Funding

Just to be clear, you believe that the gov has the right to spec funding, but it should be in solvency and not in plan text. This is the understanding that I have from what you said which directs my response. If I am incorrect, darn.

Like every good theory debate I do not see anything wrong with doing it your way. However, I think that there is nothing wrong with having it in plan text.

(My interpretation)
I will make 2 assumptions.
1) The plan text says what your plan does and Solvency says that it will work.
2) Your plan text needs to give you the, “who, what, when, where, and how” of what you are doing.

(Violation)
Under this interpretation I think that it makes more sense to put funding/agent/enf/time in the plan text.

To me, your plan text should say, “The USFG will invest in creating a hydrogen fuel car fleet worth $200 billion ”

Solvency 1 should say, “Hydrogen cars work”
Solvency 2 should say, “We have the money from (X)”

From the plan text, we can assume it will be done through the USFG, have enforcement through the USFG, be done immediately, and will cost $200 billion. That is the who, what, when, where, and how. The why is your advantages.

(standards)
Clarity – Honestly, I just think it works better. It keeps it clean and clear and is easier to understand. Here is what I am going to do and here is how I am going to do it.

Social norms/Access – The community that participates in LD are a lot of converts from Parli. Most teams place funding and enforcement under normal means when giving plan text. Even lay judges who haven’t seen LD but have seen parli once or twice will have familiarity with it. It also makes it easier for debaters to understand and access the arguments.

(Voters)
Come over to the dark side, we have cookies!

I do not see a reason why it is bad to put it in plan text. You say funding is a consequence of plan but I disagree. The plan is a consequence of having the funding, this is assumed by the funding DA. You have to have the money to spend it on the plan and (for funding ppl) you have to have funding.

I agree, funding does belong in solvency, sometimes. When you don’t request enough money to solve is a good example. Like the hydrogen cars; if you had only $50 billion solvency deficits on the advantages in Nick’s case would be an issue.

However, not having funding at all is a plan flaw (not in the traditional sense of a plan flaw), as in the plan is not correct in its entirety and must be rejected on face value.

So, you could attack funding either way.

Finally, there is no guarantee what the funding would trade off with. We can assume that funding bridge repairs would trade off with funding highway cleaning, etc, but we will never know and it will just turn rounds into a “no it wont, yes it will” game.

I do not see a disadvantage to putting funding in plan text but I see an advantage of clarity and accessibility/social norms. According to general theory, that I think we can agree on, you have to have money to do a plan. Thus, the plan is a consequence of funding and would not exist without it, meaning that it needs to be in plan text.

For the 1st tournament of the year I will have funding in my plan text and a solvency contention for funding in my 1ac if I decide to put funding in at all.

For my plan texts I will always do one of two things. If I have no funding card that specifies a dollar amount, I will simply say “funding through normal means, I’ll clarify if needed” and in cross-examination grant my opponent as many links to spending, tradeoff, and fiscal restraint disadvantages as they want.

If I do have a card that says exactly how much the plan costs, then I would disclose that figure in the plan text, but I wouldn’t actually read the card. If an opponent asked where I got the figure from, I would simply hand them the evidence (I have never seen an opponent demand that it be read in the 2AC after having done this).

I do agree that it’s silly to force debaters to specify *where* they get their funding from. Let’s just use Danny’s example and cut a couple B-52s, someone will just be breaking out “B-52s key to US hegemony” plus Kzad ’95. It’s infinitely regressive and doesn’t contribute at all to education.

I guess we could all just do what El Co did… I think it was them 2 years ago…. they just used fiat currency.

There are of course other definitions for “solvency”. Nothing is universal in debate. “Normal means” works well, though an Aff. shouldn’t be allowed to be evasive if asked how much the plan would cost or attempt to de-link from DAs by saying their plan isn’t quantitatively sig. to cause the DA. Negatives can always run an Economy DA or a Tradeoff DA. If an Aff were to cut funding for some program, such as a B2 bomber, then the Neg could argue that would be bad, for whatever reason, and it would be a viable and appropriate DA. I do not think it is any less educational. It may shift the focus of the debate away from the Resolution, but policy-makers have to consider ripple effects all the time, and debating the worth of a defense spending project is just as educational as debating a given Aff plan. Simply put, because there are so many perspectives in debate everything is infinitely regressive.

