Download endi poverty aff

ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
1
ENDI POVERTY AFF
1ac components
1ac – poverty advantage.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
1ac – economy advantage ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
1ac – leadership advantage ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 16
1ac – plan..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20
1ac – solvency ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 21
1ac - civic engagement .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 26
Extensions to the poverty advantage
poverty effects 37 million americans a year........................................................................................................................................................... 30
90 million are at risk of poverty .............................................................................................................................................................................. 31
poverty effects a majority of americans ................................................................................................................................................................. 32
poverty is increasing now ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 33
poverty decreases health ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 34
poverty increases crime ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 35
poverty has a disparate impact on racial minorities ............................................................................................................................................. 36
structural racism maintains poverty ........................................................................................................................................................................ 37
racism impacts ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 38
Extensions to the economy advantage
poverty destroys the economy – labor productivity ............................................................................................................................................ 39
child poverty kills the economy ............................................................................................................................................................................... 42
at: stimulus solved state budget crisis ..................................................................................................................................................................... 44
economic growth solves war .................................................................................................................................................................................... 45
economic growth solves the environment ............................................................................................................................................................ 46
competitiveness good – hegemony impact ........................................................................................................................................................... 47
competitiveness key to hegemony .......................................................................................................................................................................... 48
competitiveness key to the economy ...................................................................................................................................................................... 49
Extensions to the leadership advantage
poverty destroys us leadership ................................................................................................................................................................................. 50
U.S. soft power key to solve all global problems ................................................................................................................................................. 51
u.s. leadership key to solve global terrorism ......................................................................................................................................................... 52
u.s. soft power key to hard power / war on terrorism ........................................................................................................................................ 53
Soft power key to hegemony ................................................................................................................................................................................... 54
soft power key to democracy promotion .............................................................................................................................................................. 56
Soft power solves environment ............................................................................................................................................................................... 57
Soft Power Solves the Economy ............................................................................................................................................................................. 58
Solvency extensions
solvency – generic social services ............................................................................................................................................................................ 59
solvency – generic social service spending ............................................................................................................................................................ 60
solvency – generic social services ............................................................................................................................................................................ 61
solvency – federal block grants................................................................................................................................................................................ 62
increasing social services solve structural racism ................................................................................................................................................. 63
solvency – movements / social change.................................................................................................................................................................. 64
solvency – job training .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 65
solvency – asset building........................................................................................................................................................................................... 66
Extensions to the civic engagement advantage
poverty destroys civic engagement ......................................................................................................................................................................... 67
civic engagement is vital to restoring the public sphere ...................................................................................................................................... 68
civic engagement key to democracy........................................................................................................................................................................ 70
domination of the public sphere causes militarism .............................................................................................................................................. 72
unchecked patriotism causes militarism ................................................................................................................................................................. 73
strong public sphere key to human survival .......................................................................................................................................................... 75
ENDI 09
2
Poverty Aff
General 2ac arguments
topicality – social services ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 76
poverty line definition ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 77
at: states counterplan ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 78
at: single issue counterplan ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 80
at: free market good critique .................................................................................................................................................................................... 81
at: economic framing bad ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 83
federal social services exist now .............................................................................................................................................................................. 85
at: plan costs political capital .................................................................................................................................................................................... 86
at: spending disad ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 87
at: economy impact turns the case .......................................................................................................................................................................... 88
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
3
1AC – POVERTY ADVANTAGE
Observation 1: Poverty
Poverty effects millions and is increasing rapidly, but social service funding is limited
Edwards, 08 – US Senator and chair of the Community Action Partnership, Inc (John, CQ Congressional Testimony,
“REDUCING THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY,” 9/25, lexis
The problem of poverty is complex, complicated, and generational. Despite investments made to help people get out of poverty,
there is no single government-wide strategy and tactical game in play to change the landscape of poverty for America's poor people
and the communities in which they live. Indeed, progress has been made over the past 40-years to lift people out of poverty, yet the
problem continues to exist for millions of Americans - senior citizens, young adults, youth and children. It should be required of the
federal government to solve this growing problem. Public Law 88-452, An Act was designed, "To mobilize the human and financial
resources of the nation to combat poverty in the United States." The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, enacted by the Senate
and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. Therefore, the policy in 1964 of the United
States was to eliminate poverty by way of training, education, and work so all Americans could live in decency and dignity. The
purpose of this Act of 1964 was to strengthen, supplement and coordinate efforts in the furtherance of that policy.
Millions of Americans - the unemployed, the working poor - are struggling to find adequate food, housing, and health care for their
families. 37.3 million people lived below the federal poverty level in 2007. The number is up from 36.5 million in 2006. Economic
research shows adverse impacts on people living in poverty such as employment, health care, housing, and criminal activity. There is
a recent change - within the last two (2) years - in the face of poverty in America. Inflation, a recession and the outsourcing of jobs
are creating an environment for people who traditionally take care of their basic needs to seek services from Community Action
Agencies. More middle class families are asking for public assistance because they are having difficulty paying their bills. The
average person is struggling to make ends meet. There are myths surrounding who receives social services in Florida and other
states. It is often assumed that families receiving social services are non-white and reside in the inner city.
Changing Nature of Population Being Served By Community Action Agencies
The 2007-2008 report reveals that nearly 37% of households receiving services from Community Action Agencies were white and
who traditionally receive income from employment related activity. Poverty and hunger are problems that millions of Americans
face daily. This is such an issue in 2008 that many American families fear they will not have money to purchase food among other
competing basic needs, such as rent, mortgage payments, utility payments for summer cooling and winter heating costs. Poverty is
on the rise, despite the growth in the US economy. In fact, the latest numbers indicate that almost 6% of American workers live in
poverty. What we are seeing in 2007-2008 is the rise in the number of married couples who are in poverty. This traditional family
unit has historically been the family unit that stays out of poverty. This family unit - married couples - has not traditionally made
application for social service programs. Yet, because of job loss, companies closing and as well as job being outsourced outside of
America, many American families have sought social services to meet basic assistance.
Because of the number of non-traditional families, coupled with the number of traditional families, served by Community Action
Agencies, has impacted on the agencies' ability to serve this new and old applicant pool. The bottom line is that American families
are faring worse than they have in years. The growth in the number of poor should give us grave concern from a policy standpoint,
given the vast growing distance between Americans who are rich from those who are poor.
This can be easily seen in salary and compensation for wealthier Americans which have risen drastically. Conversely, wages for
millions of lower-wage workers have gone down, many of whom have loss their jobs. The implications of these changes are
dramatic. As the number of people go up who desire and need social services compared to limited budgets create frustration on
behalf of people trying to get in the door. There is a recent trend that more people are seeking help with basic assistance - food,
shelter, cooling and heating costs, transportation and childcare.
There is a need for public policy decision makers to take note of these changes and make policy decisions that will get people out of
poverty and on the road to recovery by the most expeditious means. This may require additional federal appropriations and/or
redistribution of federal appropriations for a more robust service delivery system. Indeed, the sooner people get out of poverty, the
sooner our national economy will be on the road to recovery.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
4
1AC – POVERTY ADVANTAGE
Poverty dehumanizes and kills the poor, more have died from poverty in the last 53 years than all who died in Vietnam
Loffredo, 93 - Assistant Professor of Law, City University of New York Law School at Queens College (Stephen, 141 U. Pa. L.
Rev. 1277, “POVERTY, DEMOCRACY AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW,” lexis
[*1315] The statement that the poor "have done very well" n164 invites the question, "in comparison to what?" Neither Bork nor Winter identifies his reference point, though it appears that the "free market," laissezfaire baseline common to libertarian critiques is what each has in mind. n165 Judicial activism, they contend, interferes with the natural ordering of economic arrangements and the resulting distribution of wealth. From
this perspective, the poor have done well politically because legislation has spared them (at least some of them) the Bleak House conditions that would prevail under an unregulated, common-law regime.
It is hard to say that the poor have done well when one looks at the
conditions of their subsistence and the increase in their absolute numbers over the last decade. n166 Severe cutbacks in social
programs, unchecked by the Court, have contributed to broad and unremitting deprivation on the part of free market "losers." n167
If one chooses a different reference point, however, the conservative argument collapses.
Contrary to the conservative assumption, "rising tides" have lifted the yachts but left the rowboats and life rafts behind. n168
[*1316] In the few years since the conservative apologists optimistically consigned the poor to the political arena, impoverishment
has claimed more victims than at any time since 1964, when the nation declared war on poverty. n169 Over the last decade, the number of individuals with incomes below the federal
poverty threshold n170 increased both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the total population. In 1990 alone, 2.1 million individuals joined the ranks of the poor, increasing the total percentage of persons below
the poverty line to 13.5%. n171 More than one fifth of the nation's children, 21.8%, live in poverty. n172 These children suffer severe material deprivation: they frequently are of low birthweight and are later hungry; n173
The United
States loses more children to poverty every five years than it lost soldiers to battle during the entire Vietnam War. n178 For those
whose lives are perched at the margin of survival, the idea that the poor "have done very well" would be astounding. n179
they are ill-housed, if at all; n174 they lack health [*1317] care; n175 and they receive inferior public schooling. n176 Every [*1318] fifty-three minutes poverty kills an American child. n177
Government cutbacks to social programs contributed heavily to the increased impoverishment of the poor during this period. Because poor people lack political clout commensurate with their numbers, the political
The poor subsist in an underclass, dehumanized and demonized in
the public's mind. n181 Viewing social welfare programs as the source of all the nation's ills, n182 government has instituted a systematic [*1319] rollback on its commitment to alleviate poverty. n183
arena, unchecked by judicial constraints, has converted the war on poverty into a war on the poor. n180
Punitive eligibility requirements have been imposed n184 without any evidence of their effectiveness in dealing with the poverty crisis. n185 The myth has reemerged that the poor are "lazy and shiftless," n186 rather than
victims of an economic system that generates systematic unemployment and underemployment at low wages. n187
[*1320] The conservative defense of the Court's hands-off approach fails for another reason as well: the argument's focus on supposed success stories of the poor conflates democratic legitimacy with "favorable"
political outcomes. n188 But to claim that any legislative attention to the plight of the lower classes signifies a democratically inclusive politics is to ignore the obvious fact that social welfare measures have abounded even
in societies that formally exclude the poor from the processes of government. n189 Indeed, history documents that superficially "favorable" treatment of the poor often reflects a politics of subordination. n190
Finally, even if sporadic political success could serve as a democracy surrogate that somehow cures or constitutionally neutralizes the otherwise illegitimate exclusion of poor people from democratic processes, the
question of baseline reemerges: does the observed outcome resemble the distribution of surplus that one might expect a constituency the size of the poor to achieve under [*1321] a political regime "structured . . . fairly"
n191 to reflect all relevant interests? n192 Without pretending to any scientific resolution, one might nevertheless seek rough answers by comparing our society's material capability to relieve the privations suffered by our
most destitute citizens with the efforts actually made, and by juxtaposing the American political response to poverty with the social welfare measures of other "industrialized democracies." On both counts, the
comparisons suggest anything but a fully enfranchised, fairly represented, or politically successful American lower class.
First, the widespread persistence of malnutrition, homelessness, and other absolute privations in a nation with the surpassing wealth
and abundance of the United States is itself starkly inconsistent with the Bork-Winter premise. n193 Consider the example of
childhood hunger. n194 In the United States today, an estimated 5.5 million children under the age of twelve suffer hunger and
malnourishment, but the federal government systematically fails to appropriate sufficient funds to deal with the problem. n195 It is further
estimated that the most egregious aspects of inadequate nutrition, in terms of abject deprivation, could be eliminated through an appropriation of less than ten billion dollars, an amount equal to a fraction of one percent
of the federal budget for fiscal year 1993 and an even smaller fraction of the gross national product. n196 On the other [*1322] side of the ledger, sufficient food is as fundamental and imperative an interest as a group or
adequate nutrition in early years is vital to the healthy development of a child; its absence often results in
disease, stunted growth, brain damage, mental retardation, and death. n198
individual might assert. n197 Indeed,
In assessing whether the poor "have done well" on the legislative score, we might engage in a simple balancing test comparing the intensity of interest that the poor have in the elimination of childhood hunger, for
example, to the relatively modest cost that would be required to achieve that goal. On a pluralist model, the size of the constituency, the intensity of its interest, and the force of countervailing factors ought to tell us a lot
about the chance of political outcomes. Here the constituency is fifteen percent of the population, a larger proportion of the nation than many ethnic minorities that have acquired significant voice in the political life of
the country. The intensity of the interest is keen, n199 and the countervailing factors, in terms of social expenditures, relatively weak. So why does childhood hunger nevertheless persist? Given the marked imbalance
between the critical, inelastic interest of the poor in adequate food, and the puny social effort required to satisfy that interest, it is highly unlikely that outright hunger would be as prevalent in the United States if poor
people commanded anything approaching the political power one would expect a fairly represented constituency of such size to wield. Nor, in a pluralist model, would one expect the government to refuse to fund even
cost-saving poverty prevention programs -- like WIC n200 and Head Start n201 -- [*1323] that demonstrably reduce public outlays over the short to medium term. n202 Only the marked absence of political access,
voice and [*1324] representation can reasonably explain the inability of poor people to obtain public commitments to protect them against the most serious privations, especially where those commitments
simultaneously reduce public expenditures and tax burdens. n203
Recent economic analyses confirm that "America has high poverty rates not because it must, but because it chooses to." n204 International comparisons indicate that the United States commits a smaller percentage of its
national income to redistributive welfare programs and tolerates more income inequality than other advanced industrialized nations. n205 The poverty rate for every significant age group is higher in America than in other
industrialized nations. n206 Among six industrialized countries studied, the [*1325] United States and Australia had the highest percentage of children living in poverty, (approximately 17%), and the highest rates among
families with children (15% and 14% respectively). n207 Ranked against other industrialized nations, infant mortality in the United States went from sixth best in 1950 to the worst rate in 1985. n208 Moreover, no other
industrialized nation has such extremes of relative inequality as measured by the income gap between rich and poor or the "distance between what CEOs and line workers earn." n209
[*1326] International comparisons further confirm the role that government plays in fostering or eliminating poverty from the social order. Any capitalist society will always have a bottom fifth that enjoys less relative
wealth. But the more important question is how we regulate markets to avoid absolute privation among significant segments of the population. Recent studies conclude that "with comparable patterns of economic
growth, other nations reduced poverty to a far greater extent. The difference . . . is that other countries have more generous and effective social policies." n210 Moreover, industrialized nations that spent twice what the
United States did on social welfare programs saw their economies grow "at least as fast as the United States or faster." n211
Other industrialized nations provide greater assistance than the United States to individuals in need, n212 and they provide it in a less stigmatizing, punitive fashion. n213 Poor people have not "done well politically" in
the United States when measured against the achievements of lower classes in comparable and even less affluent democracies. Extreme forms of deprivation that are prevalent here are not plausible or acceptable political
results in other industrialized countries. n214 This too supports the conclusion that poor people in the United States do not exercise a fair, "democratic" share of political power.
A conservative response might emphasize that the poor have a relatively low participation rate in the political arena. n215 The [*1327] poor do not vote, this argument goes, and you cannot be a winner if you do not
play the game. The argument is ironic coming from conservatives, who have consistently endeavored to block political participation by poor people. n216 Moreover, the fact of nonparticipation cannot be dismissed as
merely a bad political choice by the poor. n217 As one commentator notes, "[p]eople who are literally struggling to find enough to eat are highly unlikely to participate in the political process." n218 The failure to vote
corresponds to other indicators of political powerlessness, including poor people's inability to amplify their voice through financial resources, the creation of organizational structures, or the building of coalitions with
more affluent groups. n219 The "politically quiescent" attitude of the poor, therefore, is less a matter of free choice, n220 than of the mutually reinforcing effects of "low resources," weak political [*1328] incentives, and
"inadequate skills" that trap the poor in what democratic theorist Robert Dahl has termed a "cycle of defeat." n221
The political outcast status of the poor also reflects deep-rooted stereotypes harbored by the more affluent; stereotypes that
contribute to a politics of irrationality and exclusion. n222 Myths abound about the poor: they spread a "moral pestilence" n223
more treacherous in the public mind than the diseases that more often afflict the poor than the rich. n224 Unable to quarantine the
poor, n225 the rich have instead "sece[ded]" from any notion of a shared life with the less affluent. n226 This secession expresses
itself [*1329] politically as a withdrawal of support from even those social welfare programs that would result in shared benefits to
society at large. n227
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
5
1AC - POVERTY ADVANTAGE
Poverty and racism are inextricably linked, poverty is a form of structural racism that permuates all of society
Wiley and Powell, 06 - *Director of the Center for Social Inclusion AND **Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race
and Ethnicity (Maya and John, “Tearing Down Structural Racism and Rebuilding Communities,” Clearinghouse Review, May-June,
online)
New Orleans’s broken levees opened up a key opportunity. They opened up the floodgates to a public conversation long ignored
by mainstream media. Why did the broken levees flood so many black homes? Why were so many black people poor, stranded,
and unaided by the government? As we tried to make sense of the disturbing pictures of blacks stranded on rooftops in a country
where opportuni- ty is supposed to be abundant and racism all but dead, we were forced to reconsider some of our most deeply
held assumptions. And as the uncomfortable issue of race forced its way back into the public discourse, we began to ask how the
events we were seeing could be explained by race or by poverty. While this is the wrong question— race and poverty are
inextricably linked and cannot be separated—the question itself prompted an opportunity and challenge for us to examine the
post–civil rights era dogma of abandonment through “individual responsibility” and inequity through “color blindness.”
People of color and the poor have been laboring in a society in which many believe that we have transcended our racist past and
can blame poverty on personal failure. As we think about racism, we look for the individual engaged in a discreet act or acts; we
understand racism as primarily a psychological event located in the mind of a racist actor. Similarly, when we think of poverty we
primarily think of either an indi- vidual’s bad choices or bad luck. These individualist approaches affect not only how we
understand issues of race and poverty but also what issues we see and do not see and the solutions that we support.
The destruction of New Orleans challenges this individualist frame. But we as a soci-ety have no readily accessible alternative
collective frame. Here we discuss that alter-native. We now have the opportunity collectively to see our fragile infrastructure,
weakened by our ideology of government withdrawal from public protection and human investment. We have the opportunity to
see how race has been used to create structural arrangements which weaken our ability to protect the public and promote
healthy communities to our collective detriment. We have an opportunity to rebuild the Gulf Coast region through national policies that strengthen our collective well-being by
transforming these structural arrangements.
To grasp this opportunity, we must make visible the truth of the interrelationship between race and class and its relation- ship to white privilege.1 Most whites strongly object to the concept of white privilege. It
violates their sense of indi- vidualism and fairness and suggests they have something that they did not earn. Given the meaning our culture has attached to race (otherness, inferiority, etc.), to believe that the haves
earned their privileges and the have-nots failed to earn them is much easier. The concept of white privilege calls this logic into question.
Whites also have difficulty seeing white privilege because many are aware that there are poor whites or that the middle class has diminished opportunities, such as inadequate health insurance, job insecurity, and
concern about the future of their children. Thus many whites do not see their lives as privileged but rather as under assault. How can a group be under assault and have privilege? And yet we assert that both are true.
While structural racism creates and distributes
harsher burdens and fewer benefits to people of color, it limits us all. Indeed racialized meaning obscures the real culprit in the
Gulf Coast tragedy—our failure to sup-port levees and other urban infrastruc-ture. We must use a structural-racism lens to
understand inequity and poverty and to develop meaningful policies to end both . This lens creates policy possi- bilities for a rebuilt Gulf Coast and sug-gests
We argue that the story of the declining middle class, white privilege (however fragile), and structural racism are cut from the same cloth.
additional approaches for lawyers and other advocates to eradicate racial disparity and poverty.
