Tifia increases solve the aff—make infrastructure projects easier to fund
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- States Solve Better - Bureaucracy
- States Solvency - Efficiency
- State transportation infrastructure spending can jumpstart the economy, our evidence is comparative to a National Infrastructure Bank
- States Solvency – Private Investment
- Empirically, states able to fund billions in transportation infrastructure
CounterplansStates CPStates Solve BetterStates better solvency advocate for Infrastructure banks – political misallocation proves(Keith Yost, September 20, 2011, MIT newspaper, “Opinion: No national infrastructure investment bank: Infrastructure investment is a state responsibility,” http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N38/yost.html accessed 6/25/12 BC) On deeper inspection however, a national infrastructure bank is a fatally flawed idea, for one simple reason: forcing the citizens of Texas to pay for a high speed rail line from San Diego to Sacramento is bad government. It invites corruption, pork barrel politics, and misallocation of our society’s resources. The citizens of, say, Ohio are and will always be in a better position to decide whether it is worth the money to repair a bridge or school in their state. Offering to let them pay for their projects with someone else’s money is not going to lead to better decision-making— instead, it will lead states to cut their own infrastructure spending and turn their beggars cup to the federal government. It will incentivize states to represent their infrastructure as worse than it actually is, and pretend that solutions are cheaper than they actually are. And because it isn’t their money at stake, states will have even less inclination than usual to make sure that the projects are managed correctly. The real key to a state’s economic success won’t be the wise decision-making of its leaders, it will be its ability to lobby the federal government for special treatment and trade favors with the party in power. Perhaps in a few instances, investment in infrastructure at the national level makes sense. Air traffic control, or an interstate network make sense as matters for the national government to manage. But bridges, schools, high speed rail lines, and the vast majority of the projects Obama touts as within the purview of his national infrastructure campaign are best managed at the state or local level. It’s a conclusion so obvious that the idea of national control raises immediate suspicion. Does Obama plan to use the bank to bestow patronage on his supporters (particularly labor unions)? Or did he really manage to forget that state governments already have the power to levy taxes and make repairs? States Solve Better - BureaucracyThe states will solve the plan better – less bureaucracyLaing, The Hill congressional reporter, 11 (Keith, 9/8, Tea Party for USA, “GOP Chairman opposes Obama’s call for national infrastructure bank,” http://tppatriots.net/2011/09/09/bad-idea-national-infrastructure-bank/, Accessed: 6/29/12, GJV) The Republican chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said Thursday evening that he was opposed to President Obama’s call for a national infrastructure bank in his speech to a joint session of Congress on job creation. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) said that he thought Congress should encourage individual states to create their own infrastructure banks, arguing as he has in the past that it would give them more flexibility to design transportation projects that fit their own needs. “While the President reconfirmed that our highways are clogged and our skies are congested, his well delivered address provided only one specific recommendation for building our nation’s infrastructure,” Mica said in a statement. “Unfortunately, a National Infrastructure Bank run by Washington bureaucrats requiring Washington approval and Washington red tape is moving in the wrong direction. A better plan to improve infrastructure is to empower our states, 33 of which already have state infrastructure banks.” States Solvency - EfficiencyStates are more efficientPlautz, Greenwire, 11 (Jason, 9-8-11, New York Times, “In I-Bank Debate, States Prove Successful Model”, http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/09/08/08greenwire-in-i-bank-debate-states-provide-successful-mod-49268.html?pagewanted=all, accesed 6-29-12, KR) With successful test cases like those in Oregon and Kansas, it is obvious why the White House would want to create a bank on the national level. The loans can be used to draw in private partners for large projects, putting more people to work. But some policymakers are wary of the added bureaucracy and political complications the federal government's involvement would carry with it. Under a transportation reauthorization proposal from House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.), a national proposal would be replaced with expanded authority for state infrastructure banks, which Mica said would free up more money faster. Even some of the recipients of state money agree. "I don't see any advantage to a national bank," Gilmour said. "I'm concerned that there's been a disconnect at the federal level between those benefiting from transportation investments and those paying for them. ... I can't make my debt payment to ODOT with more debt." Gilmour, who worked for the Oregon DOT for 26 years, added that he tried to do very little with the federal government because federal red tape can add up to 30 percent of time and cost to a project. Former transportation official Orski, who now publishes a transportation newsletter, said the national bank has an advantage in that it can help large, multi-state projects. But, he added, those types of projects are rare and might be better handled through existing structures. "There is a widespread sentiment both in the House and Senate, rather than creating a new federal fiscal bureaucracy, we ought to strengthen and expand existing financial