**Mass Transit 1ac 1ac – economy advantage
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- States Spending Disad
- States don’t have the resources to fund mass transit changes
- This will collapse the economy – federal spending is key
A2 States – Perm SolvesStates fail – the permutation is bestCorless, 12 - Campaign Director, Transportation for America (James, “Local Voters Need a Partner,” National Journal’s Experts Blog, 5/23, http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/not-waiting-for-the-feds.php#comments) Absent strong federal leadership, states, cities and local communities are indeed stepping out on their own, raising funds from innovative sources, and doing what they can to make it happen. But left to shoulder the burden entirely alone, these communities’ noble efforts won’t be enough to meet the challenges we’re facing. These communities are stepping forward, but in the hopes that the federal government will take the next step with them and support them along the way. The role for the federal government in transportation is indeed changing, evolving from being the driving factor that it was during the interstate era to being more of a partner in helping localities meet their changing needs. And their needs are a national concern, because they bear on whether Americans have a safe, reliable way to get to work, and whether goods can get to market. No developed nation in the world leaves these matters of basic infrastructure entirely to chance. But there seems little doubt that, for the foreseeable future, federal resources will be constrained, and that makes it more imperative than ever that we set goals for the investment, and measure progress toward those goals. That’s why provisions to do that in the Senate’s bipartisan transportation bill, MAP-21 bill are so important. It’s time we figure out what matters most, and what will get the best bang for the buck. Local communities raising money for transportation are following a tried-and-true blueprint that rewards accountability and specificity: When they know what transportation dollars are going to buy — this new transit line, that new busway, this new bridge project — and who is accountable for implementation, measures to fund those projects pass close to 70 percent of the time. Such was the case with the transit-funding Measure R in Los Angeles, which earned a two-thirds majority vote. Having passed the tax, Los Angeles is now seeking federal help with low-cost loans that can build 30 years worth of projects in 10. Local bootstraps are great for getting off the ground, but they only get you so far up the ladder if the federal rung is missing. States Spending DisadState budget shortfalls will cause spending cutsMcNichol, 12 - Senior Fellow specializing in state fiscal issues including the economy’s impact on state budgets and long-term structural reform of state budget and tax systems at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (Elizabeth, “States Continue to Feel Recession’s Impact,” 5/24, http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711) State budget estimates for the upcoming fiscal year continue to show that states face a long and uncertain recovery. For fiscal year 2013, the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2012, 30 states have addressed or have projected shortfalls totaling $54 billion. The Great Recession that started in 2007 caused the largest collapse in state revenues on record. Since bottoming out in 2010, revenues have begun to grow again, but states are still far from fully recovered. As of the fourth quarter of 2011, state revenues remained 7 percent below pre-recession levels, and are not growing fast enough to recover fully soon. Meanwhile, states' education and health care obligations continue to grow. Next year, states expect to educate 350,000 more K-12 students and 1.7 million more public college and university students in the upcoming school year than in 2007-08.[2] And some 5.6 million more people are projected to be eligible for subsidized health insurance through Medicaid in 2012 than were enrolled in 2008, as employers have cancelled their coverage and people have lost jobs and wages.[3] Consequently, even though the revenue outlook is trending upward, states have addressed large budget shortfalls by historical standards as they considered budgets for the upcoming year. As the start of the new fiscal year draws near in most states, many of these shortfalls have been closed through spending cuts and other measures scheduled to take effect in the next fiscal year. Other states will soon close these shortfalls in order to meet balanced-budget requirements. To the extent these shortfalls are being closed with budget cuts, they are occurring on top of past years' deep cuts in critical public services like education, health care, and human services. The additional cuts mean that state budgets are poised to continue to be a drag on the national economy, threatening hundreds of thousands of private- and public-sector jobs, reducing the job creation that otherwise would be expected to occur. Potential strategies for lessening the impact of deep spending cuts include more use of state reserve funds in states that have reserves, more revenue through tax-law changes, and a greater role for the federal government. Our survey of state fiscal conditions shows that: States continue to face a major fiscal challenge. Thirty states have projected (and in many cases have already closed) budget gaps totaling $54 billion for fiscal year 2013. (See Figure 1.) These shortfalls are all the more daunting because states' options for addressing them are fewer and more difficult than in recent years. Temporary aid to states enacted in early 2009 as part of the federal Recovery Act was enormously helpful in allowing states to avert some of the most harmful potential budget cuts in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. But the federal government allowed that aid to largely expire at the end of fiscal year 2011, leading to some of the deepest cuts to state services since the start of the recession. Far from providing additional assistance to states, the federal government is now moving ahead with spending cuts that will very likely make states' fiscal situation even worse. States don’t have the resources to fund mass transit changesPrum and Catz, 11 - * Assistant Professor, The Florida State University AND ** Director, Center for Urban Infrastructure; Research Associate, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Irvine (Darren and Sarah, “GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION TARGETS AND MASS TRANSIT: CAN THE GOVERNMENT SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISH BOTH WITHOUT A CONFLICT?” 51 Santa Clara L. Rev. 935, 978)//AWV Accordingly, the federal government needs to revisit its decades-old policy that funds capital requests, but leaves financing of operations to local agencies. While this federal policy aims to prevent state and local governments from becoming reliant on continual subsidies, it also creates situations where an agency may obtain new or more environmentally friendly equipment despite not having sufficient backing to operate them. With the recent economic situation, many state and local governments face daunting budget shortfalls, rising operational costs, a historically high unemployment rate, and the inability to generate revenue to operate capital improvements. Such circumstances put transit officials into decision-making circumstances that can be avoided by allowing flexibility with the funding contingencies. As a result, many of the opportunities to promote transit alternatives whereby the transportation sector could reduce traffic and help decrease greenhouse gas emissions are squandered by an arcane and inflexible policy set forth by Congress. Moreover, we urge that federal funding should provide for a direct one-for-one regional correspondence between the generation of transportation funds and their distribution. No jurisdiction should be considered a donor state and asked to foot the bill of another’s transportation needs on a federal basis. This will collapse the economy – federal spending is keyPollack, 9 – Economic Policy Institute (Ethan, “Dire States: State and Local Budget Relief Need to Prevent Job Losses and Ensure a Robust Recovery”, EPI Briefing Paper, 11/19 http://epi.3cdn.net/1e7013bc0e4ca00724_0ym6b5yq5.pdf Widening state and local budget shortfalls present a ticking time bomb for the economy. If they are not addressed, state and local governments will be forced to accelerate layoffs, reduce pay, reduce services, and raise taxes and fees. These moves create a drag on the economy, weaken the recovery, and result in the loss of millions of public and private-sector jobs. To prevent or reduce job losses induced by cutbacks at the state and local level and to ensure a robust recovery, Congress must both extend the state and local budget relief offered in the recovery act through state fiscal year 2011 and raise the funding levels. This should be viewed not as a new recovery act, but rather as an extension of the first one, necessary because the budget relief originally provided is inadequate to address shortfalls that continue to grow even after the recovery has begun. Between the mid-year shortfalls in 2010 and the full shortfalls in 2011, state and local governments will raise taxes and cut spending by $204 billion.9 Not all of that can be mitigated—no distribution formula perfectly targets needy state and local governments, meaning that if the full amount was provided some recipients would get too much and others would still face shortfalls. While finding an exact number needed is difficult, at least $150 billion in budget relief should be provided. Without it, between 1.1 and 1.4 million jobs will be lost. Congress must act before it’s too late. 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