Msdi - Elections Da

MSDI 2008

Elections DA

Elections DA Index Elections DA Index..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................1 1NC Shell..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................2 Now Senator Obama holds a 7 point lead in national polls, according to Real Clear Politics. Obama is leading in every recent national poll with an average spread over McCain of 48.2 percent to 41.6 percent. In one recent poll, conducted by Newsweek, Obama holds a 15 point lead over McCain. So what happened? Some analyses say that Obama got a "bump" out of clinching the nomination. But a look at the polling data shows that the Illinois senator has never trailed McCain in any poll conducted since May 4 of this year. Obama also leads in several key battleground states and among several important demographic groups. In Ohio, a state that Clinton carried in the primary, Obama now leads McCain by an average 5 points. In Pennsylvania, he's up by 7 points. Obama also holds a narrow lead in Virginia, and is closing the gap in Florida. Even more astonishing, Obama is neck-and-neck with McCain in the GOP stronghold of Georgia, according to one recent poll. .........................................................................................................................................................................2 1NC Shell..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................4 *uniqueness*....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5 Obama will win................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................6 AT: McCain will win cuz of the GOP base....................................................................................................................................................................................................7 AT: polls are flawed.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................8 AT: Diebold/ Vote tampering / cheating.........................................................................................................................................................................................................9 Too Close to Call............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................11 McCain will win.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................12 Uniqueness / Republicans will win...............................................................................................................................................................................................................13 *Links*...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................15 Alternative Energy : Popular.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................16 Climate change action : Popular..................................................................................................................................................................................................................17 Alt Energy Tax Credits : Popular.................................................................................................................................................................................................................18 Alternative Energy : Popular – (Democrats)..............................................................................................................................................................................................19 Cap and trade : Popular...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................20 CAFÉ Standards: Popular............................................................................................................................................................................................................................21 Wind energy : Popular..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................22 Biofuels : Popular..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................23 Nuclear power : Popular...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................24 Energy policy key to election........................................................................................................................................................................................................................25 No Link / AT: Energy Policy key to Election..............................................................................................................................................................................................26 No link / AT: Lichtman evidence..................................................................................................................................................................................................................27 No Link – Bush popularity doesn’t affect McCain....................................................................................................................................................................................28 Moreover, detailed polling in the three most important states in the Electoral College shows the vast majority of those who say their frustration with Bush has turned them off to McCain are voters unlikely to vote Republican in the first place.............................................................................................................................28 *impacts*........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................30 Impact XT – Yucca Mountain / Yucca = groundwater contamination.....................................................................................................................................................31 Impact XT – Yucca Mountain / Earthquake risk is high...........................................................................................................................................................................32 Impact XT – Yucca Mountain / Transportation of waste bad...................................................................................................................................................................33 Impact XT – Yucca Mountain / AT: On-site storage bad args..................................................................................................................................................................35 Impact defense – Yucca Mountain...............................................................................................................................................................................................................36 Obama Good – Social Security scenario......................................................................................................................................................................................................39 Impact XT / Social Security - Obama opposes privatizing SS...................................................................................................................................................................40 Impact XT / Social Security - SSR Bad – Hegemony.................................................................................................................................................................................41 Impact XT/ Social Security - SSR Bad – Deficits.......................................................................................................................................................................................42 Impact XT/ Social Security - SSR Bad – Transition Costs........................................................................................................................................................................43 Impact XT / Social Security - SSR Bad – Markets.....................................................................................................................................................................................44 Impacts / SSR Good - Growth.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................45 Impacts / SSR Good – AT: Transition Costs................................................................................................................................................................................................46 Impacts / SSR Good – AT: Deficits...............................................................................................................................................................................................................47 Impact XT / SSR Good – AT: Risky Investments.......................................................................................................................................................................................48 Impact XT / SSR Good – AT: Wealth Gap..................................................................................................................................................................................................49 Impact turn / China Bashing Module..........................................................................................................................................................................................................50 XT China Bashing / Dems = china bashing.................................................................................................................................................................................................51 Impacts - China bashing ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................52 China Bashing Good - Sino-Japanese Relations.........................................................................................................................................................................................53 China Bashing Good - Japanese Economy..................................................................................................................................................................................................54 China Bashing Good - Steel..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................55

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1NC Shell A. Uniqueness - Obama is winning now The Daily Voice ‘8 (June 23.

“The Frontrunner” http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/06/the-frontrunner-000783.php)

Now Senator Obama holds a 7 point lead in national polls, according to Real Clear Politics. Obama is leading in every recent national poll with an average spread over McCain of 48.2 percent to 41.6 percent. In one recent poll, conducted by Newsweek, Obama holds a 15 point lead over McCain. So what happened? Some analyses say that Obama got a "bump" out of clinching the nomination. But a look at the polling data shows that the Illinois senator has never trailed McCain in any poll conducted since May 4 of this year. Obama also leads in several key battleground states and among several important demographic groups. In Ohio, a state that Clinton carried in the primary, Obama now leads McCain by an average 5 points. In Pennsylvania, he's up by 7 points. Obama also holds a narrow lead in Virginia, and is closing the gap in Florida. Even more astonishing, Obama is neck-and-neck with McCain in the GOP stronghold of Georgia, according to one recent poll.

B. Links1. McCain will lose the election unless Bush adopts popular domestic policies in his second-term. His fate is determined by Bush’s ability to meet challenges. Lichtman 2005, (Allan J. Lichtman, prof of History @ American University and a national political analyst. The Keys to the White House: The Surefire Guide to Predicting the Next President – page x thru xi) Retrospectively, the Keys account for the results of every presidential election from 1860 through NW. much longer than any other prediction system. Prospectively, the Keys predicted well ahead of time the popular-vote winners of every presidential election from 1984

through 2004.

They called Vice President George H. W Bush's victory in the spring of 1988 when he trailed Mike Dukakis by nearly twenty points in the polls and was being written off by the pundits. The Vice President defied the polls and the pundits, not because he discovered negative ads or refurbished his image, but because voters ratified the performance of the Reagan administration—four years of prosperity, the defusing of the Cold War, and a scandal that faded away. In 1992, George H. W, Bush lost his chance for a second term, as the Keys predicted, when a sour economy and a lack of domestic accomplishment tarnished his record as president. The Keys predicted President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election in April of 2003, a year and a half before a contest that pollsters found too close to call right up to election eve. As a sitting president with no prospective challenger in his own party or a serious third-party competitor, Bush's mixed record of accomplishment at home and abroad was sufficient to anticipate in his victory in 2004.' Likewise, although President Bush will not be on the ticket in 2008, the fate of his would-be successor in the Republican

Party will depend upon the president's performance in his second term_ if the Bush administration fails to meet the domestic and foreign policy challenges of the next four years, voters will dismiss the Republicans, regardless of the Democratic nominee, Moreover, according to the Keys, the Democrats will have structural advantages in 2008 that they lacked in 2004, The Republicans will not be fielding a sitting president. which results in the loss of Key 3 and will likely confront a bruising battle for their party's nomination which forfeits Key 2. Thus, two Keys that the GOP held in 2004 are in jeopardy for 2008, making a Democratic victory likely that year, despite the setbacks al the polls that Democrats have suffered thus far in the twenty-first century. Democrats, moreover, need not worry about battling for their party's nomination; history shows that nomination struggles within the out-party do not subvert its chances to recapture the White House. A vigorous challenging party usually has multiple presidential contenders, each of whom professes to have the skills, personality, and policies needed to regain the White House. A spirited out-party contest for the presidential nomination might even signify the vulnerability of the party in power, as candidates compete for what appears to be a promising nomination. The greatest popular vote victory by a challenging party candidate in American history was achieved by Republican Warren Harding in 1920 after a deadlocked convention nominated him as a compromise candidate on the tenth ballot.

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2. or

Public supports alternative energy incentives John Podesta January 23, 2008 http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/01/podesta_testimony.html Cap, Auction, and Trade: Allowance Auctions and Revenue Recycling Under Carbon Cap-and-Trade Testimony Before the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming We recommend that the remaining half of the revenue go to spur science and technology innovation and to drive our transition to a low-carbon economy by funding research and development, tax incentives, and other initiatives. And the public supports this: 71 percent of Americans are ready to quickly

change from using coal and oil to using clean, alternative energy. Transportation and electricity account for 72 percent of U.S. CO2 emissions from energy, so our policies focus on these two sectors.

3. Energy policy is a foremost issue for voters in the election Curtis Brainard Tue 10 Jun 2008 10:50 AM http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/turning_point_energy.php Turning Point: Energy Finally, real differences between the candidates for the press to explore As much as editors have come to love articles about “green” power sources like solar and wind, the most pressing questions for the candidates revolve around the our traditional fossil favorites—coal and oil. Foremost on voters’ minds are skyrocketing gas prices. Pump pain already sparked a press

frenzy in April when McCain and then Hillary Clinton called for a federal “gas-tax holiday” over the summer. Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama, vociferously opposed the idea, calling it mere politicking that would do little to help drivers. With the general election now effectively under way, it’s time revisit this integral subject—whether it’s the price of oil, cap-and-trade legislation, or some other energy efficiency measure, voters must know if and when each candidate would resort to some form of “safety valve” that would pull the plug on runaway electricity or gasoline prices.

C. Impact 1. Obama will block Yucca Mountain – even an expanded Yucca cant handle all of the current nuclear waste Reno Gazette-Journal (Nevada) November

2,

2007 HEADLINE: Opposition to Yucca Mountain growing on the campaign trail

If the Democrats retake the White House and keep their hold on Congress in 2008, the Yucca Mountain project would appear to be dead. The growing opposition is understandable. The problems with the plan and the licensing process have been piling up, and it's now recognized that even an expanded Yucca Mountain site won't be enough to handle all of the nuclear waste that has been building up at nuclear power plants around the country and is expected to be generated by new plants in the works.

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1NC Shell 2. Nuclear storage at Yucca risks Nuclear Volcanoes

New Scientist, 8/24/2002 IF A volcano ever erupted beneath the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada it could cause a devastating explosion that sent high-level nuclear waste spewing into the atmosphere. Yucca Mountain lies about 145 kilometres north-west of Las Vegas, within an active volcanic field. An eruption at the site is considered extremely unlikely, but it is possible. There are six craters within 20 kilometres of the site, including Lathrop Wells volcano, which formed by eruptions just 80,000 years ago. A study in 2000 estimated that there was a 1 in 1000 chance of an eruption at the site during the 10,000 years it will take for the radioactivity of the waste stored there to dissipate. And a recent report suggests that a more active cluster of volcanoes 100 kilometres to the north could be an even bigger threat . Now Andrew Woods of the BP Institute at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues have found that if an eruption occurred beneath the site,

a

rising sheet of magma could burst into the proposed storage tunnels 200 to 300 metres below the surface. The pressure in the hollow tunnels would be much lower than in the surrounding rock, so once the magma broke through it would gush into the tunnels at tens or hundreds of metres per second. The heat would be enough to deform and rupture the 7-centimetre-thick walls of the waste canisters in just 20

minutes, the researchers say. Worse, if the storage tunnels were open to the main access tunnel, this could act as an easy escape route for the magma to reach the surface, sending nuclear waste several miles skyward in an explosive eruption. According to Woods's model, even if the tunnels were blocked, the magma could still build up enough pressure to break through to the surface. The study, which was funded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is published in Geophysical Research Letters (DOI: 10.1029/2002GL014665).

3. Extinction—this must come first because of magnitude Comarow, 2001 Yucca Mountain: Time to Think the Unthinkable Testimony presented at US Department of Energy Public Hearing 12-8-2001 by David Comarow http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-energy/issues/yucca-mountain-testimony-comarow_2001-12-08.htm

None of that is impossible, and therefore none of that is unthinkable. We are not talking about the short-term or even long-term economic prosperity of Las Vegas. We are talking about nothing less than the survival of the human race. Lest you dismiss this as just more fanatic hyperbole, let this be a reality check: Yucca Mountain will hold all of the high level nuclear waste ever produced from every nuclear power plant in the US - with about 10% additional defense waste -- some 77,000 tons. The danger of getting it here aside for a moment, the amount of radioactivity and

energy to be stored in one place, under that relatively tiny little bump in the desert is easily enough to contaminate and sterilize the entire biosphere. Is that unthinkable? No. If it is possible, it is thinkable. When you are talking about these types of risks, risks that can endanger entire segments of our population, let alone the entire earth, then the risk analysis must go into higher gear. It is not enough to merely calculate the risks as "extremely low" - because there is no "low enough" when the consequences are so cataclysmic. We accept certain risks, which are relatively high - 50,000 traffic deaths per year for example. But, as terrible as those deaths and injuries are, they do not imperil our culture, our nation or the survival of the human race. We are less willing to accept such risks when the consequences happen all at once -- plane crashes for example. That is our human nature. We are willing to spend much more to lower the risk of death in groups than chronic deaths spread out over time and space. As a people, as caretakers for future people, we cannot create unnecessary catastrophic risks like biosphereicide, the agonizing death of billions.

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*uniqueness*

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Obama will win Obama for the win- even high profile republicans are endorsing him. Baxter 2008 (Sarah, JUNE 15. Times Online. “Dismayed Republicans emerge as Barack Obama supporters http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4138151.ece)

The long war in Iraq, the curtailment of civil liberties and enhancement of executive power in the guise of fighting terror and profligate public spending by Bush and Congress have turned off a number of high-profile Republicans. Richard Nixon’s daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower, who is married to a grandson of President Dwight Eisenhower and co-chairs her father’s presidential library, has donated the maximum $2,300 to Obama’s campaign. Susan Eisenhower, her sister-in-law, is another lifelong Republican and Obamacon. “I think everybody has different reasons but I think he’s seen as a fresh start for this country, and people like what they see,” she said. A Wall

Street Journal/NBC poll showed Obama

pulling into a lead of 47%-41% over McCain - a significant margin but not enough to constitute a huge postvictory bounce after Hillary Clinton’s endorsement last week.

