervasive and increasingly taken-for-granted representations of a market-dominated economy as natural and inevitable (Leyshon et al. 2003). At the same time, neoliberalism has contributed to a reconceptualization of the subject . Rose , for example, argues that current critiques of the postwar social citizenship have given rise to new ways of understanding individuals as ‘subjects of freedom ’, where freedom is now

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understood in terms of the capacity/responsibility of the autonomous individual to ‘determine the course of one’s own existence through acts of choice’ (1999, 84). In this context, paid work is positioned as a principle mode of social inclusion , with individuals enjoined to seek opportunities for work and manage risks inherent in a labour market in which anything is possible (Rose 1999; McDowell 2004). Part of the neoliberal project in different contexts has included efforts to reattach ‘excluded’ populations, including disabled persons, to the labour market (Roulstone 2002; Hall 2004). Such moves have been portrayed in policy discourses as ‘liberating’ disabled people from enforced dependency characteristic of an earlier era of social citizenship. While a focus on employment opportunities is not inherently negative, recent policy developments in Canada, the UK and other contexts have been criticized on two grounds. First, programmes designed to move disabled people into paid employment have focused principally on the individual, employing experts and specialists to improve her/his human capital and employability (Oliver 1990; Drake 2000). This focus has not been accompanied by strategies focused on creating contexts for employment that ensure accessibility and accommodation in particular, and job security and living wages more generally . When governments have made employers and working conditions a focus of policy, programmes have typically emphasized voluntary compliance and incentives, rather than mandatory change (e.g. Roulstone 2002). Workplace barriers are often conceived as attitudinal problems displayed by some employers and specific physical access issues addressed through the provision of funding to employers who elect to hire disabled persons. This conceptualization obfuscates the fact that workplaces and labour processes and in contemporary capitalist economies remain, at their very core, geared toward an able-body/mind norm (Gleeson 1999; Wilton 2004a).

AT: Utopian Mindset Good Perm

Cross apply the Mackey 2009 evidence that utopian imagings are key. This TURNS the case because if we are truly imaging a utopia that solves for the problems of the Aff, then rejecting capitalism is the best utopian mindset because only the alt solves for capitalism.

AT: Root Cause/ Alt doesn’t solve

Capitalism is the root cause of disablement itself, economic standards are the reason for people being excluded. The economic system is the root of the medicalization of disabilities that the 1AC cites as the key to disabled persons oppression Russell No Date (Marta, “Disability and Capitalism” http://tokyoprogressive.org/~tpgn/index3.files/dencity/capdisabil.html)

Society still perceives disability as a medical matter . That is, society associates disability with physiological, anatomical, or mental defects and hold these conditions responsible for the disabled person’s lack of full participation in the economic life of our society, rather than viewing their exclusion for what it is -- a matter of hard constructed socio-economic relations that impose isolation (and poverty) upon disabled people. This medicalization of disability places the focus on curing the so-called abnormality - the blindness, mobility impairment, deafness, mental or developmental condition - rather than constructing work environments where one can function with such impairments. In my view, the economic system can be held primarily responsible for disabling physically and mentally impaired people. Disablement is a product of the political economy or the interaction between individuals (labor) and the means of production. In this view, disabled people’s oppression can be traced to the restraints imposed by the capitalist system. Those who control the means of productio n in our economy impose disability upon those with bodies which have impairments perceived to cause functional differentials and as such , do not conform to the standard (more exploitable) worker’s body

Materialist analysis is essential; all of the exclusions that their evidence speaks about is endemic to capital itself. Universal design provides no reason for WHY discrimination against disabled people exists in the first place. Oliver Prof disability studies @ U Greenwich 1995 Last date cited (Michael, “Capitalism, Disability and Ideology: A Materialist Critique of the Normalization Principle”) Nevertheless I agree that

"For a rigorous theory of disability to emerge which begins to examine all disability in a materialist account , an analysis of normalization must be included". (Chappell 1992.38) Attempting to incorporate normalization in a materialist account however, does not mean that I believe that, beyond the descriptive, it is of much use. Based as it is upon functionalist and interactionist sociology, whose defects are well known (Gouldner1970), it offers no satisfactory explanation of why disabled people are oppressed in capitalist societies and no strategy for liberating us from the chains of that oppression . Political economy, on the other hand, suggests that all phenomena (including social categories) are produced by the economic and social