I. Structural Racism Defined
The United States took a critical step when it made intentional segregation and discrimination against blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, or Native Americans illegal. But, as significant as civil rights
laws have been, we have never addressed institutional arrangements that produce the same results as racist laws—what we refer to as “structural racism.” Structural racism is both a description of the cur- rent state of
racial hierarchy, along with the poverty it produces in our post–civil rights society, and a strategy develop- ment tool.
“Structure,” as defined by Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, is “the arrangement or interrelation of all the parts of a whole.” U.S. society has many parts. It has schools, colleges, and uni- versities,
employers, banks, housing, and news media. These institutions, and system of institutions, can be public, quasi-public, or private. Government serves, regulates, and mediates these institutions and is at the same time
an institution and system of institutions. Together all of these institutions operate in relationship to one another.
Structural racism has five primary char-acteristics:
•Structure matters, and structures are not neutral. They unevenly distribute bene-fits, burdens, and racialized meaning.
The interaction between institutions must be identified and transformed, or retrenchment may turn a reform victory
into a toothless tiger.
•History matters. Our history of racism includes racist and race neutral policies and practices which are cumulative both
across generations and institutions. The levees began weakening decades before the 2005 hurricane season. The institutional arrangements themselves that supported special segregation and divestment created opportunity killers that occurred on a daily basis.2
•Effectsmatter. The existence of indi-vidual actors and any malicious intent is not relevant.3
•Disparities are effects (or symptoms) of structural racism and therefore structural racism must be transformed to have a meaningful impact on racial disparities.4In fact, poverty itself is preserved within these structures,
and we permit these structures to exist because of racially coded messages about deserving and undeserving poor.
•Institutional arrangements in a post–Jim Crow era will be over- and underinclu-sive. These new walls of segregation and
racial hierarchy will be porous and some whites will get caught and harmed, while some people of color will succeed.
A. Structure Matters
Structural arrangements among institu- tions operate in several different ways. One institution can create incentives for another institution to behave in certain ways. Major news magazines, for exam- ple, rank colleges
and universities based on their average SAT scores. As a result, colleges and universities work to raise their average SAT scores even while they recognize that SAT scores are weak pre- dictors of student achievement.
That this overreliance on weak indicators harms students of color is acceptable.
An institution can also behave in a way that constrains other institutions from behav- ing in desired ways. Consider the behavior of an urban public housing authority. It may recognize the multigenerational ben- efits of
locating subsidized housing for poor people in wealthy communities with- in or even outside its jurisdiction. But it may face multiple barriers to doing so based on the constraints of other institu- tions. The city council of
a suburban com- munity, incorporated separately from the city, may have adopted an exclusionary zoning ordinance that prohibits the con- struction of multiunit dwellings. Public housing can be prohibited on the basis
of the fight for ratables that are needed to support local services and schools. Again, that most of the beneficiaries of this fight are white, and most of the people harmed are people of color, is seen as a necessary byproduct of economic sustainability.
The federal government is more than just a cog in this multiinstitutional wheel. The government assists in the distribution of
racialized benefits and burdens and has played a critical role in the very production of race itself. Consider our first immigration law, unanimously passed in
1790 without debate and limiting citizenship to whites. One had to prove one’s whiteness to make claims of belonging to the imag- ined community in a country which was purportedly founded on the ideal of equality.
The impact of this law is still with us today as the racial “other” faces the assumption of not belonging. It is small wonder that the Katrina evacuees are seen by many as refugee-outsiders. The federal government also has
per- ceived real incentives and constraints to behave in particular ways based on a globalized economy, federal and non- federal checks and balances on its power and the opinion of the public, and the behavior of both
private and public non- federal institutions. For example, the federal government may recognize the importance of immigrant workers to the local and national economy of the coun- try and yet continue to undermine
their presence based on public opinion. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Milliken v. Bradley is another example.5 In Milliken the Supreme Court refused to require the
Continues…
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
6
1AC – POVERTY ADVANTAGE
Continues…
suburbs to open their schools to interdistrict integration withDetroit schools.6The Supreme Court was not concerned that, by protecting localism and permitting white flight from integration, it was permitting the
remedial overturning of Brown v. Board of Education.7
As these examples illustrate, structural racism recognizes that institutions operate within a “web” of structures that constrain their capacities and translate and com- pound the effects of their actions (or inac- tions) across
institutional boundaries.
B. History Matters
Race neutral policies and practices per- petuate and create new pathways to opportunity for whites as a group at the expense of almost every nonwhite group and ultimately at the expense of the nation. One reason that
race neutrality is itself insidious is our long history of racism in which the federal government participated significantly. The federal government supported and created incentives for overt racism, racial segre- gation,
disinvestment, and exclusionary policies.8
Government-created incentives targeting whites subsidized their flight from the city and their relocation to the suburbs.9For example, New Deal legislation—the National Housing Act of 1934—created the Federal
Housing Administration, which subsidized mortgages and insured private mortgages.
Federally subsidized mortgage loans oftenrequired new owners to incorporateracially restrictive covenants into theirdeeds.10 By the 1950s the FederalHousing Administration and the VeteransAdministration were
insuring half themortgages in the United States, but only in“racially homogenous” neighborhoods.11The Federal Housing Administration’sunderwriting manual required a determi-nation about the presence of
“‘incompat-ible racial or social groups….”12Peopleof color were literally classified as nuisances to be avoided along with “sta-bles” and “pig pens.”13 The FederalHousing Administration urged developers,bankers, and
local government to use zon-ing ordinances and physical barriers toprotect racial homogeneity.14
When the federal government finallyturned its attention to urban centers,now dying as a result of its subsidizationof white suburbs, it appropriated fundsfor “urban renewal,” a race-neutral poli-cy. This resulted in $13.5
billion to citiesbetween 1953 and 1986 and in displacinginner-city residents—largely people ofcolor. The displaced people were relocat-ed from poor but viable neighborhoods tohigh-density, high-rise public housing
inisolated sections of the city.15This housingwas intended to be temporary but becamepermanent.16 Unattractive downtowncommercial buildings, parking ramps, andpublic housing complexes funded byfederal money
accelerated middle-classand private investment flight to safer, cheaper, white suburbs.17
So effective were federal incentives to suburbanize that by 1990 two-thirds of the metropolitan population lived out- side the central city in 168 census- defined metropolitan areas, compared to 1950, when 60 percent
lived inthe old central cities.18Moreover, 152 new met- ropolitan areas sprang up during four decades of “new” urban growth. As a result, three-quarters of the American public were living in 320 metropolitan areas, most
outside the city centers.19 Once again, incentives to suburbanize and to do so in a racially biased way involved multiple institutions. Mortgage subsidies and the racial discrimination that the government required of
private actors were important pieces of the structural arrangement. Transportation was another. The transportation block grants of the 1980s allowed states to use mass transit dollars to serve those living in distant
suburbs in commuting by train to the financial city centers, while leaving thousands of city center residents, stand- ing on city streets waiting for overcrowd- ed buses.20Even in the 1990s, when cer- tain federal highway
funds were available on a flexible basis for states and regional localities to transfer from highway pro- grams to public transit projects, only $4.2 billion of the $33.8 billion available, or 12.5 percent, was actually
transferred.21 Federal housing and transportation policies have had a tremendous impact on where jobs are located and who can get to them. According to the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, in
metropolitan areas over half of travel from home to work are suburb to suburb.22Travelers represent a broad mix of professional white-collar, blue- collar, sales, and clerical workers.23 Suburb-to-city commuters, by
contrast, tend to be white-collar workers. The smallest category of workers commutes from city to suburb.24
Federal grants have historically subsidized new suburban development by providing billions of dollars to state and local govern- ments for new sewage treatment plants, with much of the money used to build new
capacity for suburban growth rather than to rectify problems or improve existing wastewater systems.25Over time the fed- eral programs and policies described here have been revised to remove racially explicit criteria.
Yet the adverse impact persists because the structural arrange- ments remain intact.26
The burgeoning suburbs were not mere- ly the construction of a new space for the already existing white population. They served to homogenize formerly ethnic Europeans into “whites.” The creation of the new white
space occurred at the same time that the civil rights movement was attempting to redefine America in inclu- sive and democratic terms.27
The governance structures of metropoli- tan areas became highly fragmented. In 1942 there were approximately 24,500 municipalities and special districts in the United States. By 1992 that number had more than
doubled to 50,834.28 This allowed new suburbanites to control their tax burden and the definition of their communities. Local tax base must subsidize services. Therefore communi- ties have a financial incentive to
prohib- it development of subsidized housing and multiunit development—exclusion- ary zoning—in these communities.
C. Effects Matter
The effects of the racialized suburban-ization policies have been tremendous— we literally are a nation divided not just in personal
attitudes but also in our structures, land-use policies, fiscal poli- cies, and our imagination. This system has not only created disparities on many levels—
individual, group, neighbor- hood, city, state and nation—but also has depressed opportunities for the entire nation and left us ill-equipped to deal with the challenge of the current form of globalization.29
The structural-racism analysis focuses our attention on group-based dispari- ties, but we must remember in examin- ing these disparities that, although they show disproportionate harm to certain groups, this harm is not
exclusive to those groups. In talking about the pover- ty line, for example, we should keep in mind that, although blacks and Latinos show large gaps in income and wealth compared to whites, there are certainly still
whites in poverty and without wealth. In absolute numbers, more whites live in poverty than blacks in the United States, and many of the low- income whites are also living in oppor- tunity-poor central-city and innersub- urban communities. Furthermore, due to the current nature of our arrange- ments, many Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity, are feeling the increas- ing pressures of economic insecurity. Incomes are
stagnating, affordable health insurance is elusive, personal bankruptcies are on the rise, and increases in foreclosures are challenging families and blighting entire communi- ties. Further, all of this is occurring within a
changing globalized landscape, which increases anxiety among the workforce and widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Still, we must continue to identify and work towards alleviating, as a matter of justice, group-based disparities, which are indicators of structural conditions perpetuating poverty. We call for this to be done through
targeted universalism— programs that are indeed universal but focus on the special place and needs of the most marginal.30
Statistics demonstrating group-based racial and ethnic disparities on almost every indicator of social and economic well-being are
legion. For example, according to the Lewis Mumford Center, the mean incomes of blacks and Latinos are between $15,000 and
$18,000 less than Whites.31And while 9.1 percent of Whites live below the poverty line, 24.9 percent of blacks and 22.6 percent of
Latinos do.32Per-capita wealth differ- ential between blacks and whites is 1 to11, with blacks’ net worth, measured in terms of home equity and financial assets, remaining at more than $40,000 less than that of
whites.33
Homeownership is a wealth builder. The median net worth of renters is only 1 percent of the level of net worth of homeowners. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 74.3 percent of whites owned homes in 2002.
Homeownership rates for Latino and black households, by contrast, were 47.3 percent and 47.7 percent, respectively. Wealth creation is more complicated than simply housing ownership. Housing values are depend- ent
on a number of factors including the quality of the schools, services, and amenities. Homeownership in dis- tressed neighborhoods does not neces- sarily produce wealth.
Since 1996, the proportions of net worth by race have not changed significantly. Posting zero or negative net worth in 2002 were 26 percent of Latino, 32 percent of black, and 13 percent of white house- holds. Fewer
than 40 percent of blacks and Latinos have middle-class levels of wealth. Nearly 75 percent of white house- holds have middle-class or higher levels of wealth.34
Rates of “housing hardships” for blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans are twice as high as those of whites and Asian Americans. Over 90 percent of all new single-family homes built between 2000 and 2002 were not
affordable to more than 75 percent of all black and Latino households.35Not surprisingly, between 1999 and 2001, the net worth of black and Latinohouseholds fell by 27 percent each. The net worth of white
households increased by 2 percent.36
we see that urban whites who are poor, while treated unjustly and victims of the struc- tural production of
poverty, also have different opportunities from those of their black, Latino, Native American, and Asian counterparts. Blacks in
par- ticular are disproportionately repre- sented in high-poverty neighborhoods where at least 25 percent of residents have incomes
below the federal poverty line. Compared to 22 percent of poor Latinos and only 6 percent of poor Whites, 34 percent of poor blacks live in these areas.37
By examining group-based poverty,
Between 1970 and 1990, the number of census tracts where at least 40 percent of the population was poor increased from under 1,500 to more than 3,400.38If concentrated poverty is defined as 30 percent of residents at
or below the fed- eral poverty level, 23.3 million people lived in concentrated poverty in 1990.39 By examining income alone to determine how many people live in concentrated poverty, those living in concentrated
poverty declined by 9 percent between 1990 and 2000.40By examining not only income, but also rates of female-headed households, high school dropouts, and unemployed working-age males, the number of people
living in distressed neighborhoods increased from 15.2 mil- lion to 18.1 million (more than 19 per- cent) between 1990 and 2000.41
D. Disparities Are Symptoms of Structural Racism
One reason poverty has become concen- trated in particular neighborhoods is the location of subsidized housing, includ- ing housing projects and housing financed by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. The average
metropolitan neighborhood with subsidized housing in the 1990s had (1) a poverty rate that was three times higher than the average neighborhood; (2) a median household income that was 40 percent lower than the
average neighborhood; and (3) home values that were 20 percent lower than the average neighborhood.42
Federal demonstration programs enabling the poor to move from distressed city neighborhoods to lower-poverty commu- nities underscore the potent impact of neighborhood quality on family stability.43 Most
subsidized housing is located in resource-depleted inner cities, rather than resource-rich suburbs. In 2000 three quarters of the nation’s traditional assisted housing units were located in central cities, while only 37 percent
of the nation’s met- ropolitan population lived in central cities.44William Julius Wilson refers to an “underclass” whose primary problem is “joblessness reinforced by an increasing social isolation in an impoverished
neigh- borhood.”45For this group, isolation and poverty are a symptom of structural racism.46
. Persistent racial segre- gation is an expression of a structure that denies
meaningful choices to people of color and produces concentrated poverty. According to new research by the Institute on Race and Poverty examining the fifteen largest
Segregation has become a self-perpetuat- ing mechanism of racial isolation and structural poverty
metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2000, the proportion of segregated neighborhoods fell from 72 percent to 60 percent. However, a number of diverse neighborhoods that were integrated in 1980 made the transition
to resegregated communities by 2000.47
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
7
1AC – POVERTY ADVANTAGE
Allowing people to fall into poverty is as unacceptable as slavery – policymakers have an obligation to address it.
Miller, 08 – Chief Executive Officer of Move The Mountain—a national leadership center focused on training transformation
leaders who will work to end poverty (Scott, “The next giant step for the nation: Ending poverty one Circle™ at a time,” Aha!
Process, Inc. Circles Campaign, February 7th, http://blog.ahaprocess.com/?p=90
So, here is a game plan: Let’s help 1,000 families out of poverty and show the nation what that takes and what makes it so difficult.
Then let’s spread the idea of Circles into 1,000 communities for the purpose of giving people something they can do about the
condition of poverty. With a large, assertive voice, let’s say that poverty is immoral and should be dismantled. For the sake of our
nation’s future, we have to end poverty. It perpetuates dreadful outcomes for families and children all around us. It can end. I
believe it will end, perhaps sooner than any of us can imagine.
I suggest that all people who wake up each morning in a warm home surrounded by “more than enough” stuff and have steady
incomes that surpass that which we need to pay our bills have a moral obligation to do something productive to end poverty. We
might tell ourselves that we work hard and deserve our prosperity, that those who are poor don’t have their act together and that is
why they deserve to be poor, but I know that rationale is off the mark.
People are poor because they do not have the right financial and career information to become prosperous, realistic access to higher
education, the social capital (relationships) to open doors of opportunity, nor the mental conditioning about money and financial
management that those raised in middle or and upper income homes take for granted. Some people are poor because of mental
illness and/or drug addiction, and for others mental illness and drug addiction are the results of persistent poverty. People are also
poor because the cost of basic necessities has been inflated while wages have been suppressed through some public policies.
We must consider public policy as a cause of poverty. We have many policies that are heavily slanted in favor of protecting and
increasing the resources of the wealthy. We have created a disparity unprecedented in our nation’s history. There is nothing positive
about disparity, even for those who benefit from it financially. Ancient wisdom, the kind that underlies all great religions, teaches us
that whatever happens to one of us happens to all of us. This theory of a unified field of human experience has been verified by
modern quantum physics. If we let our “neighbor” go hungry, it affects us all in negative ways. The Center for American Progress
has calculated that the cost of raising children in poverty has now reached $500 billion a year.
We have more resources than any nation in the history of the world. We should not permit disparity to persist. Let us review history
to make an analogy: It took a long time for this nation to move beyond slavery. The South’s economy was built on it, and most
slaveholders and their representatives felt they needed it to survive. It was driven by economics and permitted by the underlying
belief that blacks were inferior human beings to whites and could therefore be bought and sold, abused, and even killed by whites
whenever “necessary.” Although racism persists today and white privilege is active in many settings, nearly everyone now agrees
that slavery was and is immoral. We certainly no longer condone it in public policy.
The next giant step for the nation is to understand that poverty is just as immoral as slavery. Review with me some of the statistics
on poverty. People live with chronic anxiety and depression because of poverty. There is irrefutable evidence that people in poverty
have shorter life expectancies. I work with people in poverty on a weekly basis. I don’t see them as people who are inferior, of
lower intelligence, poor character, or bad decision makers. I see people who want to earn a livable wage and want to support
themselves.
Those of us who understand the four causes of poverty can make a difference in communities. Start with the game plan: Let’s help
1,000 families out of poverty and show the nation what that takes and what makes it so difficult. Just as the abolitionists had a
strong will and a need to end slavery, we need a strong will and resolve to end poverty today.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
8
1AC – POVERTY ADVANTAGE
Racism makes war and genocide possible—biopolitics won’t become genocidal without it
Mendieta, 02 – SUNY at Stony Brook, (Eduardo, ‘To make live and to let die’ –Foucault on Racism, Meeting of the Foucault
Circle, APA Central Division Meeting –Chicago, April 25th , 2002
http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/emendieta/articles/foucault.pdf)
This is where racism intervenes, not from without, exogenously, but from within, constitutively. For the emergence of biopower as the form of a new form of political rationality, entails the inscription within the
For racism grants, and here I am quoting: “the conditions for the acceptability of putting to
death in a society of normalization. Where there is a society of normalization, where there is a power that is, in all of its surface and in first instance, and first line, a bio-power, racism
is indispensable as a condition to be able to put to death someone, in order to be able to put to death others. The homicidal [meurtrière]
very logic of the modern state the logic of racism.
function of the state, to the degree that the state functions on the modality of bio-power, can only be assured by racism “(Foucault 1997, 227) To use the formulations from his 1982 lecture “The Political
Technology of Individuals” –which incidentally, echo his 1979 Tanner Lectures –the power of the state after the 18 th century, a power which is enacted through the police, and is enacted over the population, is
“since the population is nothing more than what the state takes care of for
its own sake, of course, the state is entitled to slaughter it, if necessary. So the reverse of biopolitics is thanatopolitics.”
