Affirmative Evidence Packet
Highways Disadvantage Answers
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- 2AC Highways Disad Frontline 1/3
- NOT UNIQUE: Current investments are not coordinated and can hurt growth
- NOT UNIQUE: Infrastructure investment no longer contributes to US Hegemony
- NO LINK: US is not in decline
- NO LINK: The US will remain global leader
- NO INTERNAL LINK: Economic wealth does not determine global power
- TURN: Current formulas encourage highways and congestion rather than decreasing road use
- UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—NOT SPENDING ENOUGH NOW
- UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—SPENDING DOES NOT ENCOURAGE GROWTH
- UNIQUENESS—US INFRASTRUCTURE IS BAD NOW
- NO INTERNAL LINK—HIGHWAYS TO ECONOMY
- NO INTERNAL LINK TO HEGEMONY
- TURN EXTENSION—HIGHWAY INVESTMENT HURTS GROWTH
Highways Disadvantage AnswersThe Highways Disadvantage is a negative argument that says that investing in public transit leads to fewer vehicle miles travelled. With fewer vehicle miles travelled, there will be less revenue available for investing in highway infrastructure and repair. Infrastructure and repair of highways, it is argued, is critical for economic growth. Good and efficient roadways are necessary for the movement of goods and services, for the efficient movement of people to and from places of employment, and access to materials. By hurting the US economy, the disadvantage says, it will hurt the trade competitiveness of the United States in the global market place. There are several answers available to this argument. First, there are many arguments that say that highway infrastructure is already beginning to impact the economy so the disadvantage will occur with or without the plan. This argument says that the disadvantage is not unique. The second major argument is that the plan does not link to the disadvantage. That is, the plan does not cause the disadvantage to occur. These arguments say the United States has such a strong economy that it will never relinquish its role as a global leader. The third major argument is that the affirmative plan turns the argument. The principal reason is that it is good to decrease investment in highways because highway investments actually cause people to use the highways more meaning that the more you invest the greater the level of congestion. If the plan is effective, there will be actually fewer people using the highways. 2AC Highways Disad Frontline 1/3NOT UNIQUE: Infrastructure spending will inevitably declineEconomist, April 29, 2011, “America’s Transportation Infrastructure: Life in the Slow Lane” http://www.economist.com/node/18620944/print, p. 9 Mr Obama is thinking big. His 2012 budget proposal contains $556 billion for transport, to be spent over six years. But his administration has declined to explain where the money will come from. Without new funding, some Democratic leaders have warned, a new, six-year transport bill will have to trim annual highway spending by about a third to keep up with falling petrol-tax revenues. But Republicans are increasingly sceptical of any new infrastructure spending. Party leaders have taken to using inverted commas around the word “investment” when Democrats apply it to infrastructure. Roads, bridges and railways used to be neutral ground on which the parties could come together to support the country’s growth. But as politics has become more bitter, public works have been neglected. If the gridlock choking Washington finds its way to America’s statehouses too, then the American economy risks grinding to a standstill. NOT UNIQUE: Current investments are not coordinated and can hurt growthBill Bradley, Tom Ridge, David Walker, Carnegie Endowment, 2011 [Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s Transportation, 2011 http://carnegieendowment.org/files/road_to_recovery.pdf] Congress articulates very few requirements to ensure that projects funded with federal dollars are cost-effective or necessary or promote long-term economic growth. Authorizing legislation is limited to requirements related to fair wage rates, discrimination policies, and competitive contracting procedures. Contract authority— the authority granted to DOT to obligate federal funding for authorized projects before appropriations—increases the power of states to select projects with little federal oversight, especially because the federal transportation law declares that its provisions “shall in no way infringe on the sovereign rights of the states to determine which projects shall be federally financed.” Though this law gives states much-needed flexibility because of the wide range of different transportation needs from state to state, it largely gave away federal oversight. States are only expected to report to the federal government at the end of the project to arrange for reimbursement. This provides Congress with little assurance that federal funds are being effectively targeted toward projects of national and regional interest. Worse, delegating too much power to plan, prioritize, and build projects to individual states means that federal transportation programs are implemented state by state without continuity or regional vision, leading to uneven, and sometimes negative, outcomes. NOT UNIQUE: Infrastructure investment no longer contributes to US HegemonyErnst Frankel, Professor Emeritus, Engineering, MIT, October 2007 [http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/201/frankel.html] Physical infrastructure, once the pride of America and a major contributor to its economic and social growth and success, has in recent years become an acute embarrassment to this nation. Infrastructure failures, ineffectiveness, and the inability to properly plan, construct, manage, and maintain it now pose an acute challenge to America’s claims of economic, social, environmental, and technological leadership. NO LINK: US is not in declineMichael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012[International Security Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78] For a theory to be useful, significant changes in the key independent variables should produce noticeable changes in the dependent variable. Over the last twenty years, globalization and U.S. hegemony have expanded significantly. 