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forces of capitalism itself . The forms in which they are produced are ultimately dependent upon their relationship to the economy (Marx 1913) .Hence, the category disability is produced in the particular form it appears by these very economic and social forces. Further, it is produced as an economic problem because of changes in the nature of work and the needs of the labour market within capitalism . "The speed of factory work, the enforced discipline, the time-keeping and production norms -all these were a highly unfavourable change from the slower, more self-determined methods of work into which many handicapped people had been integrated" . (Ryan and Thomas 1980.101) The economy, through both the operation of the labour market and the social organisation of work, plays a key role in producing the category disability and in determining societal responses to disabled people. In order to explain this further, it is necessary to return to the crucial question of what is meant by political economy. The following is a generally agreed definition of political economy, "The study of the interrelationships between the polity, economy and society, or more specifically, the reciprocal influences among government the economy, social classes, state and, status groups. The central problem of the political economy perspective is the manner in which the economy and polity interact in a relationship of reciprocal causation affecting the distribution of social goods ". (Estes et al 1982)

AT: Perm The permutation’s impossible- there is nothing to permute—the alternative text is to reject capitalist model of the plan. Intrinsicness is a voting issue because kills negative ground. Infinite plan planks mean we’d never be able to generate a competitive strategy.Cross-apply the link debate here – all of our links are disads to the permutations and reasons they don’t solve.

AT: Cap Monolith Bad

Ext. our Wise 9 evidence that indicates that movements are possible and we must attack the system at every turn.

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***JACKSON VANIK***

AT: Obama will loseExt. our West 12 evidence that Obama will win.Multiple indicators from Pew Research show that Obama is ahead on the economy.ANDObama will win reelection – surverys prove.PewResearch, research center for the people and press, 07/30/12, PewResearch, 59% - Most Americans Predict Obama Will Win Re-Election, http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1465

By a 59% to 32% margin, most Americans think Barack Obama will win re election if Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee, according to a survey conducted March 7-11. This margin expands significantly if Rick Santorum is the GOP nominee (68% predict an Obama victory, compared to just 24% for Santorum). Confidence among Democratic voters is high regardless of the outcome of the GOP primary contest. In a hypothetical general election, 83% of Democrats and Democratic leaners predict an Obama victory over Romney and 89% predict a victory over Santorum. But Republican voters are less confident, particularly if Santorum wins the nomination. By a modest 60% to 30% margin, most Republican and Republican leaning voters think Romney would win in the fall if nominated. But if Santorum is the nominee, about as many Republican voters think Obama would win (43%) as think Santorum would win (46%). This difference is driven by supporters of Mitt Romney, most of whom (59%) think Obama would win if Santorum is the nominee. By contrast, Santorum's primary supporters are mostly optimistic about beating Obama regardless of whether Romney (61%) or Santorum (64%) becomes the nominee.

Obama will win – his chances are as high as 60%.Sheridan 7-19 (Greg, Foreign Editor, The Australian, OBAMA'S POLITICAL JUDO WILL DELIVER A KNOCKOUT, lexisnexis, dw: 7-19-2012, da: 7-21-2012, lido)

HERE'S the dope. Barack Obama will be re-elected president in November, beating the Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. But it will be a tight race. My guess is the margin will be quite slim. Obama will win in the way George W. Bush beat John Kerry in 2004, and for many of the same reasons. I am in America at the 20th anniversary meeting of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue.. It is a great time to be in Washington, because this is a very live election. Romney still has an excellent chance of winning. Indeed, all the preconditions for an Obama defeat are there. But I rate Obama's chances as about 55 to 60 per cent, and Romney's at 40 to 45 per cent.

Obama will win – he is ahead in the swing states.US Daily Review 7-21 (“ Super Professor Predicts 2012 Presidential Winner” lexisnexis, dw: 7-21-2012, da: 7-21-2012, lido)

FacultyRow Super Professor David Schultz predicted today that President Obama will win a re-election by securing between 272 to 300 electoral votes. (He needs 270 to win). Schultz places the odds of a President Obama re-election at 55%. Professor Schultz is known during election time for his expertise in U.S. elections. Currently a professor at Hamline University, Schultz has accurately predicted U.S. Presidents for the past 5 elections. Super Professor Schultz has also authored Politainment: The Ten Rules of Contemporary Politics: A citizens guide to understanding campaigns and elections. According to Schultz, the presidential race comes down to three simple numbers: 10, 10, 270. The presidential race is essentially over in 40 states, with the race for the presidency to be determined by the swing voters in ten states. In those ten states, ten percent of the voters are undecided and they will determine who wins the presidency with 270 electoral votes. Thus, ten percent of the voters in these ten states will determine who gets 270 electoral votes. Schultz says Barack Obama is currently holding on to slight but steady leads in many of the swing states, doing a better job than Mitt Romney in convincing swing voters to support him.