(Foucault 2000, 416). Racism, is the thanatopolitics of the biopolitics of the total state. They are two sides of one same political technology, one same
political rationality: the management of life, the life of a population, the tending to the continuum of life of a people. And with the inscription of racism within the state of biopower, the long history of
war that Foucault has been telling in these dazzling lectures has made a new turn: the war of peoples, a war against invaders,
imperials colonizers, which turned into a war of races, to then turn into a war of classes, has now turned into the war of a race,
a biological unit, against its polluters and threats. Racism is the means by which bourgeois political power, biopower, re-kindles
the fires of war within civil society. Racism normalizes and medicalizes war. Racism makes war the permanent condition of
society, while at the same time masking its weapons of death and torture. As I wrote somewhere else, racism banalizes
genocide by making quotidian the lynching of suspect threats to the health of the social body. Racism makes the killing of the
other, of others, an everyday occurrence by internalizing and normalizing the war of society against its enemies. To protect
society entails we be ready to kill its threats, its foes, and if we understand society as a unity of life, as a continuum of the
living, then these threat and foes are biological in nature.
a power over living beings, and as such it is a biopolitics. And, to quote more directly,
Dismantling institutional racism brought by poverty is vital to survival
Barndt, 91 – co-director of Crossroads (a ministry to dismantle racism), (Joseph, Dismantling Racism, p. 155-156)
To study racism is to study walls. We have looked at barriers and fences, restraints and limitations, ghettos and prisons. The prison of racism confines us
all, people of color and white people alike. It shackles the victimizers as well as the victim. The walls forcibly keep people of color and white
people separate from each other; in our separate prisons we are all prevented from achieving the human potential that God intends for us. The limitations
imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and powerlessness are cruel, inhumane, and unjust; the effects of
uncontrolled power, privelege, and greed, which are the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us all. But we have also seen
that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by
brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to
join the efforts of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism. The danger point of selfdestruction seems to be drawing ever more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and colonialism, of
military buildups and violent aggression, of overconsumption and environmental destruction may be reaching a point of no return.
A small and predominately white minority of the global population derives its power and priveleges from the sufferings of the vast
majority of peoples of color. For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
9
1AC – POVERTY ADVANTAGE
Complicity with poverty implicates all of us, we should coalesce around a new national public policy to confront it
Rank, 06 – George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (Mark, 20 Wash. U. J.L. &
Pol'y 17, “POVERTY, JUSTICE, AND COMMUNITY LAWYERING: INTERDISCIPLINARY AND CLINICAL
PERSPECTIVES: Toward a New Understanding of American Poverty”, lexis
Yet, we are also connected to poverty in a somewhat different fashion as well because its presence undermines us as a people and as
a nation. It diminishes us all by tarnishing the integrity of our values. For example, the presence of widespread poverty juxtaposed
against immense material prosperity contradicts much of what the Judeo-Christian ethic teaches. The Judeo-Christian ethic
emphasizes that the barometer for a just and compassionate society lies in its treatment of the poor and vulnerable. n97 As a nation
and as a people, we are badly failing at this test.
Similarly, poverty impedes lower income Americans' ability to enjoy the full blessings of liberty, equality and justice. The words
[*44] "liberty and justice for all" take on a hollow meaning when a significant percentage of the population is economically and
politically disenfranchised. This undermines every citizen, for it suggests that the American ideals in which we profess to believe
apply to some more than others. This contradicts the very core of the American promise, diminishing us all.
Just as each of us is affected by poverty, each of us also has a responsibility for ending poverty. A new paradigm suggests that
alleviating poverty will require a collective commitment from all Americans. This is in sharp contrast to the old paradigm, in which
the poor are basically left to fend for themselves. A new paradigm recognizes that poverty is an issue of public policy that requires a
broad-based commitment. Within the old paradigm, public apathy towards the poor has been part of the problem; within the new
paradigm, public engagement in alleviating poverty is part of the solution.
In short, a new paradigm views poverty on a very different conceptual level. We have traditionally placed both the problem and the
solution to poverty within the context of the individual. In contrast, a new paradigm suggests that we understand the condition of
poverty within the wider context of an interconnected environment.
This shift in thinking can be illustrated by how we have begun to think differently about environmental protection. Until recently,
we have failed to recognize the harm befalling us all as a result of air, water and ground pollutants. Pollution was seen as having
little consequence beyond its immediate location. However, mounting evidence suggested that this way of thinking was incorrect
and dangerous. n98 We have now begun to understand pollution's impact within a wider environmental context. Pollutants that
occur in one community may very well affect other communities down wind or down stream. For example, the use of coal in
Midwestern power plants results in acid rain in Northeastern forests. n99 The burning of [*45] fossil fuels or the use of
chlorofluorocarbons can have a profound impact on the global climate, resulting in global warming or the loss of the atmospheric
ozone layer. n100 The physical environment is increasingly understood as an interconnected system - what occurs in one part of the
system may very well affect other parts as well.
As our awareness of these interconnections has increased, we have realized that we each have a role to play in the solution. The
increased popularity of recycling programs illustrates this realization. Very small individual acts, such as bringing newspapers or
aluminum cans to the curbside for weekly pick up, can collectively have an important effect on reducing environmental degradation.
At the same time, we have realized the necessity of regulation and governmental controls to help curb pollution. Leaving the
problem solely to individual polluters is no longer a viable solution. Structural changes are increasingly needed to alleviate levels of
national and global pollution.
In a similar fashion, we must understand poverty within the context of an interconnected environment. Here, however, the
environment consists of the social, economic and political institutions of society. Poverty must be understood as having profound
ripple effects that denigrate and diminish those environments. This understanding also allows us to appreciate that we each have a
role to play in alleviating poverty. Individual actions over a sustained period of time can result in sizeable changes. Yet, as with our
environmental problems, it is vital to recognize the important role that local, state, and federal governments must also play in
providing the resources, supports, and structure needed for a sustained effort.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
10
1AC – ECONOMY ADVANTAGE
Observation 2 – the economy
Poverty is increasing because the economy is collapsing, greater federal antipoverty spending is vital to confronting it
Herbert, 09 – New York Times columnist (Bob, New York Times, “Far from Over”, 5/8,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/opinion/09herbert.html?_r=1)
It’s a measure of just how terrible the economy has become that a loss of more than a half-million jobs in just one month can be
widely seen as a good sign. The house is still burning down, but not quite as fast.
I can understand why people are relieved that we no longer seem to be hurtling toward a depression, but beyond that I see very
little to be happy about.
The economy is in shambles. Nearly 540,000 jobs were lost in April, a horrifying number. The unemployment rate rose to 8.9
percent. Even the most optimistic observers expect the job losses to continue, although, hopefully, at a slower pace. The
unemployment rate is expected to keep on climbing, like some monster from the movies, toward double digits.
We are stuck in what is — or will soon be — the worst economic downturn since the 1930s. Newspapers and the U.S. auto
industry are on life support. The employment picture for even the most well-educated Americans — men and women with fouryear college degrees or higher — is the worst on record.
If there is something about this economy to be cheerful about — something real — I wish someone would let me know.
Poverty and homelessness are increasing and, as Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, said during an
interview this week, “There are a whole lot of people who are going to be economically desperate for many years.”
Joblessness is like a cancer in the society. The last thing in the world that you want is for it to metastasize. And that’s what’s
happening now. Don’t tell me about the stock market. Don’t tell me about the banks and their perpetual flimflammery. Tell me
whether poor and middle-income families can find work. If they can’t, the country’s in trouble.
One reason the employment losses slowed somewhat in April was that the government added 72,000 jobs, most of them temporary
hires as part of the preparation for the 2010 Census. The private sector dumped 611,000 jobs. Moreover, the Labor Department
revised the job losses for March upward, from 663,000 to 699,000, and for February, from 651,000 to 681,000. Some 5.7 million
jobs have been lost since the start of the recession in December 2007.
Mr. Mishel has been trying to call attention to the human toll caused by job losses on this vast scale. The institute estimates that the
poverty rate for children is in danger of increasing from 18 percent, which is where it was in 2007, the last year for which complete
statistics are available, to a scary 27.3 percent in 2010.
For black children, you don’t want to know. But I’ll tell you anyway. The poverty rate for black kids was 34.5 percent in 2007. If the
national unemployment rate rises, as expected, to the vicinity of 10 percent next year, the poverty rate for black children would rise
to 50 percent or higher, analysts at the institute believe.
That would be a profound tragedy.
We already know that children are being harmed in families hammered by job losses, home foreclosures and the myriad stresses that
grip families trying to cope with economic reversals. Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of the Children’s Health Fund and a professor at
Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, has referred to these youngsters as the “recession generation,” and has
described what is happening to them as “a quiet disaster.”
Much of the impact of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus efforts is still to come, but those efforts were never narrowly
focused on the need for job creation and are not nearly large enough to cope with the mammoth job losses that are occurring. The
official unemployment rate for men is already at 9.4 percent, and for black workers 15 percent.
To get a sense of the task ahead, consider that 7.8 million jobs would have to be created just to bring us back to where we were
when the recession began. That’s because the working-age population has continued to grow since then. The economy has to create
about 127,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. That comes to more than 2 million jobs since the start of the
recession, which you then add to the 5.7 million that have been lost.
There is no light yet at the end of this tunnel.
It may not be popular, and it certainly won’t sit well with the so-called deficit hawks in Congress, but there is a real need for
additional government spending to further stimulate the economy and create jobs. (Think infrastructure, among other things.) The
kind of employment distress we’re confronting is not sustainable. Help will be needed for people whose unemployment benefits
run out, who are ill but not covered by medical insurance, who are homeless or otherwise in desperate economic straits.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
11
1AC – ECONOMY ADVANTAGE
Poverty will utterly destroy the economy in 3 ways:
First – Human capital
Poverty prevents the development of skilled labor and reduces workforce participation
Nilsen, 07 – Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office (Sigurd,
CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis
Economic research shows that poverty is associated with a number of adverse outcomes for individuals, such as poor health, crime,
and reduced labor market participation, and has a negative impact on the economic growth rate. Some research suggests that
adverse health outcomes are due, in part, to limited access to health care as well as exposure to environmental hazards and engaging
in risky behaviors. The economic research we reviewed also suggests that poverty is associated with higher levels of certain types of
crime. The relationship between poverty and adverse outcomes for individuals is complex, in part because most variables, like
health status, can be both a cause and a result of poverty. Regardless of whether poverty is a cause or an effect, however, the
conditions associated with poverty can work against the development of human capital-that is the ability of individuals to remain
healthy and develop the skills, abilities, knowledge, and habits necessary to fully participate in the labor force. Human capital
development is considered one of the fundamental drivers of economic growth. An educated labor force, for example, is better at
learning, creating, and implementing new technologies.
Economic theory suggests that when poverty affects a significant portion of the population, these effects can extend to the society
at large and produce slower rates of growth. Though limited, empirical research has demonstrated that higher rates of poverty are
associated with lower rates of growth in the economy as a whole.
This undermines overall labor productivity and has significant effects on the total gross domestic product
Center for American Progress, 07 (“From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half,” Report and
Recommendations of the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty, April,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/poverty_report.pdf
Addressing poverty and economic security takes on greater urgency in the new economy. Employment for millions is now less
secure than at any point in the post-World War II era. Jobs are increasingly unlikely to provide health care coverage and guaranteed
pensions. The typical U.S. worker will change jobs numerous times over his or her working years and must adapt to rapid
technological change. One-quarter of all jobs in the U.S. economy do not pay enough to support a family of four above the poverty
line. It is in our nation’s interest that those jobs be filled and that employment rates be high. It is not in our nation’s interest that
people working in these jobs be confined to poverty.
In the global economy, the greatest potential for success turns on having an educated, healthy, adaptable workforce. It is in all of
our interests that children grow up under conditions that prepare them for the economy of the future. Yet an estimated eight
percent of all children and 28 percent of African-American children spend at least 11 years of childhood in poverty.5
In The Economic Costs of Poverty in the United States: The Subsequent Effects of Children Growing Up Poor, Harry Holzer, Diane Whitmore
Schanzenbach, Greg Duncan, and Jens Ludwig conclude that allowing children to grow up in persistent poverty costs our economy
$500 billion dollars per year in lost adult productivity and wages, increased crime, and higher health expenditures.6
Holzer and his co-authors explain that children who grow up in poverty are more likely than non-poor children to have low
earnings as adults, reflecting lower workforce productivity. They are also somewhat more likely to engage in crime (though that is
not the case for the vast majority) and to have poor health later in life. Holzer and co-authors explain:
Our results suggest that the costs to the U.S. associated with childhood poverty total about $500 billion per year, or the equivalent of nearly 4percent of
Gross Domestic Product. More specifically, we estimate that childhood poverty each year:
Reduces productivity and economic output by about 1.3percent of GDP
Raises the costs of crime by 1.3percent of GDP
Raises health expenditures and reduces the value of health by 1.2percent of GDP.
Holzer and his co-authors emphasize that these estimates almost certainly understate the true costs of poverty to the U.S. economy.
They omit the costs associated with poor adults who did not grow up poor as children. They do not count all of the other costs that
poverty might impose on the nation, such as environmental impacts and much of the suffering of the poor themselves.
Reducing poverty would allow more people to contribute to the economic and civic life of the nation, strengthening our economy
and fortifying our democracy.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
12
1AC – ECONOMY ADVANTAGE
Second – state economies
State budgets are under overwhelming pressure, they are being bogged down by current social service provisions and it’s
destroying their economic growth
Lav and McNichol, 09 – *senior advisor to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities AND ** Senior Fellow at the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities (Iris and Elizabeth, “State Budget Troubles Worsen,” 5/18,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711
States are facing a great fiscal crisis. At least 47 states faced or are facing shortfalls in their budgets for this and/or the next year or
two. Combined budget gaps for the remainder of this fiscal year and state fiscal years 2010 and 2011 are estimated to total more
than $350 billion. This figure, however, does not account for recent state actions to close their 2009 budget gaps or their projected gaps for 2010 or 2011, or for
the $140 billion in fiscal relief that Congress provided for states in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
States are currently at the mid-point of fiscal year 2009 — which started July 1 in most states — and are in the process of preparing their budgets for the next year.
Over half the states had already cut spending, used reserves, or raised revenues in order to adopt a balanced budget for the current
fiscal year — which started July 1 in most states. Now, their budgets have fallen out of balance again. New gaps of $59 billion (some 9 percent of state budgets) have opened up in the budgets of at least 42 states
plus the District of Columbia. These budget gaps are in addition to the $48 billion shortfalls that these and other states faced as they adopted their budgets for the current fiscal year, bringing total gaps for the year to 16
percent of budgets.
The states’ fiscal problems are continuing into the next two years. At least 46 states have looked ahead and anticipate deficits for fiscal year
and beyond. These gaps total $133 billion — 19 percent of budgets — for the 45 states that have estimated the size of these gaps and are likely to grow as gaps are re-estimated in the next few months.
2010
The deficit figures for FY2010 and FY2009 show the impact the economic downturn has had on state budgets. These figures are the total size of the shortfall identified by each state listed. In some cases all or part of this
shortfall has already been closed through a combination of spending cuts,
Figure 2 shows the size and duration of the deficits in the recession that occurred in the first part of this decade, and estimates of the likely deficits this time. This recession is more severe — deeper and longer — than the
last recession, and thus state fiscal problems are likely to be worse.
Unemployment, which peaked after the last recession at 6.3 percent, has already hit 8.9 percent, and many economists expect it to
rise higher, which will reduce state income taxes and increase demand for Medicaid and other services. With consumers’ reduced access to
home equity loans and other sources of credit, sales taxes are also likely to fall more steeply than they did in the last recession. These factors suggest that state budget
gaps will be significantly larger than in the last recession. All but a handful of states face shortfalls in fiscal year 2010. Based on past experience and the depth of this
recession these deficits will end up totaling about $145 billion. If, as is widely expected, the economy does not begin to significantly recover until the end of calendar
year 2009, state deficits are likely to be even larger in state fiscal year 2011 (which begins in July 2010 in most states).[1] The deficits over the next two-and-a half
years are likely to be in the $350 billion to $370 billion range.
It may be particularly difficult for states to recover from the current fiscal situation. Housing markets may be slow to fully recover;
the decline in housing markets has already depressed consumption and sales taxes as people refrain from buying furniture,
appliances, construction materials, and the like. Property tax revenues are also affected, and local governments will be looking to
states to help address the squeeze on local and education budgets. And as the employment situation continues to deteriorate,
income tax revenues will weaken further and there will be further downward pressure on sales tax revenues as consumers are
reluctant or unable to spend.
The vast majority of states cannot run a deficit or borrow to cover their operating expenditures. As a result, states have three primary actions they can take during a
fiscal crisis: they can draw down available reserves, they can cut expenditures, or they can raise taxes. States already have begun drawing down reserves;
the remaining reserves are not sufficient to allow states to weather a significant downturn or recession. The other alternatives —
spending cuts and tax increases — can further slow a state’s economy during a downturn and contribute to the further slowing of
the national economy, as well.
Some states have not been affected by the economic downturn but the number is dwindling. There are a number of reasons why. Some mineral-rich states — such
as New Mexico, Alaska, and Montana — saw revenue growth as a result of high oil prices. However, the recent decline in oil prices has begun to affect revenues in
some of these states. The economies of a handful of other states have so far been less affected by the national economic problems.
In states facing budget gaps, the consequences sometimes are severe — for residents as well as the economy. Unlike the federal government, states
cannot run deficits when the economy turns down; they must cut expenditures, raise taxes, or draw down reserve funds to balance
their budgets. As the current fiscal year ends and states plan for next year, budget difficulties have led some 36 states to reduce
services to their residents, including some of their most vulnerable families and individuals. [2]
For example, at least 19 states have implemented cuts that will affect low-income children’s or families’ eligibility for health
insurance or reduce their access to health care services. Programs for the elderly and disabled are also being cut. At least 21 states
and the District of Columbia are cutting medical, rehabilitative, home care, or other services needed by low-income people who are
elderly or have disabilities, or significantly increasing the cost of these services.
At least 22 states are cutting or proposing to cut K-12 and early education; several of them are also reducing access to child care and early education, and at least 30
states have implemented cuts to public colleges and universities.
In addition, at least 39 states and the District of Columbia have made cuts affecting their state workforce. Workforce cuts often result in reduced access to services
residents need. They also add to states’ woes by contracting the state economy.
If revenue declines persist as expected in many states, additional budget cuts are likely. Budget cuts often are more severe in the
second year of a state fiscal crisis, after reserves have been largely depleted and thus are no longer an option for closing deficits. The
experience of the last recession is instructive as to what kinds of actions states may take. Between 2002 and 2004 states reduced services significantly. For example, in
the last recession, some 34 states cut eligibility for public health programs, causing well over 1 million people to lose health coverage, and at least 23 states cut
eligibility for child care subsidies or otherwise limited access to child care. In addition, 34 states cut real per-pupil aid to school districts for K-12 education between
2002 and 2004, resulting in higher fees for textbooks and courses, shorter school days, fewer personnel, and reduced transportation.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
13
1AC – ECONOMY ADVANTAGE
State economies are key to the national economy
Patterson, 08 – Governor of New York (David, CQ Congressional Testimony, 10/29, lexis)
When states are hurting, our national economy suffers. State governments are engines of both economic and social progress. They
are a key source of job creation in this country, through aid for small businesses, incentives for economic investment, and
workforce development programs. Likewise, investments at the state level both expand our national tax base and lower entitlement
pressures on the federal budget. For example, the innovative Federal State Health Reform Partnership (F-SHRP) program provides
federal assistance to reform our health care industry and to deliver more cost effective services, which saves money for both levels
of government. An investment in state governments is an investment in the health of both our overall economy and the federal
budget. And, while I acknowledge that the federal government is facing fiscal difficulties of its own right now, I submit that
avoiding the long-term adverse consequences of failing to aid state governments greatly outweighs any short-term financial costs.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
14
1AC - ECONOMY ADVANTAGE
Third – metropolitan economies
Poverty utterly destroys metropolitan economies, this will devastate the US economy and US global competitiveness
Cicilline, 08 – Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island (David, CQ Congressional Testimony, “REDUCING THE NUMBER OF
FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY,” 9/25, lexis
The reality is that the American economy is a metropolitan economy. In fact, the nation's 100 largest metro areas, which make up
only 12% of the nation in land area account for 68% of all jobs and 75% of national GDP. Furthermore, as we expedite the transition of our
economy into one that meets the demands of the information age and our need to become dependent from foreign oil, the strategic importance of cities grows even
more. Already, cities have 76% of the knowledge jobs and are poised to grow an even higher proportion.