76 If the United States has not declined relative to China during this period, then declinism has failed a critical test and should be regarded as suspect. 2AC Highways Disad Frontline 2/3 NO LINK: The US will remain global leaderMichael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012 [International Security Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78] Compared to developing countries such as China, the United States is primed for technological absorption. Its property rights, social networks, capital markets, flexible labor laws, and legions of multinational companies not only help it innovate, but also absorb innovations created elsewhere. Declinists liken the U.S. economic system to a leaky bucket oozing innovations out into the international system. But in the alternative perspective, the United States is more like a sponge, steadily increasing its mass by soaking up ideas, technology, and people from the rest of the world. If this is the case, then the spread of technology around the globe may paradoxically favor a concentration of technological and military capabilities in the United States. NO INTERNAL LINK: Economic wealth does not determine global powerMichael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012 [International Security Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78] It is, however, important to recognize that GDP is not synonymous with national power, and that countries with larger economies do not necessarily have more resources at their disposal. Half a billion peasants will produce a large volume of output, but most of it will be immediately consumed, leaving little left over for national purposes. As Klaus Knorr argued, what matters for national power is not wealth, but “surplus wealth.” It is therefore significant that the average Chinese citizen is more than $17,000 poorer relative to the average American than he was in 1991. NO IMPACT: The US will continue to exert power Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012 [International Security Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78] To be sure, the costs of maintaining U.S. military superiority are substantial. By historical standards, however, they are exceptionally small. 41 Past hegemons succumbed to imperial overstretch after fighting multifront wars against major powers and spending more than 10 percent (and often 100 or 200 percent) of their GDPs on defense. 42 The United States, by contrast, spends 4 percent of its GDP on defense and concentrates its enmity on rogue nations and failed states. Past bids for global mastery were strangled before hegemony could be fully consolidated. The United States, on the other hand, has the advantage of being an extant hegemon—it did not overturn an existing international order; rather, the existing order collapsed around it. As a result, its dominant position is entrenched to the point that “any effort to compete directly with the United States is futile, so no one tries.” TURN: Current formulas encourage highways and congestion rather than decreasing road useEconomist, April 29, 2011, “America’s Transportation Infrastructure: Life in the Slow Lane” http://www.economist.com/node/18620944/print p. 6The federal government is responsible for only a quarter of total transport spending, but the way it allocates funding shapes the way things are done at the state and local levels. Unfortunately, it tends not to reward the prudent, thanks to formulas that govern over 70% of federal investment. Petrol-tax revenues, for instance, are returned to the states according to the miles of highway they contain, the distances their residents drive, and the fuel they burn. The system is awash with perverse incentives. A state using road-pricing to limit travel and congestion would be punished for its efforts with reduced funding, whereas one that built highways it could not afford to maintain would receive a larger allocation. 2AC Highways Disad Frontline 3/3 TURN: Failure to invest in public transit threatens the economy and national security Transportation for America, 2009, Platform for the National Transportation Authorization Program p. 10 The combination of growth in the size of the program, the setting of minimum guarantees or funding floors, and retention of most decision making within state DOTs has caused the federal transportation program to resemble a blank check or project “ATM.” The lack of a clear statement of national objectives and the lack of accountability for use of funds (or for the impacts of decision making) has created a strategic policy vacuum. In this policy vacuum, states have thrown increasingly vast sums of money at highway and freeway expansion projects in a quixotic pursuit of “congestion alleviation” – a pursuit that has served primarily to accelerate a national expansion of suburban and exurban low density development. This has also set the stage for rampant Congressional “earmarking” – specific listing of projects in the authorization legislation (5,000 projects in SAFETEA-LU). The increasingly errant nature of the federal transportation program has had profound effects on the national economy, public health and the quality of life in our communities. Our near total reliance on petroleum for transportation energy and our out-sized contribution to worldwide greenhouse gases imperil our national security, our economy, and our way of life. We have lost the ability to walk or bicycle safely and conveniently in an ever larger portion of the American landscape with tragic consequences for the health of our population and especially our children. The federal subsidization of low density exurban development has helped create extensive low-density, semi-urban landscapes where homeowners in search of low-cost mortgages endure exhausting drive-alone commutes and household budget problems. Although we are the world’s wealthiest nation, we have a second tier urban transit system and no intercity high speed rail network. NO CHINA IMPACT: Effects of Chinese infrastructure