AT: Vanik won’t passExt. Needham that repeal of Jackson Vanik will pass. Vanik is outdated and with Obama’s political capital it will pass.

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There is bipartisan support for repeal of Jackson-Vanik - it will pass.Vicki Needham, 7-19-12 (Staff Writer, The Hill, " Deal struck in House on Russia trade bill", http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1005-trade/239005-house-democrats-republicans-reach-agreement-on-russia-trade-bill- :)

House Republicans and Democrats reached an agreement on Thursday for moving a bill that would extend permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to Russia and make a statement on Moscow's human-rights record, upping the bill's chances of clearing Congress before the August recess. Top lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee announced that they will mark up the trade legislation next week. Panel Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), ranking member Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), trade subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and the subcommittee's top Democrat, Jim McDermott of Washington, collectively introduced legislation mirroring the measure approved Wednesday by the Senate Finance Committee. "I am pleased that we were able to gain bipartisan support for this important legislation that supports U.S. jobs and exports, and I look forward to marking it up next week," Camp said. The trade bill would repeal the 37-year-old Jackson-Vanik provision that violates international trade rules and include the Magnitsky human-rights legislation that has been approved by the House Foreign Relations Committee. The measures will likely be merged in the House Rules Committee before heading to the floor. "The bill we are introducing today includes important additional measures relating to the enforcement of key provisions, ranging from the protection of intellectual property rights, to barriers to U.S. exports, and Russia's compliance with its WTO commitments," Levin said. "At the same time, we must continue to use the opportunity of action on Russia PNTR to send a clear message to Russia of our deep concern about their continuing failure to work with the other nations of the world to address the violence against civilians in Syria," he said.

Senators are confident they will lobby the repeal to passage.Vicki Needham, 7-18-12 (Staff Writer, The Hill, " Senate Finance unanimously approves bill to normalize trade with Russia", http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1005-trade/238715-senate-finance-unanimously-approves-russia-trade-bill- :)

Senators cleared the first hurdle to extending permanent normal trade relations to Russia on Wednesday amid uncertainty about the chances of moving similar legislation through the House. The Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved a measure combining a repeal of Jackson-Vanik, an obsolete Cold War-era provision, with a human-rights measure that would punish Russian officials involved in the death of whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. But division between the House and Senate, combined with a tight deadline, has cast doubt on whether Congress will pass a trade bill before Russia joins the World Trade Organization next month. Unless Congress acts to normalize relations, U.S. businesses could be at a disadvantage against foreign competitors that sell to Russia. “By enacting [permanent normalized trade relations] together with the Magnitsky bill, we are replacing Jackson-Vanik with legislation that addresses the corruption and accountability issues that Russia confronts today,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said. Baucus argued that the show of bipartisan support — he and ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) hammered out a compromise — could boost the bill’s chances. He expressed optimism that the Senate would vote on the measure before Russia joins the World Trade Organization, but conceded that Senate leadership hasn’t indicated whether it will take up the bill. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) cast doubt on holding a vote before the August recess. “I have not heard it discussed in terms of being scheduled before the recess,” he told The Hill. But the unanimous vote on the Finance Committee might be enough to sway Senate leadership to consider the measure. During the past several weeks, business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable have ramped up their push for passage of a trade bill before lawmakers leave town for the summer break. “This is a huge message to the House and is the momentum burst the business community has been hoping for,” Christopher Wenk, senior director of international policy at the Chamber, told The Hill. “This is the one issue in Washington with bipartisan support in the House and the Senate that can be signed by the president; there’s no other issue out there. This is a fantastic outcome.” Despite some discord, Wenk said he’s confident Congress can get a bill to President Obama before the August recess. Another business group, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), supports the trade-relations bill but is still opposed to the Magnitsky language. The measure, “which addresses legitimate human-rights concerns, contains a number of problematic provisions that will unnecessarily complicate U.S.-Russia relations and create a new global unilateral sanction regime for the U.S. government to use against virtually any foreign person for vaguely defined reasons,” said NFTC President Bill Reinsch. But there was a glimmer of hope that the bill could start to move in the House. House Ways and Means ranking member Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) said Wednesday he supports the bill that cleared Senate Finance and urged the panel to mark up the legislation. “The outcome of that action is a strong bill that addresses the outstanding issues that we have raised,” Levin said. House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who has called for a clean measure, said Wednesday that he intends to introduce a bill soon.