Additionally, cities house our great scientific research centers that will give birth to the innovations that will power America with new forms of energy. Also,
contrary to most people's ideas about urban America, cities are the greenest places we can live based on existing consumption patterns.
Chairman Schumer, you may already know that those living in the New York metropolitan region have on average half the carbon footprint of the average
American. The more Americans that continue to move to cities, the less dependent America will be on foreign sources of energy.
Cities are the solution. But, as a nation, we are not tending our metropolitan garden. In recent years, the evolution of cities has continued in spite of national policy,
not because of it. As a result, we are severely restraining our metropolitan transformation at a time when we need to accelerate it.
Foremost among these restraints, without a doubt, is poverty. Poverty is to a family and a community what inflation is to an
economy. Its consequences spill over into everything else and have a lasting and devastating impact. But, what makes it worse, is
that there are measures we know we can take to prevent it from persisting.
Not surprisingly, the headway we made on poverty in the 1990s coincided with the metropolitan comeback. But in recent years that
headway has been reversed. In my view, one of the reasons for this is the sharp decline in funding. First Focus, the children's advocacy
group on whose advisory board I sit, recently discovered that the share of non-defense spending on kids has declined by a full 10% in just five years. And, as you
know, the Community Development Block Grant - one of our country's great domestic programs for cities - has also been significantly cut in recent years. Just to
name two examples.
But you are presented with lots of statistics every day and the call for funding is constant. So my job today is to report to you from a Mayor's perspective about what
can work and is currently working to lessen poverty in our communities. I know that many view poverty as a great complex of interrelated problems, but I view it
very simply. Poverty is a lack of opportunity. So to me, the fight is not so much a war on poverty as it is a war for opportunity.
The long-term answer does not lie in merely relieving the stresses and pain of poverty. The long-term answer lies in rebuilding upward mobility in America. The war
for opportunity means rebuilding the economic ladder. When there is upward mobility there is hope. Families will work harder to make sure
their children are educated, stay out of trouble and develop a strong work ethic. But when there is not, it creates the environment
for many of the social ills that can ruin lives and drive up the costs of social programs.
Unfortunately, all across the country, the economic ladder has been badly weakened in recent years. It used to be that the American Dream was available to anyone
who was willing to work hard enough, but in today's economy too many families are doing everything right and still getting left behind.
At my second inauguration in 2006, I identified this as one of the highest priorities for my city. I signed an executive order creating a task force made up of our
foremost experts on workforce development, poverty, and early childhood development and family supports.
I asked them to offer me their best recommendations for what we can do at the city level - as a government and as a community - to reestablish upward mobility for
our working poor, and to help re-build the middle class in our city. They developed a set of action steps called Pathways to Opportunity to move people into the
workforce, keep them in the workforce, and open up more opportunity to get ahead once they're in.
With the report in hand, I formed a partnership with the Annie E. Casey foundation, to open an office that is charged with overseeing the implementation of these
recommendations in coordination with the city and the agencies that helped to develop them. It also serves as a community-based site for residents to connect to
new opportunities. We have launched a number of ambitious projects as part of this initiative.
We initiated a major long-term effort to rebuild many of our old and decaying school facilities and replace them with 21st-century learning environments. As part of
this, we launched a large-scale apprenticeship program in the construction trades. We have young people from across the city who are integral parts of these major
construction efforts that involve cutting edge green technology and learning how to build to LEED standard. We have partnered with our hospitals that are facing a
serious nursing shortage to get young people access to the skills they need to begin a good career in the health care field.
Taking the lead from Brookings' work on "the high cost of being poor," we are working with local banks in an organization called Bank on Providence. It is
developing financial instruments specifically designed for low-wage families and individuals. I am also working with the state legislature to regulate the ability of
predatory lenders and check cashers to extract usurious rates and charges from their customers - most of whom haven't been able to access mainstream banking
services.
We are aggressively engaging with ex-offenders who come back to their communities to make absolutely sure they meet all of their re-entry obligations or else face
consequences. But at the same time ensuring that the support necessary for their success is in place.
These are a few examples of the kinds of meaningful, measurable, and effective strategies being undertaken by this office. It is all about creating more opportunities
and removing any barriers to existing opportunities. Mr. Chairman and honorable members of the committee, if I had more time I would love to also describe to
you the incredible effect that city-wide after school is having in Providence. I'd like to describe the success we've had with integrating our police force with the
communities they serve. There is so much that has an effect on opportunity and poverty that we know will be effective.
But instead I will quickly conclude with a general comment. Our cities represent tremendous opportunities for our 21st-century economy. We
can unleash that potential by making opportunity for every American a national priority again. After all, the other name for a robust
economic ladder and upward mobility is the American Dream. That is what made our economy the envy of the world, and it is the
only way we can preserve its position in our global economy.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
15
1AC – ECONOMY ADVANTAGE
Economic collapse causes global nuclear war
Mead, 09 - Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (Walter Russell, The New Republic, “Only
Makes You Stronger”, 2/4, http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8&p=2)
If current market turmoil seriously damaged the performance and prospects of India and China, the current crisis could join the
Great Depression in the list of economic events that changed history, even if the recessions in the West are relatively short and mild. The United States should stand ready to
assist Chinese and Indian financial authorities on an emergency basis--and work very hard to help both countries escape or at least weather any economic downturn. It may test the political will of the Obama
U.S. moves to limit market access for Chinese and Indian producers
could poison relations for years. For billions of people in nuclear-armed countries to emerge from this crisis believing either that
the United States was indifferent to their well-being or that it had profited from their distress could damage U.S. foreign policy far
more severely than any mistake made by George W. Bush.
administration, but the United States must avoid a protectionist response to the economic slowdown.
It's not just the great powers whose trajectories have been affected by the crash. Lesser powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran also face new constraints. The crisis has strengthened the U.S. position in the Middle East as
falling oil prices reduce Iranian influence and increase the dependence of the oil sheikdoms on U.S. protection. Success in Iraq--however late, however undeserved, however limited--had already improved the Obama
administration's prospects for addressing regional crises. Now, the collapse in oil prices has put the Iranian regime on the defensive. The annual inflation rate rose above 29 percent last September, up from about 17
percent in 2007, according to Iran's Bank Markazi. Economists forecast that Iran's real GDP growth will drop markedly in the coming months as stagnating oil revenues and the continued global economic downturn
force the government to rein in its expansionary fiscal policy.
All this has weakened Ahmadinejad at home and Iran abroad. Iranian officials must balance the relative merits of support for allies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria against domestic needs, while international sanctions
Saudi Arabia and other oil states have
become more dependent on the United States for protection against Iran, and they have fewer resources to fund religious
extremism as they use diminished oil revenues to support basic domestic spending and development goals. None of this makes the Middle East an
and other diplomatic sticks have been made more painful and Western carrots (like trade opportunities) have become more attractive. Meanwhile,
easy target for U.S. diplomacy, but thanks in part to the economic crisis, the incoming administration has the chance to try some new ideas and to enter negotiations with Iran (and Syria) from a position of enhanced
strength.
Every crisis is different, but there seem to be reasons why, over time, financial crises on balance reinforce rather than undermine the world position of the leading capitalist countries. Since capitalism first emerged in early
modern Europe, the ability to exploit the advantages of rapid economic development has been a key factor in international competition. Countries that can encourage--or at least allow and sustain--the change, dislocation,
upheaval, and pain that capitalism often involves, while providing their tumultuous market societies with appropriate regulatory and legal frameworks, grow swiftly. They produce cutting-edge technologies that translate
into military and economic power. They are able to invest in education, making their workforces ever more productive. They typically develop liberal political institutions and cultural norms that value, or at least tolerate,
dissent and that allow people of different political and religious viewpoints to collaborate on a vast social project of modernization--and to maintain political stability in the face of accelerating social and economic change.
The vast productive capacity of leading capitalist powers gives them the ability to project influence around the world and, to some degree, to remake the world to suit their own interests and preferences. This is what the
United Kingdom and the United States have done in past centuries, and what other capitalist powers like France, Germany, and Japan have done to a lesser extent. In these countries, the social forces that support the idea
of a competitive market economy within an appropriately liberal legal and political framework are relatively strong.
But, in many other countries where capitalism rubs people the wrong way, this is not the case. On either side of the Atlantic, for example, the Latin world is often drawn to anti-capitalist movements and rulers on both
the right and the left. Russia, too, has never really taken to capitalism and liberal society--whether during the time of the czars, the commissars, or the post-cold war leaders who so signally failed to build a stable, open
system of liberal democratic capitalism even as many former Warsaw Pact nations were making rapid transitions. Partly as a result of these internal cultural pressures, and partly because, in much of the world, capitalism
has appeared as an unwelcome interloper, imposed by foreign forces and shaped to fit foreign rather than domestic interests and preferences, many countries are only half-heartedly capitalist. When crisis strikes, they are
quick to decide that capitalism is a failure and look for alternatives.
So far, such half-hearted experiments not only have failed to work; they have left the societies that have tried them in a progressively worse position, farther behind the front-runners as time goes by. Argentina has lost
ground to Chile; Russian development has fallen farther behind that of the Baltic states and Central Europe. Frequently, the crisis has weakened the power of the merchants, industrialists, financiers, and professionals
who want to develop a liberal capitalist society integrated into the world. Crisis can also strengthen the hand of religious extremists, populist radicals, or authoritarian traditionalists who are determined to resist liberal
capitalist society for a variety of reasons. Meanwhile, the companies and banks based in these societies are often less established and more vulnerable to the consequences of a financial crisis than more established firms in
wealthier societies.
As a result, developing countries and countries where capitalism has relatively recent and shallow roots tend to suffer greater economic and political damage when crisis strikes--as, inevitably, it does. And, consequently,
financial crises often reinforce rather than challenge the global distribution of power and wealth. This may be happening yet again.
None of which means that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well.
If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the
Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises.
Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public
opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start
slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born?
The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
16
1AC – LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGE
Observation 3: Leadership
US moral leadership and global influence is catastrophically low despite Obama
Tae-hyun, 09 - professor at the Graduate School of International Studies, Chung-Ang University, Seoul and serves as the director
of the Center for Foreign Policy and National Security of the East Asia Institute (Kim, The Korea Herald, 1/22, “How Obama will
rise to challenges ahead,” lexis)
On Jan. 20, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America to great applause. The
cheering was not just from the crowd gathered at Capitol Hill, those who followed the inaugural parade along Pennsylvania Avenue,
and American people who elected him. It was also from people around the world who are eagerly embracing a new American
president who they expect will lead not just his nation, but the world out of a deep financial and economic crisis and restore order.
President Obama may very well understand the expectations and be ready and determined to meet the challenge.
He may also understand the dilemma he now faces in meeting these challenges. The tasks he has to perform are many and nearly
contradictory with each other. First, and most of all, he has to lead the national and world economy out of crisis. The task requires
not just political skill and ingenuity, but also support and cooperation from other nations, as the truly interdependent nature of the
world economy has revealed itself in the form of the global economic crisis. To garner and foster such support and cooperation
requires the type of international leadership the United States has shown in the past 60 years.
But international leadership is lacking. American leadership in world affairs has been seriously eroded due to policy stances and
failures of President Bush, and almost irrevocably damaged by the very economic malaise that he has to cure. His second but no
less important task is thus to restore the leadership role of the United States in world affairs. This leads to a dilemma. The
leadership role that the United States enjoyed after the Second World War was a by-product of American power - both "hard" and
"soft." The power base is now in jeopardy. The economy is in deep trouble; the once mighty military machine is tied up in two
prolonged wars, which are increasingly unsustainable; and American values, once coveted, are now largely disdained.
President Obama has to achieve two seemingly incompatible goals. On the one hand, he has to resolve the international economic
crisis with weakened American leadership. On the other hand, he has to restore American leadership with weakened power bases.
Achieving one is prerequisite to achieving the other - a chicken-and-the-egg dilemma.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
17
1AC – LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGE
Poverty utterly destroys US influence globally, it’s perceived as a vital human rights issue requiring federal action. The
plan boosts the viability of the US model and enhances overall leadership
Edwards, 07 – US Senator and director for the Center for Poverty, Work & Opportunity at the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill (John, “Restoring the American Dream: Fighting Poverty and Strengthening the Middle Class,”
The Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice. Iowa City: Spring 2007. Vol. 10, Iss. 3; pg. 383, 11 pgs, proquest
But there is another reason why it is important that we do something about poverty in America. That picture that you saw on your
television screens, the picture coming out of New Orleans? You are not the only ones who saw it-the entire world saw it. I do a lot
of traveling these days, and everybody knows what happened on the Gulf Coast all around the world. Here is their reaction: "How
can it be, in the richest nation on the planet, the most powerful nation on the planet, that those conditions existed in New Orleans?
What are you going to do about it?" If we actually want to be the model for the rest of the world, then we have to do something
about poverty in America, because the world knows about it now. It is no secret. They know about it, and they want to know: "What are you going
to do about it? Are you actually going to do something about it?" I saw a publication overseas right after the hurricane hit, and it had pictures of victims of the
hurricane from the Lower Ninth Ward. The headline read "The Shaming of America." If we want to be the country that represents the model for
rest of the world-and we used to be-if we want to be the light-and we used to be the light-then we have to demonstrate what we
care about, what our priorities are, and that we patriotically about something other than war. We need to be willing to act
patriotically about what is good for our country and not just out of self-interest. America is better than this-and you know it.
the
We did not use to be the country of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. We were the country that everybody looked up to and respected. They wanted to be like the
United States of America. They wanted to be like the American people. That is who we are at our best. What do we do about the millions of Americans
who are living in poverty? What do we do about the forty-six, nearly forty-seven million people who do not have health care
coverage? Our actions demonstrate to the world what we care about.
And I want to add-it is not specifically on topic, but it fits into the bigger context of how all these things are connected-look at what
is happening on your television screens today. The Hezbollah fighting the Israelis and Hamas launching missiles out of Gaza into
Israel. The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, going before the United Nations to denounce the United States. The same
man is doing everything in his power to get a nuclear weapon. The North Koreans are testing nuclear weapons and testing missiles.
Over the last five or six years, we see Russia going from a democracy to an autocracy. All of this is happening right in front of us. It
is right in front of us. And we react.
What is so important for us to understand as a nation is that we are the most powerful nation on this planet. We are the preeminent
power in the world today. We are the only superpower. But you cannot lead simply by being powerful. It is not enough. You have
to be powerful, but you have to be something else. You have to be moral and just. You have to be the nation that the rest of the
world looks up to. You have to have the moral authority to lead. And you do not have to take my word for this-it is clear. If
anything demonstrates this, it is the last six years. You look at what is happening in the world today. You look at every single crisis,
like the Hezbollah fighting the Israelis that I mentioned a few minutes ago or Iran trying to get a nuclear weapon. We go to the
United Nations security Council, to try to get consensus, but people do not rally around the United States of America. And when
they do not, there is no leadership. There is no natural leader in the world, except us. And when we do not show that we care not
only about ourselves but that we actually, as the most powerful nation on the planet, care about humanity, then people in other
countries will not rally around us. They will not. This is not a feel-good thing.
If you want your children to grow up in a safe America, in a safe world, then you want to live in a world where America is the great, shining example. A world where
we are the place everyone looks to. A world where everyone says, "The United States of America-they are the ones that come to the rescue of the downtrodden."
When an earthquake hits, here comes the United States. Uganda, which I just came back from, has an extraordinary humanitarian crisis. There has been a civil war
for twenty years. Between one and two million people are housed in less-than-humane camps in northern Uganda. Kids are being abducted and forced into the
military, the resistance army, the Lord's Resistance Army-a great name-and forced to kill their parents and their brothers and sisters. This genocide continues to go
on in Darfur and western Sudan. The United States declares it a genocide and does nothing.
We have so many opportunities to show who we really are. We can demonstrate who we are at home by not turning our backs on
millions of our own people who live in poverty. But we have lots of chances around the world to show what the character of the United States is. There
will be lots of children born in Africa with AIDS because their mothers cannot afford a four dollar dose of medicine. How can we let that happen? How can we call
ourselves moral and just and allow that to happen? Right in front of us, we know what is going on, and we turn our backs. It is not right. We are better than this.
And you know it. You do not need me to say it. You know it. The world needs to see our better side, and it matters to us. In a very selfish way, it matters to us.
Will there always be people who denounce us? Of course. There are dangerous human beings. There are extremists in the world, and there are dangerous nationstates. That is not the question. The question is: "When bad things happen, when crises occur, will the rest of the world rally around the
United States of America?" Because they believe in us; because they believe in what we represent-both what we do at home and
what we do in the rest of the world? There is an awful lot at stake. It is not hyperbole to say that the future of the world is at stake,
because it is.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
18
1AC – LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGE
U.S. influence with other powers is vital to solving all global problems, including terrorism and proliferation
Stanley, 07 (Elizabeth Stanley, Ass Prof @ Georgetown, 7 “International Perceptions of US Nuclear Policy” Sandia Report,
http://www.prod.sandia.gov/cgi-bin/techlib/access-control.pl/2007/070903.pdf)
How important is soft power, anyway? Given its vast conventional military power, does the United States even need soft power?
Some analysts argue that US military predominance is both possible and desirable over the long term, and thus soft power is not
important. But a growing consensus disagrees. These analysts argue that soft power is critical for four reasons. First, soft power
is invaluable for keeping potential adversaries from gaining international support, for “winning the peace” in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and for convincing moderates to refrain from supporting extremist terrorist groups. Second, soft power helps influence neutral
and developing states to support US global leadership. Third, soft power is also important for convincing allies and partners to
share the international security burden.14 Finally, and perhaps most importantly, given the increasing interdependence and
globalization of the world system, soft power is critical for addressing most security threats the United States faces today. Most
global security threats are impossible to be countered by a single state alone. Terrorism, weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
proliferation, failed and failing states, conflicts over access to resources, are not confined to any one state. In addition, disease,
demographic shifts, environmental degradation and global warming will have negative security implications as well.15 All of these
potential threats share four traits: (1) they are best addressed proactively, rather than after they develop into full-blown crises; (2)
they require multi-lateral approaches, often under the umbrella of an international institution; (3) they are not candidates for a
quick fix, but rather require multi-year, or multi-decade solutions; and, (4) they are “wicked” problems. Given these four traits,
soft power is critical for helping to secure the international, multi-lateral cooperation that will be necessary to address such threats
effectively.
Proliferation leads to extinction.