are greatly exaggerated Robinson O’Brien-Bours, Ashbrook Scholar Program, 2011 [http://nlt.ashbrook.org/2011/04/exaggeration-of-chinese-ascendancy.php] Second, projections of China's rising power are grossly exaggerated. Overlooking the massive fact that hundreds of millions of Chinese still live in feudal poverty, their economy is built on severely unstable foundations. Eager to increase their power, wealth, and prestige, the Communists have cut all sorts of corners to inflate their economy and over-invested in property and infrastructure. Take, for example, this episode concerning China's poor investment in high-speed rail (something to note from those in the United States who lament our lack of high-speed rail in relation to our Eastern friends): highlighting the corruption and shortsightedness of the Communist Party, the Chinese have invested $300 billion in an intricate high-speed rail line. The New York Times and President Obama gushed over the Chinese investments in airports, electric cars, and bullet trains, citing them as an example for America to follow. The problem? No one is riding the trains and the airports are empty. The government is $270 billion in debt over the bullet train investment, and they have had to lower the speed of the trains by 30 MPH due to safety concerns that came up because of how haphazardly this was done. It is a train wreck that they will never be able to pay for (note to those supportive of Obama's investment in high-speed rail: Japan and Thailand saw their trains bankrupted too after investing in it). UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—NOT SPENDING ENOUGH NOWNot enough money for Highway Spending Now Bradley, et al. 2011. Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s Transportation Infrastructure. (Bill Bradley—former US Senator, Currently Managing Director Allan and Company; Thomas J. Ridge—Former Pennsylvania Governor and Secretary of Homeland Security, Currently CEO of Ridge Global; David M. Walker, former US Comptroller General and Current CEO of Comeback America Initiative) Carnegie Endowment for International Peace p. 15-16 The Congressional Budget Office periodically releases projections of the HTF’s solvency; the HTF is drawn down as payments (outlays) are made to states as after-the-fact reimbursements for work completed. In the office’s spring FY 2009 baseline calculation, the Highway Account had outlays of $35 billion for FY 2007 against receipts of $34.3 billion. In FY 2008, outlays of $37 billion were matched with only $31.3 billion in receipts, not including an injection of $8 billion into the HTF from Treasury general funds.7 The HTF had a balance of $7.8 billion in February 2011 (figure 1.1).8 How did the nation get on this costly path? Americans are driving more and paying less, leaving the United States in uncharted territory. In 1956, America committed to build the Interstate Highway System, the largest public works project in history with a dedicated source of funding. For half a century, the federal gas tax generated enough revenue to completely fund the HTF, which comprises two separate accounts, one for highways and one for mass transit.9 During the past three years, however, there have been billions of dollars in transfers from the general fund to the HTF. The federal government’s spending on transportation has outpaced its ability to generate revenue from existing sources, including the federal gas tax. Current spending is too small for highways National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, 2009, Paying Our Way: A New Framework for Transportation Finance, Final Report of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, February 2009 p. 3-4 The federal government does not bear sole responsibility for the current crisis. All levels of government are failing to keep pace with the demand for transportation investment. Increasingly, policy makers at all levels must use existing revenues simply to attempt to keep pace with the preservation and maintenance of an aging system, leaving few or no resources for vitally needed new capacity and improvements to the system. An ever-expanding backlog of investment needs is the price of our failure to maintain funding levels—and the cost of these investments grows as we delay. Without changes to current policy, it is estimated that revenues raised by all levels of government for capital investment will total only about one-third of the roughly $200 billion necessary each year to maintain and improve the nation’s highways and transit systems. (See Exhibit ES–1.) At the federal level, the investment gap is of a similar magnitude, with long-term annual average Highway Trust Fund (HTF) revenues estimated to be only $32 billion compared with required investments of nearly $100 billion per year. (See Exhibit ES–2.)4 Meanwhile, the federal Highway Trust Fund faces a near-term insolvency crisis, exacerbated by recent reductions in federal motor fuel tax revenues and truck–related user fee receipts. This problem will only worsen until Congress addresses the fundamental fact that current HTF revenues are inadequate to support current federal program spending levels. Comparing estimates of surface transportation investment needs with baseline revenue projections developed by the Commission shows a federal highway and transit funding gap that totals nearly $400 billion in 2010-15 and grows dramatically to about $2.3 trillion through 2035. (See Exhibit ES–3.) UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—NOT SPENDING ENOUGH NOW Highway maintenance costs are higher than current revenue. The plan cannot make it worse. Economist, April 29, 2011, “America’s Transportation Infrastructure: Life in the Slow Lane” http://www.economist.com/node/18620944/print p. 5 The Congressional Budget Office estimates that America needs to spend $20 billion more a year just to maintain its infrastructure at the present, inadequate, levels. Up to $80 billion a year in additional spending could be spent on projects which would show positive economic returns. Other reports go further. In 2005 Congress established the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. In 