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AT: PC Not Key

Ext. Needham and Orski that PC is key and Congress doesn’t like infrastructure spending. Any Federal Spending project spends PC.

AT: Jackson Vanik doesn’t solveExt. RT that relations are on the brink now.

Jackson-Vanik allows Russia to punish U.S markets.Bloomberg, 7-2-12 (Editors/Staff, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-02/u-s-should-upgrade-russian-trade-without-rights-sanction.html, :)

The Magnitsky case is just one of many reasons for grave concern over the Russian government’s repeated repression of democratic freedoms and human-rights violations. Yet combining the two pieces of legislation would do more harm than good. WTO membership will further bind Russia and President Vladimir Putin to a global regime of rules and laws and also open opportunities for U.S. companies. Those are important goals in their own right. Failure to repeal Jackson-Vanik would just give Russia free rein to punish U.S. companies. Congress can, and should, shine a strong spotlight on Russia’s deplorable human-rights record by putting the Magnitsky Act before President Barack Obama as a separate piece of legislation. Yet for all the act’s good intentions, we think its desire to sanction not just people linked to the Magnitsky case is overbroad. In addition, its positive effects don’t outweigh the costs of censuring a country whose help the U.S. and the world needs to curb Iran’s nuclear program and to unseat the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Ext. our impact Jackson Vanik repeal solves nuclear war, that’s Allison and Blackwell 11. The time-frame is short- Russia is fed up and Jackson Vanik must be passed. NW war o/w and turns the case. Can’t solve for racism in the long term when everyone dies short-term. Our evidence indicates a high probability of escalation, again that’s Allison and Blackwell.

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***Case Extensions***

AT: Apocalyptic Rhetoric BadDebate about apocalyptic impacts is crucial to activism and effective policy educationBlain – professor of Sociology – 91 Michael Blain, RHETORICAL PRACTICE IN AN ANTI-NUCLEAR WEAPONS CAMPAIGN, Peace & Change