instruments, primarily TIFIA," he said, referring to the popular Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan program. Solves Economy Adv.State transportation infrastructure spending can jumpstart the economy, our evidence is comparative to a National Infrastructure BankKatz, Brookings vice president & Metropolitan Policy Program director, et al., 10 (Bruce, Jennifer Bradley, Metropolitan Policy Program fellow, and Amy Liu, Brookings senior fellow, November 2010, Brookings- Rockefeller Project, “Delivering the Next Economy: The States stepping in”, http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/uploads/files/8203b162-0783-4f0b-b7f9-9730584e0445.pdf, page 2, accessed 6-26-12, KR) Despite notable achievements over the past two years, Washington has only partially paved the way for the next economy. Action on comprehensive climate change legislation (which would help catalyze markets for clean energy technologies through the de facto pricing of carbon) has stalled. Work to advance innovation, manufacturing, and immigration reform is either in its early stages or not even started. The much-needed multi-year authorization of the federal transportation law is more than a year overdue despite repeated calls from political, civic, and business leaders for a robust, performancebased system. Nor has Washington been as focused as it could have on the power of metropolitan areas, although the administration’s investments in regional innovation clusters and sustainable communities are promising. While it is possible that a few smart, focused federal policy actions, such as a National Infrastructure Bank, or a sharp, performance oriented, transportation law, or investments in advanced energy research, development, and commercialization could occur in the next few years, most of the unfinished federal business will almost certainly remain unfinished because of concerns about the size of the deficit and deep philosophical differences between the parties on the proper role of government. So the burden of jump-starting the next economy and supporting its metropolitan engines will shift to the states and metros. States already share responsibility with Washington for many of the public-sector investments that will move the next economy forward. There is a continuum of federal and state spending and engagement on the constituent elements of the next economy, with both levels of government involved to a greater or lesser extent. For example, the federal government dominates in research funding, with federal actual outlays for R&D in FY 2007 of $116 billion, compared to less than $700 million spent by state agencies and another $3 billion spent by state (and local) governments for R&D at colleges and universities.3 By contrast, for every dollar that the federal government spends on highways, the states spend about two.4 The federal Department of Education spent some $68 billion in FY 2008, on both K-12 and higher education, plus another $21 billion in tax expenditures related to education, but states spent more than $400 billion of their own funds for the same purpose.5 States Solvency – Private InvestmentStates solve public-private partnerships – investor confidenceIstrate, Senior Research Analyst, and Puentes, Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy senior fellow, ’11 (Emilia Istrate, Senior Research Analyst and Associate Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, and Robert Puentes, senior fellow with the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy, “A Path to Public Private Partnerships for Infrastructure,” Brookings Institute, 12/9/11, http://www.brookings.edu/up-front/posts/2011/12/09-infrastructure-puentes-istrate, A.D. 6/27/12, JTF) But while the federal government can certainly be helpful, the real action is going to come from the states. Today three states (Virginia, California, and Michigan) have established dedicated PPP units. While too early to tell if they are successful, states are rapidly learning that they need to build capacity for development of PPP projects. We learned at a recent Brookings event that private sector firms and investors focus on what they call “can-do” states. Those are not just the ones where they can work unfettered, but those where they know the public policy risk is minimized by a fruitful legislative and institutional environment. They need to know they’ll get a fair shake and deals won’t be scuttled at the last moment. AT: States Can’t FundEmpirically, states able to fund billions in transportation infrastructureMusick, Microeconomic Studies Division, Congressional Budget Office, 10 (Nathan, November, A CBO Study, “Public Spending on Transportation and Water Infrastructure,” http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/119xx/doc11940/11-17-infrastructure.pdf, p. 11, accessed 6/26/12, YGS) Spending for Operation and Maintenance. Nearly all public spending for operating and maintaining transportation and water infrastructure takes place at the state and local level. Whereas state and local governments spent $172 billion for the operation and maintenance of infrastructure in 2007, the federal government spent just $24 billion. States and localities supplied almost 90 cents of every public dollar allocated for operating and maintaining facilities related to transportation and water infrastructure. States and localities have been the primary source of that spending for the past 50 years (see Figure 8 on page 14 and Table A-6 on page 32). However, the federal government does play a large role in funding the operation and maintenance of one component of transportation and water infrastructure: the nation’s air traffic control system. The federal government spent roughly $7 billion (in nominal dollars) to operate that system in 2007, a figure that represented one-third of total public spending on the operation and maintenance of aviation infrastructure that year. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. 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