Barack is pulling ahead of Mccain- holding a 15 Point lead by pulling in former clinton supporters Times of India, ‘8 (June 22.

“Barack bounces ahead with 15% lead”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Barack_bounces_ahead_with_15_lead/articleshow/3152705.cms ) Barack Obama

has finally pulled clear of John McCain after many weeks of being tied with him in poll surveys. A latest Newsweek poll shows the Democratic contender is clear 15% ahead (51-36) of his Republican rival among registered voters nationwide. In part, Barack's bounce appears to be a result of Hillary Clinton's supporters moving over to his camp following his victory in the nomination process and her subsequent full-throated endorsement for him.

Obama is carrying many of the key demographics since Hillary dropped out and leads McCain in the general election. Todd, Murray, And Montanaro 2008 (Chuck, Mark, And Domenico.

JUNE 12. First Thoughts: Obama’s Bump. MSNBC.com. Chuck Todd is

NBC’S Political Director, Mark Murray is NBC’s Deputy Political Director, and Domenico Montanaro is NBC’s Political Researcher. http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/12/1134992.aspx)

Days after becoming his party’s presumptive nominee and receiving Clinton’s endorsement, Obama has opened up a sixpoint advantage over McCain (47%-41%) in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, which is up three points from Obama’s lead in April. Perhaps the most fascinating numbers are in the crosstabs, and some of the numbers will surprise folks who memorized every exit poll from the Democratic primaries. Obama leads McCain among African Americans (83-7), Hispanics (62-28), women (52-33), Catholics (47-40), independents (41-36) and even blue-collar workers (47-42). Obama is also ahead among those who said they voted for Clinton in the Democratic primaries (61-19). Meanwhile, McCain is up among evangelicals (69-21), white men (55-35), men (49-41), whites (47-41), and white suburban women (44-38). However, Obama has a seven-point edge (46-39) among all white women. How important is that lead? NBC/WSJ co-pollster Neil Newhouse (R) explains that Republican candidates always expect to win white men by a substantial margin, but it’s white women that usually decide the race. “If a Republican wins among white women, we usually win that election,” he says, noting that George Bush carried that group in 2000 and 2004. The poll was conducted of 1,000 registered voters from June 6-9 (Clinton endorsed

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Obama on June 7), and it has a +/- 3.1% margin of error.

AT: McCain will win cuz of the GOP base 3rd PARTY CANDIDATES LIKE BARR ARE DESTROYING MCCAIN’S BASE- THE GOP IS SHAKY IN SUPPORT Digital Journal ‘8 (June 22. “Barr could be potential election spoiler to McCain” http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/256456) Not long ago afterwards, former Republican Representative of Georgia Bob

Barr announced his run as a candidate for the Libertarian Party. Barr’s candidacy has brought fear within the GOP as a potential spoiler for presumed GOP nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona. That would add to many things for McCain to fear. There is already the Ron Paul Revolution that He joined the Libertarian Party back in 2006.

has been brewing by Republican Representative and former GOP hopeful Ron Paul of Texas. Paul has already formed up the “Campaign for Liberty” with the task of getting more libertarian-leaning Republicans into government offices. There’s even a Ron Paul rally set to take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the same time that the GOP Convention is due to take place in St. Paul, Minnesota. Barr has gained fame for his part in the impeachment of former US President Bill Clinton. Now, Barr’s run may bring worry to the GOP. Still, Barr’s run for the US Presidency is a very long shot. However, not many within the GOP are thrilled with

McCain as the party’s presumed nominee. Still, McCain has yet to get the support from the conservative bloc of the GOP. The conservative bloc is the one vital bloc of the GOP. According to experts, Barr could possibly exploit why conservatives aren’t warm to the aspect of McCain.

And, Mccain Doesn’t Have A Base To Begin With- Republicans Are Not A Fan Baxter 2008 (SARAH, JUNE 15.

Times Online. “Dismayed Republicans emerge as Barack Obama supporters. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4138151.ece)

conservatives were attracted as much by Obama’s temperament as his policies. “He just seems like a thoughtful guy,” he said. “John McCain is not getting a lot of enthusiasm from Republicans – there is feigned enthusiasm, but there are not a lot of pure McCain Republicans out there.” Professor David Friedman describes himself as a “classic liberal”, who had a lively intellectual upbringing as the son of Milton  Bruce Bartlett, the author of Impostor, an influential critique of Bush’s overspending and “betrayal” of Reagan’s legacy, said many

Friedman, Margaret Thatcher’s economic guru.

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AT: polls are flawed Vast majority of polls are accurate indicators of what happens on election day Frank Newport http://blogs.usatoday.com/gallup/2008/01/theres-no-way-a.html Putting the New Hampshire Democratic polls under the microscope There’s no way around the fact that the polls – including our USA Today/Gallup poll – did not predict Hillary Clinton’s narrow win over Barack Obama in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. Our poll, conducted Friday, Saturday, and through about 4 pm on Sunday, showed Obama with a double-digit lead. Hillary Clinton ended up winning by 2 points. Professional pollsters like to emphasize that their pre-election samplings are in the vast majority of instances accurate indicators of what actually happens on Election Day, and happily provide such examples when their polls are "right on". In fact, pollsters and observers alike just last week hailed the validity of polls when most pre-election surveys in Iowa correctly and accurately foreshadowed Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama’s dramatic victories.

Pre-election polls are a legitimate way to evaluate who might win an election Frank Newport http://blogs.usatoday.com/gallup/2008/01/theres-no-way-a.html Putting the New Hampshire Democratic polls under the microscope Pollsters often are quick to point out that polls are a "snapshot in time". That's true, but we in the polling industry have been rewarded by the fact that typically the snapshot of voter preferences a few days before an election usually turns out to be an accurate picture of what happens on Election Day itself. Once in a while that's not the case, as looks like happened in the case of the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. I certainly believe that pre-election polls are a legitimate and important part of the information flow before elections, in part because there is great public interest in and demand for answers to the question "who's ahead". And polling

provides much more information about voters and views of candidates above and beyond the horse race

number.

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AT: Diebold/ Vote tampering / cheating Voting machines are safe – they have been tested by independent and federal agencies. the units without paper receipts are encrypted like the ones that print out receipts ABC News, 2006 Manufacturers Defend Electronic Voting Machines Critics Doubt Reliability of Electronic Voting Machines, but Diebold Says They've Passed Tests Oct. 27, 2006 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2610298 With midterm elections less than two weeks away, some critics are raising doubts about the reliability of electronic voting machines, but the machines' manufacturers say they are sound. The equipment has been tested by independent agencies and federal agencies," said Mark Radke, the director of marketing for Diebold, the company that makes the machines. Radke also told "Good Morning America" that the units that didn't have paper receipts had the same encrypted software as machines that printed out receipts. Approximately 40 percent of Americans will use these machines to vote in November. Casting a ballot with the touch of a screen is a new system that voters in at least 33 states will use on Election Day, but some critics are skeptical about the machines' reliability.

No evidence proves voting machines have been tampered with, despite their widespread use. Their evidence is propaganda because it is just from isolated malfunctions that have been highly publicized Tova Andrea Wang, The Century Foundation, 5/26/2004 http://www.reformelections.org/publications.asp?pubid=475 Understanding the Debate Over Electronic Voting Machines

There is no hard evidence to show that any computer voting machine has in fact been tampered with, and they have been used in this country for many years. However, there have been many incidents in which there have been malfunctions. All voting because of the increased scrutiny of voting machines, the instances of malfunctions of DRE machines have been highly publicized. This has heightened the sense of alarm about using the machines in November. systems break down it is unclear whether DREs break down at a greater or less rate. However,

Voting machines are advantageous. They actually decrease the potential for errors by eliminating ability to over vote; and increases access Tova Andrea Wang, The Century Foundation, 5/26/2004 http://www.reformelections.org/publications.asp?pubid=475 Understanding the Debate Over Electronic Voting Machines

DREs offer several important advantages over other voting systems. Perhaps most important is that, unlike other machines, they can be made fully accessible to the disabled, including the visually impaired. In the next election, many disabled voters will, for the first time ever, be able to cast private, secret ballots at their polling sites. DREs have the capacity for features such as audio voting for the visually impaired and hand-held voting devices for voters with

there will be a lower rate of "spoiled ballots," ballots that are not counted because there is some kind of error made on them. In part this is because, unlike with punch card and optical scan machines, DREs make it impossible to overvote inadvertently make more than one choice in a race. Voters limited physical dexterity. In addition, as voters become more familiar with DRE machines,

report in survey after survey that they find using DREs easy.Computerized voting machines also have the capacity to provide ballots in an unlimited number of languages, making them the most accessible to language minorities among any of the machines. Finally, a

number of studies have shown that the votes of minorities are less likely to be counted when paper-based systems are used, and that these disparities are greatly reduced when electronic forms of voting are employed.2

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Voting machines are reliable. Any problems are the result of poor training of volunteers, not tampering or hacking. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution February 21, 2007 HEADLINE: EQUAL TIME: Paper trail useless for votes; More volunteers, monitoring keys to better system BYLINE: CHRIS MYERS; For the Journal-Constitution

When you eliminate the problems that result from poor training, policy or procedures, there are only a few instances of voting machine malfunctions. But is this record any worse than other voting mechanisms? No. If you search newspaper archives for the last 100 years you will find many stories of faulty voting equipment of all types and even lost paper ballots. Plus, paper receipts do nothing to reduce the allegations of stolen elections. When Venezuela used electronic voting machines with paper receipts, the opposition still alleged that there was cheating,

Something new always causes a stir, but I argue that while electronic voting is somewhat new, it has a track record that parallels any other voting system. Investing more in good volunteers, testing and monitoring will go a long way to ensuring high quality voting regardless of the system. and ironically it was because of a night when there were questionable procedures in handling the receipts.

Electronic voting machines are close to 100 percent accurate. Chicago Daily Herald

November 1, 2006 SECTION: NEWS; Fence Post; Pg. 19

According to the American Association of People with Disabilities, electronic

voting machines are close to 100 percent accurate at recording votes vs. paper which has about a 7 percent error rate. What was used in 2000 that led to the election debacle that year? You guessed it, paper. And what was used to cast our ballots in 1960, right here in Illinois in an election where ballot box stuffing occurred? Right again, paper.

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Too Close to Call Early polls bad - History Proves That June Polls Don’t Prove Election Wins Spence 2008 (Matthew, June 20.

“June Polls Don’t Hold Up” Washington Bureau, Times Online. http://timesonline.typepad.com/uselections/2008/06/june-

polls-dont.html)

This week's polls showing Barack Obama with small, but significant, single-digit leads among likely voters are certainly welcomed by Democrats, but recent history hasn't been kind to early frontrunners. In fact, only one of the last five June election-year polling averages has correctly predicted the popular vote winner in November - Bill Clinton in 1996. Even then, the polls missed his win-margin by more than 9 percent. As hard as it may be to believe, Michael Dukakis (left) was leading the first George Bush by an average of 8.2 percent in June of 1988. Bush went on to win the general election by 7.8 points. Mr Bush led the relatively unknown Bill Clinton by 4.9 percent In June of '92, but managed to lose in November by 5.6 percent. June 1996 polls showed the incumbent President Clinton leading by a whopping 17 points, but even Bob Dole managed to close the gap to a more respectable 8.5 percent. 2000 was different only in that George W. Bush led by 4.7 percent in June, won the election, but lost the popular vote to Al Gore by 0.5 percent.And finally, John Kerry led in the June 2004 polls by an average of 0.9 percent, but lost the popular vote, and the election, to the incumbent Bush by 2.4 points.

So, while Mr Obama's leads are certainly signs for Democrats to be optimistic, history points to caution. A lot can happen between June and November.

There’s too much of a split on issues to predict how electoral math will turn out- It’s too close to call. Mercurio ‘8 (John, June 12. National Journal. http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/ps_20080612_9938.php ) More than four months out from the conclusion of what has been perhaps the least predictable presidential election ever, it's foolish to pretend we know how the electoral map will look the night of November 4. The most obvious unknown is how voters will respond to Obama's race. But considering the stark choices offered by the two candidates on high-priority issues such as the economy, Iraq, health care and abortion rights, it's hard to see how we're bracing for a whole new world, or even a new map.

Despite Bush’s low ratings, McCain is really close. Wilson ‘8 (Reid, June 12. Real Clear Politics. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/politics_nation/2008/06/strategy_memo_hey_ladies.html ) President Bush's job approval rating is in the tank, as just 29% approve, per the latest RCP Average. Only 16% say the country is headed in the right direction. And Democrats lead Republicans in a generic congressional ballot matchup by an average of twelve points. Yet John McCain trails Barack Obama by just over four points in the latest RCP General Election Average, and he's doing very well among white males and among traditionally Democratic white suburban women, who have more typically voted Democratic in recent years, as the Wall Street Journal's Jackie Calmes writes today.

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McCain will win Mccain will win – he is strong on security- this will be the key issue Sabar ‘8 (Ariel, June 10.

“Economy is top Priority for Obama, McCain, and Voters.” Sabar is a staff writier for the Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0610/p01s06-uspo.html?page=1)

"McCain will want to paint an optimistic picture and also try to distance himself from the current administration on economic policy. He'll probably do this by trying to convince voters that national security" – on which the Vietnam War hero enjoys higher ratings – "is the biggest concern facing the nation." "The shaky state of the national economy is going to be a problem for John McCain," Glasgow said via e-mail.

Obama’s recent decision to not accept public financing will change how americans feel about Mccain and will benefit McCain in the general election. Brinsley ‘8 (John, June 22. “Obama’s Public Financing Move Puts System at Risk, Biden Says” John Brinsley is the Washington reporter for Bloomberg.com. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aqyd.eZRHxe4&refer=home)

Obama announced his move on June 19, calling the taxpayer- funded structure for the general election ``broken.'' Previously, he had promised to seek an agreement with the Republican nominee to take public money and the accompanying spending limits. Doing so would have meant abandoning record amounts of donations and surrendering an advantage over Republican candidate John McCain. Senator Lindsey Graham, a McCain supporter appearing on the same program with Biden, said Obama ``is reinforcing everything that's wrong with politics.'' ``This is a game

changer in terms of the general election,'' said Graham, of South Carolina. ``This will not go unnoticed by the American people.'' McCain plans to take public financing for the general election campaign.