Peace activism can be understood as a sociopolitical performance. It enacts a pattern of discourse that can be rhetorically analyzed in terms of its strategy of incitement. As peace activists mobilized their forces in the 1980s, they built up a discourse -- a repertoire of possible political statements for use against nuclear weapons policies. Such statements as nuclear annihilation , radiation pollution, and strategic madness have been the primary incitements to peace activism . Activists use language pragmatically. As political actors addressing a public audience, they know they must speak a language familiar to that audience . Nineteenth-century activists were educated, middle-class women, clergymen, educators, and businessmen with a reform Christian conscience. Twentieth-century activists have included political leftists and cultural dissidents as well as traditional pacifists and religious liberals.(n1) Middle-class professionals have played prominent roles in the peace movement. For example, medical activists like Helen Caldicott and Robert Lifton have elaborated a discourse on the madness of "nuclearism"(n2) In fact, some analysts interpret the peace movement as a power struggle of middle-class radicals and countercultural rebels against the power elite.(n3) This article presents the results of a rhetorical analysis of activists' discursive practices in a victorious campaign to defeat a U.S. government plan to construct the first new nuclear weapons plant in twenty years in the state of Idaho, the Special Isotope Separator (SIS). It shows how activists in the Snake River Alliance (SRA), a Boise, Idaho, antinuclear organization, mobilized hundreds of "Idahoans" to act as "concerned citizens" and "Life Guards," to lobby, testify, demonstrate, and finally, to kill this plan. The article introduces a perspective on how discourse functions in political movements. An effective movement discourse must accomplish two things: (1) knowledge , or the constitution of the subjects and objects of struggle, and (2) ethics, or the moral incitement of people to political action . I will show how this perspective can illuminate how anti-SIS activists developed an effective discourse to kill this crucial nuclear weapons program. A critical evaluation of this campaign can contribute to peace in at least three ways: it can celebrate the artful practices these activists engaged in to achieve their political objectives; it can add a case study of a victorious campaign to the emerging literature on the tactics of nonviolent action; and finally, it can contribute to the current debate about the future of the peace movement in a post-cold war world. The anti-SIS campaign involved an alliance of environmental and peace groups, which suggests one possible political strategy for future peace actions. POLITICAL MOVEMENTS AS VICTIMAGE RITUALS Political activists must engage in discourse to fight and win power struggles with their adversaries . In political battles, such as the anti-SIS campaign, words are weapons with tactical functions. Michel Foucault clearly articulates this perspective: Indeed, it is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together. And for this reason, we must conceive discourse as a series of discontinuous segments whose tactical function is neither uniform nor stable ... as a multiplicity of discursive elements that can come into play in various strategies. It is this distribution that we must reconstruct ... according to who is speaking, his position of power, the institutional context in which he happens to be situated ... with the shifts and reutilizations of identical formulas for contrary objectives.(n4) A power strategy refers to all means, including discursive practices, put into play by an actor in a particular power relationship to influence the actions of others. The language of political movements, including peace activism, is militaristic; activists talk strategy, tactics, and objectives. And it is important to see that discourse is itself a part of any power strategy. Kenneth Burke's concepts of victimage rhetoric and rituals can be used to illuminate this process.(n5) Political activists use victimage rhetoric to mobilize people to fight and defeat their adversaries. Victimage rhetoric is melodramatic in form. It functions to incite those who identify with it to engage in political acts of ritual scapegoating. Activists mobilize people to engage in activism by getting them to identify with an actual or impending violation of some communal "ideal"--a problem, concern, or danger. Activists mount "education" campaigns to get the public to identify with the imminent danger . A critical knowledge of the nature of this danger is constructed, taking the form of villainous powers inflicting or threatening to inflict some terrible wrong on the world. This rhetorical practice is tactical in the sense that it is designed to generate intense anger and moral outrage at what has, is, or could be happening to the values of those who identify with it. These people can then be mobilized in a campaign to fight the villain. This effect is intensified by emphasizing the negative features of the actions of the agents and agencies responsible for the violation. Once implanted, this knowledge exerts an ethical incitement to activism. Activists, this model suggests, must develop a discourse that does two things: vilify and activate. These two functions correspond to two moments in a melodramatic victimage ritual. These

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two moments of identification are (1) acts of violation or vilification and (2) acts of redemptive or heroic action. Movement leaders must construct images of both villains and activists fighting villains. They must convince us that acts of violation have occurred or will happen , and then they must goad us into doing something about it. This analysis suggests that a movement discourse is a rhetorical system composed of two elements working in tandem. One of the main features of motive in victimage ritual is the aim to destroy the destroyer. In the anti- SIS campaign, as we shall see, the objective was to kill a Department of Energy (DOE) program to build a nuclear weapons plant. One means of accomplishing that objective was to vilify its proponents. The second element in a movement discourse is redemptive or ethical. Once leaders succeed in convincing their followers that there is a real threat, they must then incite those convinced to act. To accomplish these objectives, peace activists have assembled a discourse charged with peril and power--a knowledge of the scene they confront and an ethic of political activism. They have constituted a "knowledge" of the dangers posed by the nuclear arms race and nuclear war that is infused with a redemptive ethic of political activism. Activists use this knowledge and ethic to goad people into campaigns to achieve antinuclear objectives. For example, activists have invoked the term power in two distinct ethical senses. There is the "bad" power of the agents of the nuclear arms race (politicians such as Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher; agencies such as the U.S. government, NATO, or the Department of Energy). And there is the "good" power that activists produce by their concerted political actions, including a subjective effect called "empowerment." Activists empower themselves by "taking personal responsibility for the fate of the earth," sacrificing time, energy, and money to the cause. By engaging in political activism, peace activists say they transcend psychological despair and obtain a sense of personal power .(n6)

We can’t stop caring about our survival. The ONLY way humans can deal with the terror of inevitable death is to manage it with order and denial. The alternative LITERALLY makes life unlivable. Pyszczynski ‘4 (Tom, Prof. Psych. – U. Colorado, Social Research, “What are we so afraid of? A terror management theory perspective on the politics of fear”, Winter, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_4_71/ai_n13807478/)

