Chicago Debate League 2013/14 Core Files
Plan-specific Link Turn: Cuban Ethanol [1/2] 329
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- Plan-specific Link Turn: Cuban Ethanol [2/2] 330
- Plan-specific Link Turn: Critical Immigration 331
Plan-specific Link Turn: Cuban Ethanol [1/2] 3291) Even if corn used to have political support, the current U.S. government does not listen to the corn lobby. SPECHT, 12 [Jonathan, Legal Advisor for Pearlmaker Holsteins, Inc. B; J.D., Washington University in St. Louis; “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and Environmental Effects on the United States,” 4/24, http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/36/2/specht.pdf] In the 2010 elections, however, corn-based ethanol suffered a dramatic reversal of its political fortunes. Neither the current Senate Majority Leader nor Senate Minority Leader is from a major (that is, top ten) corn producing state. While the Speaker of the House is from a major corn producing state, neither the House Majority Leader nor Minority Leader is from a state with significant corn production. Additionally, and perhaps much more significantly, the composition of the House Agriculture Committee changed in a number of ways with the 2010 election. In the 2010 election, the Democratic Party narrowly retained control of the U.S. Senate, while the Republican Party took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. While congressional party shifts are a routine occurrence in American politics, the 2010 elections were notable in two respects. They brought a large number of freshmen to the House of Representatives, as well as a large number of representatives who campaigned on platforms explicitly opposing government spending and government action in general. This shift in the larger House of Representatives was reflected in the change in composition of the House Agriculture Committee. Half of the members of the current committee — sixteen of the Republicans and seven of the Democrats — were new to the committee. Characterized by a desire to cut government spending wherever possible, these new committee members pushed for reductions in all forms of federal agricultural subsidies in debates over the 2012 Farm Bill. Their opposition prevented the House of Representatives from passing a final version of the Farm Bill before the end of 2012. Because of the U.S. budget deficit, it is certain that the next Farm Bill — a final version of which had not been agreed to by Congress as of January 2013 — will cut federal agricultural spending. The unanswered questions are which programs will be cut, and by how much. Plan-specific Link Turn: Cuban Ethanol [2/2] 3301) The powerful Farm Lobby supports ending the embargo because it opens up trade options. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 9 [Jennifer Gerz-Escandon, former professor of political science based in Atlanta, “End the US-Cuba embargo: It's a win-win,” 10/09, http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1009/p09s02-coop.html] Bringing an end to the decades-old US-Cuba embargo is no longer just a noble but hopeless idea. Conditions have changed to the point where restoring normal economic ties would make for smart policy – and savvy politics. Even as Cubans recover from hurricanes Gustav and Ike, their desire to end the embargo remains strong. In rejecting a modest initial offer of US aid on Sept. 4, Cuban President Raúl Castro called instead for the whole enchilada of normalized economic relations. The United States is equally resolute in its nearly 50-year-old opposition to the socialist dictatorship. As simply put by the CATO Institute, Washington's chief rationale for the embargo has been to "compel a democratic transformation" in Cuba. Yet common ground exists. In broad terms, both sides want national security and economic opportunity. Now is the time to pursue those shared interests. Mutually beneficial opportunities in three areas – agricultural trade, energy development, and immigration – could provide the foundation for a postembargo relationship. For years, US farmers have lobbied Congress – only somewhat successfully – to open Cuban markets, which are lucrative and feature low transportation costs. Both sides could realize benefits from greater liberalization: relaxed payment options for cash-strapped Cuba and the end of licenses and quotas for US farmers. Despite the embargo, the US is Cuba's largest supplier of food and its sixth-largest trading partner. Plan-specific Link Turn: Critical Immigration 331Immigration reform is no longer unpopular – Republicans know they need Hispanic support, and Obama does not have to spend political capital. HIRSCH, 13 [Michael, chief correspondent for National Journal; “There’s No Such Thing as Political Capital”, 5/30, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207] Meanwhile, the Republican members of the Senate’s so-called Gang of Eight are pushing hard for a new spirit of compromise on immigration reform, a sharp change after an election year in which the GOP standard-bearer declared he would make life so miserable for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. that they would “self-deport.” But this turnaround has very little to do with Obama’s personal influence—his political mandate, as it were. It has almost entirely to do with just two numbers: 71 and 27. That’s 71 percent for Obama, 27 percent for Mitt Romney, the breakdown of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 presidential election. Obama drove home his advantage by giving a speech on immigration reform on Jan. 29 at a Hispanic-dominated high school in Nevada, a swing state he won by a surprising 8 percentage points in November. But the movement on immigration has mainly come out of the Republican Party’s recent introspection, and the realization by its more thoughtful members, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, that without such a shift the party may be facing demographic death in a country where the 2010 census showed, for the first time, that white births have fallen into the minority. It’s got nothing to do with Obama’s political capital or, indeed, Obama at all. 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