2008 the commission reckoned that America needed at least $255 billion per year in transport spending over the next half-century to keep the system in good repair and make the needed upgrades. Current spending falls 60% short of that amount. If they had a little money… If Washington is spending less than it should, falling tax revenues are partly to blame. Revenue from taxes on petrol and diesel flow into trust funds that are the primary source of federal money for roads and mass transit. That flow has diminished to a drip. America’s petrol tax is low by international standards, and has not gone up since 1993 (see chart 3). While the real value of the tax has eroded, the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure has gone up. As a result, the highway trust fund no longer supports even current spending. Congress has repeatedly been forced to top up the trust fund, with $30 billion since 2008. Federal Infrastructure Spending is declining Center for American Progress February 2012 [Meeting the Infrastructure Imperative, (Donna Cooper), Doing what Works http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/02/pdf/infrastructure.pdf] The federal government budget authority for 2010 was $3.48 trillion. In that year, we devoted a relatively small amount of federal appropriations toward maintaining and improving our critical public infrastructure assets. In fact, total federal infrastructure appropriations for direct grants, loans, and tax incentives were $92 billion in 2010, a mere 2.6 percent of all federal expenditures. Moreover, overall U.S. investment in transportation and water infrastructure in 2010 was 6.2 percent less in real dollars (after accounting for inflation) than the federal government spent for infrastructure in 2000. US infrastructure spending is among lowest of industrial nations Matthew Slaughter, Professor, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth, 2011 [Building Competitiveness, Organization of International Investment, April 12, http://www.ofii.org/news-room/ofii-press-releases/976-ofii-kicks-off-infrastructure- campaign-to-build-.html] America’s infrastructure crisis contrasts starkly with the dramatic infrastructure improvements being made in so many other countries. America today spends approximately 2% of GDP on infrastructure (federal, state, local, and private-sector spending). This amount is down 50% from U.S. levels in the 1960s, and it is low compared to many other major countries. Comparable infrastructure-spending shares today are about 5% in Europe and 9% in China. The OECD recently forecast that now through 2030, world infrastructure spending will average 3.5% of GDP per year, about $71 trillion in all. Should these projected rates be realized, then America’s current infrastructure spending will lag dozens of countries for another generation. UNIQUENESS EXTENSIONS—SPENDING DOES NOT ENCOURAGE GROWTHCurrent spending does not encourage growth. Too much politics involved. Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf] This brief review of the political context in which national transportation programs have evolved demonstrates that despite frequent assertions that highways promote economic growth there actually has never been a clearly articulated national policy to pursue highway investments that do foster economic growth. Reform is unlikely Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum and Martin Wachs, Senior Researcher, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Strengthening Connections Between Transportation Investments and Economic Growth, National Transportation Policy Project, January 21, 2011] A sense of urgency remains regarding the need to provide direction for both short-term spending and longer-term transportation policy reform, yet there is great uncertainty as to how these issues will evolve over the coming months. Just as there is growing pressure to expand and increase spending on transportation infrastructure to both contribute to economic recovery and deliver lasting economic returns, prospects for enacting the kinds of comprehensive policy reforms needed to realize those ambitious objectives are looking more doubtful. Current process prevents investment from improving the economy Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf] The processes by which federal funds are disbursed suggest one of the main weaknesses of national transportation policy and are symptomatic of how federal highway investments may be only loosely linked to ensuring large economic benefits. Programs and formulas have become complex and change substantially from one transportation bill to the next. Although programs proliferated to create balanced attention to many competing interests, the current mix of programs constitutes “stovepipes” that stymie innovation and prevent rational, integrated, comprehensive planning. That is, although a region may need a mix of maintenance, public transit, and highway investments, these federal programs are funded separately using different formulas, and decision-making is dominated by cleverly navigating the funding structures rather than by adhering to logical regional or metropolitan plans. The proliferation of programs and the stove-piping make it difficult to fashion investments that clearly meet any federal transportation goals, let alone increasing national economic performance. UNIQUENESS—US INFRASTRUCTURE IS BAD NOWUS infrastructure is only 24th in the world Center for American Progress February 2012 [Meeting the Infrastructure Imperative, (Donna Cooper), Doing what Works http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/02/pdf/infrastructure.pdf] This decline is impeding our economic competitiveness. The United States now ranks 24th on key global indicators for infrastructure quality among 142 nations, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report for FY 2011-12, down from No. 8 in FY 2005-06. Poor infrastructure is already discouraging international investment in US Matthew Slaughter, Professor, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth, 2011 [Building Competitiveness, Organization of International Investment, April 