The main concern as I see it with cutting a program, like the B2 bomber, would be if the Aff claimed that as some kind of add-on advantage (like the B2 has destroyed our reputation and cutting it would be good), or turned the DA that the negative presented regarding said B2 (like US Heg is bad). Some would find that to be outside the scope of the resolution, thereby implicating topicality, extra-T, or affects-T. But even that is not 100%, as judges come from a variety of perspectives and would not all consider that move by the Aff to be unfair.

The most elementary response here would be that it is very “high school” to argue no funding as a PMN. That is where fiat comes into play, I think, and where many/most/some judges would just disregard that Neg argument and suggest they come back with an actual DA.

Please see the article, “WHITE HOUSE SAYS TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM OVERHAUL MUST WAIT,” which was published in the Washinton Post on Friday, June 26, 2009.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR20009062504055_pf

In addition to its normal importance, it seems to me that bidget policy/fiscal restraint is going to be argued (at least implicitly) by Affirmatives as Inherency next season.

With this as prologue, I will (briefly) summarize my views, deferring discussion of them to the upcoming clinic. At the outset, I will not argue that my views are “right,” and others are “wrong.” Each debate round turns on its own merits.

1. I agree that a Plan need not be “detailed.” However, it should be a “Plan” not merely the nebulous statement of a governmental goal. What I have been hearing lately is a lot of sloganeering, and very little rational policymaking.

2. I believe that an Affirmative has the right to specify its source of funding. However, the Negative has the right to counter with extra-topicality argumentation, as well as DA’s to that funding. On this year’s topic in particular,
I believe it would be wise to fund the Plan with a topical funding mechanism (tolls, taxes on inefficient/harmful forms of transportation, etc.) Indeed, in the example Danny gives (diverting money from the B-2 bomber), I think that the Affirmative, far from being cynical, is right down the center of the topic – to wit, swapping the USFG’s funding of one type of transportation for another.

3. I would not require an Affirmative to do “F-Spec” in the Plan as a prima facie burden. However, if no “F-Spec” is done in 1AC, and the Negative demonstrates to me that “normal (political) means” of funding naturally and inherently results in certain DA’s, I am not going to let the Affiirmative get away with raising alternative methods of funding as a new argument in rebuttals. In short, this would be analogous to current NFA-LD rule on defining terms: it’s optional for the Affirmative to do so, but if the Affirmative chooses not to, beware! The initiative shifts to the Negative.

well said to the both of you and I believe that I agree in the majority with both of you.

For sure, claiming an advantage off of cutting a b2 would be x-t. My question is why it wouldn’t be ok to have a turn on a hedge good arg from the opp if it focuses on the source of funding. I just think it would be easier to say non-unique and 1 bomber isn’t significant, but whatever.

MHM – I think I saw that article in the news, too. Inh will be easier to prove this year for sure. The only problem, as you have hinted at, is that it gives the perfect link for trade-off das. I just know that we will see people running Mead ’92/kzad 95/UN 95 on a $1billion plan, lol.

Teams need to make sure the impacts are proportional to where they should be.

**** BTW, Danny – I love the new expand text box add on, it is freaking sweet! (or is it just google-chrome add on? I am using my sig-other’s pc and noticed I could expand the comment box)****

hmm… expanding text boxes must be a google chrome thing, oh well

An efficient and non-harmful way of funding transportation would be a good debate topic all by itself. Check out this source:
http://financecommission.dot.gov/

and get the report, “Paying our Way: A New Framework for Transportation Finance.” This monster (250+ pages) report looks like the Rosetta Stone for any/all “finance” arguments, which – at least IMHO – are just a subset of so-called “politics” DAs.

So we would really rather have debates about f-spec then real issues? I thought there was a move to get away from T, but I didn’t think it would end in f-spec, lol.

When we say normal means we are taking money out of the general budget of the US. This general budget is where the money for other services comes from. Maintaining/buying b2 bombers are some of those services. Therefore, it is not only acceptable but normal means when the president does it. Which we have to ask in LD whose chair are we sitting in when we are debating… If you believe you are debating for the president then the funds come out of N/M if you believe congress then you are probably locked in on funding. Don’t forget it says the USFG not congress shall pass. B2 bombers are as arbitrary as ending farm subsidies or increasing taxes… either way money is still being redirected to government expenditures.