Victor A Utgoff, Deputy Director of Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of Institute for Defense Analysis, Summer 20 02,
Survival, p.87-90
In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot outs will
have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear
proliferation is stopped, we are headed towards a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if
not all, nations wearing nuclear “six shooters” on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every
once in a while we will all gather together on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
19
1AC – LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGE
Terrorism causes extinction
Corsi, 05 (Jerome, phD in political science from Harvard, excerpt from Atomic Iran,
http://911review.org/Wget/worldnetdaily.com/NYC_hit_by_terrorist_nuke.html)
The combination of horror and outrage that will surge upon the nation will demand that the president retaliate for the
incomprehensible damage done by the attack. The problem will be that the president will not immediately know how to respond or
against whom. The perpetrators will have been incinerated by the explosion that destroyed New York City. Unlike 9-11, there will have been no interval during the attack when those hijacked could make phone
calls to loved ones telling them before they died that the hijackers were radical Islamic extremists. There will be no such phone calls when the attack will not have been anticipated until the instant the terrorists detonate
their improvised nuclear device inside the truck parked on a curb at the Empire State Building. Nor will there be any possibility of finding any clues, which either were vaporized instantly or are now lying physically
Still, the president, members of Congress, the military, and the public at large will suspect another attack
by our known enemy – Islamic terrorists. The first impulse will be to launch a nuclear strike on Mecca, to destroy the whole religion of Islam. Medina
could possibly be added to the target list just to make the point with crystal clarity. Yet what would we gain? The moment Mecca and Medina were wiped off the map, the
Islamic world – more than 1 billion human beings in countless different nations – would feel attacked. Nothing would emerge
intact after a war between the United States and Islam. The apocalypse would be upon us. Then, too, we would face an immediate threat from our long-term
enemy, the former Soviet Union. Many in the Kremlin would see this as an opportunity to grasp the victory that had been snatched from them by Ronald Reagan when the Berlin Wall came down. A missile
strike by the Russians on a score of American cities could possibly be pre-emptive. Would the U.S. strategic defense system be so in shock that immediate retaliation
would not be possible? Hardliners in Moscow might argue that there was never a better opportunity to destroy America . In China, our newer Communist
enemies might not care if we could retaliate. With a population already over 1.3 billion people and with their population not concentrated in a few major cities, the Chinese might calculate to
initiate a nuclear blow on the United States. What if the United States retaliated with a nuclear counterattack upon China? The Chinese might be able to absorb the blow and recover. The
North Koreans might calculate even more recklessly. Why not launch upon America the few missiles they have that could reach our
soil? More confusion and chaos might only advance their position. If Russia, China, and the United States could be drawn into
attacking one another, North Korea might emerge stronger just because it was overlooked while the great nations focus on attacking one another. So, too, our supposed allies in
Europe might relish the immediate reduction in power suddenly inflicted upon America. Many of the great egos in Europe have never fully recovered from the disgrace of World War II, when in the last century the
Americans a second time in just over two decades had been forced to come to their rescue. If the French did not start launching nuclear weapons themselves, they might be happy to fan the
diplomatic fire beginning to burn under the Russians and the Chinese. Or the president might decide simply to launch a limited nuclear strike on Tehran itself. This might be
inaccessible under tons of radioactive rubble.
the most rational option in the attempt to retaliate but still communicate restraint. The problem is that a strike on Tehran would add more nuclear devastation to the world calculation. Muslims around the world would
still see the retaliation as an attack on Islam, especially when the United States had no positive proof that the destruction of New York City had been triggered by radical Islamic extremists with assistance from Iran. But
So weakened by the loss of New York, Americans would feel vulnerable in every
city in the nation. "Who is going to be next?" would be the question on everyone's mind. For this there would be no effective answer. That the president might
think politically at this instant seems almost petty, yet every president is by nature a politician. The political party in power at the time of the attack would be destroyed
unless the president retaliated with a nuclear strike against somebody . The American people would feel a price had to be paid while the country was
for the president not to retaliate might be unacceptable to the American people.
still capable of exacting revenge.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
20
1AC – PLAN
The United States federal government should substantially increase antipoverty block grants to state and local governments that
maximize community particiaption in social service development.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
21
1AC – SOLVENCY
Observation 4: Solvency
Expanding federal funding of block grants for state and local social service programs that maximize community
participation is vital to sustained poverty reduction
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
Since the founding of our nation, there has always been a pervasive sentiment that in America there is opportunity for all. As a result, many Americans--particularly the poor--have looked to the government to provide
Without citizen leadership and business participation, poverty
cannot be addressed in a holistic manner. Fortunately, our federal system, which divides power among the three branches of government, provides an adaptable
vehicle to communicate and coordinate the "best practices" within local jurisdictions.
employment where the private sector could not. n47 Yet, the government by itself is ill-equipped to meet this need.
[*506] IV. A Comprehensive Plan to Fight Poverty
A. Federalism
In accordance with the prevailing normative values, the existence of poverty is immoral and unjust. n48 Moreover, as the disparity between the haves and have-nots widens and threatens our nation, it commands a
The will should be nationally established
and nationally funded, but the way would be best designed and implemented locally. This design allows the ingenuity of the federal
system to maximize the benefits to American citizens based on local requirements and concerns.
national will for public action. Next, that will must translate into effective action, a way to fight poverty, through a local anti-poverty strategy or plan.
Currently, the federal government requires local jurisdictions and states to submit two planning documents, which are described below, that deal with the expenditure of federal dollars related to community development.
n49 Although the federal government is the funding source, the state and local governments prepare the plans. This requirement means that fifty different anti-poverty strategies may be developed in each of the fifty
states, and among local jurisdictions, thousands of opportunities to experiment with bold anti-poverty strategies.
Our proposal for an effective anti-poverty strategy suggests that the federal government would agree to finance local plans
developed under the leadership of local coalitions in local jurisdictions. The federal government would not allow the financing to be
released until the plan [*507] complied with participation requirements, local matching fund requirements, and innovative criteria.
A local government would submit the plan, but the committee of local citizens should ideally be independent from local political
vicissitudes. n50 Since a local planning committee is in charge, but relies on local agency involvement, there should be less
resistance from local agencies implementing the plan.
B. Planning
The Consolidated Plan (ConPlan) is a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program that must be submitted every five years. n51 Jurisdictions describe their method for distributing federal community development
and housing dollars locally. n52 Each ConPlan describes a community's needs, resources, priorities, and proposed activities to be undertaken with this HUD funding. It is both an application and a plan, and it offers (1) a
collaborative process establishing a unified vision; (2) a comprehensive housing affordability strategy (CHAS); (3) a statement of long-and short-term community development objectives; (4) an application for funding
under multiple funding sources; and (5) a stated anti-poverty strategy describing funding resources used to assist individuals in poverty. n53 While HUD seeks an articulation of anti-poverty strategies in "brief and
concise" form, examination of the actual [*508] strategies submitted by recent grantees raises questions as to the effectiveness of what appear to be simplistic anti-poverty plans. n54
During our research, we examined an informal sample of anti-poverty strategies to determine their effectiveness. We drew our sample from cities based on their diversity in size and geographic location. The cities studied
included: Syracuse, New York; n55 Jackson, Mississippi; n56 Los Angeles, California; n57 Lafayette, Indiana; n58 Clackamas, Oregon; n59 Phoenix, Arizona; n60 and Decatur, Alabama. n61 These anti-poverty
submissions, [*509] while varying in length and detail, nonetheless uniformly fall short on substance.
For example, while HUD requires collaboration among community agencies, none of the sampled plans integrated members of the poor as part of their anti-poverty strategy. n62 Moreover, none of these plans mention
the inclusion of members of the poor in discussions of poverty solutions. n63 Input from the community to be utilized in crafting real solutions to poverty, however, has been recognized as an indispensable but difficultto-achieve component of anti-poverty work for decades. n64
Even the collaborative efforts that were mentioned in these ConPlans--combining resources and brainstorming by like-minded poverty agencies--seem to fall short of effective results. While collaboration is inherently
difficult, it is absolutely essential when engaging in anti-poverty work. n65 Los Angeles's reference to "networking and collaboration" rings hollow when it is followed by a vague mention of "[n]ew partnerships with
common anti-poverty goals that include housing providers, service providers, funding agencies, and employers; [*510] community education; and education of funding sources." n66 Clackamas, Oregon seems to be on a
more promising track with a plan to "provide leadership in the County, to identify and resolve issues of poverty," n67 which at least recognizes the need for leadership when developing anti-poverty strategies.
Despite the dearth of specific collaborative measures in these anti-poverty strategies, several plans reinforce the notion of "self-sufficiency" among families without effectively describing how that will be obtained or
measured. n68 Most of the anti-poverty strategies contain broad statements that fail to express specific actions and, most importantly, describe tangible and measurable results. n69 Additionally, legal requirements
regarding public notice are not well designed to achieve maximum citizen participation. n70
Vague objectives and lack of accountability yield little prospect for the federal program's success. Lafayette [*511] admitted to this point when it noted in its most recently submitted ConPlan that poverty had in fact
increased since their last plan. n71 Although the authors of the Lafayette ConPlan did try to attribute part of the cause to a sluggish post-9/11 economy, they also seemed to take some responsibility for their ineffective
initiatives in fighting poverty. n72
A second type of federal planning document is the Continuum of Care Plan, which refers to a "community plan to organize and deliver housing and services to meet the specific needs of people who are homeless as they
move to stable housing and maximum self-sufficiency." n73 The Continuum of Care Plan "includes action steps to end homelessness and prevent a return to homelessness." n74 HUD has identified four fundamental
components: (1) outreach, intake, and assessment to (a) identify an individual's or family's service and housing needs, and (b) link them to appropriate housing and/or service resources; (2) emergency shelter and safe,
decent alternatives to the streets; (3) transitional housing with supportive services to help people develop the skills necessary for permanent housing; and (4) permanent housing and permanent supportive housing. n75
[*512] HUD emphasizes that a Continuum of Care program should be a "collaborative process" and include coordinated neighborhood and community development strategies that will assist families in their move to
more permanent housing. n76 It also encourages a focus on preventive strategies to help decrease the number of homeless individuals. n77 The Plans, therefore, must include long-rage solutions and plans, making them
proactive social policy solutions.
The Continuum of Care Plans, of course, address only homelessness, and while homelessness comprises a large portion of this country's impoverished population, the Plan nonetheless is not focused on assisting those
who already have housing options. Glancing at a sampling of Continuum of Care Plans from cities and states throughout the country, however, exemplifies that a considerable amount of thought, collaboration, and
planning are channeled into these strategies. In this respect, the Continuum of Care Plans serve as a more useful template, than do the Consolidated Plans required by HUD, as a coherent and organized anti-poverty
planning document. n78
[*513] C. Coalitions
Ideally, a local anti-poverty plan needs to assess local needs, increase communication among service providers, coordinate existing
programs, gather new resources, design an implementation strategy, and clearly define how it will assure accountability. This work can best
be accomplished through the work of a coalition which would include individuals representing a wide array of stakeholders. Stakeholders would include, but would not be limited to, representatives from the many
sectors directly involved in the impoverished community including major institutions which are not poor such as hospitals, universities, businesses, and faith-based institutions.
Many people in the public interest law field might [*514] not recognize the importance of nontraditional institutions to community coalitions. n79 The coalition should also include participation from community
residents as well as individuals involved in public education, workforce development, social service, criminal justice, public interests, philanthropies, and government. n80
William Julius Wilson has written that only a multiracial coalition can mobilize the necessary political support and financial resources to implement an intervention strategy capable of resolving the structural causes of
ghetto poverty. n81 The planning committee, which could develop the anti-poverty plan and potentially become an advocacy coalition, should be trained and encouraged to develop creative and innovative policies and
programs. Over time, the committee will build chemistry and trust among the participants. Community lawyers from the public interest law sector could play a pivotal role ensuring that all sectors of society are
represented including the poor. n82 It is doubtful that any other professional class has the perspective and knowledge of the local social service network to analyze funding streams, detail the effectiveness of existing
services, recruit needed coalition members; and [*515] encourage accountability for precious financial resources.
The maturation of the coalition will be one of the most significant aspects to the success of the proposed anti-poverty plan. When
these groups internally develop trust and confidence that their planning will receive financial support, their commitment will further
develop a national will to fight poverty. n83 If these individual coalitions or planning committees network, then they could learn
from each other, inspire each other, create synergies, and reduce institutional inertia. Combined, these consequences create an
effective engine of change to overwhelm the forces of poverty.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
22
1AC - SOLVENCY
Federal funding of local antipoverty plans can boost employment, job training and economic justice
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
V. Work
Employment is the great crucible in our polarized political world. Work must be a priority of any anti-poverty strategy or plan. If
the government cannot help individuals who want to work but are unemployed through no fault of their own, then it fails in one of
the very purposes for which it was created--to provide security for its citizens. n84 One of the most sacred and core values of the
United States has always been equal opportunity. Equal opportunity has been a persistent and traditional value ever since its
recognition at the birth of the country. Unfortunately, those individuals who lack the basic necessities--to live, to provide for their
families, or to have [*516] the human dignity that comes with producing something of value to society--are estranged from those
values.
If everyone had a job paying a living wage, which would adequately provide for his or her family, then little or no poverty would
exist. n85 Since insufficient financial resources cause poverty, the most direct anti-poverty strategy would focus on work,
employment training and work support, and establishing living wages for all those individuals who want to work. Moreover, each
local jurisdiction, rather than the federal government, is best situated to determine the primary causes of labor market failure in its
own jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions will conclude that the focus of their anti-poverty plans should concentrate on public education
reform; others will articulate that the employment and training system needs restructuring. Many jurisdictions may focus on racial prejudice, while some will
focus on regional economic development strategies. Each local community has the collective capacity to analyze and understand what would lift its citizenry up to self-sufficiency. Additionally, local coalitions can generate
unique plans targeted to their community's needs. Ultimately, each plan's potential to help citizens go to work will be its litmus test for success Nonetheless,
local anti-poverty plans are the most
effective way to ensure that the right of equal opportunity is a reality and not a platitude. n86
[*517] Forty years ago, when the fledgling Legal Services Program attempted to obtain support from the established legal community, its first president Clint Bamberger challenged the American Bar Association. He
reminded the ABA that:
Our responsibility is to marshal the forces of law and the strength of lawyers to combat the causes and effect of poverty. Lawyers must uncover the legal causes of poverty, remodel the system which generates the cycle
of poverty and design new social, legal, and political tools and vehicles to move poor people from deprivation, depression, and despair to opportunity, hope, and ambition. n87
We now know that a lack of coherent local planning to fight poverty is at the root of the "cycle of poverty." Yet the question remains: how can we change systemic and structural forces that result in generations of
a coherent anti-poverty plan should focus on connecting poor residents to the regional and local
economy. Solutions to concentrated poverty require a link between poor citizens and the economy. n88
poverty without a plan to lead a community? Therefore,
Lawyers can contribute significantly to refocusing a local community's attention to the need for family-sustaining employment for all adults. In addition to [*518] performing a connective or intermediary function
between institutions such as hospitals, universities, real estate developers, and government agencies who all possess the capacity to wield influence and shape policy, lawyers can help interpret funding streams and
, an organized social or economic
movement can profoundly change the way our society views an issue and, consequently, influence the way laws are drafted.
planning programs. More specifically, public interest lawyers can reduce the isolation so visible in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Additionally
n89 Properly
trained and seasoned in public interest law, lawyers are indispensable agents for needed change.
Carefully cultivated,
this [*519] recognition could generate a popular expectation for local-and state-dominated responses to federal edicts. Locallydriven leadership is more suited to designing workforce development systems responsive to local labor force deficiencies. Assisted
by competent and inspired legal leadership, citizen coalitions could become a powerful instrument for economic justice.
One recent report demonstrates that Americans increasingly recognize that poverty requires a response not only by the federal government but by state and local government as well. n90
VI. The Will and The Way
In order to generate the will for proposed change, the proposed plan must (1) stress that structural and systemic forces in each of America's communities require active community participation to address local poverty
issues; (2) acknowledge that the societal costs of poverty are immense and apprise the public of these costs; (3) emphasize that the injustice of poverty is unacceptable and its elimination is a moral imperative; (4) draw
attention to the media attention paid to poverty in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as it provides an opportunity to create a needed national will driven by active citizen participation; (5) act to restore the human
dignity which accompanies the ability to work and contribute to the common good; (6) invest in the future, not only to reduce the various economic and personal costs, but also to convert consumers of poverty programs
into taxpayers; and (7) create a national response to poverty that will give deference and responsibility to both state and local government.
Additionally, in its national response, the government should (1) generate the political power to provide block grant funds to the states; (2) form local committees composed of representatives from all sectors to develop a
plan; (3) require advocates for the poor; (4) [*520] compile impact studies that assess the effect, including economic opportunities and costs, of all federal, state, and local legislation on the indigent; (5) pay special
attention to ensure that recipients of poverty services are included in the planning committees; (6) include higher education, business, faith-based institutions, service providers, public health, law enforcement, local
government, and other local institutions that devote resources to poverty issues need in the coalition; (7) detail what local resources will be contributed, how the plan will be implemented, and who--including
representative recipients--will evaluate the plan in order to ensure accountability; (8) adhere to each anti-poverty strategy and plan; (9) include recommendations for improving the efforts and assuring that allocated
resources are being deployed effectively in its evaluation process; (10) implement recommendations after each evaluation; and (11) create a self-perpetuating feedback loop to address change and assure that the local plans
remain effective and responsive to the problems being addressed.
VII. Conclusion
Hurricane Katrina focused the world's attention on the existence of America's poor. The mere existence of large numbers of poor people, and the lack of planning to serve their needs in an emergency situation, offered a
vivid picture of severe economic imbalance. From our earliest days, equal opportunity has been a bedrock value of the American experience. Today, that value has been relegated to a subordinate position because of the
preeminent positions accorded wealth, status, and power.
The federal system developed by our Founding Fathers offers the benefits of central funding and control, while according local
stakeholders meaningful input into the development of programs addressing poverty. Therefore, any realistic effort to address
poverty demands a change in the mindset of the public and the federal [*521] government's willingness to allocate sufficient
resources to local entities that can develop and implement programs to eliminate poverty. Advancing the change in that mindset can be promoted by
publicizing the need for equal opportunity and the high cost of poverty programs. Once the public recognizes these ideas, a political imperative should develop to fund the necessary anti-poverty programs. Federal
funding will be predicated on the development of comprehensive, accountable, and effective programs. At the same time, the
public hue and cry may prompt the development of local coalitions with the knowledge, know-how, and savvy to create programs
geared to address the unique problems of local poverty.