12, http://www.ofii.org/news-room/ofii-press-releases/976-ofii-kicks-off-infrastructure- campaign-to-build-.html] America’s infrastructure crisis is threatening America’s global competitiveness because it is eroding the country’s ability to attract and retain dynamic global companies that create high-productivity, high-wage jobs. America’s ability to meet the infrastructure needs of dynamic global companies increasingly lags the ability of many other countries—in contrast to much of 20th century, when America’s infrastructure was a strong pull attracting these companies. In the United States, global companies have long been among America’s most innovative. The U.S. subsidiaries of global companies, in particular, have long created and sustained high-paying American jobs based on substantial investments in ideas, capital, and exporting—much of which is based on lessons learned around the world. NO LINK--EXTENSIONSThe US is poised to have a strong impact in new technologies Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012[International Security Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78] Technological leaders sometimes rest on their laurels and abandon innovative efforts in favor of “finding new markets for old products.” The United States, however, looks set to excel in emerging high-technology industries. It has more nanotechnology centers than the next three nations combined (Germany, the United Kingdom, and China) and accounts for 43 percent of the world’s nanotechnology patent applications. In biotechnology, the United States accounts for 41.5 percent of patent applications (China accounts for 1.6 percent) and 76 percent of global revenues. The United States accounts for 20 to 25 percent of all patent applications for renewable energy, air pollution, water pollution, and waste management technologies; China accounts for 1 to 4 percent of the patent applications in these areas. Strong Manufacturing keeps America strong. Marketwatch December 1, 2011 [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/whos-got-best-growth-oddly-its-the-us-2011- 12-01] America’s economy isn’t doing great, but it’s better than the rest of the world’s. That’s the conclusion to be drawn from the monthly surveys of manufacturing firms across the globe that were released on Thursday. Almost everywhere, manufacturing activity is gearing down. Europe is likely in a recession already. China’s output is falling. Other big emerging economies are still growing, but at a slower pace. The one big exception? The United States, where manufacturing executives reported a modest acceleration in production and new orders in November. The U.S. ISM index rose to 52.7% in November, the highest since June. On the other hand, the global manufacturing purchasing managers index fell to 49.6% in November, the third straight month of contraction (below 50%), according to financial information firm Markit, which tracks some 7,500 manufacturing firms in 28 countries, accounting for 86% of global output. “The rate of contraction in output would have been more substantial had it not been for growth in the U.S. accelerating sharply to a seven-month peak,” Markit said. “Outside the U.S., production fell at the steepest pace for over two-and-a-half years.” US remains a strong economic power. Our plan will not have a substantial impact on this. Robert Lieber, Professor International Affairs, Georgetown, May 14, 2012 [Salon.Com http://www.salon.com/2012/05/14/is_american_decline_real/] Certainly the domestic situation is more difficult now than two decades ago. Yet while these problems should not be minimized, they should not be overstated either. Contrary to what many observers would assume, the United States has managed to hold its own in globalized economic competition and its strengths remain broad and deep. For the past several decades, its share of global output has been relatively constant at between one-quarter and one-fifth of world output. According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 1980, the United States accounted for 26.0 percent of world GDP, and in 2011, 21.5 percent. These figures are based on GDP in national currency. Alternative calculations using purchasing power parities are somewhat less favorable, but still show the United States with 19.1 percent in 2011, as contrasted with 24.6 percent in 1980. Moreover, America benefits from a growing population and one that is aging more slowly than all its possible competitors except India. And despite a dysfunctional immigration system, it continues to be a magnet for talented and ambitious immigrants. It is a world leader in science and in its system of research universities and higher education, and it has the advantage of continental scale and resources. In short, the United States remains the one country in the world that is both big and rich. NO INTERNAL LINK—HIGHWAYS TO ECONOMYHighway infrastructure spending does not impact economy Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011[Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf] We separately reviewed papers that studied highway infrastructure at the national level, the state level, and the substate level and in other countries. Studies of highway infrastructure at the national level tended to find high rates of return and strong productivity effects, at least in the initial building phase of the national highway system. One way this was manifested was through lower costs to industries, especially those that most heavily used the highway network. Likewise, some of the research at the state level found positive effects of highways, or broader measures of public capital, on a variety of economic outcomes. However, these effects tended to be lower than those of private capital investment when the two were compared. In addition, some papers found no effect. Although some research identified positive effects of infrastructure in one state on the economy of neighboring states, more identified zero or even negative effects. Taken together, this evidence is consistent with the idea that some highway infrastructure investment can lead to positive productivity or output outcomes. However, there is a possibility that such investment can have negative effects on neighboring states. New highways will have smaller impact than initial build ones. Historical examples are irrelevant. Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011[Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf] Further evidence of an industry-level productivity benefit can be seen among Class I trucking firms—the largest trucking firms in the United States (Keeler and Ying, 1988). Changes in the real capital stock of the federal-aid highway system between 1950 and 1973 dramatically lowered trucking costs. Without those improvements, costs in 1973 would have been 19 percent higher than they actually were. The value of these cost- saving benefits equaled between 33 percent and 44 percent of total federal-aid highway system capital costs. Interestingly, a related analysis found that highway capital investment between 1966 and 1983 did not decrease trucking costs in 12 larger interregional trucking firms, which suggests in part that new investments in the interstate system had smaller effects as the system was built out (Keeler, 1986). Infrastructure is not the key to the economy Edward Glaeser, Economics Professor, Harvard, 2.13.12 [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-14/spending-won-t-fix-what-ails-u-s- transport-commentary-by-edward-glaeser.html] The spate of bridge and rail construction in China taps into American insecurities and leads many to wonder whether we are falling behind because we aren’t building more. Politicians understand the magical promise of bold new projects, like superfast trains across California or missions to space, but that promise can be false. Spain’s current fiscal woes owe much to its overly ambitious high-speed rail investments. Similar rail projects in China have produced more allegations of corruption and safety problems than economic transformation. NO INTERNAL LINK TO HEGEMONYEconomic Size does not matter Michael Beckley, research fellow, Harvard, International Security Program, 2012 [International Security Winter 2011/12, Vol 36 pp. 41-78] The case for the decline of the United States and the rise of China rests heavily on a single statistic: GDP. Over the last twenty years, China’s GDP has risen relative to the United States’ in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), though it has declined in real terms. Regardless of which measure is used, however, most projections have China overtaking the United States as the world’s largest economy before 2050, and some as early as 2015. Economic size, however, does not necessarily make China a contender for superpower status. After all, China was the largest economy in the world throughout most of its “century of humiliation,” when it was ripped apart by Western powers and Japan. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, ruled a quarter of the globe for more than a century, but was never, even at its peak, the largest economy in the world. Britain’s GDP was far smaller than China’s and India’s for all of the eighteenth century and much of the nineteenth century. Britain, however, was able to establish imperial control over India and to defeat China militarily, imposing unequal treaties on Beijing, acquiring Hong Kong and various other concessions, and establishing a sphere of influence in East Asia. This dominance stemmed not from the absolute size of Britain’s economy, but from its superior level of economic development, measured in terms of per capita income, which was the highest in the world and several times higher than China’s and India’s at the time. Wealth is not global power Alexander Vuving, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, April 4, 2012 [ssrn-id2035188.pdf, “What is China Rising to? Assessing China’s and America’s Primacy Potentials] These common premises all commit what can be called the “impressionistic fallacy.” The first is over impressed by the power of aggregate wealth, thus equating economic heft with strategic leadership despite the fact that the two are not only conceptually distinct but also practically distant. History provides ample evidence demonstrating this fact, most prominently in the century leading up to World War II. By 1900, Britain was overtaken by the United States as the world’s largest industrial economy, and by 1913 it was surpassed by Germany in terms of total manufacturing production, but Britain retained its leading role in the world economy and its strategic primacy in the international system well into the 1920s (Kennedy, 1987). More illustrious is the case of Germany, which in the course of the first half of the 20th century twice attempted to translate its economic superiority in Europe into a position of strategic supremacy, only to be defeated by Britain and its allies. Wealth does not create great powers Alexander Vuving, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, April 4, 2012 [ssrn-id2035188.pdf, “What is China Rising to? Assessing China’s and America’s PrimacyPotentials] Any assessment of a state’s prospects for strategic supremacy that is based solely on aggregate wealth or even a combination of wealth and productivity (or innovation, for that matter) is blind to a critical part of what makes a great power. As the historical example of Britain has implied, this critical part is the ability of a power to partner, coalesce, and ally with other, consequential players in the international arena. NO INTERNAL LINK TO HEGEMONY Economic might does not increase influence Richard Maher, PhD. candidate, Brown University, ORBIS, March 2011 [ORBIS, Winter 2011 Volume 55, Issue 1 p. 54 ] And yet, despite this material preeminence, the United States sees its political and strategic influence diminishing around the world. It is involved in two costly and destructive wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, where success has been elusive and the end remains out of sight. China has adopted a new assertiveness recently, on everything from U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, currency convertibility, and America’s growing debt (which China largely finances). Pakistan, one of