McCain can win - Obama Still Has To Unify The Party- He Needs To Take Up Demographics That Hillary Led Walsh ‘8 (Joan, June 5. “The other 18 million” http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/06/05/obama/index2.html Salon Magazine. Joan Walsh is Salon’s editor in chief.)

Obama himself was gracious to Clinton in his victory speech. He also turned his attention to the general election, giving John McCain a fantastic pounding. But Obama has one more big task left to unify his party: He needs to spread his graciousness among his supporters, in the media and the blogosphere and beyond. The self-described "hope-monger" now needs to be a grace-monger, in a word, to win back Clinton supporters proud of what she's accomplished in this race and angry over her mistreatment. Here's why: Hillary Clinton, the Goldwater girl turned '60s liberal

has become the belated, almost reluctant leader of a movement, mainly of women but also of white working-class voters, Latinos, seniors and others who feel left out. They don't just feel left out by George Bush's America, but also by the Obama coalition. The women in that movement are especially volatile and angry, over the sexism Clinton has faced all along the way, right up to her final election night. And women are the largest Democratic constituency. Winning without overwhelming support from white Democratic women wouldn't be easy for Obama. I have no doubt Obama and his supporters can reach turned ultimate insider, the former first lady and current senator,

these women, but first he has to try. I'll start with a few simple pointers for how to do it: Don't call them racist. Or old and irrelevant. And don't say Hillary Clinton has to do all the work to heal the breach; Obama has plenty he can do himself.

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Uniqueness / Republicans will win Republican win likely – 7 reasons are fraud, Iraq, Dem Congress, Gender, Leftists, Galvanization, and Diplomacy Double standards – also can’t benefit from plan http://www.omgili.com/preview/aHR0cDovL3VzbWVzc2FnZWJvYXJkLmNvbS9zaG93dGhyZWFkLnBocD90PTUwMDk2 David Swanson 08-07-2007 The Likelihood of a Republican President in 2009 The Likelihood of a Republican President in 2009 By David Swanson America is quite likely to elect a Republican president in 2009. The first reason is that Republican election

fraud has been well

established since 2000.

Bush and Cheney lost Florida, and therefore America, according to the recount completed by major media outlets after it was officially blocked by the Supreme Court. And they almost certainly would have lost by a much larger margin if not for the illegal purging of the rolls engaged in by Republicans. We've seen a growing array of tactics employed in several states in 2002, 2004, and 2006 to suppress and not count Democratic votes. Bush and Cheney

clearly did not win in 2004, yet they are in office. And they have turned the U.S. Department of Justice into a wing of the Republican National Committee. But a Republican could win in 2008 honestly if the Democrats nominate the wrong sort of candidate and if the Democratic Congress makes the wrong moves in the next year and a half. Remember, as unpopular as Bush is, the Democratic Congress is even more unpopular. The most important issue in this election, as in other recent elections, will be Iraq. It will be even more important than in the past, and the public is even more in support of withdrawal. Because of this, it would be very, very difficult for Hillary Clinton or John Edwards to win the election. The Republicans can be expected to air on our televisions over and over and over again the choicest bits of the speeches these two Senators made when authorizing Bush to attack Iraq. They professed to believe the whole litany of lies about WMDs. A video interspersing these speeches with clips of Clinton or Edwards later denouncing Bush and Cheney's lies would make the Democratic nominee look unprincipled and dishonest. Sean Hannity of Fox News recently brought just such a video to a debate he took part in with Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. Now, Edwards may not be entirely unprincipled and dishonest. He has apologized for his war vote and advanced progressive majority positions on a variety of issues. Sadly, that does not change the fact that it will be virtually impossible for him, having given that speech, to win this election. I don't think Clinton has ever been hampered by any principles or honesty. You can take footage of her speeches from any

is decisively both for and against speaking to hostile foreign leaders. Clinton cannot possibly win an election. Once you factor out the states that are unlikely to vote for a woman, even a brave and principled woman much less someone like Clinton, this is a tough climb. When you then factor out those on the left who will actively campaign against her or stay home, it begins to look impossible. If you then consider the way in which Clinton will galvanize those on the right who despise her, it's all over. The Democrats in Congress are opposed to impeachment, in given week and edit together bits of her passionately contradicting herself. Most recently she

part because Clinton is opposed to it, and in part because they think she'll solve our nation's woes once elected. But they're also opposed because they think impeachment would galvanize their opponents. Nothing would do that as well as nominating Clinton. In contrast, forcing the Republicans to defend Bush and Cheney for the next year and a half would actually benefit the Democrats tremendously. Meanwhile, Clinton is not only unlikely to win, but has already committed

to keeping the occupation of Iraq going until the end of her second term.

Force her to admit that again in October 2008, and you can start singing the Republican Homeland National Anthem. Now, Barack Obama did not vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq. But he has voted many times to fund the occupation. He has given speeches in support of doing so. He supports keeping open the possibility of aggressively attacking Iran, including with nuclear weapons. He has proposed launching an illegal aggressive attack on Pakistan. He, like Clinton and Edwards, does not favor a swift and complete end to the occupation of Iraq. The peace activists already planning to protest the Democratic Convention will only be energized if the nominee is Obama. Numerous researchers and scholars are

already predicting a Democratic loss if the Democratic Party does not take a strong stand for getting out of Iraq.

Polls now can’t predict the election winner – too many unknowns and they are likely to be inaccurate favoring the dems right now. This has been empirically true. Paul

Jenkins, (fmr journalist with the afp, studied international relations and politics) Nov 6th, 2007 Huffington Post

Electability is a concept that makes many progressive voters uncomfortable, as it should. Not only because it usually means excruciating political compromise, but, as evidenced by Kerry and Gore, it's so often for nothing. Even the most eager poll followers cannot predict 6 to 10 months before a general

election (when most primaries take place) who is likely to fare best come November. There are too many unknowns, starting with the Republican nominee. Many times, Democrats have looked forward to facing a sure loser, not unlike the younger Bush, only to be bitterly disappointed. Right now, Mitt Romney looks like a delectable general election opponent: polls show him losing every single state surveyed against pretty much any leading Democrat. But a closer look is sobering: the scary flip-flopping robot has come from far behind to lead in every early Republican primary state. Would you rather face him, or lazybones Fred Thompson?

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Republicans will come out ahead in the general election. Democrats aren’t electable Paul

Jenkins, (fmr journalist with the afp, studied international relations and politics) Nov 6th, 2007 Huffington Post

Of course, it is possible to fall short of an absolute majority of the popular vote, even lose it, and still become president, as Bush so aptly illustrated in 2000. And by and large the Democratic and Republican parties of several decades, let alone a century ago, have evolved into very different creatures (thankfully for the former). But what does it tell us that Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton could not get half the country (plus one) to vote for them? And that at the same time, both Bushes and Richard Nixon, among the most recently victorious Republicans, achieved a sometimes solid absolute majority of the popular vote?

Democrats have struggled for years to figure this out. The mot du jour is, once again, electability. This may have been understandable after some of the more notorious debacles of the 1970s and 1980s in which primary voters went with their heart (George McGovern, Walter Mondale). But recent history has not been kind to the lucid crowd. After all, John Kerry was seen as the rational, experienced, safe choice of primary Democratic voters in 2004; in truth, had they picked Al Sharpton, they would have ended with the same thing: a loss. In 2000, Gore was the most risk-averse choice Democrats had made in decades and yet he too went down to defeat.

Diebold assures Republican victory by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman 10/21/07 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0710/S00328.htm Will the election theft machine do it again in 08? Sunday, 21 October 2007, 5:28 pm Column: freepress.org Will the GOP election theft machine do it again in 2008? With record low approval ratings for the Bush/Cheney regime and the albatross of an unpopular war hanging from the GOP's neck, do you think that a Democratic presidential candidate will win the White House, get us out of Iraq, and end our long national nightmare? Think again – the mighty election theft machine Karl Rove used to steal the US presidency in 2000 and 2004 may be under attack, but it is

still in place for the upcoming 2008 election. With his usual devious mastery, Rove has seized upon the national outrage sparked by his electoral larceny and used it as smokescreen while he makes the American electoral system even MORE unfair, and even EASIER to rig. Thus the administration has fired federal attorneys when they would not participate in a nationwide campaign to deny minorities and the poor their access to the polls. It has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to install electronic voting machines that can be "flipped" with a few keystrokes. And under the guise of "reforming" our busted electoral system, it is setting us up for another presidential theft in 2008.

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*Links*

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Alternative Energy : Popular Wide public support for alternative energy Bob Kievra, Telegram & Gazette Staff January 6, 2008 HEADLINE: Signs of a slowdown; Economic problems of 2007 expected to continue in 2008 SUNDAY TELEGRAM (Massachusetts)

" Alternative energy became very popular this year,'' said Mr. Sherr. "There's more momentum toward companies like American Superconductor and Evergreen Solar and the hope is that they can get some wind in their sails, but neither one has turned a profit yet.'' Profits will be ample for longtime investors of Commerce Group Inc. of Webster, which announced Oct. 30 it would be sold in a $2.2 billion deal to Mapfre SA of Madrid, Spain's largest insurer. Shares jumped 17 percent the day after the deal was announced and for the quarter, Commerce stock was up 22 percent.

Alternative energy is popular with the public Jessica trying

Papini Investment Dealers Digest

December 17,

2007 HEADLINE: Responsible Returns? It's not always easy being virtuous, but hedge funds are

Any "green" or "clean" idea is popular, agrees Gould. Therefore, alternative energy companies are very likely to experience strong growth as a group, says Jens Peers, lead portfolio manager of the Calvert Global Alternative Energy Fund.

Public supports alternative energy incentives John Podesta January 23, 2008 http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/01/podesta_testimony.html Cap, Auction, and Trade: Allowance Auctions and Revenue Recycling Under Carbon Cap-and-Trade Testimony Before the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming We recommend that the remaining half of the revenue go to spur science and technology innovation and to drive our transition to a low-carbon economy by funding research and development, tax incentives, and other initiatives. And the public supports this: 71 percent of Americans are ready to quickly

change from using coal and oil to using clean, alternative energy. Transportation and electricity account for 72 percent of U.S. CO2 emissions from energy, so our policies focus on these two sectors.

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Climate change action : Popular Action on climate change is popular – large majority of Americans, including non traditional constituencies support it. Report of an Independent Task Force – CFR, June 2008

Confronting Climate Change:A Strategy for U.S. Foreign Policy

http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Climate_ChangeTF.pdf

Polls conducted in mid-2007 showed that a large majority of Americans view climate change as a serious problem of which human activity is a significant cause.33 That worry has been All this has been driven by rapidly increasing concern among the American public.

intensified by accompanying concerns about U.S. dependence on foreign oil and association, rightly or wrongly, of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina with climate change. It has also broadened to nontraditional constituencies such as the evangelical community, which has increasingly associated climate protection with stewardship of God’s creation, and the national security establishment, which has identified myriad ways in which climate change could affect U.S. security.34 In crafting strategy, U.S. policymakers will need to remain aware that support for climate change action is not monolithic but instead rests on several pillars—environmental, economic, and security—that will each need to be satisfied.

Public supports US government action against climate change Robert N. Stavins, Harvard University, National Bureau of Economic Research 2007 http://www.hks.harvard.edu/m rcbg/rpp/Working%20papers/RPP_2007_04.pdf A U.S. Cap-and-Trade System to Address Global Climate Change

the impetus for a meaningful U.S. climate policy is growing. Scientific evidence has increased (Intergovernmental Panel on public concern has been magnified, and many people perceive what they believe to be evidence of climate change in prog-ress. Such concern is reinforced by the aggressive positions of key advocacy groups, which are no lon-ger limited on this issue to the usual environmental interest groups; religious lobbies, for example, have also been vocal. All this has been reflected in greatly heightened attention by the news media. The re-sult is that a large and growing share of the U.S. population now believe that government action is warranted (Bannon et al. 2007). In the meantime

Climate Change 2007a, 2007b),

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Alt Energy Tax Credits : Popular Significant public support exists for alternative energy incentives in the form of tax credits for renewables and nuclear power. U.S. Newswire April 25, 2008 HEADLINE: Eight of 10 Americans Support Federal Incentives to Spur Growth of Carbon-Free Energy Technology 79 percent of Americans approve of providing tax credits "as an incentive to companies to build solar, wind and advanced-design nuclear power plants." Only 20 percent do not approve. The number of Americans "strongly approving" of tax credits exceeded the number of Americans "strongly disapproving" by the same four-to-one margin (37 percent vs. 9 The survey shows that

percent).

Wide public support for alternative energy tax incentives National Journal's CongressDaily April 17, 2008 HEADLINE: Pelosi Position On Farm Bill Taxes Becomes Central Focus Senators emphasized Wednesday that many of the tax provisions have popular support. Baucus said many farm groups say the alternative energy tax breaks are important while Budget Chairman Kent Conrad said "hundreds of good government groups" support the conservation tax breaks.

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Alternative Energy : Popular – (Democrats) Democrats support action to promote the use of alternative energy technologies James i.

Stewart and m. Sami Khawaja; M. Sami Khawaja is an economist and president of The Cadmus Group, an environmental and energy

consulting firm based in Portland, Ore. James I. Stewart is an economist and associate at The Cadmus Group. June, 2008 HEADLINE: THE POLITICS OF CARBON PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY Recent developments favor the passage of federal legislation regulating GHG emissions soon. Global warming and its economic and environmental costs are becoming increasingly self-evident. There is growing public awareness of global warming and rising concern about its effects

on the environment and the economy. Concern is much greater among Democratic than Republican voters. According to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, 53 percent of Democrats cite global warming as the greatest environmental problem, whereas just eight percent of Republicans do the same. Many more Democrats are willing to impose taxes to curb GHG emissions as well. n6

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Cap and trade : Popular Public supports cap and trade program to decrease global warming. Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research Americans Support Cap-and-Trade Scheme June 14, 2008

http://www.angus

reid.com/polls/view/americans_support_cap_and_trade_scheme/

Many adults in the United States would welcome a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce global warming, according to a poll by Opinion Research Corporation released by CNN. 52 per cent of respondents support a proposal to have the government set a limit on the amount of emissions that a company could produce each year, with companies being allowed to buy credits from those who pollute less. In addition, 54 per cent of respondents believe global warming is a proven fact and is mostly caused by emissions from cars and industrial facilities such as power plants and factories.