TMT starts with a consideration of how human beings are both similar to, and different from, all other animals. We start with the assumption that, l ike all other animals, humans are born with a very basic evolved proclivity to stay alive and that fear, and all the biological structures of the brain that produce it, evolved , at least initially, to keep the animal alive . This, of course, is highly adaptive, in that it facilitates survival, and an animal that does not stay alive very long has little chances of reproducing and passing on its genes. But as our species evolved, it developed a wide range of other adaptations that helped us survive and reproduce, the most important being a set of highly sophisticated intellectual abilities that enable us to: a) think and communicate with symbols, which of course is the basis for language, b) project ourselves in time and imagine a future including events that have never happened before, and c) reflect back on ourselves, and take ourselves as an object of our own attention--self-awareness. These are all very adaptive abilities that play central roles in the system through which humans regulate their behavior--usually referred to as the self (cf. Carver and Scheier, 1998). These abilities made it possible for us to survive and prosper in a far wider range of environments than any other animal has ever done, and accomplish all that we humans have done that no other species ever has been capable of doing. However, these unique intellectual abilities also created a major problem: they made us aware that, although we are biologically programmed to stay alive and avoid things that would cut our life short, the one absolute certainty in life is that we must die . We are also forced to realize that death can come at any time for any number of reasons, none of which are particularly pleasant--a predator, natural disaster, another hostile human, and an incredible range of diseases and natural processes, ranging from heart attacks and cancer to AIDS. If we are "lucky" we realize that our bodies will just wear out and we will slowly fade away as we gradually lose our most basic functions. Not a very pretty picture. TMT posits that this clash of a core desire for life with awareness of the inevitability of death created the potential for paralyzing terror. Although all animals experience fear in the face of clear and present dangers to their survival, only humans know what it is that they are afraid of, and that ultimately there is no escape from this ghastly reality. We suspect that this potential for terror would have greatly interfered with ongoing goal-directed behavior, and life itself, if it were left unchecked. It may even have made the intellectual abilities that make our species special unviable in the long run as evolutionary adaptations--and there are those who think that the fear and anxiety that results from our sophisticated intelligence may still eventually lead to the extinction of our species. So humankind used their newly emerging intellectual abilities to manage the potential for terror that these abilities produced by calling the understandings of reality that were emerging as a result of these abilities into service as a way of controlling their anxieties. The potential for terror put a "press" on emerging explanations for reality, what we refer to as cultural worldviews, such that any belief system that was to survive and be accepted by the masses needed to manage this potential for anxiety that was inherent in the recently evolved human condition. Cultural worldviews manage existential terror by providing a meaningful, orderly, and comforting conception of the world that helps us come to grips with the

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problem of death. Cultural worldviews provide a meaningful explanation of life and our place in the cosmos; a set of standards for what is valuable behavior, good and evil, that give us the potential of acquiring self-esteem, the sense that we are valuable, important, and significant contributors to this meaningful reality; and the hope of transcending death and attaining immortality in either a literal or symbolic sense. Literal immortality refer to those aspects of the cultural worldview that promise that death is not the end of existence, that some part of us will live on, perhaps in an ethereal heaven, through reincarnation, a merger of our consciousness with God and all others, or the attainment of enlightenment--beliefs in literal immortality are nearly universal, with the specifics varying widely from culture to culture. Cultures also provide us with the hope of attaining symbolic immortality, by being part of something larger, more significant, and more enduring than ourselves, such as our families, nations, ethnic groups, professions, and the like. Because these entities will continue to exist long after our deaths, we attain symbolic immortality by being valued parts of them.

Direct Case Arguments

Ext. that the status quo is not the medical model, that’s Brenman 11. Our RITA 10 evidence indicates that today’s society is more accepting than ever before. This goes uncontested. Handicap ramps are already available in almost all public buildings, and more infrastructure than ever before meets their needs.

AT: Continue funding ADAExt. that we shouldn’t continue to invest in the ADA – it causes more harm than good for disabled people. Tha’s Stossel 10. Stossel explains that equal access for Disabled persons declined after the ADA went into Affect.

3. The exclusion of disabled people will not cause genocide. Disabled people have been excluded for a while before the implementation of policies. It is empirically proven that their exclusion will not cause genocide. THAT IS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS.