America’s closest strategic allies, is facing the threat of social and political collapse. Russia is using its vast energy resources to reassert its dominance in what it views as its historical sphere of influence. Negotiations with North Korea and Iran have gone nowhere in dismantling their nuclear programs. Brazil’s growing economic and political influence offer another option for partnership and investment for countries in the Western Hemisphere. And relations with Japan, following the election that brought the opposition Democratic Party into power, are at their frostiest in decades. To many observers, it seems that America’s vast power is not translating into America’s preferred outcomes. As the United States has come to learn, raw power does not automatically translate into the realization of one’s preferences, nor is it necessarily easy to maintain one’s predominant position in world politics. Historical examples do not apply to US currently Robert Lieber, Professor International Affairs, Georgetown, May 14, 2012 [Salon.Com http://www.salon.com/2012/05/14/is_american_decline_real/] The declinist proposition that America’s international primacy is collapsing as a result of the rise of other countries should also be regarded with caution. On the one hand, the United States does face a more competitive world, regional challenges, and some attrition of its relative degree of primacy. This process, or diffusion of power, is not exclusive to the post–Cold War era, but began at least four decades ago with the recovery of Europe and Japan from World War II, the rise of the Soviet Union to superpower status, and the emergence of regional powers in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. Still, in contrast to other great powers that have experienced decline, the United States has held a substantially more dominant position. For example, Britain at the start of the twentieth century was already falling behind Germany and the United States, although it did manage to continue for half a century as head of a vast empire and commonwealth. NO IMPACT ExtensionsThe US has world’s strongest military Richard Maher, PhD. candidate, Brown University, ORBIS, March 2011 [ORBIS, Winter 2011 Volume 55, Issue 1 p. 54 ] The United States today accounts for approximately 25 percent of global economic output, a figure that has held relatively stable despite steadily increasing economic growth in China, India, Brazil, and other countries. Among the group of six or seven great powers, this figure approaches 50 percent. When one takes discretionary spending into account, the United States today spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. This imbalance is even further magnified by the fact that five of the next seven biggest spenders are close U.S. allies. China, the country often seen as America’s next great geopolitical rival, has a defense budget that is one- seventh of what the United States spends on its military. There is also a vast gap in terms of the reach and sophistication of advanced weapons systems. By some measures, the United States spends more on research and development for its military than the rest of the world combined. What is remarkable is that the United States can do all of this without completely breaking the bank. The United States today devotes approximately 4 percent of GDP to defense. As a percentage of GDP, the United States today spends far less on its military than it did during the Cold War, when defense spending hovered around 10 percent of gross economic output. As one would expect, the United States today enjoys unquestioned preeminence in the military realm. No other state comes close to having the capability to project military power like the United States. NO CHINA IMPACTInfrastructure investment will hurt China’s economy Robinson O’Brien-Bours, Ashbrook Scholar Program, 2011 [http://nlt.ashbrook.org/2011/04/exaggeration-of-chinese-ascendancy.php] Like their investment in trains, China's economy will soon wreck as well. Their excessive investment in unused infrastructure, the bureaucratic corruption of their government and businesses, and the abject poverty that 95% of their population lives in will lead to a collapse. It's a paper tiger dangling over a flame. At any rate, hopefully their growing middle class and increased access to sources of non-censored information will lead to political reform in the country. In the meantime, American politicians should stop looking at the Chinese as a model for anything (especially infrastructure investments) and pundits should stop decrying the decline of the United States before an ascendant China. They have a long, long way to go. China’s investments will hurt their economy Nouriel Roubini, professor NYU School of Business, April 14, 2011 [Project Syndicate, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-s-bad- growth-bet] In the short run, the investment boom will fuel inflation, owing to the highly resource- intensive character of growth. But overcapacity will lead inevitably to serious deflationary pressures, starting with the manufacturing and real-estate sectors. Eventually, most likely after 2013, China will suffer a hard landing. All historical episodes of excessive investment – including East Asia in the 1990’s – have ended with a financial crisis and/or a long period of slow growth. To avoid this fate, China needs to save less, reduce fixed investment, cut net exports as a share of GDP, and boost the share of consumption. The trouble is that the reasons the Chinese save so much and consume so little are structural. It will take two decades of reforms to change the incentive to overinvest. Too much infrastructure will reverse growth Nouriel Roubini, professor NYU School of Business, April 14, 2011 [Project Syndicate, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-s-bad- growth-bet] Continuing down the investment-led growth path will exacerbate the visible glut of capacity in manufacturing, real estate, and infrastructure, and thus will intensify the coming economic slowdown once further fixed-investment growth becomes impossible. Until the change of political leadership in 2012-2013, China’s