Cap and trade programs have widespread public support. Michael E. Canes 2007 Michael E. Canes is a Senior Research Fellow at LMI, a not-for-profit government consulting firm located in McLean, VA. http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/538.pdf Why Cap & Trade is the Wrong Policy to Curb Greenhouse Gases for the United States

From a political perspective, C&T makes eminent sense. There is widespread public support for controlling GHGs, so it is easy to support a means to do so. New taxes can be a hard sell, particularly if not linked to tax reductions elsewhere. But even more to the point, a C&T system requires a Federal allowance distribution mechanism. Even if Congress delegates authority to an Executive agency such as EPA or DOE to administer a tradable allowance system, it retains ultimate control. Those who seek larger allocations will seek to influence Congress regarding the initial rules for distribution and will seek congressional help if they are dissatisfied with Administrative decisions. This strengthens the positions of congressional incumbents, who can expect political support in exchange for their interventions. The ability to distribute government-created wealth of great magnitude is simply too potentially

rewarding from a political perspective to ignore.

Cap and trade systems are popular because they rely on market systems Stewart and m. Sami Khawaja. M. Sami Khawaja is an economist and president of The Cadmus Group, an environmental and energy consulting firm based in Portland, Ore. James I. Stewart is an economist and associate at The Cadmus Group. June, 2008 HEADLINE: THE POLITICS OF James i.

CARBON PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY

Two characteristics of a cap-and-trade system give it an advantage over a tax in national politics. First, a cap-and-trade system avoids direct taxation while still relying on market principles. This makes it attractive to politicians wanting to avoid the stigma of raising taxes. Second, the cap-and-trade system gives supporters of GHG legislation a valuable bargaining chip during legislative negotiations with powerful special interest groups opposed to limits on emissions. The support of these interests and that of reluctant lawmakers may be won with agreements to distribute permits to certain industries for free on the basis of past production--i.e., grandfathering--at least on a temporary basis. This will shift more of the burden of the costs of reducing GHGs to consumers (as the government will lose tax revenues from the sale of permits that could be used to offset the higher costs of carbon-intensive goods or reduce other Although a carbon tax has many economic virtues, a tax-based system of controlling GHG emissions is unlikely to be instituted in the United States.

taxes) but it will not undermine the integrity of the caps or the price of carbon.

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CAFÉ Standards: Popular Public is pro environment and support CAFÉ standards and fuel efficient vehicles States News Service March 12, 2008

HEADLINE: GO RVING, PR REPORTS OUTLINE NEW TACTICS FOR CHANGING MARKET

These challenges include increased consumer attention to environmental concerns and the need for companies to be green, a possible consumer shift away from buying trucks and other tow vehicles as new Corporate Average Fuel Economy ( CAFE) Standards take hold; the fact that fewer of America's kids (and adults) are spending time in the Great Outdoors; and reaching out to the increasingly diverse United States population.

Consumers are primarily interested in fuel efficiency – so CAFÉ standards are popular Nicole Zerillo June 16, 2008 HEADLINE: Automakers place premium on efficiency PR Week (US) Where consumers lead, car manufacturers now follow. Although fuel efficiency was always a selling point for some manufacturers, consumers weren't always as tuned in to mpg ratings as they are today, say some PR pros in the industry. What might seem like an about-face in the marketing of smaller cars over trucks is actually a refocus, they add. Kathleen Hamilton, assistant VP of PR in the automotive practice at Coyne Public Relations, says that in the past, fuel efficiency was often an afterthought for consumers. 'For years, fuel economy was not a top concern among customers in (the) mass market when making a purchasing decision, though (it became) important when (they) got it home,' she says. '(Today) PR pros are seeking to guide purchase decisions by emphasizing fuel economy and new technology.'

Consumers are interested in fuel efficient cards. Fuel standards would be popular DealBreaker June 24, 2008 Tuesday 8:18 AM EST HEADLINE: Opening Bell: 6.24.08 Cut Sales Goal as U.S. Truck Demand Slumps (Bloomberg) Meanwhileit's not like Toyota is somehow immune from the whole thing. In fact their woes (aging workforce, model, factories, maturity) has been well documented. And the company says it may cut expectations on weak US

truck demand. You know the drill: consumers want those slight, fuel efficient cars that made Toyota so popular and desired to begin with.

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Wind energy : Popular Wind energy is massively popular and experiencing huge growth Business Wire

February 29, 2008 HEADLINE: Wind Energy America Inc. Completes Acquisition of Boreal Energy Assets

wind energy is now experiencing unprecedented growth. Popular support for cleaner power from alternative energy sources is driving huge amounts of investment capital into the wind power industry. GE Financial Services, for example, recently announced that it will invest more than 6 billion dollars With the rapid growth of wind farms to foster the "greening of America," along with the high cost of fossil fuels,

in renewable energy by 2010. With its new pipeline of projects from the Boreal acquisition, WNEA should successfully capture some of the unprecedented growth occurring in the wind power industry. Through acquisitions, development of its own projects, and ownership and operation of wind farms, WNEA intends to become a premier provider of wind power in its region.

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Biofuels : Popular Biofuels are politically popular Todd Sullivan ValuePlays October 30,

2007 HEADLINE: Todd Sullivan's - ValuePlaysBig Oil Dipping Toes Into Renewables

Now, are the investments huge? No. Did they exist three years ago? No.

the consumer. They big takeaway here is that the

Biofuels are both politically popular and extremely popular with

alternative energy companies are not alone in this effort today.

It all but assure a permanent place for biofuels

the only question that remains to be asked it what the market looks like. Currently it is extremely fragmented and consolidation is inevitable and necessary. It

is becoming a global market like oil and the players who are first to begin the global consolidation will prosper. Bunge (BG) is in South America and ADM has made no secret of its desire to acquire large scale Brazilian production and has even made public pronouncements about acquiring additional US One thing for sure, it will be exciting to watch..

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Nuclear power : Popular Public support for nuclear power is strong States News Service April 25, 2008 HEADLINE: EIGHT OF 10 AMERICANS SUPPORT FEDERAL INCENTIVES TO SPUR GROWTH OF CARBON-FREE ENERGY TECHNOLOGY

public support for preparing for and building new nuclear power plants remains strong. Seventy-eight percent of Americans agree that electric companies should prepare now so that new nuclear plants could be built if needed within the next decade. In the national survey conducted last October, 75 percent agreed. In the new survey, 59 percent of Americans agree "we should definitely build more nuclear power plants." Two-thirds of those surveyed (66 percent) said that,if a new power plant were needed to supply electricity, it would be acceptable to add a new reactor at the site of the nearest nuclear power plant that is already operating. Last October, 59 percent agreed with that statement. Regarding the storage of used nuclear fuel, 58 percent of Americans agree that it can be stored The survey found that

safely at the plants until it is moved to a permanent disposal facility. Seventy-eight percent believe that centralizing storage of used fuel rods at one or two volunteer sites is a better way.

Significant public support exists for alternative energy incentives in the form of tax credits for renewables and nuclear power. U.S. Newswire April 25, 2008 HEADLINE: Eight of 10 Americans Support Federal Incentives to Spur Growth of Carbon-Free Energy Technology 79 percent of Americans approve of providing tax credits "as an incentive to companies to build solar, wind and advanced-design nuclear power plants." Only 20 percent do not approve. The number of Americans "strongly approving" of tax credits exceeded the number of Americans "strongly disapproving" by the same four-to-one margin (37 percent vs. 9 The survey shows that

percent).

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Energy policy key to election Energy policy is a key issue in the election Jay

Loomis April

26,

2008 The Journal News (Westchester County, New York) HEADLINE: Lowering energy bills

During the energy crunch of the late 1970s, President Carter emphasized conservation by donning a sweater, turning down the thermostat and installing a solar panel on a roof at the White House. These days, conservation is back in vogue as energy prices soar again. Energy policy

is

getting the most attention in a presidential election since the bygone era of Carter thriftiness. The return of 1970s-style energy anxieties has meant big opportunities for William J. Hillis. He is the 46-year-old president of Energy Analytics, a Brewster-based company that advises clients big and small on ways to cut their energy bills through conservation measures. Companies, through steps such as installing efficient lights, better cooling systems, superior insulation and glazed windows, can easily cut their energy bills by 15 to 30 percent, according to Hillis. "When oil was $10 a barrel, energy conservation did not receive much focus," Hillis said. "But with oil at $120, there is not a building manager or facility engineer who doesn't have conservation as part of his day-to-day responsibilities."

Energy policy is key to the election Bob Gabordi May 28, 2008 Tallahassee Democrat (Florida) HEADLINE: Gas prices dominate all talk on the road If my circle of a few hundred people in the past few weeks is any indication, this upcoming presidential election's candidates should be forewarned: It's still the economy that matters the most, and right now that's about energy policy and fuel prices. I suspect it is the same conversation at most families' gatherings.

Energy policy is a foremost issue for voters in the election Curtis Brainard Tue 10 Jun 2008 10:50 AM http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/turning_point_energy.php Turning Point: Energy Finally, real differences between the candidates for the press to explore As much as editors have come to love articles about “green” power sources like solar and wind, the most pressing questions for the candidates revolve around the our traditional fossil favorites—coal and oil. Foremost on voters’ minds are skyrocketing gas prices. Pump pain already sparked a press

frenzy in April when McCain and then Hillary Clinton called for a federal “gas-tax holiday” over the summer. Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama, vociferously opposed the idea, calling it mere politicking that would do little to help drivers. With the general election now effectively under way, it’s time revisit this integral subject—whether it’s the price of oil, cap-and-trade legislation, or some other energy efficiency measure, voters must know if and when each candidate would resort to some form of “safety valve” that would pull the plug on runaway electricity or gasoline prices.

Energy policy is an important issues to voters in the election. Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer June 9 2008 CNNMoney.com Obama, McCain differ on energy policy

Energy issues have arguably never received so much public scrutiny. Record gas prices are taking a big chunk out of people's budgets, and take a big part of the blame for our shaky economy. But it isn't just high prices that are worrying voters. Oil supplies are tight, and global warming threatens major disruptions to life on Earth.

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No Link / AT: Energy Policy key to Election Americans don’t believe global warming should be a top priority of government – its not key to the election. Kent

Harper June 11 2008

http://www.elynews.com/articles/2008/06/11/opinion/oped01.txt Is global warming support cooling?

Almost three-quarters of Americans believe global warming is a serious problem, with just under a quarter saying the problem isn't serious at all. Pew said that's largely unchanged the past few years. And again, politics seems an influence: six in 10 Democrats, and almost half of Independents believe the problem is serious. Only 22 percent of Republicans agree.

But although an overwhelming percentage of Americans say global warming is a vary or somewhat serious problem, it ranks at the bottom of the public's list of priorities for Congress and the White House to deal with. Only 35 percent of Americans polled in January 2008, said global warming should be a top priority of the federal government this year. That's down from 38 percent in January 2007. Given a list of 21 priorities for the Administration and Congress to address, global warming ranked last, 21, with Republicans. It ranked 15 out of 21 with Democrats, and 18 out of 21 with Independents. Pew has found that strenghtening the economy is by far more important with Americans than any political differences.

Economy is the key issue now – energy policy has moved down the list of priorities States News Service April 25, 2008 HEADLINE: EIGHT OF 10 AMERICANS SUPPORT FEDERAL INCENTIVES TO SPUR GROWTH OF CARBON-FREE ENERGY TECHNOLOGY

A majority of Americans now rank economic growth as a top concern, ahead of the threat of climate change and the need for energy security, the survey found. Asked to choose which of four issues seem "most important," 57 percent of Americans named economic growth among the top two concerns, while 47 percent named global warming as a first or second choice and 46 percent named energy security first or second. Air pollution was ranked first or second by 43 percent of respondents.

This is a sharp change from the results of a Bisconti Research survey in October 2007. At that time, Americans ranked the threat of climate change and air pollution as the top energy-related concerns. Economic growth ranked at the bottom of the four choices, with only 40 percent selecting it as a first or second concern.

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No link / AT: Lichtman evidence 1. The Lichtman link evidence concedes that other foreign policy issues could prevent the president from being able to increase popularity enough to help the Republicans in the election. 2. Keys inconclusive – Lichtman declines to predict because the keys can still move – and if the 2005 prediction was valid, uniqueness outstrips the link http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976892768 Joseph Schroeder January 23, 2007 02:24 PM EST According to the "13 Keys to the White House" - which has accurately predicted the outcome of all presidential elections since 1984 and has accounted for the outcomes of all presidential elections since 1860 - the next President of the United States is likely to be a Democrat. It is still too early to determine where

a few of the keys will fall between now and 2008 - so Mr. Allan Lichtman, developer of the prediction system - has not released an official prediction.

3. Keys were wrong in 2000 and can’t count electoral college and assume white males only Allan J. Lichtman - October 4th, 2007 http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/43453.html Two caveats are in order. First, as a nationally based system, the Keys predict only the popular vote. In the last hundred years, however, the popular and Electoral College votes have diverged only in the 2000 election. For the special circumstances of that election, see, Lichtman, “What Really Happened in Florida’s 2000 Presidential Election,” Journal of Legal Studies 32(1), 2003). Second, the Democrats may well introduce an element of uncertainly by making a path-breaking nomination of either a woman, Hillary Clinton, or an African-American, Barack Obama.