Hopefully, the coalescence of these factors will result in a change of policy and the development of systematic programming to eradicate poverty and its attendant problems that currently plague America. Perhaps
there are sunny days ahead if a rational recognition of the plague of poverty can become a national priority and its elimination is made possible through the implementation of the program outlined in this article.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
23
1AC - SOLVENCY
Federal action is crucial, states can’t create the same symbol that is vital to mobilize national consciousness to fight
poverty, structural racism and boost overall US political and economic leadership
Weil, 06 – President of the Food Research and Action Center (James, Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy,
May–June 2006, “The Federal Government—the Indispensable Player in Redressing Poverty,”
http://www.frac.org/pdf/Weil06.pdf
Yet hunger, poverty, economic insecurity, and unequal opportunity continue to be profound problems in this country. Arkansas still
has one of the highest hunger rates in the nation.7 But Arkansas hardly is alone. Nationwide thirty-eight million people live in
households suffering from hunger or living on the precipice of hunger (“food insecure without hunger”).8 Thirty-seven million live in poverty.9 Forty-six million have no
health insurance.10 And these numbers are snapshots at a particular time. Over longer periods a much larger number of Americans face hunger, poverty, lack of insurance, and often some combination of these
problems.11
While the deprivation faced by the poor in our country is not as extreme as in 1931, or in 1967 when Sen. Robert Kennedy and CBS exposed the nation to the distended bellies of childhood hunger in rural Mississippi,
today’s struggles of the poor are bad enough—and they are even more incredible given how extraordinarily wealthy our society has become. In January 2003 CBS television took a heartbreaking look at the names, faces,
and stories of those on a seemingly endless line of 896 people waiting outside a food bank in rural southeastern Ohio. One mother explained that she bought whole milk and cut it with an equal part of water: “It makes
milk last longer. Because the baby … needs milk.” When asked what her dream in life was, this rural Ohio mother in twenty-first century America said that it was to feed her baby undiluted milk.12 The nation may be five
times richer—on a per-capita basis—than it was in 1931, but the dreams of poor parents still are to be able to feed, clothe, and house their children.13
If we have learned anything in the ensuing seventy-five years, it is that the effort to give our nation’s families economic security and to lift them out of poverty requires all sectors—the solution of Will Rogers, who both
demanded federal aid and barnstormed for the Red Cross, rather than the empty and ultimately failed response of Herbert Hoover. As in President Hoover’s day, however, a vigorous debate is under way about whether
some argue that the federal role should be
minimized and all the work turned over to the mar-ket, charitable efforts, state and local efforts, and individual self-reliance. (Some would even take state
the federal government should play a preeminent federal role in attacking poverty and building economic security. As in Hoover’s day,
and local governments out of the equation as well.) And, ideology aside, the nation’s political leaders and political debate are paying little attention to a range of urgent domestic social problems such as economic
insecurity, unequal economic opportunity, and poverty.
In this dispiriting context, the claim for a robust federal role may seem anomalous or dated. After all, the federal minimum wage is now lower (in real terms) than during any other year but one in the last fifty years, while
numerous states and localities have been raising their minimum wages.14 The number of people without any health insurance has been increasing, without any meaningful federal response. The dismal performance of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 can shake anyone’s faith in the ability of the federal government to meet the most urgent human needs. And five years of huge tax cuts
skewed to the wealthy, with federal supports reduced for low-income people, are undermining antipoverty efforts and increasing inequality.15
These are just a few of many examples of how the federal government has ignored the needs of low-income people or affirmatively harmed them. Even the most fervent believers in the federal social role are likely to
have had their faith shaken by events during the last twenty-five years, if not by the last five years alone.
In many ways, however, the shortcomings of the federal government during that time, and the resulting damage to low-income people, to economic security, and to opportunity also show how fundamental the federal
The economic problems that many Americans face are beyond the ability—or
willingness— of state and local governments, charity, and the private sector to fix:
■ Poverty remains at extraordinarily high levels in this country, and the rate of poverty increased every year from 2001 to 2004 even
while the economy was growing at a decent pace.16
■ Poverty has been deepening among the poor for decades. People living in families with incomes below one-half of the poverty line constituted 28 percent in 1976 and 42 percent
role is in that no other sector is mitigating that damage or is seriously expected to do so.
in 2004.17
■ Poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are more than twice those for whites.18
■ Inequality is growing across the income spectrum. Not only are the very poor getting poorer, but also the middle class’ income is
relatively stagnant, the rich are getting richer, and the very rich are getting much richer. Cosmologists tell us that the galaxies in the universe are receding from
one another and are doing so at increasing speeds.19 The American economy has come to resemble this state of the universe.
■ Intergenerational mobility has declined rapidly in America—people from lowerincome families are far less likely to be
able to move up the economic ladder than their counterparts a generation or two ago and are less likely to be able to
do so than people in European societies that we consider tradition-bound and stratified by class.20
■ Families feel increasingly insecure as they work harder and harder to keep their incomes from falling and as their health benefits and retirement benefits erode or disappear and their housing and health costs increase.
People who are unemployed stay unemployed, on average, longer than they did in the 1970s and are much less likely to receive unemployment insurance. Income volatility is far greater than it used to be.
This toxic mix of economic stagnation for the bottom half, persistent poverty, declining opportunity, and growing economic
insecurity has complicated roots in both the changing national and world market economies and the changing American political environment. However, that most people hold the
federal government responsible for responding or failing to do so tells us a great deal about how crucial the federal role is. First,
there is a broad understanding that only the federal government has the capacity to confront these problems. No other institution
can respond as well to these worsening trends and festering problems. Much of what I say here explains why this is true— the compelling economic reasons, fiscal reasons,
political reasons, historical reasons, and symbolic reasons that we turn to the federal government. Second, the federal government already has played a successful and central
role, especially during the last seventy years, in moving the country toward more nearly equal opportunity, greater economic and
health security, and reduced poverty.21 There is no substitute for a robust positive federal role.
That the federal role is absolutely necessary does not mean that the federal government always will do the right thing.
Nor, when it does the right thing, will the federal government always do so decisively enough, completely enough, or in
a timely way. Bitter experience shows us otherwise.
The federal role, moreover, does not mean that individual self-reliance, a strong and effective charitable sector, a more supportive workplace, and engaged state and local governments are unimportant.
The federal government does not substitute for the role of other sectors that themselves are critical components of a broad social strategy to build economic security,
develop opportunity, and reduce poverty. American history, economic and government structure, politics, and culture all mean that a robust economy, a civil society, and vibrant state and local government are
But having real national leadership in the mix is essential.
fundamental to economic security.
As Pres. Lyndon Johnson said early in the war on poverty:
Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope— some because of their poverty, and some because of their color, and all too many because of both. Our task is to help replace their despair with
opportunity.… Poverty is a national problem, requiring improved national organization and support. But this attack, to be effective, must also be organized at the State and the local level and must be supported and
directed by State and local efforts.… The program I shall propose will emphasize this cooperative approach….22
only the federal government has the economic, fiscal, political, and moral resources to lead and to act.
In many ways
We all may condemn how FEMA
responded to Hurricane Katrina, but few believe that New Orleans can be rebuilt, with no major federal help, by private, city, and state action. We all may bemoan the stagnant and declining wages of recent decades. The
falling national minimum wage contributed to that, but state and local minimum- wage and living-wage laws are unlikely to reach broadly enough to substitute for a better federal minimum wage or for national strategies
to revive wage growth. We all may be deeply disturbed by the growing numbers of uninsured people, and a handful of states are considering major initiatives to expand coverage, but, even as many states are undertaking
retrenchment of existing coverage, ultimately confronting the problem—or letting it worsen—will fall to the national government. We may be appalled by federal budget cuts in low-income programs, but few expect
states or charities—least of all do the states and charities themselves expect—to make up those losses.
President Johnson’s other point was that the importance of ending poverty demands national attention. We will start there.
Important National Problems Demand a Meaningful National Response
If economic insecurity and poverty were trivial matters, the federal government would not need to become heavily involved. But they are not trivial matters.
Continues…
The damage that poverty,
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
24
1AC - SOLVENCY
Continues…
unequal opportunity, and material deprivation inflict on people is deeply injurious to our democracy as well as our economy—one
key reason that they must be a matter of fundamental concern to the society as a whole and compel a national response.
As Aristotle wrote:
It is therefore the greatest of blessings for a state that its members should possess a moderate and adequate property. Where some have great possessions, and others have nothing at all, the result is either an extreme
democracy or an unmixed oligarchy; or it may even be … a tyranny.…
… Where democracies have no middle class, and the poor are greatly superior in number, trouble ensues, and they are speedily ruined.23
Similarly Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt said that “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.… People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are
made.”24
Poverty quashes the spirit and saps the energy of America’s workers and parents, and this weakens the economy and dulls the political vibrancy of the nation. Denial of opportunity corrodes the American social compact.
Parental and child poverty reduces infant birth weight; harms health and mental health; leads to higher rates of disabilities, impairments, and injury; causes school absenteeism, lower achievement scores, and higher special
education and dropout rates; and leads to higher rates of delinquency and other self-destructive and antisocial behavior during adolescence.25 America’s high rate of child poverty costs the nation an estimated $130 billion
per year (in 1996 dollars).26
Those issues that America cares about and is serious about tackling receive a national response. Having federal atten-tion is not just
a matter of marshaling resources; it is also an ongoing statement about the centrality of the issue and the needs of those affected in
our national value system. It raises the ranking of an issue in the hierarchy of the nation’s concerns and makes it a matter of
sustained and extensive concern. Symbolically as well as programmatically and organizationally, when something matters to our
society, the federal government is assigned important tasks.
Thus a preeminent federal role is a national political and moral statement about poverty and economic security. One part of that
statement has to reflect a societal commitment to some national minimum standard of well-being. All people who live in this
country, wherever they live, should have access to certain essentials in life. Too much inequality from state to state subverts the
post–Civil War concept of the nation and subverts our political and economic roles in the world. The low-income people of Alabama and Mississippi
should not lack access to primary health care if everyone else has it. The people of New Mexico and Oklahoma should not go hungry, the people of Massachusetts should not freeze in winter, the seniors of Minnesota
should not have to live in shelters, children in Texas should not have to go without support from their fathers, and young children in North Carolina should not have to work in cotton mills because we have no national
standard of minimal decency and their states have chosen to deny them the basics.27
The other dimension of fundamental national morality is race, and the ongoing need to redress the nation’s history of racial
injustice. The post–Civil War amendments to the U.S. Constitution redefined the concept of national citizenship and gave the
national government the primary responsibility to ensure equal rights and opportunity for all Americans. Nearly a century and a half
later, this responsibility is undiminished, as is the need for the nation, through its national institutions, to fulfill the responsibility. The
historian John Hope Franklin concluded his autobiography with an impassioned plea to meet the particular needs of young African- American males. After describing the history of violence, racism, and economic
deprivation that they have faced,
Franklin writes:
[O]ur society as a whole and the fate of the least among us are inextricably woven together. And our entire social system bears the special responsibility for the plight of these young people who, in a very real way, may be
regarded as a metaphor for the ills of our society and the problems we face.… [T]hey must be reached, through legis- lation, goodwill, understanding, and compassion. The test of an advanced society is not in how many
millionaires it can produce, but in how many lawabiding, hardworking, highly respected, and self-respecting loyal citizens it can produce. The success of such a venture is a measure of the success of our national
enterprise.28
Our moral and political success depends on the quality of our national enterprise, but so, as discussed below, does our economic and fiscal success.
Federal Management of the Economy Is Essential in the Fight for Opportunity and Against Poverty
When political debate turns to the national role of fostering opportunity and reducing poverty, the default assumption is that the speaker is talking about spending—especially spending on social insurance and means-tested
welfare, health, child care, nutrition, and similar programs—and the comparative advantage that the federal government has in raising revenue, creating such programs, and spending adequate sums on those programs. In
much of this article I focus as well on the spending issues. But the federal government does much more to combat domestic poverty and to improve economic security and opportunity in its other roles of manager of the
national economy and regulator of labor, business, and international affairs. A full discussion of these roles is beyond the scope of this article, but consider the impact on poverty, opportunity, and economic security of
just the examples on the following list:
■ The balance struck by the Federal Reserve Bank, in managing interest rates and the money supply, between keeping the inflation rate low versus pushing toward full employment and keeping the economy growing
rapidly and real wages increasing. The highest poverty rates in the last forty years were in the early 1980s when unemployment skyrocketed as “the Fed” drove up interest rates to control inflation.29
■ The role of federal fiscal as well as monetary policy in stabilizing the economy and limiting the depth of recessions and the growth of unemployment.
■ The federal government support for or hostility to labor organizing.
■ The level of the federal minimum wage.
■ The federal rules regarding bankruptcy and the extent to which destitute individuals and families can get a fresh start or are enmeshed in endless debt.
■ The regulation of private pensions and the extent to which the government strengthens that system or allows pension
underfunding and corporate bankruptcy laws to undercut security for workers when they retire.30
■ The extent to which the government does or does not tax the earnings of low-income people and thereby deepen or alleviate their poverty.
■ Whether the government protects workers against job and earnings loss when family circumstances, such as the birth of a child or a spouse’s or child’s illness, interrupt the ability to work.
■ How the federal government defines overtime eligibility and overtime pay.
■ The ways in which tax policy subsidizes housing, health care, child care, and other basics and work supports, and the degree of subsidy at different income levels.
■ Federal immigration policy and labor and public benefits policy for immigrants.
■ The scope, strength, and level of enforcement of civil rights laws, including laws requiring equal pay and fair credit.
■ The definition of which political, civil, and economic rights receive special protection under the Constitution.
■ The way in which the federal government defines poverty and counts the number of poor people—this going far toward shaping public attitudes as to how widespread poverty is and how deep the deprivation involved
is.
In all of these areas the federal government has the predominant role. In some areas it has an exclusive role according to the Constitution. In others its exclusive authority is not constitutionally mandated, but, when it
acts, it preempts state action. In yet other areas it may not be preemptive, but it still became a dominant or important presence in the twentieth century as the national ideal evolved and the economy changed.
Many of these areas of federal action, of course, are seen as being “about” the economy, not “about” opportunity or economic security or poverty. But often they also have a more profound impact, for good or ill, on
poverty and opportunity and security than most spending decisions.
By definition, then, the federal government is taking a leading role on these matters. The key question is whether increasing economic security and opportunity and reducing poverty—reducing suffering and deprivation
among the American people— is an important consideration in the development of these policies. When it is, the poor will be better off, and spending policy will complement that. When it is not, the poor will suffer, and
spending policy will not be able to redress that.
In no area of American life are these interactions as serious, and so contentious, as when race discrimination is involved. As President Bush said in his speech in New Orleans two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit:
[T]here’s also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this
poverty with bold action.… [W]e’re tied together in this life, in this nation….31
The two periods of greatest leaps in empowering and creating opportunity for African Americans in our nation—the
Reconstruction period after the Civil War and the period of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s—were periods of
political and economic progress complemented by federal spending policy.
In both instances the economic change created through access to property, to jobs, to political power, to the courts, and to education dwarfed that created by new federal spending initiatives. But, in both periods,
spending initiatives were an important secondary source of change.32 And both produced a fierce reaction stemming from the defense of the economic and political power of whites and of economic elites. Both times
the challenge to poverty, economic injustice, and racial discrimination slowed or reversed.
In other words, political cycles tend to drive federal economic management and federal spending policy to move in tandem: both are likely to be inadequate for the poor when political weakness means that the
Continues…
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
25
1AC - SOLVENCY
Continues…
national government can ignore their needs. For example, in the last few years Congress passed damaging bank- ruptcy law changes and the Bush administration sought damaging changes in overtime and civil rights
policy, while Congress cut Medicaid, child support, child care, and other spending for the poor. But when spending and economic policy are positive and complement each other, great strides can be made in increasing
opportunity and reducing poverty. The mid- and late 1990s, while far from ideal, saw economic policy (e.g., low unemployment and a higher minimum wage) complementing some spending policy (e.g., an increase in the
earned income tax credit) to a degree that poverty (particularly African American poverty and poverty in families headed by single women) dropped significantly, even in the face of the aftershocks of the 1996 welfare
law.33
The Federal Government Can Deploy Fiscal Resources that States, Localities, and Charities Cannot
In addressing poverty and economic security through social insurance, means-tested benefits, and other antipoverty efforts, the federal fiscal advantage is decisive.
Personal poverty is the result of individuals and families lacking income and resources, and one central answer to that poverty is helping increase their income and
resources. Some states and localities are far less able to respond to this need than others. Moreover, places with the most poor people generally are the places with
the greatest shortage of resources.
Community poverty and personal poverty are entwined. If jobs are scarce and wages are low, then per-capita income is low and so
are local or state tax revenues. The locality or state cannot mount an adequate or robust response to the poverty.34
Because of disparate resource bases, the states’ responses to poverty become widely disparate.35 While disentangling political from
fiscal factors is difficult (and the political factors themselves have economic causes), clearly state and local funding capacity is a
fundamental problem.
In 1935, before Congress passed the Aid to Dependent Children program (later renamed the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program) as part of the
Social Security Act, the Committee on Economic Security, in its recommendations that led to the Act, reported:36
Less than one-half of the local units [of government] authorized to grant mothers’ aid are actually doing so. Many others are granting amounts insufficient to defend
the children involved. Part of this situation is due to indifference, but in part it is due to the poverty of many local government units….37
Today we still see vast disparities in payment levels in TANF, the successor to mothers’ aid and Aid to Families with Dependent Children, as well as in eligi-bility
levels for Medicaid benefits among parents, in state child care and preschool policies, and in other areas left to state and local control—and resources.38
The disparities, moreover, are enduring. Localities, states, and regions are beset by long-term poverty and economic distress. In 1970
the per-capita income of the wealthiest state (Connecticut) was 194 percent that of the poorest state (Mississippi).39 In 2004, nearly two generations later,
Connecticut still had percapita income 187 percent that of Mississippi.40 Similarly in 2004 the five states with the highest incidence of poverty (Mississippi, 21.6
percent; Louisiana, 19.4 percent; New Mexico, 19.3 percent; District of Columbia, 18.9 percent; West Virginia, 17.9 percent; Arkansas, 17.9 percent) and the District
of Columbia had rates more than twice as high as the six with the lowest incidence (Maryland, 8.8 percent; New Jersey, 8.5 percent; Minnesota, 8.3 percent; Alaska,
8.2 percent; New Hampshire, 7.6 percent; Connecticut, 7.6 percent).41 While some differences in the costs of living between many wealthy and many poor states are
real, those differences narrow in effect but hardly eliminate the poverty rate and resource disparities.
States such as Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana (as seen vividly after Hurricane Katrina) suffer from longterm deprivation that robs them of the public
resources they need to combat poverty and maximize opportunity.
The federal government response to these human needs and these state resource disparities is a set of social welfare and antipoverty
programs that often are completely or overwhelmingly federally funded ( e.g., social security, Supplemental Security Income, school lunches,
Medicare, food stamps, refundable earned income tax credit, and child tax credit) or in which poorer states receive a higher level of federal matching funds (e.g.,
Medicaid). These financing mechanisms— and these and other programs to improve economic security, cover health care insurance, and reduce poverty—have
proven to be both effective and durable.
Some have suggested that most or all antipoverty programs should be designed as well as operated completely at the state or local level even if the federal
government is needed for robust funding. Federally funded block grants generally are an example of this.
Certainly the relative amount of federal power over the design of a program should differ markedly depending on the type of program it is. Income support for
retired seniors based on a fixed formula or for families with children through the tax code has imperatives different from those of community development spending
where a national bureaucracy likely would be too rigid and distant to make first-rate allocation decisions. Most programs, even when overwhelmingly federally
funded, do operate with shared federal and state or local responsibility for program design; and most have primary state or local responsibility for the day-to-day
administration of benefits.
But generally programs in which the federal government provides money but has no meaningful programmatic role tend to be unsuccessful or short-lived. Over time
Congress and the Executive Branch lose interest when they are not engaged in program design, much less control, and so funding erodes, often dramatically. Title
XX of the Social Security Act, which funds social services, the revenue- sharing program that Pres. Richard Nixon started, and many of the block grants that
Congress created at Pres. Ronald Reagan’s behest in 1981–82 are examples.
By contrast, when the federal government provides both funds and direction, the outcome usually is better. Some of these
programs are so successful that we no longer remember how deep (how “intractable”—to use a phrase often applied to the
problems of the poor) the problems that they tried to solve supposedly were. Social security, Supplemental Security Income, Job
Corps, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, school lunch and school breakfast, food stamps, child support enforcement, immunizations,
and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (commonly known as the WIC program) are
among the many programs that fit this model.
All of this focus on the federal role is not to denigrate the importance of state action, innovation, experimentation, flexibility, and
leadership.42 They all play a key role. But too often such actions are small-scale or vulnerable to quick political shifts or (no matter
how successful) do not spread into very many other states unless the federal government takes the lead.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
26
1AC - CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Observation _: Civic engagement
Civic disengagement is spreading as Americans are becoming disconnected from both local governments and the federal
government.