I do not agree that specifying your funding is x-t. The resolution tells you to do something and you need to figure out how to do it. You cannot claim advantages off of x-t but you can use them for whatever. That would be like saying you have to sever deontology additions to your plan text and then having to sever out of how serving ‘good’ is good…

Two quick thoughts:

1. In today’s policymaking environment questions of taxing, spending, deficit financing, cutting “unnecessary” government programs, etc., are (at least some) of the “real issues.”
Moreover, I can easily forsee cases on all five of the proposed resolutions where providing a stable funding source for one or more types of modes
of transportation/transportation infrastructure IS the Plan.

2. Couldn’t agree more with the statement that a funding mechanism (as well as other administrative provisions) can be NT without prejudicing the Affirmative. The overall Plan must be T, and the advantages must flow directly from the topical provisions of the Plan. Extratopicality is, at least IMHO, only valid to ask the judge to disregard one or more of the advantages as being irrelevant.

I find F-Specs to be particularly interesting within the realm of parli debate however, within the realm of LD, people need to not completely focus on evidence to responses to arguments, or whether their opponent has provided funding evidence. They should focus more on the big picture and what key arguments they can refute. People need to remember that there are three key elements in debating. LD may somewhat rely on evidence, but there is also an element in Rhetoric: Ethos, Logos and Pathos.

As for the F-spec in LD arguments for the upcoming year… If people want to use F-Spec as an argument, good luck. I believe a majority of people could battle that argument easily. Probably with refutation going along the lines of.. If we can approve the Reinvestment Act of 2009 then we certainly can approve (enter plan here.). Additionally, Aff has the power of fiat. Unless Neg can substantially prove grounds of abuse, etc.

btw, heres an article discussing transportation funding. Enjoy!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124519971897621217.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

I’d like to thank Shantal for his/her excellent thoughts as well as the link to a great article. This link led me to another link, which I think is equally important:

“$1 Trillion Deficit Complicates Obanama’s Agenda”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124750836648634011.html

Consider this lanuguage:

“Surging deficits could also tie the Administration’s hands in responding to the economy’s problems, by eroding support among voters and making Congress leery of adopting policies – such as an overgaul of the health care system – that the Administration believes are necessary for sustainable growth.”

There is no doubt in my mind that the Affirmative can fiat financing for his/her plan; however, the Affirmative cannot fiat away the political and foscal consequences of the Plan. Thus, the issue of a “trade-off” in funding government programs must be considered.

My suggestion? Take a negative (note the little “n”) and turn it into a positive. Write an Affirmative Plan (such as the VMT) that actually increases government revenue rather than reducing it. And to do that, you have to be somewhat specific.

I hate to be Johnny One-Note on this, but “normal means” is what produced today’s economic mess.

“I hate to be Johnny One-Note on this, but “normal means” is what produced today’s economic mess.”

here here

I think I am beginning to come around on some of the more realistic funding disads the more we talk about it…

Mat: “I just know that we will see people running Mead ‘92/kzad 95/UN 95 on a $1 billion plan, lol. Teams need to make sure the impacts are proportional to where they should be.”

Think again!

Highways key to hegemony

Cox and Love 96 (Wendell, L.A. County Transportation Commission member and chair of national committees on energy conservation and urban transit planning; Jean, editor of comprehensive public policy manual,“40 Years of the US Interstate Highway System,” http://www.publicpurpose.com/freeway1.htm#intro )//shree

One of the principal reasons for building the interstate highway system was to support national defense. When the system was approved — during one of the most instable periods of the Cold War, national security dictated development of an efficient national highway system that could move large numbers of military personnel and huge quantities of military equipment and supplies. The interstate highway system effectively performs that function, but perhaps more importantly, its availability provides the nation with a potential resource that could have been reliably called upon if greater military conflict had arisen. Throughout the Cold War (and even to today), America’s strategic advantage in effective surface transportation was unchallenged. Even today, no constituent nation of the late Soviet Union has begun to develop such a comprehensive surface transportation system. In the post-communist world, it may be tempting to underestimate the role of the interstate highway system in national defense. But the interstate highway system continues to play a critical role. The U.S. military’s Strategic Highway Corridor Network (STAHNET) relies primarily on the interstate highway network, which represents 75 percent of network mileage. The U.S. Army cited the that system as being critical to the success of the 1990-1991 “Desert Shield-Desert Storm operation (the U.S. led operation to free Kuwait from Iraq): Much of the success of the operation was due to our logistical ability to rapidly move troops to the theater. The capacity of the U.S. highway system to support the mobilization of troops and to move equipment and forces to U.S. ports of embarkation was key to successful deployment. The Army also noted the “modal redundancy” of the highway system, which provided rapid and effective movements of a military division when difficulties with a rail line precluded the planned transport by rail. This illustrates the fact that the interstate highway system continues to play an important role in national defense, even in the post-Cold War era.