policymakers may be able to maintain high growth rates, but at a very high foreseeable cost. No China Impact Chinese growth does not compete with US growth Robinson O’Brien-Bours, Ashbrook Scholar Program, 2011[http://nlt.ashbrook.org/2011/04/exaggeration-of-chinese-ascendancy.php] First of all, people who lament the rise of other economies around the globe in relation to our own begin with the flawed perception that there is a finite source of wealth in the world and that as others get richer, we get poorer. This is absolutely not true; just because the once-called "Third World" is rapidly gaining on us in economic progress does not mean that we must begin to decline as a result. Yes, it changes the way that markets and economies operate and require some readjustment, but the idea that just because China is rising economically that we are going to be worse-off is ridiculous. Chinese Economic strength does not make them a global threat Ian Clark, professor of international politics, Aberystwyth Univ. January 2011 [International Affairs, Vol. 87. Issue 1, p. 28] Future projections of material power, in any event, have been notoriously unreliable, as previous predictions of the decline of the United States in the 1970s and 1980s amply demonstrated. Similarly, projections of China’s future role, based on simple extrapolations from its current rate of economic growth, are bound to deceive. Above all, China faces a complex array of severe domestic problems that will dominate its policy priorities for many decades to come, and it is wholly speculative to assess the nature of its likely international contributions beyond those concerns. Chinese growth projections are exaggerated Joseph Nye, professor Harvard University, October 2010 [The Washington Quarterly, Volume 33, Number 4, October 2010, p. 150] Such projections should be viewed with some skepticism. China still lags far behind the United States economically and militarily, and has focused its policies primarily on its region and on its economic development. Even if China’s GDP passes that of the United States around 2027 (as Goldman Sachs projects) the two economies would technically be equivalent in size but not in composition. China would still have a vast underdeveloped countryside, and it will begin to face demographic problems from the delayed effects of the one child per couple policy it enforced in the twentieth century. TURN EXTENSION—HIGHWAY INVESTMENT HURTS GROWTHTURN: New highway investment only encourages congestion turning the disad. Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf] A separate analysis of gross public investment in roads, much of which was dedicated to the interstate highway system, found that investment in roads contributed about 1.4 percent per year to U.S. growth before 1973 and had above-average rates of return, but it contributed only about 0.4 percent per year after 1973 (Fernald, 1999). It also increased total factor productivity—the increase in output above the total increase in inputs—before 1973 but not after. After 1973, congestion became a much more important factor and had a negative effect on national productivity. The changes in productivity were larger for those industries that used vehicles more intensively, so that the system changed the relative productivity among U.S. industry sectors. TURN: Infrastructure investment can hurt growth Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.pdf] These economic outcomes may be gross or net because of the way transportation infrastructure could reallocate economic activity. For example, new infrastructure may attract economic activity, resulting in gross positive economic effects to the geographic area where the new infrastructure was built. However, if all of that activity merely relocated from other areas, then those other areas would experience gross economic losses and the net effect could be positive, zero, or even negative. Accounting for such gross versus net economic effects has been a notable point of contention in the literature analyzing highway infrastructure and the economy. NO THRESHHOLDAdditions will not impact the economy to the same degree as it did when built Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.p df] There is some debate as to whether continued building of the interstate system could have had the same positive effects on the economy in later years as it did in early years. As noted above, Aschauer (1989) suggested that a slowdown in a broad measure of public investment was one cause of a large slowdown in U.S. productivity growth starting in the 1970s. In contrast, focusing more specifically on highways from 1953 to 1989, Fernald (1999) noted that investment in highways after 1973 produced a zero or normal rate of return—and therefore would not have large productivity effects— and that additions to an existing network could not have the same productivity effects as creating the network in the first place. The impact of highway investment declines overtime. Howard Shatz, RAND Corporation, 2011 [Highway Infrastructure and the Economy: Implications for Federal Policy, 2011 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1049.p df] Considering the U.S. economy as a whole, Nadiri and Mamuneas (1996) found that highway capital led to decreases in production costs and increases in output and had a net rate of return above that of private capital for much of the 40 years from 1950 to 1989. However, this rate of return declined steadily, consistent with the economic effects of building out the U.S. road network, until in the decade of the 1980s it fell below that of private capital.7 Finally, they found that highway capital accounted for about 25 percent of average annual U.S. productivity growth from 1950 to 1989, with most of this contribution coming from the NLS highways. Consistent with the gradual completion of the interstate highway system, they found that highway capital accounted for 32 percent of annual productivity growth from 1952 to 1963, 25 percent from 1964 to 1972, 23 percent from 1973 to 1979, and only 7 percent from 1980 to 1989. 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