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No Link – Bush popularity doesn’t affect McCain Popularity of Bush will not affect McCain’s chances in November Peter a. Brown

3/26/08

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9211.html Bush-haters won't stop McCain

Bush may not be as large an albatross around John McCain's neck as many people think, after all. One big unknown has been how much the president's low poll ratings — his job approval is almost as poor as that of King George III among the colonists 240 years ago — would badly hurt the Republican nominee’s chances this November. The theory pushed hard by Democrats and accepted to some degree by Republicans is that the public is so angry with Bush that large numbers of voters will refuse to vote for a fellow Republican. The reality is a bit more complicated and perhaps not quite as ominous for de facto GOP nominee McCain as many might think. It turns out that President

Voters won’t take out their frustration on McCain and the majority who would wouldn’t have voted republican anyway Peter a. Brown 3/26/08 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9211.html Bush-haters won't stop McCain McCain's closeness in these national and key state polls is an early indication that there aren't that many people who might be taking out their Bush anger on the GOP candidate. Moreover, detailed polling in the three most important states in the Electoral College shows the vast majority of those who say their frustration with Bush has turned them off to McCain are voters unlikely to vote Republican in the first place.

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*impacts*

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Impact XT – Yucca Mountain / Yucca = groundwater contamination Storing waste at Yucca mountain risks groundwater contamination when the radiation leaks or escapes Public Citizen.org, January 2005 Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste http://www.citizen.org/documents/YuccaBackgrounder05.pdf nuclear waste cannot be disposed of, it only can be stored. When stored, there is always the danger that radiation will escape. The original concept of a geologic repository was for a site with “natural barriers” capable of containing The DOE talks about “disposing of” nuclear waste, but

nuclear waste throughout the hundreds of thousands of years it remains dangerously radioactive. But after the DOE found problems with the natural barrier system at Yucca Mountain, the agency decide to rely on an engineered barrier system instead. A freshwater aquifer lies beneath Yucca Mountain. If

radioactive waste from a repository leaks, it would jeopardize the health of nearby residents, who depend on that aquifer as their sole source of drinking water. The aquifer is also used for irrigation by the residents of the Amargosa Valley, an organic farming and dairy community only 20 miles away, as well as parts of California. The National Academy of Sciences has identified the groundwater pathway as a significant pathway of exposure in the vicinity of the Yucca Mountain site. Yucca Mountain is composed of tuff, which is volcanic ash welded together over

thousands of years. This rock can be nonporous or somewhat porous, depending on the extent of welding and how fast the layers cool. The tuff at Yucca Mountain is of both types, and has several distinct layers. The densely welded tuffs at Yucca Mountain are brittle with significant cracks and fissures. The cracks and fissures in the upper layer provide a potential pathway for water to get into the mountain. The fractures in the lower layer are a potential pathway for waste at some point to move down to the aquifer. The less densely welded tuff, which forms a layer between the two densely welded but fractured layers, has a lower frequency of fissures, but it is much more generally porous. Yucca Mountain typically gets about 6-7 inches of rain per year, which is slight compared to other regions of the United States. The site, however, is not dry. DOE supposes that the average rainfall at Yucca Mountain is spread out evenly over the year, and thus that it only rains a small amount at a time, with most of the water evaporating before it can penetrate the mountain. In reality, rainfall at Yucca occurs frequently as torrential storms, which often result in

erosion and flooding. Because of the intensity of the rain and the time it pools on the surface, the water can actually penetrate the mountain much more than previously predicted.

Fissures in the mountains surface allows significant amounts of water to travel though the mountain in short amounts of time Public Citizen.org, January 2005 Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste http://www.citizen.org/documents/YuccaBackgrounder05.pdf Once water has breached the rock surface, the fissures in the tuff allow water to move through the mountain at much faster rates than expected. In 1996, the radioactive isotope chlorine-36, which was produced by nuclear bomb tests in the 1950’s, was found inside Yucca Mountain at repository depth. This indicates that water can travel through Yucca Mountain and move significant distances in less than 50 years.

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Impact XT – Yucca Mountain / Earthquake risk is high Yucca mountain is at high risk from geologic instability, earthquake risk is high and it would put the facility at risk which would cause massive contamination and flooding Public Citizen.org, January 2005 Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste http://www.citizen.org/documents/YuccaBackgrounder05.pdf Yucca Mountain is also not an area of geologic stability. Nevada ranks third in the nation for current seismic activity (see maps below). Yucca Mountain itself is crisscrossed by 33 fault lines and is nicknamed “Serpent Swimming West” by the Western Shoshone Indian nation due to its constant movement. Since 1976, there have been more than 600 seismic events of a magnitude greater than 2.5 within a 50-mile radius of Yucca Mountain. In fact, Yucca Mountain is bound on the east and west by fault lines (Ghost Dance and Solitario Canyon, respectively). In 1992, anbearthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 caused damage to a DOE field office building in the area.Despite all of this evidence, the DOE has said it considers it unlikely that an earthquake will strike the region. The risk of an earthquake is concerning, however, because one could put the surface facility at risk, which is planned to hold up to 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel during waste emplacement. Further, some

scientists believe that a significant rise in groundwater levels could occur as the result of an earthquake, possibly flooding the repository. This type of event could compromise the integrity of the nuclear waste containers and contaminate the groundwater beneath Yucca Mountain.

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Impact XT – Yucca Mountain / Transportation of waste bad Yucca mountain would result in a large amount of transportation of irradiated fuel which poses high risks to public safety Public Citizen.org, January 2005 Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste http://www.citizen.org/documents/YuccaBackgrounder05.pdf If the Yucca Mountain repository proposal is approved and licensed, waste will be transported to Nevada from the 74 reactor sites where it is currently stored. On April 5, 2004, DOE announced that it will use mostly rail to transport irradiated fuel to Yucca Mountain, and that it will construct a $ 1 billion 300-mile long rail line in Nevada along the so-called Caliente corridor. Waste would come from around the country to Caliente, where it would be moved across Nevada to Yucca Mountain. The corridor, however, which is northeast of the Yucca Mountain site, was recently hit by heavy flooding that damaged tracks and washed out embankments, raising concerns about the use of the area to transport high-level radioactive waste. More than 51 million

residents in 44 states live near the proposed shipping routes. While most of the proposed routes are by rail, some shipments will still have to be transported by truck from reactors because of the lack of rail near certain sites. According to current DOE policy, rail carriers will determine the transport routes to Yucca Mountain. Congress directed in the FY 2004 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act that any rail line to Yucca Mountain should avoid waste shipments through the highly-populated Las Vegas area. However, due to high traffic along northern lines and bad weather in the winter in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains, rail carriers may find routing the waste along southern rail lines more attractive. Thus more waste would travel across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and over 80% of shipments would go through Las Vegas on its way to Caliente. The DOE has acknowledged that the Nevada rail corridor is unlikely to be completed by 2010. On March 10, 2004, DOE issued a memo evaluating the possibility of transporting the waste in truck casks by rail to Nevada, where they would be trucked to Yucca Mountain, for the first six years of shipments - a proposal that had been rejected in the Final EIS for not being “practical”. According to DOE's own analysis, shipping nuclear waste using truck casks on rail cars to Nevada would create

the highest risk to workers and public health and safety. This plan would also require five times the number of shipments than the mostly rail scenario, costing an additional $1 billion.

Accidents will happen when fuel is transported this risks our economy and guarantees massive radioactive contamination. Public Citizen.org, January 2005 Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste http://www.citizen.org/documents/YuccaBackgrounder05.pdf Transporting nuclear waste poses inherent dangers, particularly in the event of an accident (e.g., equipment failure or human error) or crash. In the past 40 years, there have been just 3,025 highlevel waste shipments in the United States. Most of these took place from the 1970s to the mid- 1980s. The transport of 70,000 metric tons of the country's high-level radioactive waste to one national site would be completely unlike past radioactive waste shipments in the United States. The magnitude and duration of this proposal is the outside current the realm of experience. More waste would be shipped regularly each year than as been shipped in the U.S. in the last three decades. It would also be hauled over much larger distances. It is unclear whether hospitals, police and rescue personnel along transportation routes would have the capacity to respond effectively to a nuclear waste emergency. Accidents involving nuclear waste shipments to Yucca

Mountain will happen if there are shipments. The DOE’s own estimates suggest that at least 50 accidents and as many as 310 accidents could occur during shipment of radioactive waste. As part of the 1986 Environmental Assessment for the Yucca Mountain repository site, the DOE conducted a study that found that a severe accident in a rural area involving a high-speed impact, lengthy fire and fuel oxidation would contaminate a 42-square-mile area, require 462 days to clean up and cost $620 million. The health, economic and environmental impacts of such an accident could devastate a community.

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Transportation of nuclear waste to Yucca risks an accident or terrorist attack on the waste shipment Miguel

Llanos (Reporter ) 2002 MSNBC 2002 The perils of nuclear transport

Yucca’s supporters argue that the risk of an accident or successful terrorist attack on a shipment is extremely small and that it’s a risk society is willing to take in exchange for a reward — in this case a cheap source of electricity. Each year, there are 300 million shipments of hazardous material in the United States. And 2,700 shipments of spent nuclear fuel, the primary type of radioactive waste at issue here, have been shipped 1.6 million miles over the last 20 years without a single release of radioactivity, supporters say. Yucca’s critics counter that never before will so much radioactive waste have been shipped so far and for so long — 24 years under the Yucca Mountain proposal. The Sept. 11 attacks, they add, have raised the specter of terrorism. That point is shared by the rail industry, whch has shown reluctance to become a carrier and asked that, if it must, the Energy Department require dedicated trains for nuclear waste shipments. Transporting the waste with other railcars increases safety risks, Ed Hamberger, head of the Association of American Railroads, told lawmakers earlier this year. That Energy Department policy “is driven no doubt by economic considerations,” he added. “I submit that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, have altered that calculation forever.”

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Impact XT – Yucca Mountain / AT: On-site storage bad args On-site storage bad arguments are non-unique - the site will never be able to accommodate all the waste anyway and fuel must decay on site for a period of time anyway before it can be transported Public Citizen.org, January 2005 Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste http://www.citizen.org/documents/YuccaBackgrounder05.pdf Because the

storage capacity of a Yucca Mountain repository is capped by legal (its capacity is the site cannot accommodate all of the waste that will be produced by currently licensed reactors (not including 20-year license extensions that many reactor operators are applying for). Moreover, since irradiated fuel must decay onsite in a cooling pool for at least five years before it can be transported, at least five years worth of nuclear waste (100 – 150 metric tons) will always remain at each operating reactor even if the proposed repository opens. Given this and the amount of waste already produced, Yucca Mountain would not consolidate all high-level nuclear waste in one place, nor will it eliminate the risk posed to communities across the country. capped by law at 70,000 metric tons) and physical considerations,

On-site storage is preferable, in 15-20 years science will have advanced to have better knowledge of how to appropriately dispose of the waste. Miguel Llanos 2002 Nuclear waste: No way out?

Proposed tomb is scarred by issues of science — and bad public relations

MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3072031/

the nation’s nuclear waste should remain where it is now — in storage at the nuclear plants where the waste was generated — until a more suitable burial ground is found. “It could be possible that in 15-20 years we’ll have better technology, we’ll know a better location for a repository, or we’ll have better science for dealing with it,” says Susan Gordon, director of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. Backed by environmental groups, Nevada says

On-site storage is inevitable. Public Citizen.org, January 2005 Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste http://www.citizen.org/documents/YuccaBackgrounder05.pdf As long as reactors continue to operate, there will be significant amounts of waste left on-site. As long as we continue to produce more waste, we will continue to need more places to store it, particularly if we want to store it safely. The

consequence of this is that the opening of Yucca Mountain will not solve our waste problem, and it will not make the 160 million citizens within 75 miles of reactors significantly safer.

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Impact defense – Yucca Mountain The evidence about the likelihood of volcanoes at Yucca mountain is flawed. Experts now believe that the eruption history of the Yucca region don’t involve many volcanoes and eruptions; but one eruption event. Larry O'Hanlon, 2006Yucca Mountain Volcanoes Misjudged

Discovery News http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/11/08/volcanoes_pla.html?category=earth Nov. 8, 2006 — A rather

common sort of small volcano cluster found near the proposed high level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain may be lying about its eruption history, says a government volcanologist who is trying to help pin down the volcanic risk of the region.

A closer look at the "scoria cone" volcanoes at Crater Flat in southern Nevada, as well as some other others in the area, has revealed that these little volcanoes can actually lose portions of their crater-like eruption cones and float away on their own lava. That creates what appears to be several volcanoes and eruptions where there might only be one true volcano and only one eruption. Besides faking additional mouths for lava to flow from, the cones can also pour out lava in different directions at different stages of the same eruption — which has also led earlier geologists to mistake one eruption event for many stretching over millennia. "The assumption was that they had to be different ages," said volcanologist Greg Valentine of Los Alamos National Laboratory, regarding the black lava beds flanking the crater-like cones. Valentine’s re-examination of the scoria cones appears in the November issue of the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America.

The problem with the Crater Flat cones, like others that erupted dark, basalt lavas, is that they are hard to date directly using standard radiometric techniques, Valentine explains. Normally researchers would measure the proportion of potassium to argon in the rocks to determine how long the rocks had been solid. Potassium decays and becomes argon at a reliable pace over millions of years. But basalt lava contains very little potassium to start with. That magnifies the margin of error for radiometric dating to the point that it’s essentially worthless on craters like these, which are less than a million years old and could have had eruptions separated by a few years or by millennia.