Read the rest of the article–you’ll find plenty of other highways internal links to other advantage areas like disease, pollution, oil consumption, the economy, etc

I had actually already found that article but was a bit old imo. It is just a personal thing that I like cards from the last 5 years so don’t shoot me for having an opinion.

Again, I repeat… “Teams need to make sure the impacts are proportional to where they should be.” A $1 billion plan text will not be the end all be all of transportation infrastructure. At best it will do 1 major project and that won’t be “destructive to hegemony” as a disad, which is what i was talking about… were talking about a country with a 14 trillion dollar GDP, $1 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket. Now, a HSR case that will cost $500 billion ok, I can dig it, but there is no way you can honestly tell me that taking $1 billion dollars from “normal means” leads to WW3. Even in debate land that is a stretch.

However, if any new spending will cause WW3 means your disad is nonunique. Then, if your card is right and transit programs increase economy then (X) plan text increases the economy, too. So, link turn. I control the impact, if I save money and create new investment/economic possibilities I allow for future economic investment which is key to heg, aka I solve for part of your disad and decrease the uniqueness in the future.

There is some healthy discussion at this point, and all arguments will be more compelling with evidence. It is one thing to have “a” card, but another to be able to piece together an externally consistent story.

Plans and solvency are related. Plans and Topicality are related. This is nothing new to any of us. There is no way to truly separate a plan text from a DA debate. The act of the plan, as the negative will argue, will cause the DA to occur. Sometimes an effect of the plan can result in a DA. It is the Neg’s choice whether to argue T, XT, AT, PMN, Minor Repair, CP, etc. One debate coach may see the issues related in one way, another coach may see it differently. I hope we hear a variety of perspectives at the RCC camp, so the debaters know what’s out there by way of judge philosophy (all legitimate) and can adapt accordingly.

On that note, judges see the Neg. burdens related to running DAs differently. Some judges want that link card, others will accept an assertion. Some judges want the internal link card, others will accept an assertion. Some judges won’t look at the impact until the link is won, others won’t care so much about the link and only weigh the impact. Many DAs are slippery slope arguments, but the onus is on the Aff to demonstrate that the AFF plan is not significant enough to cause the DA, or that there are alt. causalities, or that the DA is non-unique, and so on. And after the AFF does make those arguments, he/she will hope/pray/whatever that the judge in the back of the room is on the same page when it comes to the Neg. burdens.

I encourage debaters to remember they are debating for judges and not for themselves. Part of the problem we all run into is failing to adapt to the audience, and in this case it could result in a losing ballot. There’s being “right” and then there’s being “effective”. You may have to sacrifice the former (in your mind) in order to achieve the latter (a win).

A totally unrelated question: does NFALD use the terms “gov” and “opp” instead of “aff” and “neg?” If the former, will anyone care if I use the terms “aff” and “neg” since that’s what I’m most familiar/comfortable with?

It is Aff/Neg… but you have a lot of parli people seeping in with our parli l33t sp33k where we love our gov/opp. I still switch between the two without noticing which is which.

In LD there is AFF and NEG. There are many Parli debaters who do LD and they do not use the terminology associated with LD. It is frustrating for me as a coach/judge, and I do not think it helps the credibility of the debater if he/she does not use the proper terminology. Over the last year I’ve seen LD debates wherein the debaters use the wrong terminology, are not familiar with the speech times and/or order of the speeches, are not certain about the resolution, so not read any evidence, and actually interrupt the opposition during speeches for “points of information”, and so on. While the tournaments in the area compound the problem, meaning many tournaments have and LD round followed by a Parli, back to LD and so on, the debaters should be mindful of the format, rules, and terminology. Not directed personally toward “nerdydb8r”, it behooves the debater to keep things straight. If unable, pick one of the two activities. It helps set up your credibility if you appear to be on top of the format and terminology.

Thanks. One more: how do we typically refer to the individual speeches in round? In high school there is the 1AC, 1NC, 2AC, 2NC, 1NR, 1AR, 2NR, 2AR. With the five speech format, are they verbally referred to as the 1AC, 1NC, 1AR, 1NR, 2AR? Or is there a different reference style?

The reason I’m asking these questions is I’m trying to rewrite my theory/procedural blocks to reflect the LD format which is (obviously) different than the one I’m used to.

