2014 ndi 6ws-fitzmier, Lundberg, Abelkop Economy Disads Spending da



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Friendly business environment in the status quo—pro-business judicial system


Sherman 6/23 (Mark-polticial correspondent at Associated Press, “Supreme Court limits EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions”, PBS, Jun 23, 2014 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/supreme-court-limits-epas-authority-regulate-carbon-dioxide-emissions/)

The Supreme Court on Monday placed limits on the sole Obama administration program already in place to deal with power plant and factory emissions of gases blamed for global warming. The justices said that the Environmental Protection Agency lacks authority in some cases to force companies to evaluate ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This rule applies when a company needs a permit to expand facilities or build new ones that would increase overall pollution. Carbon dioxide is the chief gas linked to global warming. The decision does not affect EPA proposals for first-time national standards for new and existing power plants. The most recent proposal aims at a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but won’t take effect for at least another two years. The outcome also preserves EPA’s authority over facilities that already emit pollutants that the agency regulates other than greenhouse gases. EPA called the decision “a win for our efforts to reduce carbon pollution because it allows EPA, states and other permitting authorities to continue to require carbon pollution limits in permits for the largest pollution sources.” RELATED LINKS EPA plan critic argues cutting carbon emissions could fail if U.S. endeavors alone EPA chief defends price of White House plan to cut carbon emissions Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said “EPA is getting almost everything it wanted in this case.” Scalia said the agency wanted to regulate 86 percent of all greenhouse gases emitted from plants nationwide. The agency will be able to regulate 83 percent of the emissions under the ruling, Scalia said. The court voted 7-2 in this portion of the decision, with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas saying they would bar all regulation of greenhouse gases under the permitting program. EPA said that, as of late March, 166 permits have been issued by state and federal regulators since 2011. Permits have been issued to power plants, but also to plants that produce chemicals, cement, iron and steel, fertilizer, ceramics and ethanol. Oil refineries and municipal landfills also have obtained greenhouse gas permits since 2011, EPA said. Under Monday’s ruling, EPA can continue to require permits for greenhouse gas emissions for those facilities that already have to obtain permits because they emit other pollutants that EPA has long regulated. But Scalia, writing for the court’s conservatives in the part of the ruling in which the justices split 5-4, said EPA could not require a permit solely on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions. The program at issue is the first piece of EPA’s attempt to reduce carbon output from large sources of pollution. The utility industry, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 13 states led by Texas asked the court to rule that the EPA overstepped its authority by trying to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the permitting program. The administration failed to get climate change legislation through Congress. In 2012, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the EPA was “unambiguously correct” in using existing federal law to address global warming. The agency’s authority came from the high court’s 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which said the Clean Air Act gives EPA power to limit emissions of greenhouse gases from vehicles. Two years later, with Obama in office, the EPA concluded that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases endangered human health and welfare. The administration used that finding to extend its regulatory reach beyond automobiles and develop national standards for large stationary sources. Of those, electric plants are the largest source of emissions. When the Supreme Court considered the appeals in October, the justices declined requests to consider overruling the court’s 2007 decision, review the EPA’s conclusion about the health effects of greenhouse gas emissions or question limits on vehicle emissions.

Pro-business policies are key to the economy


Conrad 13 (Edward, Foreign Affairs writer, May 16th 2013, “Unleash the private sector,” http://www.aei.org/article/economics/unleash-the-private-sector/

For the U.S. economy to reach its full potential, Washington should return to the policies that drove economic growth over the past two decades: lower federal spending and less onerous government regulation. It is important not to conflate the causes of high unemployment and slow economic growth after the 2008 financial crisis with the policies that have underpinned the U.S. economy's long-term success. A major cause of U.S. economic sluggishness over the past few years is that the private sector now recognizes that there is an enormous risk of damage from bank runs -- a risk that it thought government guarantees had mitigated after the panic of 1929. To compensate for this risk, the economy has dialed back both investment and consumption. Growth has slowed, unemployment has risen, and bank deposits and other short-term savings now sit unused. Growth is unlikely to reach its full potential until policymakers lessen this newly found risk and the economy subsequently redeploys these unused resources. Although some argue that the government can stimulate demand in the short run by borrowing and spending idle savings, this policy is ultimately self-defeating. In the long run, deficit spending will permanently bloat the federal budget with additional interest expenses, and lawmakers will have to raise taxes to cover these costs. If they raise taxes on successful entrepreneurs, this will discourage the economic risk taking that produces innovation by socializing gains and privatizing losses. The costs of slower growth in the long run would overwhelm any benefits from fiscal stimulus in the short run. Although reducing government spending today might contract the U.S. economy in the immediate future, doing so is necessary to finally return the country to economic strength. The private sector will gradually fill the void, as the public sector retreats. Raising taxes in the interim, moreover, would only slow growth further. In order to recapture the United States' economic dynamism, President Barack Obama should reassert the prime objective of U.S. economic policy during the last four administrations: fostering private-sector investment. It was entrepreneurship, not government investment, that powered U.S. economic growth over the past two decades -- and if Washington grasps this fact, the same dynamic will likely continue well into the future