Studies have actually proven that the Yucca mountain region is one of the least active volcanic fields in the western United States Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management 2003 http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0341.shtml Understanding the potential for volcanoes at Yucca Mountain Millions of years ago, a series of large explosive volcanic eruptions occurred to the north of Yucca Mountain. These eruptions produced dense clouds of volcanic ash

The large-scale volcanic eruptions that produced Yucca Mountain ended about 12 million years ago. This explosive volcanism produced almost all (more than 99 percent) of the volcanic material in the Yucca Mountain region.Several million years ago, a different type of eruption began in the area. These eruptions were smaller and much less explosive. These small eruptions were marked by lava and cinders seeping and sputtering from cones or and rock fragments, which melted or compressed together to create layers of rock called tuff, forming the mountains and hills of the region.

fissures. The last such small eruption occurred about 80,000 years ago. The remaining volcanic material (less than 1 percent) in the Yucca Mountain region is a

.Yucca Mountain is not in an area where continental plates meet, nor is it located near any volcanic hot spots. In fact, experts consider the Yucca Mountain region one of the least active volcanic fields in the western United States. result of these smaller eruptions

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Volcanic hazard analysis has been conducted by the world’s foremost experts in volcanology and geophysics and concludes that the field is one of the least active Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management 2003 http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0341.shtml Understanding the potential for volcanoes at Yucca Mountain To assess the possibility of future volcanic activity in the Yucca Mountain area, the U.S. Department of Energy relied upon careful evaluation by some of the world’s foremost experts in such fields as volcanology, geophysics, and geochemistry.Their studies started with extensive analysis of the location, age, and volume of past volcanic activity in the Yucca Mountain area. Using the data from these studies, along with information from studies of both modern and ancient volcanoes throughout the world, the scientists performed a volcanic hazard analysis.1 This analysis evaluated the likelihood of magma entering the potential repository area. The analysis also evaluated the possibility of magma intersecting the repository and erupting up through the mountain’s surface.A panel of independent external experts continues to provide the DOE with ongoing

This will help ensure that a sound technical basis is presented in future licensing interactions with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. advice about volcanic hazards.

There is over a 99.9% chance per year that a volcanic event would not disrupt the Yucca Mountain repository Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management 2003 http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0341.shtml Understanding the potential for volcanoes at Yucca Mountain Using their extensive studies of the Yucca Mountain region, experts estimate the chance of a volcanic event disrupting the proposed repository to be about one in 63 million per year. This equals about 0.0000016 percent chance per year that a volcano will disrupt the repository. Put another way, it means there is about a 99.9999984 percent chance per year that a volcanic event will not disrupt the repository.

Odds are extremely small that a volcano will form around Yucca anytime in our lifetimes…prefer the case impacts that happen much sooner Deseret News (Salt Lake City) August 5, 2002 HEADLINE: Yucca not too likely to erupt volcanically BYLINE: By Joe BaumanDeseret News staff writer Putting aside consequences for Utah, what

are the chances that a volcano will form near the repository? In terms of our lifetimes, the odds are pretty small," said Brittain E. Hill, a geologist and senior research scientist with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. He and others from the institute, England and the "The odds are kind of a tricky thing.

Netherlands published a study on the issue last month.

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The thought that Yucca mountain might explode is just propaganda that has been sensationalized for political concerns over time. The idea was dismissed by reputable scientists from the beginning Iain Murray July 26, 2004 National Review HEADLINE: Green Grow the Pressies In 1995 they told us that Yucca Mountain was going to explode in a nuclear firestorm. It won't. In 1998 they told us that nuclear-weapons installations were making people sick. They weren't. In 2000 they weren't concerned with arsenic in the water. In 2001 they were. This year they have claimed that the Pentagon is worried about global warming and that phosphate mines are harming Floridians. "They" are journalists, and the issue is the environment. What makes this particular issue so susceptible to

bad journalism? At least part of the answer has to be politics. If you followed the controversy over arsenic in drinking water in 2001, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Bush administration was plotting to poison the reservoirs. Yet in fact the Environmental Protection Agency had simply chosen to revert to standards that were changed only in the last few days of the Clinton administration. The press had gone almost eight years without noticing that Carol Browner and the Clinton EPA were happy to allow these "dangerous" standards of arsenic in the water. In other areas too, the press deliberately changed its tune. In 1987, the Washington Post had editorialized in favor of oil exploration in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve, saying, "That part of the Arctic coast is one of the bleakest, most remote places on this continent, and there is hardly any other where drilling would have less impact on the surrounding life." By 2000, when George W. Bush had made drilling in ANWR part of his proposed energy policy, the Post became concerned about whether "the oil to be gained is worth the potential damage to this unique, wild and biologically vital ecosystem." The New York Times similarly reversed its position on the issue between 1989 and 2001. As strong environmentalism is one of the defining characteristics of the modern liberal, it should come as no surprise that the media lean toward environmentalism in their coverage of key issues. Hence the pivotal role of Britain's leftist bible, the Guardian, in so many recent stories. Now that the Internet has made it possible to read other English-language papers daily, the Guardian has become a regular stop for those who find the New York Times too conservative. Given the highly politicized nature of most British papers, it is hardly surprising that its combative style has won many admirers on the American left (just as a whole new audience of American conservatives has come to appreciate the stance of the Daily Telegraph). So when Fortune magazine ran a story in January about the Pentagon's nvestigation of the potential security impacts of global warming, no major American newspaper picked it up. On February 22, however, nearly a month after the Fortune story, the Observer -- the Sunday sister paper of the Guardian -ran with the preposterous headline "Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us." The sub-heads ranted, "Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war"; "Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years"; "Threat to the world is greater than terrorism." Roman Genn This is appalling journalism. The Pentagon had judged that the $100,000 report did not "meet its needs" and so rejected it. In any case, the report was not secret and was by no means "suppressed by U.S. defense chiefs and obtained by the Observer" -- presumably by the furtive and dangerous method of asking the Pentagon for it. The report's only mention of Britain relates to its being a nuclear power; and the comparison to terrorism is actually made not by the Pentagon but by British scientists on their own crusade to terrify America into adopting the Kyoto Protocol. Far from concluding that global warming "will destroy us," the report actually concludes that such a dramatic event as the sudden onset of an ice age would present "new challenges" for the United States. It was only after the Observer's scaremongering that environmental groups over here noticed the story. After they made a fuss about it, it entered the journalistic lexicon to the extent that it seemed every other review of the silly disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow contained a reference to it. The Guardian has gone on to break other environmental scare stories later picked up by the American media, such as allegations against the effectiveness of genetically modified rice in preventing blindness in the Third World. Yet politics cannot be the whole answer. Sensationalism and ignorance are also to the fore. In 1995, for instance, New York Times

science writer William Broad publicized speculation by two Los Alamos physicists, Charles Bowman and Francesco Venneri, that nuclear-waste materials stored beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada might explode. Their view was dismissed by other researchers as fanciful, and in any event would not occur for thousands of years. The front-page treatment by the Times was clearly inappropriate. Why did they do it? One important insight comes from the admirable environment correspondent of the Times, Andrew Revkin. He says "environmental issues -- at least the most profound ones -- are generally the antithesis of news. They are subtle, slow-moving, complicated shifts that often hide in plain sight." To get the news value out of the issue, sensationalism is always a tempting option.

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Obama Good – Social Security scenario Democrats oppose privatization of social security; republicans support it Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee) December

31, 2007 HEADLINE: Where they stand -- Social Security

The Associated Press researched the leading Democrat and Republican presidential candidates' stands on key issues. Here

question of Social Security: retirement accounts. In addition:

is what the AP found on the Democrats oppose using a portion of payroll taxes to finance private

* Sen. Hillary Clinton: Noncommittal on raising the $97,500 income cap on Social Security. Proposes a federal match of up to $1,000 per person to help people set up 401(k) plans in program costing $25 billion a year, to be paid for by freezing the estate tax at 2009 levels. * Former Sen. John Edwards: Subject the portion of income over about $200,000 to Social Security taxes, while keeping the portion of income between $97,500 and $200,000 free of it. * Sen. Barack Obama: Proposes raising cap with an unspecified "small adjustment" that would subject a portion of higher incomes to Social Security taxes. * Gov. Bill Richardson: Opposes raising the income cap for Social Security taxes. Republicans favor using a portion of payroll taxes to finance private retirement accounts. In addition: * Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani: "I would rule out a tax increase" to save Social Security. * Sen. John McCain: Would consider "almost anything" as part of a compromise to save Social Security, yet rules out higher payroll taxes for now. * Former Gov. Mike Huckabee: Higher benefits for people who delay retirement past 70. Give retirees option of declining their benefits, and instead have Social Security issue a lump sum payment at their death, with the money going to their children or grandchildren. * Former Gov. Mitt Romney: Higher taxes are "wrong way to go." * Former Sen. Fred Thompson: Only major candidate proposing lower-than-promised benefits for future retirees. Also warns richest people "we're not going to take care of all your Medicare in the future."

Social Security privatization increases the likelihood of recessions and risks escalating economic turmoil and outright depression John Waelti, Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota, July 14, 2003 The third, least obvious and least discussed, but arguably the most important, reason why privatization of Social Security and tying it to financial markets is a bad idea has to do with macroeconomic stabilization. In plainer English, fixed, dependable Social Security checks, delivered to recipients during good times and bad, help to prevent recession and take the edge off recessions when they occur -- like now. Because of the reliability of Social Security checks as a source of continued economic activity, economists refer to Social Security as an "automatic" or "built-in" stabilizer to the economy. Economists have been woefully remiss in not making this case in the strongest possible terms during the privatization debate. Picture the worst case scenario -- a recession coupled with a prolonged period of falling stock prices. Sound familiar? If Social Security checks were tied to depressed stock prices, not only would those who depend mainly on Social Security payments be badly hurt, but the level of spending in the economy would fall just when it is most needed to sustain economic activity. Much is made these days of the importance of maintaining consumer spending to get us out of recession. The current Social Security system tends to moderate recession or, to use language of the economist, acts as a countercyclical force. Should people invest in stocks? Yes! That is, with appreciation (perhaps newly acquired) of tolerance for risk. But private investment in stocks should be in addition to, and not a substitute for, fixed payments into and receipts from the current Social Security system. Those who would privatize Social Security to "ease the burden of government" have it completely backward. It is not the responsibility of Wall Street to bail out the federal government. Who in their right mind would trust Wall Street for this awesome responsibility anyway? It is the responsibility of government to provide the structure and proper fiscal policies by which to minimize the frequency and severity of recession -- and to make Wall Street behave. But that's another story. * Social Security in its present form is a significant, though unheralded, policy that is useful in keeping recessions from being as frequent or as severe as they otherwise would be. This contribution to macroeconomic stability is yet another reason why the system needs to be protected, enhanced and assured to be there for future generations.

Economic decline causes global nuclear war Mead 92 [Walter Russel, fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, New perspectives quarterly, summer pp. 28] But what if it can't? What

if the global economy stagnates - or even shrinks? In that case, we will face a new period of international conflict: South against North, rich against poor. Russia, China, India - these countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to world order than Germany and Japan did in the '30s.

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Impact XT / Social Security - Obama opposes privatizing SS Obama Has Created A Tax Plan To Protect Social Security From Privatization Benjamin ‘8 (Matthew, June 23. “Obama, McCain Channel Clinton, Bush Legacies on Economy, Taxes” Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=ayw1iYc8gUS8&refer=home)

Obama said last week that ``John McCain's ideas on Social Security amount to four more years of what was attempted and failed under George Bush.'' His plan for shoring up the system would apply the payroll tax, currently 6.2 percent on incomes up to $102,000, to incomes above $250,000. Incomes between $102,000 and $250,000 wouldn't be taxed. Obama also promises to ``protect'' Social Security from privatization.

Obama will not privatize Social Security AP ‘8 (June 23. “Today on the presidential campaign trail” Belleville News-Democrat. http://www.bnd.com/508/story/368301.html ) Democrat Barack

Obama said Friday he would apply the Social Security payroll tax to annual incomes above $250,000, which would affect the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans. The presidential candidate told senior citizens in Ohio that it is unfair for middle-class earners to pay the Social Security tax "on every dime they make," while millionaires and billionaires pay it on only "a very small percentage of their income."

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Impact XT / Social Security - SSR Bad – Hegemony Security reform creates soaring deficits that collapse leadership Star Tribune – 11-28-2004 "To get at the deficit in a meaningful way, you have to start by cutting Social Security and Medicare, and I don't see either the president or Congress stepping up to do that," Ornstein said. "Besides, if you change Social Security to a private savings plan, you have to find billions more to pay for the transition." Republicans on Capitol Hill have been reluctant to get precise about what they want to do with the entitlements. While Republicans generally agree on giving more opportunity to younger workers to set aside and control investments for retirement and health care, they haven't yet coalesced behind one plan. But Democrats and some independent analysts doubt that the GOP will hunker down to the politically unpalatable job of rolling back Social Security and Medicare, or finding new ways to pay for the entitlements. To halt deficits that have pushed the national debt above $7.4 trillion "will take a crisis," said Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Calif., a senior member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. "That crisis is looming," Matsui said. "Unless we act immediately, we'll face a collapse of the housing market and consumer purchases as interest rates shoot up. We're already seeing signs of the crisis." Robert Bixby, president of the bipartisan Concord Coalition, agreed. "I'm not at all hopeful that we can get the economy back in order without a crisis," he said. "I don't see the political will to deal with Social Security and Medicare, to stop the tax cuts that are now on the books and to prevent additional tax cuts. " Democrats contend that if the federal government continues on its current path, the nation will be in jeopardy. "No nation has ever been strong, free and bankrupt," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

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Impact XT/ Social Security - SSR Bad – Deficits Private accounts wreck the economy and massively escalate budget deficits Time Magazine – 11-22-2004 Not surprisingly, Bush faces daunting arguments against these reforms on multiple fronts--political, social and financial. Personal savings accounts "weaken the system because they dismantle the system," asserts Barbara Kennelly, head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "They hurt the economy. They put workers' retirement at risk." Millions of taxpayers in Britain opted into a comparable system in recent years and, amid a poor investment climate, fared worse than those who stuck with the old state-run pension system. The government ended up cutting incentives to shift into private accounts, and unscrupulous financial advisers put many workers in unsuitable investments, leading to new calls for reform and a raft of lawsuits. Then there's the question of how Bush would pay for the new plan. The current Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system: new deposits from workers fund payments to today's retirees. Launching personal savings accounts would siphon away some of those deposits. The result: a massive near-term shortfall, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will reach $1 trillion to $2 trillion over 20 years. With the federal budget deficit already stretched to a record $400 billion, the prospect of borrowing any more to establish personal savings accounts leaves Democrats and many economists gasping. "I can tell you they will be walking through a legislative and political minefield," says New York's Charles Rangel, ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. Robert Matsui of California, ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, says, "Unless they have a credible funding mechanism, their proposals don't really exist."