Fretz 04 (Eric, Director, Service-Learning Center, Naropa University, “Teaching Liberty and Practicing Deliberative Democracy in
the Classroom,” The Campus Compact Reader, Winter, http://www.compact.org/reader/winter04/article2-1.html)
Introduction: In the past decade, many American citizens have joined a choir of voices lamenting the demise of public life in the United States. The common chorus
goes like this: Americans have forgotten how to be citizens in a democracy and architects of public life. Our democratic imagination is
blunt, and public life in the United States is dying a slow death. Civic engagement, the hallmark of American democracy, is in rapid
decline. According to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, less than 50% of eligible voters participated in the 1996 election and since the
1960s, voter participation has declined by more than 25%. Close to 80% of the population ignores local elections. The percentage of Americans who regularly attend
public, school or political meetings is at all-time lows, and we seem willing to trust our government only in times of extreme threat to the republic. The general
consensus seems to be there’s not too much to be done about these problems of public apathy. A 1995 New York Times/CBS News poll revealed that 59% of the
people polled could not point to one elected official they admired, and 79% believed the government is “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves”
(Boyte, “The Work of Citizenship” 4). Increasingly, Americans see local and federal government as entities that are separate from their own
interests and needs. We have lost a sense of Abraham Lincoln’s vision at the fields of Gettysburg when he declared “that this nation, under God, shall have a
new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Measurements of civic
engagement and democratic capacities of our nation’s youth, particularly our college students, are particularly sobering. Today’s
college students, often referred to as Generation Y, participate in public life and exercise their public voices far less frequently than
their predecessors. In 1996, only 36 percent of eligible voters under thirty managed to go to the polls. Since the ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment in
1971, 18-24 year olds have consistently voted less than all other age groups (Hayes 41). Pundits trot out hosts of reasons ranging from youthful alienation, lack of
connection to national and local issues, media influences and voter registration frustrations for the abysmal voter turnout and the public apathy of the young (Hays
41-43). Not enough attention has been paid to the educational system and its failure to inculcate democratic values and practices in
the lives and minds of our students. In An Aristocracy for Everyone, Benjamin Barber charges education professionals to “teach liberty,” noting that “the
fundamental task of education in a democracy is the apprenticeship of liberty—learning to be free” (4). Barber argues that democracy is a complex habit
each of us must learn. We are not born into “democracy” any more than we are born free. We acquire our freedom by learning how to feed and dress
ourselves, control out bowels, communicate and develop our motor skills. We acquire our democratic habits by learning how to deliberate
about public issues, understand multiple perspectives and involve ourselves in the life of our communities. American thinkers from
Thomas Jefferson to Williams James to John Dewey to Derek Bok have expressed concern that a vital democracy is contingent upon older generations teaching
younger generations the habits and skills of democratic life. In Democracy and Education, Dewey provides a rationale for a pedagogy of democracy. Dewey titles the
first section of the book, “Renewal by Transmission,” and he argues that
. . . the graded difference in age, the fact that some are born as some die, makes possible through transmission of ideas and practices the constant reweaving of the
social fabric. Yet this renewal is not automatic. Unless pains are taken to see that genuine and thorough transmission takes place, the most civilized group will relapse
into barbarism and then into savagery.
Picking up on Dewey’s idea, Robert Putnam, in Bowling Alone, explains “the single most important cause of our current plight is a pervasive and continuing
generational decline in almost all forms of civic engagement. Today’s youth did not initiate the erosion of Americans’ social capital—their parents did—and it is
the obligation of Americans of all ages to help rekindle civic engagement among the generation that will come of age in the early
years of the twenty-first century” (404).
The pursuit of economic opportunity is the foundation of civic engagement, a national antipoverty strategy is vital to
capturing the public consciousness
Center for American Progress, 07 (“From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half,” Report and
Recommendations of the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty, April,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/poverty_report.pdf
Poverty violates our fundamental principles as a democratic nation and as ethically conscious individuals. American democracy is
built on a simple proposition, declared in our founding documents and developed over centuries of trial and error: All Americans
should have the opportunity to turn their aspirations into a meaningful and materially satisfactory life. Our nation is grounded on
the idea that together we can create a society of economic advancement for all aided by a government that protects individual
rights, ensures fair competition, and promotes a greater common good. The American system is not designed to guarantee that
everybody will be the same, think the same, or receive the same economic rewards in life. It simply ensures that people start from a
level playing field and have a reasonable shot at achieving success in life and making the most of their abilities.
Economic opportunity has served as the foundation for citizenship and civic engagement throughout our nation’s history. As
political icons from Thomas Jefferson to Martin Luther King, Jr. have long recognized, core concepts such as freedom and
democracy are essentially meaningless for those who lack economic independence. Simply put, one cannot fully participate in
society and help shape the decisions of our government and its priorities if confined to abject poverty.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
27
1AC - CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Political disengagement doesn’t mean the national public sphere goes away, it means it will be dominated by the farright and collapse into fascism, causing wars and tyranny
Rorty 98 - Stanford Philosophy Professor (Richard, Achieving Our Country, pp. 87-94)
if the pressures of globalization create such castes not only in the United States but in all the old
democracies, we shall end up in an Orwellian world. In such a world, there may be no supernational analogue of Big Brother, or any official creed analogous to Ingsoc. But there will be an analogue
If the formation of hereditary castes continues unimpeded, and
of the Inner Party—namely, the international, cosmopolitan super-rich. They will make all the important decisions. The analogue of Orwell’s Outer Party will be educated, comfortably off, cosmopolitan professionals—Lind’s “overclass,”
the people like you and me. The job of people like us will be to make sure that the decisions made by the Inner Party are carried out smoothly and efficiently. It will be in the interest of the international super-rich to keep our class relatively
prosperous and happy. For they need people who can pretend to be the political class of each of the individual nation-states. For the sake of keeping the proles quiet, the super-rich will have to keep up the pretense that national politics
might someday make a difference. Since economic decisions are their prerogative, they will encourage politicians, of both the Left and the Right, to specialize in cultural issues.7 The aim will be to keep the minds of the proles elsewhere—
If the proles can be distracted
from their own despair by media-created psuedo-events, including the occasional brief and bloody war, the super-rich will have little to fear.
Contemplation of this possible world invites two responses from the Left. The first is to insist that the inequalities between nations need to be mitigated —and, in particular, that the Northern Hemisphere must share
its wealth with the Southern. The second is to insist that the primary responsibility of each democratic nation-state is to its own least advantaged
citizens. These two responses obviously conflict with each other. In particular, the first response suggests that the old democracies should open their borders, whereas the second suggests that they should close
them.8 The first response comes naturally to academic leftists, who have always been internationally minded. The second response comes naturally to members of trade unions, and to
the marginally employed people who can most easily be recruited into right-wing populist movements. Union members in the United States have watched
to keep the bottom 75 percent of Americans and the bottom 95 percent of the world’s population busy with ethnic and religious hostilities, and with debates about sexual mores.
factory after factory close, only to reopen in Slovenia, Thailand, or Mexico. It is no wonder that they see the result of international free trade as prosperity for managers and stockholders, a better standard of living for workers in developing
countries, and a very much worse standard of living for American workers. It would be no wonder if they saw the American leftist intelligentsia as on the same side of the managers and stockholders—as sharing the same class interests. For
we intellectuals, who are mostly academics, are ourselves quite well insulated, at least in the short run, from the effects of globalization. To make things worse, we often seem more interested in the workers of the developing world than in
democracies are heading into a Weimar-like period, one in which
populist movements are likely to overturn constitutional governments. Edward Luttwak, for example, has suggested that fascism may be the American
future. The point of his book The Endangered American Dream is that members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages
the fate of our fellow citizens. Many writers on socioeconomic policy have warned that the old industrialized
from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers—themselves desperately afraid of being downsized—are not going to let themselves be
something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and
start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone will assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salemen, and postmodernist
taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else. At that point,
professors will no longer be calling the shots. A scenario like that of Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here may then be played out. For once such a strongman takes office, nobody can predict what will happen. In
One thing that is very likely to happen is that the
gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come
back into fashion. The words “nigger” and “kike” will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to
its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet. But such a
renewal of sadism will not alter the effects of selfishness. For after my imagined strongman takes charge, he will quickly make peace with the international
superrich, just as Hitler made with the German industrialists. He will invoke the glorious memory of the Gulf War to provoke military adventures
which will generate short-term prosperity. He will be a disaster for the country and the world. People will wonder why there was so little
resistance to his evitable rise. Where, they will ask, was the American Left? Why was it only rightists like Buchanan who spoke to the workers about the consequences of globalization? Why could
1932, most of the predictions made about what would happen if Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor were wildly overoptimistic.
not the Left channel the mounting rage of the newly dispossesed? It is often said that we Americans, at the end of the twentieth century, no longer have a Left. Since nobody denies the existence of what I have called
the cultural Left, this amounts to an admission that that Left is unable to engage in national politics.
It is not the sort of the Left which can be asked to deal with the consequences
of globalization. To get the country to deal with those consequences, the present cultural Left would have to transform itself by opening relations with the residue of the old reformist Left, and in particular with the
the Left should put
a moratorium on theory. It should try to kick its philosophy habit. The second is that the Left should try to mobilize what remains of our pride in being Americans. It should ask the public to consider how the
labor unions. It would have to talk much more about money, even at the cost of talking less about stigma. I have two suggestions about how to effect this transition. The first is that
country of Lincoln and Whitman might be achieved. In support of my first suggestion, let me cite a passage from Dewey’s Reconstruction in Philosophy in which he expresses his exasperation with the sort of sterile debate now going on under
the rubric of “individualism versus communitarianism.” Dewey thought that all discussions which took this dichotomy seriously suffer from a common defect. They are all committed to the logic of general notions under which specific
situations are to be brought. What we want is light upon this or that group of individuals, this or that concrete human being, this or that special institution or social arrangement. For such a logic of inquiry, the traditionally accepted logic
substitutes discussion of the meaning of concepts and their dialectical relationships with one another. Dewey was right to be exasperated by sociopolitical theory conducted at this level of abstraction. He was wrong when he went on to say
that ascending to this level is typically a rightist maneuver, one which supplies “the apparatus for intellectual justifications of the established order.”9 For such ascents are now more common on the Left than on the Right. The
contemporary academic Left seems to think that the higher your level of abstraction, the more subversive of the established order you can be. The more sweeping and novel your conceptual apparatus, the more radical your critique. When
one of today’s academic leftists says that some topic has been “inadequately theorized,” you can be pretty certain that he or she is going to drag in either philosophy of language, or Lacanian psychoanalysis, or some neo-Marxist version of
economic determinism. Theorists of the Left think that dissolving political agents into plays of differential subjectivity, or political initiatives into pursuits of Lacan’s impossible object of desire, helps to subvert the established order. Such
subversion, they say, is accomplished by “problematizing familiar concepts.” Recent attempts to subvert social institutitons by problematizing concepts have produced a few very good books. They have also produced many thousands of
it is almost impossible to clamber
back down from their books to a level of abstraction on which one might discuss the merits of a law, a treaty, a candidate or a political
strategy. Even though what these authors “theorize” is often something very concrete and near at hand—a curent TV show, a media celebrity, a recent scandal—they offer the most absract and barren explanations
imaginable. These futile attempts to philosophize one’s way into political relevance are a symptom of what happens when a Left retreats
from activism and adopts a spectatorial approach to the problems of its country. Disengagement from practice produces
theoretical hallucinations. These result in an intellec- tual environment which is, as Mark Edmundson says in his book Nightmare on Main Street, Gothic. The cultural Left is haunted by ubiquitous
books which represent scholastic philosophizing at its worts. The authors of these purportedly “subversive” books honestly believe that the are serving human liberty. But
specters, the most frightening of which is called "power." This is the name of what Edmund- son calls Foucault's "haunting agency, which is everywhere and nowhere, as evanescent and insistent as a resourceful spook." 10
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
28
1AC - CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
This is already happening—the national public sphere is being dominated by military and corporate interests. This is
facilitating militarism and global violence
Boggs, 05 (Carl, teaches political science at the University of Southern California, Imperial delusions: American militarism and
endless war, p. 82-84)
The corrosive effects of the permanent war economy, along with the process of corporate colonization in general, have been
increasingly obvious since the 1970s. By the turn of the century American society had become probably more depoliticized than at
any time in many decades, which is ironic given worsening social problems as well as the rapid growth of higher education and
spread of the informational revolution. The vast majority of Americans felt alienated from politics, disempowered, cut off from
hopes for remedies to pressing challenges: corporate downsizing, poverty, crises in education and health care, civic violence,
environmental decay. Such disenfranchisement meant a decline of citizenship, a profound erosion of civic culture that transformed
democratic values and practices into something of a facade . As E.J. Dionne comments:
Americans hate politics as it is now practiced because we have lost all sense of the public good. Over the last thirty years . . . politics has stopped being a deliberative
process through which people resolved disputes, found remedies, and moved forward. When Americans watch politics now . . . they understand instinctively that
politics these days is not about finding solutions. It is about discovering postures that offer short-term political benefits.1
The American political system had severely atrophied, involving greatly reduced levels of citizen participation, whether at the ballot box, in formal party activities, in
the corridors of power, or in local community life. This deepening antipolitical culture is not simply a matter of failed or corrupt leaders, weak parties and
movements, or flawed structures; it reflects long-term historical processes shaping every facet of daily life. Seen in this way, the depoliticization of American
society is in many ways a predictable mass response to a governing system designed to control public opinion, marginalize dissent,
privatize social relations, and reduce the intensity of popular involvement. As William Greider writes: "If citizens sometimes behave irresponsibly
in politics, it is the role assigned them. They have lost any other way to act, any means for influencing the governing process in positive or broad-minded terms."2
The political, economic, and cultural impact of an oversized Pentagon system on all this cannot be overstated. In this transformed setting—corporate,
globalized, militarized—politics has degenerated into a mix of narrow interest-group maneuvers, bureaucratic intrigues, and
electoral rituals, even while corporate and military priorities remain largely unchecked in a context where Empire takes on a logic of its own.
While there is little that is novel about such developments, taken together they have produced a truncated party system, passive citizenry, and trivialized public
discourse that does little justice to the historic norms of liberal democracy. In American society "politics" now constitutes the domain of corporate
and
governmental elites whose overriding ambition is to perpetuate their own oligarchical power and wealth. Nowhere has this
phenomenon become more visible than in the sphere of foreign and military policy. Political dialogue in the United States has degenerated into
rhetorical flourishes tied to abstract platitudes like "free market," "family values," "personal responsibility," "economic progress," and "peace" that in the end have
little do with either material welfare or public policy. In place of an active, engaged citizenry once associated with populism, the civil rights movement, and feminism,
for example, we find an atomized population increasingly devoid of civic trust, enmeshed in private life (TV, computers, shopping malls, autos) that runs counter to
a vibrant public sphere. The revival of social movements—anti-globalization struggles begun in late 1999, a large and diverse antiwar movement in late 2002 and
early 2003—seems to have broken the consensual stillness, but the durability of these movements has yet to be established. Meanwhile, the corporations, state,
and military reinforce their hold over public life as their interests meet little in the way of sustained challenges within or outside of
electoral campaigns. If the system reproduces all the external trappings of democracy, legality, and citizenship, it has become more repressive and antidemocratic in
practice, more emphatically so in the aftermath of 9/11. It works efficiently to subvert potentially significant expressions of political agency at the mass level.
Owing in part to the workings of the permanent war economy, the most imposing crisis in American society today is no doubt the
crisis of citizenship, since without its resolution the destructive path of American society is extremely unlikely to be reversed. The
narrowing public sphere is easy enough to identify—lower voter turnouts, a decreased sense of political efficacy, a waning popular trust in government, a declining
knowledge of issues, the erosion of the party system, the ideological convergence of elites. Predictably, major social problems wind up suppressed or trivialized
within what passes for public debate. This state of affairs is marked by nothing short of the banality of politics itself: corruption, deceit, propaganda, false promises,
empty rituals, the power of money dominate the landscape. Enshrouded in the great myths of American democracy is a political system that responds far more to
wealth, bureaucratic power, and influence peddling than to local citizen initiative. While the procedural elements of liberal democracy remain intact, vital areas of
decision making (finance, corporate agendas, foreign policy) remain the preserve of a small stratum of elites. The more that political
activities like voting, candidate debates, and legislative activity wind up detached from everyday social life, the more they seem to be trumpeted as necessary features
of democracy—and thus the more they obscure genuine popular concerns.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
29
1AC – CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Poverty reduction is vital to increasing productivity, economic growth and civic engagement
Weil, 06 – President of the Food Research and Action Center (James, Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy,
May–June 2006, “The Federal Government—the Indispensable Player in Redressing Poverty,”
http://www.frac.org/pdf/Weil06.pdf
The Federal Government Is More Likely than Any State or Locality to Realize a Return on Its Investment in People
The effects of mobility on decisions about state and local taxes and expenditures probably inhibit even those state and local
expenditures that inarguably produce extraordinarily long-term returns on investment. Reducing poverty, lack of access to health
care, and their ill effects—especially among children and young adults—brings substantial long-term social and economic benefits.
So does broadening opportunity—early childhood education and schools, job training, access to employment, and allowing people
of color, females, and low-income people an equal chance to participate in and contribute to the society. These are investments in
the future of the society, and they produce greater productivity, a larger gross national product, and a higher living standard as well
as greater domestic tranquility (less crime, less political unrest) and more robust civic participation.
However, getting any particular set of investors to act on the basis of these universally shared returns on investment— these
“positive externalities” as the economists call them—especially when the returns are so long-term and intergenerational is especially
hard. For a particular business, locality, or state, its own return on an investment in employees’ or residents’ opportunity or
economic security often would be negative even if the societywide return is positive beyond the wildest dreams of the typical
“investor.”48 Employers and state and local governments face problems not just of fiscal limits but of the great mobility of
Americans. For example, an investment in the health and well-being of children would produce local returns but also returns for
many other states as families move or as the children move when they become adults. This would be particularly true of poor states
and localities, those that can least afford the investment: if they make a robust investment, which would produce even greater
returns, they are even more likely than other places to see their returns diluted as a higher proportion of successful, educated, and
talented young people migrate to places with greater opportunity. The logical investor in such circumstances is the society as a
whole—acting through federal taxation and spending.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
30
POVERTY EFFECTS 37 MILLION AMERICANS A YEAR
37 million Americans live below the poverty line
Center for American Progress, 07 (“From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half,” Report and
Recommendations of the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty, April,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/poverty_report.pdf
Thirty-seven million Americans live below the official poverty line. Millions more struggle each month to pay for basic necessities,
or run out of savings when they lose their jobs or face health emergencies. Poverty imposes enormous costs on society. The lost
potential of children raised in poor households, the lower productivity and earnings of poor adults, the poor health, increased
crime, and broken neighborhoods all hurt our nation. Persistent childhood poverty is estimated to cost our nation $500 billion each
year, or about 4 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. In a world of increasing global competition, we cannot afford to
squander these human resources.
The Center for American Progress last year convened a diverse group of national experts and leaders to examine the causes and
consequences of poverty in America and make recommendations for national action. In this report, our Task Force on Poverty calls
for a national goal of cutting poverty in half in the next 10 years and proposes a strategy to reach the goal.
Our nation has seen periods of dramatic poverty reduction at times when near-full employment was combined with sound federal
and state policies, motivated individual initiative, supportive civic involvement, and sustained national commitment. In the last six
years, however, our nation has moved in the opposite direction. The number of poor Americans has grown by five million, while
inequality has reached historic high levels.