Economic collapse causes global wars that go nuclear


Aaron Friedberg, Professor of politics and international relations at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and Gabriel Schoenfeld, senior editor of Commentary, is a visiting scholar at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J, October 21st 2008, “The Dangers of a Diminished America,” http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122455074012352571?mod=googlenews_wsj&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB122455074012352571.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj

With the global financial system in serious trouble, is America's geostrategic dominance likely to diminish? If so, what would that mean? One immediate implication of the crisis that began on Wall Street and spread across the world is that the primary instruments of U.S. foreign policy will be crimped. The next president will face an entirely new and adverse fiscal position. Estimates of this year's federal budget deficit already show that it has jumped $237 billion from last year, to $407 billion. With families and businesses hurting, there will be calls for various and expensive domestic relief programs. In the face of this onrushing river of red ink, both Barack Obama and John McCain have been reluctant to lay out what portions of their programmatic wish list they might defer or delete. Only Joe Biden has suggested a possible reduction – foreign aid. This would be one of the few popular cuts, but in budgetary terms it is a mere grain of sand. Still, Sen. Biden's comment hints at where we may be headed: toward a major reduction in America's world role, and perhaps even a new era of financially-induced isolationism. Pressures to cut defense spending, and to dodge the cost of waging two wars, already intense before this crisis, are likely to mount. Despite the success of the surge, the war in Iraq remains deeply unpopular. Precipitous withdrawal – attractive to a sizable swath of the electorate before the financial implosion – might well become even more popular with annual war bills running in the hundreds of billions. Protectionist sentiments are sure to grow stronger as jobs disappear in the coming slowdown. Even before our current woes, calls to save jobs by restricting imports had begun to gather support among many Democrats and some Republicans. In a prolonged recession, gale-force winds of protectionism will blow. Then there are the dolorous consequences of a potential collapse of the world's financial architecture. For decades now, Americans have enjoyed the advantages of being at the center of that system. The worldwide use of the dollar, and the stability of our economy, among other things, made it easier for us to run huge budget deficits, as we counted on foreigners to pick up the tab by buying dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. Will this be possible in the future? Meanwhile, traditional foreign-policy challenges are multiplying. The threat from al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist affiliates has not been extinguished. Iran and North Korea are continuing on their bellicose paths, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are progressing smartly down the road to chaos. Russia's new militancy and China's seemingly relentless rise also give cause for concern. If America now tries to pull back from the world stage, it will leave a dangerous power vacuum. The stabilizing effects of our presence in Asia, our continuing commitment to Europe, and our position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy sources and supply lines could all be placed at risk. In such a scenario there are shades of the 1930s, when global trade and finance ground nearly to a halt, the peaceful democracies failed to cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of economic disaster exploited their divisions. Today we run the risk that rogue states may choose to become ever more reckless with their nuclear toys, just at our moment of maximum vulnerability. The aftershocks of the financial crisis will almost certainly rock our principal strategic competitors even harder than they will rock us. The dramatic free fall of the Russian stock market has demonstrated the fragility of a state whose economic performance hinges on high oil prices, now driven down by the global slowdown. China is perhaps even more fragile, its economic growth depending heavily on foreign investment and access to foreign markets. Both will now be constricted, inflicting economic pain and perhaps even sparking unrest in a country where political legitimacy rests on progress in the long march to prosperity. None of this is good news if the authoritarian leaders of these countries seek to divert attention from internal travails with external adventures. As for our democratic friends, the present crisis comes when many European nations are struggling to deal with decades of anemic growth, sclerotic governance and an impending demographic crisis. Despite its past dynamism, Japan faces similar challenges. India is still in the early stages of its emergence as a world economic and geopolitical power. What does this all mean? There is no substitute for America on the world stage. The choice we have before us is between the potentially disastrous effects of disengagement and the stiff price tag of continued American leadership.


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