Oh, and can the negative rebuttal read new impact modules to argument shells that were in the neg constructive? Lets say I run a disad with a global econ collapse = nuke war impact, could I read a new impact addon in the neg rebuttal that says econ collapse kills hege + kzad 95? In high school it’s generally accepted that the 1NR (which is part of the negative block) can do this, but I’m not sure how legitimate it is in LD.

Thanks for helping me get up to speed. Transitioning to LD might be problematic for me at first but hopefully the SoCal clinic can help smooth it out a bit.

These are all good questions, and would likely be answered differently by different judges/coaches. Fact is, many of the LD judges in this area are not former policy debaters or coaches. They maybe did Parli, or are from the IE world. You will have to get to know the scene before you are able to predict anything. And likely, things will not be predictable if you compete in this region. The judges oftentimes do not know the format, and they also call the AFF the “gov” and the NEG the “opp” at times. You will read ballots that make no sense if you filter it through your knowledge of team policy debate. Of course the national tournaments will yield more predictability, so you are likely to have the “policy” judges at tournaments like UOP and Pt. Loma, but not always. Because the LD is staggered with Parli, you will oftentimes have the Parli judge. In fact, I’d say more often than not you will have a Parli or an IE judge rather than a policy judge. For policy judges, you have to do team debate (either NDT or CEDA). Jon Bruschke at Fullerton is attempting to do a modified format this year in this area, something about having the plan text in the tournament invitation with only a selection of articles, but I do not know how or if it will be received by the PSCFA community. The directors do not meet until September, so it won’t be until then that we discuss whether to offer this division of team policy at the tournaments. It seems to be the case at the moment we are doing LD and using the LD topic.

For the speeches, you have the Affirmative Constructive, then the Negative Constructive, then the first Affirmative Rebuttal, then the Negative Rebuttal, and then the second Affirmative Rebuttal.

If you are planning to rework theory/procedural blocks, I’d not spend too much time on that until you get to know the judges and figure out which tournaments you’re going to. It could be the case that it is a waste of your time because the judges will not be able to empathize with your position. But on basics stuff like Topicality, of course you can work on that…but keep in mind that even that is not debated very well around here. There is a likely schedule, but it won’t be set until we meet.

As far as new impact stories, that would depend upon the judge. Though I see heg. being tied to nuke war etc., I’d view that as a separate impact not allowed in the 1NR. I guess it depends upon who is nuking whom and whose heg. is lost etc. I can see it introduced in the 2NC, but not the 1NR (if it is a separate impact). But that is just my perspective, so lucky for you I wasn’t your judge in H.S.

For LD there is only one NEG rebuttal. I would coach my student to run all impacts in the constructive, and extend in the rebuttal. But that isn’t something you are likely to hear from all judges. So, either some other judges can chime in here, or I’d basically see what happens and what you can get away with and what wins, etc. The rules in Parli are so different that it is possible that you could get away with just about anything. My debater once won by saying the CP could be permed with the plan. Now the plan was to vacate Guantanamo and give the land back to Cuba, and the CP was to invade Cuba. Of course it is possible to do both, but ideologically it makes no sense. The whole reason we gave back the land was to give Cuba their sovereignty; so going back and invading them was the opposite. My new debater ran a perm (not as a test of ME but actually saying do the perm), and the judge voted on it. So…yeah…you can win on things that make no sense at all.

For textbook approaches to LD, see sample debates on YouTube from teams like Western Kentucky, University of the Pacific, Air Force, and Truman State, to name a few. But for PSCFA LD, consider the field filled more with Parli and IE judges and competitors instead of policy. There are some, but not many.

I hope this helps put things into perspective for you. Of course I am generalizing and there are exceptions to most of what I’ve said here.

I’ve actually had parli coaches/debaters judge me before in high school, like at the UoP invitational where I cleared to outrounds, and my league also hired judges for both the NCFL and NFL nationals qualifiers where I also cleared. Some rounds I won using (relatively) nebulous arguments but I’m okay with that.

I’m not familiar with IE judges though. Should I treat them the way I would treat a lay judge? When I say that I mean I talk slow, persuasively, avoid jargon and “big stick” nuke war impacts, be less evidence-centric, etc. I’m actually fairly experienced with debating in front of lays since my high school league used parents for judges almost exclusively, and I also qualified/went to the CHSSA state tournament which predominantly uses inexperienced (or in many cases, no-experience-whatsoever) judges.