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Impact XT/ Social Security - SSR Bad – Transition Costs Private accounts would cost trillions in transition costs Newsday – 11-8-2004 Oozing the relaxed confidence of a man just re-elected president, George W. Bush said Thursday that reforming Social Security will be a priority in his second term. "We'll start on Social Security now," he promised. Bush has also made it clear that, for him, reform means creating private investment accounts. But he has never answered the trillion-dollar question: How do we pay the cost to get from here to there? Bush avoided confronting that key question during his first term. He sidestepped it on the campaign trail. And he slipped past it again Thursday. Here's the problem. Bush wants to allow workers to siphon off a portion of their payroll taxes into private accounts and invest it in the stock market for their eventual retirement. But Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program. The payroll taxes of current workers pay the benefits for current retirees. So every dime that goes into private accounts is a dime that won't be available to pay benefits for retirees today and in the near future. Experts say that hole - the transition cost - will be $1 trillion, maybe $2 trillion.

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Impact XT / Social Security - SSR Bad – Markets The market perception of private accounts is negative Portland Press Herald – 12-19-2004 Let's be clear about the what the president wants to do. He wants to put the nation another $2 trillion in debt so that, over time, he and his conservative supporters can eliminate the Social Security system as we know it. The financial markets may not care much about whether Americans have a retirement safety net, but those markets will react adversely to adding $2 trillion in debt to the federal tab. For the president to say that the markets will be encouraged because Congress is taking up the issue is a flat-out lie. The markets are going to hate this, and so should anyone who actually thinks Social Security is worth hanging on to. I know, I know, Bush says he's going to "preserve" Social Security, and suggestions that he's planning to shut down the program over the course of a generation sound like demagoguery. But there is nothing that conservatives like about Social Security, and given an opportunity to kill it over time, they'll take it. Bush wants to allow younger workers to take a portion of the money now taken out of their paychecks and set it aside in personalized accounts. This sounds innocent enough, but it's important to understand that the money we put into Social Security goes to two places. First it pays the benefits for current retirees. Next, some of it is invested in Treasury Bonds and set aside as a surplus, meant to help carry the system through lean times. In time, the retiring Baby Boom generation will diminish the amount being set aside in surplus. Around 2018, the system will start using that surplus to pay benefits. About 2042 the surplus will be exhausted and the system will only be taking in enough to pay about 75 percent of promised benefits. Allowing people to put less money into the Social Security system does not strengthen it. It weakens it. It means the system will start dipping into the surplus sooner and will run out of money to pay benefits sooner as well. So how does Bush plan to "save" Social Security? Well, he figures that people will make so much money in their private accounts they won't mind if the system pays out fewer benefits. Bush plans to find the money to pay for private accounts by cutting future Social Security benefits. In the meantime, the government will borrow the money it needs to pay current recipients, who have been promised no change in benefits by the president. Over time, the Social Security system would morph from a shared safety net to a mandatory personal savings program with some tax benefits. The conservative vision is to continually increase the proportion of Social Security taxes going into private accounts until the safety net is gone. This appeals to people who abhor the "social"

Indeed, what the financial markets won't like is the fact that people could demand that the safety net stay in place. Congress will be under pressure to maintain the private accounts and keep a guaranteed benefit in place. So, rather than getting out from under its debt by cutting Social Security benefits, the government will be mired in red ink for the indefinite future. Now, the negative effects of high government debt are not accrued incrementally. Just because we can manage the debt we have today without interest rates soaring, doesn't mean adding more debt will be harmless. The risk is that the U.S. economy will hit a tipping point. When foreign investors begin to lose confidence in our ability to repay our debt, or worry that heavy debt payments by the government will be a drag on the economy, things change. Once those investors perceive more risk, they'll want a higher return on their money. That translates into higher interest rates and a very weak U.S. dollar. Imagine the impact on the economy if, for example, credit card interest was at 30 percent and every item on store shelves that's foreign-made doubled in price. That's what could happen if we take on too much federal debt, and $2 trillion is a lot of debt to add with a single act of the Congress. in Social Security, but for the rest of us who think it makes sense to provide the elderly with a small guaranteed income, it's a huge loss.

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Impacts / SSR Good - Growth Private accounts jump-start U.S. economic growth Martin Feldstein, professor of economics at Harvard University, 1-31-97 http://www.cato.org/pubs/ssps/ssp7.html

Our current Social Security system is acting as a drag on economic growth in two important ways. First, the payroll tax distorts the supply of labor and the type of compensation sought by workers. These losses are inevitable because of the low return implied by the pay-as-you-go character of the unfunded Social Security system. Second, the system reduces national savings and investment. Privatizing Social Security, transforming it from an unfunded pay-as-you-go system to a system of mandatory private savings accounts, would solve both of those problems and increase economic growth. Under the current Social Security system, each generation now and in the future loses the difference between the return to real capital that would be obtained in a funded system and the much lower return in the existing unfunded program. Shifting to a privatized system of individual mandatory accounts that can be invested in a mix of stocks and bonds would permit individuals to obtain the full real pretax rate of return on capital. This would mean a larger capital stock and a higher national income. Conservative assumptions imply that Social Security privatization would raise the well-being of future generations by an amount equal to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) each year as long as the system lasts. Although the transition to a funded system would involve economic as well as political costs, the net present value of the gain would be enormous—as much as $10-20 trillion. Such a private savings program would solve Social Security's long-run financial problems without the necessity for either huge tax increases or draconian benefit cuts. At the same time, it would yield enormous benefits to the economy. In short, privatizing Social Security can increase real incomes for everyone while ensuring a dignified retirement for future retirees.

Social Security privatization stabilizes the economy Larry Kudlow, CEO of Kudlow & Co., 11-13-2002 [National Review] At the end of the day, however, stocks are the best way to create personal wealth over the long run. More than 90 percent of the time, according to University of Pennsylvania professor Jeremy Siegel, stocks outperform inflation, T-bills, and bonds when held for 20 years or longer. Even if you include this wretched three-year stock period, inflation-adjusted stock returns over the past 20 years have averaged 11.5 percent annually, while Treasury bills rose less than 3 percent and Treasury bonds just over 9 percent. Ultimately, when constructing his or her personal-account portfolio, the younger worker will compare all these gains with the measly 1 to 2 percent return now being generated by choice-less Social Security. Of a number of promising pro-growth tax-cut options being discussed today in Washington, in some sense the most significant would be personal-accounts for Social Security, a reform that's high on the Bush administration's agenda. There isn't an economist out there who doesn't agree that the nation needs more private saving and investment to spur productivity, real incomes, jobs, technology advances, and overall economic growth. By transferring all or part of the 6.2 percent payroll tax into private savings vehicles, that portion not given back to Treasury bills and notes will be invested in private-sector growth. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein estimates that personal accounts will deliver a 5 percent permanent increase in the gross domestic product, accumulating to a roughly $12 trillion future gain at present value. By converting lower-return benefits into higherreturn investments, personal accounts will mean a whole lot more to wage earners than one-time tax rebates or the other goofy plans heard on the campaign trail. Does anyone seriously doubt that private wealth creation, driven by individual choice and ownership, won't solve the vast majority of our economic problems? No wonder pro- Social Security reform politicians did well in the recent election.

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Impacts / SSR Good – AT: Transition Costs Private accounts create gains that outweigh the transition costs… by 20 trillion dollars Martin Feldstein, professor of economics at Harvard University, 1-31-97 http://www.cato.org/pubs/ssps/ssp7.html

Under the current Social Security system, each generation now and in the future loses the difference between the return to real capital that would be obtained in a funded system and the much lower return in the existing unfunded program. Shifting to a privatized system of individual mandatory accounts that can be invested in a mix of stocks and bonds would permit individuals to obtain the full real pretax rate of return on capital. This would mean a larger capital stock and a higher national income. In addition, eliminating the payroll tax would reduce the distortions in work effort and form of compensation that currently depress the productivity of the economy and the real standard of living. When the system of funded individual accounts is fully implemented, the mandatory contributions required to fund the current and projected levels of benefits would be only about 3 percent of payroll, far lower than the payroll tax, which is expected to rise from 12.4 percent now to at least 20 percent over the next 35 years. Conservative assumptions imply that Social Security privatization would increase the economic well-being of future generations by an amount equal to 5 percent of GDP each year as long as the system lasts. Although the transition to a funded system would involve economic as well as political costs, the net present value of the gain would be enormous—as much as $10-20 trillion.[9]

Even if the transition is expensive the costs are more than offset in the long term – you should prefer these projections because they make more sense in the context of Social Security The Hill – 12-8-2004 The transition costs of Social Security reform, which is likely to entail personal savings accounts, could total up to $2 trillion in the short run. Reform advocates - including Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), several Senate and House aides and Club for Growth President Stephen Moore - said traditional pricing, or scoring, of spending items was unsuited for Social Security reform. Instead of assigning a five- or 10-year price tag, as Congress normally does, supporters of reform say Social Security should be viewed in the context of a 30-, 40- or 75-year budget window that takes into account the program's impact over a lifetime. "To look at this in short segments is shortsighted," said Shaw, who is outgoing chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security. "You need to look at the overall liquidity of Social Security over a long period of time." A key GOP Senate aide said the looming Social Security debate - which President Bush has promised will be a centerpiece of his second term - had generated a closely related conversation about the budget process. "That's a big debate going on right now: How do you account for the short-term transition issues, costs, today, while somehow recognizing that there's a long-term benefit?" the aide said. "The administration is working on its budget. I'm sure that the House and Senate Budget committees are certainly thinking about it. This is something that everybody is thinking about. How do we fairly and accurately view Social Security reform in a budget context?" Proponents of revamping Social Security maintain that, unlike other measures, which generally become more expensive as the years drag on, Social Security reform grows less costly and, ultimately, generates a surplus. Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) projected that his Social Security Savings Act, introduced in September, would lead to "permanent and growing surpluses" by 2030 while eliminating the program's $10.5 trillion debt. Shaw said traditional scoring made no sense when it comes to entitlement programs that affect many generations of taxpayers. " Social Security should not be scored that way," he said. "It should be separated out of the budget."

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Impacts / SSR Good – AT: Deficits No impact and turn – uncertainty in Social Security risks a deficit crisis now – resolving that uncertainty solves Jonathan Weisman, columnist for the Washington Post – 12-10-2004 http://www.socialsecurity.org/daily/12-10-04.html

"'The diversion of a portion of payroll taxes to personal accounts is akin to prepaying a mortgage,' R. Glenn Hubbard, former chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in the current issue of Business Week. 'If the transition costs are borrowed, the resulting higher explicit federal debt in the near term is offset by lower implicit debt (Social Security obligations) in the longer run.' "The U.S. government may already be borrowing more than $400 billion a year, but supporters argue that international lenders will not punish the Treasury for additional borrowing because they already have factored Social Security's future obligations into the interest rates of today. "'The market is rational, and they are already nervous about all these unfunded obligations in Social Security and Medicare,' said Kent Smetters, a former Bush Treasury Department economist now at the University of Pennsylvania. 'Resolution of that uncertainty is actually going to be a positive.'

The inefficiencies of the status quo Social Security system create worse deficit impacts Martin Feldstein, professor of economics at Harvard University, 1-31-97 http://www.cato.org/pubs/ssps/ssp7.html

Social Security wealth is of course not real wealth but only a claim on current and future taxpayers. Instead of labeling this key magnitude Social Security wealth, it could more accurately be called the nation's Social Security liability. Like ordinary government debt, Social Security wealth has the power to crowd out private capital accumulation. And it will continue to grow as long as our current system remains unchanged, displacing an ever larger stock of capital. The $9 trillion Social Security liability is more than twice the official national debt. Even if the traditional deficit is eliminated in the year 2002, so that the traditional national debt is no longer increasing, the national debt in the form of the Social Security liability is likely to increase that year under current law by about $500 billion. Looking further into the future, the aggregate Social Security liability will grow as the population expands, as it becomes relatively older, and as incomes rise. Government actuaries predict that, under existing law, the tax rate required to pay each year's Social Security benefit will rise over the next 50 years from the present level of slightly less than 12 percent to more than 18 percent and perhaps to as much as 23 percent.[3] .

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Impact XT / SSR Good – AT: Risky Investments This is empirically denied and stable investment reforms can solve Time Magazine – 11-22-2004 Presumably, private accounts with some assets in the stock market would perform better. But free-market solutions come with free-market problems. What happens if individuals don't invest wisely? Or if the stock market tanks after they retire? Some economists are worried that the plan is especially risky for the two-thirds of seniors who rely on Social Security for their main source of income. "The burden of [cutting benefits] is going to fall on lower- and middle-income households," says Mark Zandi of Economy.com. Yet supporters say the dangers could be easily mitigated by allowing investments only in broad stock and bond indexes, which are relatively safe, and by limiting the size of personal savings accounts to a fraction of one's Social Security taxes--say, 2 to 4 percentage points of the 12.4% annual levy. Advocates of partly privatized Social Security point to a system of personal savings accounts in Chile that is widely regarded as a success. In contrast to Britain's plan, Chile's is compulsory and presents workers with only a handful of conservative, income-oriented investment options. The architect of Chile's plan, Jose Pinera, is now a co-chairman of the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Choice and has conferred with Bush on the subject.