4. Universal Design is already in the status quoUniversal Design is found in transportation infrastructure today.IDeA 10, Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access, 06-12-10, “Universal Design New York,” http://www.ap.buffalo.edu/idea/udny/section1.htm

Universal design is an approach to the development of "products and environments that can be used effectively by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design" (North Carolina State University, 1997). It is an inclusive process aimed at enabling all of us to experience the full benefits of the products and environments around us regardless of our ages, sizes or abilities. By designing for a diverse population, universal designers integrate usability by everyone into their work on a routine basis. This approach leads to greater inclusion for many groups often neglected in the design process (e.g., children, the elderly, people of small stature, frail people, etc.). Universal design equalizes the ways people use products and services. For example, the stairless bus has a low floor section so that anyone can enter the bus from a pedestrian pathway using a short ramp that is extended to the pavement. This design makes entering the bus easier for everyone . This bus also has a system that verbally announces the next stop and displays it on an electronic message board at the same time, ensuring communication of essential information to all riders. Is universal design a utopian dream? Is it really possible? How can every graphic, product, place or system be usable by everyone? Universal design does not claim to accommodate everyone in every circumstance. Rather, it continuously moves toward this goal of universal usability. Consequently, a more appropriate term may be universal designing, a verb rather than a noun. Universal design acknowledges that both consumers and producers have to live with cost constraints. As a result, cost can make a difference in its successful introduction into the marketplace. Consider the case of the Oxo line of kitchen utensils, one of the most successful examples of universal design in terms of market penetration. The original set of

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products Oxo introduced was competitive with other utensils because the cost of production was controlled by using inexpensive plastic for most parts and designing all the utensils with an identical handle and interface. Oxo utensils have thick, resilient and non-slip handles that improve grasping.

5. Can’t solve – the aff has no evidence or warrants for they the medical model will be dissolved after they implement universal design. Prefer empirics: the universal design is already around in the status quo, yet the medical model wasn’t dissolved.

AT: Predictions BadThe AFF makes predictions about the dissolving of the medical model. Their argument doesn’t make sense. That being said:

Scenario planning is possible in a catastrophe-ridden world—it’s vital to make predictions about the future.Kurasawa, 04 (Professor of Sociology, York University of Toronto, Fuyuki, Constellations Volume 11, No 4, 2004). SAS

Independently of this contractualist justification, global civil society actors are putting forth a number of arguments countering temporal myopia on rational grounds. They make the case that no generation, and no part of the world, is immune from catastrophe. Complacency and parochialism are deeply flawed in that even if we earn a temporary reprieve, our children and grandchildren will likely not be so fortunate unless steps are taken today. Similarly, though it might be possible to minimize or contain the risks and harms of actions to faraway places over the short-term, parrying the eventual blowback or spillover effect is improbable. In fact, as I argued in the previous section, all but the smallest and most isolated of crises are rapidly becoming globalized due to the existence of transnational circuits of ideas, images, people, and commodities. Regardless of where they live, our descendants will increasingly be subjected to the impact of environmental degradation, the spread of epidemics, gross North-South socioeconomic inequalities, refugee flows, civil wars, and genocides. What may have previously appeared to be temporally and spatially remote risks are ‘coming home to roost’ in ever faster cycles. In a word, then, procrastination makes little sense for three principal reasons: it exponentially raises the costs of eventual future action; it reduces preventive options; and it erodes their effectiveness. With the foreclosing of long-range alternatives, later generations may be left with a single course of action, namely, that of merely reacting to large-scale emergencies as they arise. We need only think of how it gradually becomes more difficult to control climate change, let alone reverse it, or to halt mass atrocities once they are underway. Preventive foresight is grounded in the opposite logic, whereby the decision to work through perils today greatly enhances both the subsequent room for maneuver and the chances of success. Humanitarian, environmental, and techno-scientific activists have convincingly shown that we cannot afford not to engage in preventive labor. Moreover, I would contend that farsighted cosmopolitanism is not as remote or idealistic a prospect as it appears to some, for as Falk writes, “[g]lobal justice between temporal communities, however, actually seems to be increasing, as evidenced by various expressions of greater sensitivity to past injustices and future dangers.”36 Global civil society may well be helping a new generational self-conception take root, according to which we view ourselves as the provisional caretakers of our planetary commons. Out of our sense of responsibility for the well-being of those who will follow us, we come to be more concerned about the here and now.

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