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Impact XT / SSR Good – AT: Wealth Gap Turn – Unreformed Social Security is a major cause of the wealth gap – private accounts would solve Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, 2-7-2003 http://www.socialsecurity.org/pubs/articles/mt-02-07-03.html

News of this report will undoubtedly set off a new round of debate over tax policy and the value of various government social programs. But a remedy is already at hand: President Bush's proposal to allow workers to privately invest a portion of their Social Security taxes through individual accounts. It will build wealth across the board. And it will help end the wealth gap. Wealth in America no longer comes exclusively -- or even primarily -- from wages, but from investment. Roughly 52 percent of Americans now invest privately. But nearly half of Americans, mostly low- and middle-income workers, still are not able to participate in this route to financial wealth. This is not surprising. After paying for food, rent, medical care, and other expenses of daily living, they simply don't have much money left over to save and invest. Yet these same workers are being forced to pay 12.4 percent of their income into Social Security. Social Security may provide a barely adequate retirement income, but it generates no wealth. Workers don't own their Social Security funds and have no legal right to the benefits. It is, simply, not wealth in the same way as a 401(k) plan, an IRA, or a bank account. The rich, however, have 401(k) plans at work: They have discretionary income with which to invest. They can accumulate greater wealth. The rich get richer; the poor do not. Social Security may also lead to a greater intergenerational wealth gap. You can't inherit someone's Social Security benefits. A worker can pay 12.4 percent of his income into the system for 30 or 40 years, but, if that worker dies without children under the age of 18 or a spouse over the age of 65, none of the money is passed on to his heirs. As Jagadeesh Gokhale, a senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and others, have noted, Social Security essentially forces low-income workers to "annuitize" their wealth, preventing them from passing it on to their heirs. On the other hand, the wealth of more affluent people generally is inheritable. Thus, inheritance becomes a "disequalizing" force, leading to greater inequality of wealth in America. The answer is not to penalize the wealthy through inheritance taxes and such, but to allow poor workers to accumulate inheritable wealth the same way their wealthier counterparts can. Allowing them to invest their Social Security taxes would go a long way toward accomplishing that goal. As the Cato Institute's David Boaz has pointed out, Social Security can be thought of as the poor man's death tax, and a 100 percent tax at that. This is a special problem for minorities -- one out of three African-American men will pay into the Social Security system but die before collecting benefits. Social Security reform is inevitable. Facing a $25 trillion shortfall, the program is unsustainable in its current form. But President Bush's proposal to allow workers the option of private investment could create an opportunity to solve not just Social Security's problems, but to also close the wealth gap. Or, as the president's bipartisan Commission to Strengthen Social Security put it, "For the first time, the program can become an active rather than a passive instrument of personal financial security. Rather than ending with the life of the beneficiary, it can be a means of wealth accumulation and long-range investment, giving families resources they never had before, and widening the circle of Americans fortunate enough to pass on the accumulated results of their investment and hard work."

Not Unique – the wealth gap is insanely high and increasing now Michael Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, 2-7-2003 http://www.socialsecurity.org/pubs/articles/mt-02-07-03.html

A new report by the Federal Reserve reveals that the "wealth gap" in America may be the largest ever. According to the report, the difference in median net wealth between the wealthiest 10 percent of families and the poorest 20 percent jumped by nearly 70 percent between 1998 and 2001. The gap between whites and minorities grew by 21 percent. Both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, should agree that this state of affairs is troubling.

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Impact turn / China Bashing Module A. Democrats will lead to more protectionism and china bashing Leon Hadar Washington Correspondent The Business Times Singapore August 10, 2007 HEADLINE: Unfinished task awaits US officials in capital; One would know only in September how they respond to key political, economic issues And while panic is the dominant sentiment on Wall Street these days, the senators and representatives returning to their districts are aware that there is not much that they can do to calm the nervous investors. Indeed, if anything, some of these investors are worried about the plans by leading lawmakers, including members of the Democratic Party, to move ahead with their plans to approve legislation 'punishing' China for

refusing to revalue its currency and to try to close a loophole that lets certain Wall Street money managers pay a mere 15 per cent tax on most of their income, versus the 35 per cent that most people with similar incomes face. That the Democrats who are running for the presidency, led by John Edwards and Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, all vowed to support these measures targeting China and Wall Street 'fat cats' is creating even more anxiety among the investors.

They fear the populist mood of the Democrats - and the American voters (according to opinion polls) - is going to turn the next session of Congress and, by extension, the race for the White House into arenas in which China would be scapegoated for America's economic problems, the financial markets would face new taxes and regulations, and the push for free trade will reach the wall of protectionism.

B. Protectionism leads to nuclear war Spicer 1996 (Michael Member of the British Parliament, The Challenge From the East, p. 121) The choice facing the West today is much the same as that which faced the Soviet bloc after World War II: between meeting head-on the challenge of world trade with the adjustments and the benefits that it will bring, or of attempting to shut out markets that are growing and where a dynamic new pace is being set for innovative production. The problem about the second approach is not simply that it won’t hold: satellite technology alone will ensure that consumers will begin to demand those goods that the East is able to provide most cheaply. More fundamentally, it will guarantee the emergence of a fragmented world in which natural fears will be fanned and inflamed. A world divided into rigid trade blocs will be a deeply troubled and unstable place in which suspicion and ultimately

will possibly erupt into a major war. I do not say that the converse will necessarily be true, that in a free trading world there will be an absence of all strife. Such a proposition would manifestly be absurd. But to trade is to become interdependent, and that is a good step in the direction of world stability. With nuclear weapons at two a penny, stability will be at a premium in the years ahead. envy

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XT China Bashing / Dems = china bashing Democrats support china bashing legislation which will trigger a trade war The International

Herald Tribune

July 28,

2007 HEADLINE: Beating up on

trade is not the answer

Trade has been getting an unfair beating from Democrats. Party leaders backpedaled from their agreement with the White House to approve free trade pacts with Peru and Panama and are opposing the agreement with South Korea. They also refused to extend so-called fast track authority, which guarantees a simple up or down vote on trade deals. Now Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, playing to the campaign crowds, are backing

legislation that would punish China for manipulating its currency and, not incidentally, could trigger an ugly trade war.

Obama would ban toy imports from China Japan Economic Newswire December 20, 2007 HEADLINE: China blasts U.S. presidential hopeful for suggesting toy import ban China on Thursday criticized U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama for suggesting he would ban Chinese toy imports if elected because of concerns over their safety. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the overwhelming majority of Chinese toys are safe and he indicated that any suggestion of an important ban is a complete overreaction. "Imagine if the quality of American products was not 100 percent up to standard and they had quality problems, could we take that as a reason to totally ban U.S. products? I think this way of doing things is not objective, it's unreasonable and also unfair," he told reporters. Obama, who is hoping to represent the Democrats in next year's U.S. presidential election, was quoted by Reuters as telling a rally Wednesday

in New Hampshire that if elected, "I would stop the import of all toys from China." He also said he would improve safety inspections for products coming into the country.

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Impacts - China bashing Attempts at China bashing legislation will lead to China retaliating with their “atomic currency bomb” dumping IOUs and causing the dollar to crash and the bond market to panic, crushing the economy and leading to a global cycle of protectionist legislation Paul

Tharp August 9, 2007 The New York Post HEADLINE: CHINA HOLDS ALL THE CARDS IN

TRADE WAR

With help from some Western spin doctors, Beijing is learning how to answer American threats about trade sanctions - shut up, or we'll cut off credit to both Uncle Sam and Wall Street. China's usually secretive officials yesterday launched their first open push-back campaign aimed largely at political critics of China's cheap economic machine - mainly Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Chinese officials began giving unprecedented public interviews warning that China may liquidate its more than $1 trillion in holdings

of dollars and U.S. IOU's in the event of U.S. arm-twisting via a trade war. A drastic dumping would cause the greenback to crash, ignite a bond-market panic on Wall Street and send oil surging well past $100 a barrel almost overnight, experts said. One of China's most outspoken officials, He Fan of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that any kind of trade war the U.S. might launch in order to force China to alter its currency values would trigger what analysts call China's "nuclear option." "If we start a trade war with China, they would end it on the first day with an atomic currency bomb," said Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital. "We can't fight a trade

war with China - we don't have any weapons, just IOU's." The two Democratic contenders for the White House have caused an international furor with their trade -war saber rattling, blaming China for stealing factory jobs from America and demanding that Beijing boost its yuan currency to make prices higher for its goods sold abroad, in an attempt to make American exports more competitive.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a China expert from his years running Goldman Sachs, said a trade war could be a disaster and "trigger a global cycle of protectionist legislation."

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China Bashing Good - Sino-Japanese Relations US economic pressure key to Sino-Japanese relations Ching 96 (Frank, Senior Editor – Far Eastern Economic Review, Institute for National Strategic Studies) http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/bluhrz/blupt3.html

when the United States threatens to impose sanctions on China, it affects China's relations with Japan as well as Europe. Unilateral sanctions by the United States are ineffective, because China will be able to obtain what it wants from Japan or Europe. Similarly,

Even in the absence of sanctions, China is able to shop around and play off an American supplier against a Japanese or European one. This is because, in the absence of a monopoly, an importer like China is able to shop around and look for the best bargain it can get. Unless

there is a scarcity of goods, it is sellers, not

buyers, who have to compete. Robust Sino-Japanese relations are key to global economic growth Xinhua 05 (4/28, lexis)

the major trading partner of Japan. Some analysts reckon that in 50 years, China would overtake the United States as the world's largest economy and India will not be far behind. Meanwhile, Japanese Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Ichiro Aisawa highlighted the economic importance of China to Japan and the world, and said that Japan's trade with China now exceeded the volume of its trade with the United States. "The smooth progress and good bilateral relationship between Japan and China will be extremely vital to the continued growth of the global economy, " he said. He pointed out that

China is already overtaking the United

States as

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China Bashing Good - Japanese Economy US pressure for Chinese revaluation key to prevent Japanese economic collapse Kozak 05 (Bob, currency analyst @ Alaron Trading Crop., Market Strategies Futures, 6/1, lexis)

Japan, the world's second largest economy, fell back into recession in 2004. Lower exports, less consumer spending and higher energy costs have all contributed to the recent slowdown in the expected recovery, which has been delayed to the second half of 2005. Coming to the economic rescue may be the long awaited and much anticipated revaluation of the Chinese currency, the yuan, renminbi or RMB; your choice. The yuan has been pegged to the U.S. dollar at 8.3 for the last 10 years and has placed countries looking to compete for a slice of the export pie at an unfair disadvantage. Pressure from the United States and its G-7 partners will prompt the Central Bank of China to eventually float its currency in the open market or expand the 3% trading range to help level the

increase in the yuan's value should allow Japan and other Asian nations to be more competitive relative to Chinese goods and see their respective currencies appreciate at the expense of a lower U.S. dollar. playing field. The eventual 3%-4%

Impact is global economic collapse and nuclear war with China The Guardian, 02 (2/11, lexis)

the west cannot afford to be complacent about what is happening in Japan, unless it intends to use the country as a test case to explore whether a full-scale depression is less painful now than it was 70 years ago. Action is needed, and quickly because this is an economy that could soak up some of the world's excess capacity if functioning properly. A strong Japan is not only essential for the long-term health of the global economy, it is also needed as a counter-weight to the growing power of China. A collapse in the Japanese economy, which looks ever more likely, would have profound ramifications; some experts believe it could even unleash a wave of extreme nationalism that would push the country into conflict with its bigger (and nuclear) neighbour. Even so,

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China Bashing Good - Steel Chinese currency undervaluation makes the collapse of the US steel industry inevitable Boselovic 04 (Lee, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/20, lexis) Even as they bask in prosperity, U.S. steel industry leaders are telling Congress they need help battening the hatches for the cyclical industry's next inevitable downturn.

allegations that the roaring Asian giant is manipulating its currency topped the list of concerns presented yesterday to members of the Congressional Steel Caucus. Other pressing issues include rising imports, pension and health care China's rapid economic growth and

costs, subsidies to foreign competitors and strengthening trade laws. ... for monitoring steel imports that President Bush promised in December when he lifted emergency tariffs on imported steel. The monitoring program would provide earlier notice of import surges and illegally traded steel, giving domestic producers more time to respond. Eve though U.S. Steel and others have seen profits soar, they have been critical of Bush for dragging his feet on monitoring, saying other countries use it and it is consistent with World Trade Organization regulations. "We've been consistently asking for that," Surma said. What to do about China, the world's largest steel producer, dominated the discussion. Rapid growth in that country is creating demand for steel, which resulting in steel prices rebounding sharply in recent months after languishing at 20-year lows. Industry officials complained about harm from China's refusal to peg the value of its currency to market rates rather than the U.S. dollar, which makes Chinese steel cheaper for U.S. customers.

at some time we'll be back in crisis because of what's happening in the world and what's happening in China," said United Steelworkers of America President Leo Gerard, describing China's economic system as a combination of "Rambo capitalism and totalitarianism. "The "I'm concerned that

administration has refused to take any action against China, " he said.

Weak steal industry collapses US econ and heg Shaiken 02 (Harly, prof @ cal, Detroit news, 3/22, http://www.detnews.com/2002/editorial/0203/25/a11-446451.htm)

an advanced industrial economy needs a vibrant steel industry

But because , not just a source of steel products, the U.S. steel industry needs some temporary resuscitation and long-term structural support to survive. More than 30 firms have gone bankrupt since 1998 -- and far more would likely have fallen over the edge without President George W. Bush's recent modest measures. The hard lesson of this debacle might well have been that it's easier to see an industry like steel implode than to rebuild it when it's needed. Why does America need a steel industry? Steel executives want to keep their companies afloat and the steelworkers union wants to preserve members' jobs. But beyond their immediate concerns, an important, long-term public interest is involved. First, steel provides critical linkages throughout manufacturing. A healthy steel industry can spur innovations in downstream industries such as autos. These industries would enjoy earlier access to new processes and products. U.S. steel firms, for example, are spearheading an international consortium on advanced vehicle concepts. It doesn't help that three of the largest U.S. firms involved are in bankruptcy. Second, steel remains an important source of well-paid, middle-class jobs. While more than 70,000 jobs are threatened at bankrupt steel producers, an additional 250,000 jobs at suppliers and firms

A collapsing steel industry cuts a wide swath of destruction through communities. Finally, a domestic industry provides more stable sources of supply, which is pivotal in a national security crisis. Steel is genuinely a strategic industry unless we are thinking about dependent on steelworker spending are impacted, according to Professor Robert Blecker at American University.

aluminum aircraft carriers and mahogany tanks.

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