37 million people live below the federal poverty line
Nilsen, 07 – Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office (Sigurd,
CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis
According to the Census Bureau, approximately 37 million people in the United States-nearly 13 percent of the total populationlived below the poverty line in 2005. This percentage was significantly larger for particular population groups, specifically children,
minorities, and those living in certain geographic areas such as inner cities. The federal government spends billions of dollars on
programs to assist low-income individuals and families. These programs included Medicaid, food stamps, Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families (TANF), and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), to name some of the largest. While some have taken issue
with Census' official poverty measure and proposed alternative measures, it is generally recognized that poverty imposes costs on
the nation as a whole, not merely in terms of programmatic outlays but also through lost productivity that can affect the overall
economy.
13% of the population is living in poverty
Nilsen, 07 – Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office (Sigurd,
CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis
U.S. Poverty Rates
In 2005, close to 13 percent of the total U.S. population-about 37 million people-were counted as living below the poverty line, a
number that essentially remained unchanged from 2004. Poverty rates differ, however, by age, gender, race, and ethnicity and other
factors. For example,
-- Children: In 2005, 12.3 million children, or 17.1 percent of children under the age of 18, were counted as living in poverty.
Children of color were at least three times more likely to be in poverty than those who were white: 34.2 percent of children who
were African- American and 27.7 percent of children who were Hispanic lived below the poverty line compared to 9.5 percent of
children who were white. African-American children represented 15.2 percent and Hispanic children represented 19.9 percent of all
children under the age of 18 in 2005.
-- Racial and ethnic minorities: African-Americans and Hispanics have significantly higher rates of poverty than whites. In 2005,
24.9 percent of African-Americans and 22 percent of Hispanics lived in poverty compared to 8.3 percent for whites. AfricanAmericans made up 12.5 percent of the total population while Hispanics accounted for 14.7 percent.
-- Elderly: The elderly have lower rates of poverty than other groups. For example, 10.1 percent of adults aged 65 or older lived in
poverty. The elderly represented 12.1 percent of the total U.S. population in 2005.
Poverty rates also differ depending on geographical location and for urban and nonurban areas. Poverty rates for urban areas were
double those in suburbs, 17 percent compared to 9.3 percent. Poverty rates in the South were the highest at 14 percent; the West
had a rate of 12.6 percent, followed by the Midwest with 11.4 percent and the Northeast at 11.3 percent.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
31
90 MILLION ARE AT RISK OF POVERTY
90 million people are low income
Center for American Progress, 07 (“From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half,” Report and
Recommendations of the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty, April,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/pdf/poverty_report.pdf
One in eight Americans now lives in poverty. A family of four is considered poor if the family’s income is below $19,971—a bar
far below what most people believe a family needs to get by. Still, using this measure, 12.6 percent of all Americans were poor in
2005, and more than 90 million people (31 percent of all Americans) had incomes below 200 percent of federal poverty thresholds.
Ninety million people are near the poverty line
Ganzglass, 08 – Director of Workforce Development Policy at the Center for Law and Social Policy (Evelyn, “Recover, Renew,
Rebuild: Workforce Policies for a Strong and Fair Economy,” 11/12,
http://www.clasp.org/publications/workforce2009_nov12_2008.pdf
While shoring up the economy will be job one, the administration also must address a lessvisible crisis—the ability to achieve the
“American Dream.” For too many people, our nation’s promise of prosperity and opportunity for upward mobility is broken. In
2007, even before thecurrent recession, one in eight Americans3 and close to one in four African‐ Americans 4 lived in poverty,
and more than 90 million people—close to one‐ third of all Americans—had incomes below 200 percent of federal poverty
thresholds.5 Too many workers are stuck in low‐ wage jobs, and most low‐ wage workers experience little or no earnings growth
over time.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
32
POVERTY EFFECTS A MAJORITY OF AMERICANS
Poverty is fluid – a majority of Americans will experience it during their lifetime
Rank, 06 – George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (Mark, 20 Wash. U. J.L. &
Pol'y 17, “POVERTY, JUSTICE, AND COMMUNITY LAWYERING: INTERDISCIPLINARY AND CLINICAL
PERSPECTIVES: Toward a New Understanding of American Poverty”, lexis
A second major premise underlying a new paradigm is the recognition of poverty as a conditional state that individuals move in and
out of. In the old way of thinking, we have talked and written about "poor people." Yet this term is in many respects a misnomer.
The more typical pattern is that individuals and households move in and out of poverty, rather than remaining "poor people"
throughout their lives. In addition, a majority of Americans will experience impoverishment at some point during the life course.
Rather than framing the issue as one of poor people, our focus should be on the condition of poverty. Longitudinal research over
the past twenty years has shown that most households are impoverished for one or two years, but then manage to rise above the
poverty line. n60 They may stay there for a period of time, only to experience an additional fall into poverty at some later point. n61
The condition of [*33] poverty also affects a very large percentage of the population at some point during the life span. For
example, the work of Rank and Hirschl demonstrates that a majority of Americans will at some point experience at least one year
below the poverty line. n62
The picture of poverty that emerges from this body of research is thus characterized by fluidity. Individuals and households weave
their way in and out of poverty depending upon the occurrence or nonoccurrence of detrimental events (e.g., job loss, family
disruption, or ill health). Of course, the amount by which individuals are above the poverty line is often quite modest, so that
detrimental events in the future can throw them back below the line. The recognition of poverty as a conditional state that a
majority of the population will move in and out of is a fundamentally different way of conceptualizing poverty than the static
concept of "poor people."
One way to illustrate this is with the concept of sickness. Most people are healthy for varying periods of time, but periodically
experience some kind of illness, such as a cold or the flu. In such cases, we would not define these individuals as sick people (even
though they have experienced sickness), but rather as individuals who occasionally experience the condition of being ill. The
appropriate focus is to recognize the episodic nature of the condition, rather than to define the lives of the individuals themselves in
terms of the condition.
It may certainly be the case that some people are more prone to sickness, just as some people are more prone to poverty. But even
in these cases, we generally would not define such individuals as "sick people." Only in the case of a chronic disease might we
characterize such a person in terms of their illness.
The dynamics of poverty are much the same as those of sickness. Yet the old paradigm of poverty often lumps everyone who
experiences poverty into the category of poor people, or the underclass, reinforcing a very static and unchanging image of who
encounters poverty. Returning to our analogy, it would not make [*34] much sense to define everyone who at some point in their
past experienced an illness as sick people. Yet this appears to be the case when defining those who have experienced poverty as
poor people.
An additional consequence of such labeling is to solidify poverty as a dividing line that separates the population. The old paradigm
strengthens the separation between notions of poor and non-poor. However, it fails to recognize the critical point that many
Americans are actually both. Rather than pulling us together, the old paradigm pulls us apart.
Conversely, a new paradigm recognizes that poverty is a conditional state and an economic risk that many Americans will
encounter. It recognizes the fluid nature of poverty and the fact that a majority of Americans will experience poverty at some point
during their lives. Individuals typically move between being poor and non-poor during several periods of their life course. n63
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
33
POVERTY IS INCREASING NOW
poverty is increasing nationally, more than 12 million additional people
Kvaal and Furnas, 09 – *Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, AND ** Research Associate at the Center for
American Progress (James AND Ben, “Recession, Poverty, and the Recovery Act: Millions Are at Risk of Falling Out of the Middle
Class,” Center for American Progress, February 11th,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/middle_class_report.html
The American economy is in a recession that is 14 months old, and the downturn appears to be growing deeper and more severe.
Approximately 1.8 million Americans lost their jobs in the past three months alone—nearly 20,000 a day. It’s increasingly looking
like “the worst recession since World War II” may be a best-case scenario.
The economic downturn means hard times for millions of Americans. If unemployment rates reach double-digits, as some
economists fear, nearly 7 million people will lose their jobs, more than 7 million will lose their health coverage, and more than 12
million will fall into poverty.
Increasing unemployment is increasing poverty
Kvaal and Furnas, 09 – *Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, AND ** Research Associate at the Center for
American Progress (James AND Ben, “Recession, Poverty, and the Recovery Act: Millions Are at Risk of Falling Out of the Middle
Class,” Center for American Progress, February 11th,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/middle_class_report.html
Now the economy has turned sour. It has shrunk by 3.6 million jobs since the recession began 13 months ago. There are 11.6
million people out of work—the third-most since 1949. Leading indicators such as announced layoffs, inventories, and demand for
temporary workers give no sign that job losses are beginning to slow. And the International Monetary Fund warns that the
advanced economies may already be in a “depression.”
Signs of hard times are clear across the country. The number of homeless families is growing at double-digit rates in many cities.
Demand for free and reduced price lunches in California has surged by 12 percent since last year—12 times the normal rise—and
other school districts are seeing similar increases. In Miami, Florida, 1,000 job applicants stood in line for 35 firefighter positions,
and in Hartford, Connecticut, 850 people applied for fewer than 50 jobs at a hotel and water park.
The economy could get far worse without quick action. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the unemployment rate
could reach 9 percent in 2010. Some private sector forecasters are more pessimistic. Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com expects
the unemployment rate to exceed 11 percent in 2010 and the economy to lose nearly 7 million jobs.
Rising unemployment rates mean that millions of families will struggle to make ends meet. Increases in poverty are sure to follow.
As Figure 1 shows, unemployment and poverty rates have historically risen together.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
34
POVERTY DECREASES HEALTH
Poverty decreases health
Nilsen, 07 – Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office (Sigurd,
CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis
Health outcomes are worse for individuals with low incomes than for their more affluent counterparts. Lower-income individuals
experience higher rates of chronic illness, disease, and disabilities, and also die younger than those who have higher incomes. As
reported by the National Center on Health Statistics, individuals living in poverty are more likely than their affluent counterparts to
experience fair or poor health, or suffer from conditions that limit their everyday activities (fig.1). They also report higher rates of
chronic conditions such as hypertension, high blood pressure, and elevated serum cholesterol, which can be predictors of more
acute conditions in the future. Life expectancies for individuals in poor families as compared to nonpoor families also differ
significantly. One study showed that individuals with low incomes had life expectancies 25 percent lower than those with higher
incomes. Other research suggests that an individual's household wealth predicts the amount of functionality of that individual in
retirement.
Research suggests that part of the reason that those in poverty have poor health outcomes is that they have less access to health
insurance and thus less access to health care, particularly preventive care, than others who are nonpoor. Very low-income
individuals were three times as likely not to have health insurance than those with higher incomes, which may lead to reduced
access to and utilization of health care (fig. 2).
Poverty involves substantial material deprivation that decreases health
Rank, 06 – George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (Mark, 20 Wash. U. J.L. &
Pol'y 17, “POVERTY, JUSTICE, AND COMMUNITY LAWYERING: INTERDISCIPLINARY AND CLINICAL
PERSPECTIVES: Toward a New Understanding of American Poverty”, lexis
A third component of the new paradigm broadens the scope and meaning of poverty from that of low income to a wider concept
of deprivation. Poverty acts to deprive individuals and families in a number of ways. A new conception of poverty must recognize
that impoverishment represents more than just a shortage of income. This has recently been emphasized by the attention that
European governments and scholars (particularly within England, France, and the Netherlands) have placed on the concept of
social exclusion, or "the inability to participate in the activities of normal living." n65
There are many illustrations of this. Poverty undermines the quality of life of those inhabiting its ranks. It results in serious
compromises and struggles in acquiring basic resources such as food, clothing, shelter, health care, and transportation. n66 These
struggles further produce considerable stress in the lives of the poverty stricken and their families. n67
[*36] Poverty also reduces the quality of one's health. Poverty is associated with a host of health risks, including undernutrition,
elevated rates of heart disease, dental problems, diabetes, lead poisoning, hypertension, infant mortality, cancer, and mental illness.
n68 The result is a death rate for poverty-stricken individuals between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-four that is approximately
three times higher than that for affluent individuals of the same age range, n69 and a life expectancy that is considerably shorter.
n70 For example, Americans in the top 5% of the income distribution can expect to live approximately nine years longer than those
in the bottom 10%. n71
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
35
POVERTY INCREASES CRIME
Poverty increases crime rates
Nilsen, 07 – Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office (Sigurd,
CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis
Just as research has established a link between poverty and adverse health outcomes, evidence suggests a link between poverty and
crime. Economic theory predicts that low wages or unemployment makes crime more attractive, even with the risks of arrest and
incarceration, because of lower returns to an individual through legal activities. While more mixed, empirical research provides
support for this. For example, one study shows that higher levels of unemployment are associated with higher levels of property
crime, but is less conclusive in predicting violent crime. Another study has shown that both wages and unemployment affect crime,
but that wages play a larger role. Research has found that peer influence and neighborhood effects may also lead to increased
criminal behavior by residents. Having many peers that engage in negative behavior may reduce social stigma surrounding that
behavior. In addition, increased crime in an area may decrease the chances that any particular criminal activity will result in an arrest.
Other research suggests that the neighborhood itself, independent of the characteristics of the individuals who live in it, affects
criminal behavior. One study found that arrest rates were lower among young people from low-income families who were given a
voucher to live in a low- poverty neighborhood, as opposed to their peers who stayed in high-poverty neighborhoods. The most
notable decrease was in arrests for violent crimes; the results for property crimes, however, were mixed, with arrest rates increasing
for males and decreasing for females.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
36
POVERTY HAS A DISPARATE IMPACT ON RACIAL MINORITIES
Unemployment and poverty have disparate impacts upon racial minorities
Blank and Greenberg, 09 – * Senior Fellow, Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution AND ** Director, Georgetown
Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy (Rebecca and Mark, “Poverty and Economic Stimulus,” 2/10,
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0210_poverty_stimulus_blank.aspx
The bad news on the economy continued last week, when we learned that the unemployment rate has now reached 7.6 percent,
with more than 11 million unemployed people. It's worth focusing on the people behind these statistics. The pain of unemployment
is not spread equally among the population. When unemployment rises, less skilled workers are laid off at a much higher rate than
more skilled workers. In the most recent unemployment statistics, almost 11 percent of high school dropouts are unemployed,
while the unemployment rate is less than 4 percent among college graduates.
Some demographic groups experience much greater unemployment in recessions. Black and Hispanic unemployment rates have
increased faster than white unemployment rates; unemployment among young minority workers has increased particularly rapidly
and is now more than 30 percent. Perhaps surprisingly, women's unemployment rates have remained below men's, but that reflects
the fact that the downturn started earlier in construction and manufacturing industries, which are heavily male-dominated. As the
consumer spending sector sheds workers, women's unemployment rates are catching up with men's.
Unemployment means steep reductions in family income. It isn't surprising that rapid increases in unemployment lead to substantial
increases in poverty. A rough rule of thumb is that for every percentage point increase in unemployment, the poverty rate increases
by almost half a percentage point. If unemployment reaches 10 percent, as some analysts now project, the nation's poverty rate
could grow from 12.5 percent in 2007 to 14.8 percent _ meaning that more than one out of every seven Americans will be living in
poverty.
Over 52 percent of African American children will be in poverty as the economic downturn continues
Mishel, 09 – President of the Economic Policy Institute (Lawrence, “Sounding the Alarm: Update on the Economic Downturn,”
5/21, http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/sounding_the_alarm/)
The expected growth in unemployment will generate much misery and an urgent need for policy action
In this new slide presentation, EPI’s president Lawrence Mishel examines the deterioration of the economy and the outlook ahead,
showing the substantial rise in labor market distress and poverty overall, but especially for minorities.
This presentation examines the labor market characteristics of the current recession and the expected landscape for 2010.
Unfortunately, the economy has deteriorated so much since October/November 2008 that our fears last November—that
unemployment would exceed 10% in mid-2010 if there were no stimulus—will likely be realized even with the substantial, smart
stimulus package in place. Consequently, there will be unacceptably high unemployment and associated income losses and poverty
rates next year and beyond. For instance, some one-third of the workforce will be unemployed or underemployed at some point in
2010. Higher unemployment will drive child poverty to 27%—up from 18% in 2007—and black child poverty will exceed 50%.
The analysis has led him to predict, for example, that black unemployment will reach 27.8% in Michigan and over 22% in California
and Mississippi.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called Mishel’s analysis one that shows “the human toll caused by job losses on this vast
scale.” (Read Herbert op-ed.) Mishel says “we must reexamine our policies and enact further public investments as stimulus,
provide relief to the many families that are and will be struggling, and use government to directly generate jobs in areas where
private sector activity is especially weak.”
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
37
STRUCTURAL RACISM MAINTAINS POVERTY
Structural discrimination and racism maintain poverty, cultural change about the way we think about poverty is vital to
addressing it
Wilson, 06 – Geyser University Professor and Director, Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program, Malcolm Wiener Center
for Social Policy, Harvard University (William, “NEW FRONTIERS IN POVERTY RESEARCH AND POLICY: A SUMMIT
ON POVERTY” 10 Empl. Rts. & Employ. Pol'y J. 151, lexis
People who are trapped in these poor ghetto neighborhoods not only include those on public assistance but the working poor,
many of whom have never been on welfare. One of the legacies of segregation and discrimination is a disproportionate number of
low-skilled individuals in highly-concentrated poverty areas, individuals who are now particularly vulnerable to changes in the
modern economy. As the late black economist Vivian Henderson put it several years ago, it is as if racism, having put blacks and
other people of color in their economic place, stepped aside to watch technological change and other changes in the economy
destroy that place. n30 To state the problem in a different way, a history of discrimination and segregation led to ghetto
concentration with its economic drawbacks, such as weak labor force attachment, and this situation has been aggravated by the
decreased relative demand for low-skilled labor caused by the computer revolution, which rewards skilled workers and displaces
low-skilled workers, and the growing internationalization of economic activity, which places low-skilled workers in this country in
greater competition with low-skilled [*179] workers around the world. n31
Government programs to help the poor are hardly designed to overcome the forces that have led to segregation and concentrated
poverty, including redlining, employer discrimination, housing segregation, neighborhood disinvestments, and low-performing
schools; conditions that have been exacerbated by the decreased relative demand for low-skilled labor. For all these reasons,
concentrated racial poverty will continue to present a major challenge to policymakers. The problems are very complex and multifaceted; however, in addressing these problems, it would be helpful if we could overcome the widely-heralded view that the high
poverty and jobless rates in the inner city are due to the shortcomings of the people who live there. If TV cameras had focused on the
ghetto in New Orleans or any other inner city ghetto before Katrina, I believe that the initial reaction to the descriptions of poverty would have been quite different.
There would have been far less sympathy. The prevailing view would have been that those people are poor and jobless because of their own shortcomings or
inadequacies. In other words, only a few sociologists and other thoughtful observers would have reflected on the larger social forces in society that have adversely
affected the inner city, including segregation and discrimination, changes in the economy, and inadequate public schools. However, since Katrina was clearly a
natural disaster that was beyond the control of the inner city poor, Americans were much more sympathetic and much more willing to consider the effects of racial
isolation and chronic subordination. Even President Bush shocked many of us by associating these problems with a history of racial discrimination. How long this
feeling will last is anybody's guess. Now is the time to take advantage of this emotion and foster a greater awareness of the nature of the problems confronting the
inner city and how they can be addressed.
Poverty has a disparate impact on racial minorities
Menendian et al, 08 - senior legal research associate for the Kirwan Institute. (Stephen, “Structural Racism in the United States,”A
Report to the U.N. Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the occasion of its review of the Periodic Report of
the United States of America, February 2008,
http://www.ushrnetwork.org/files/ushrn/images/linkfiles/CERD/1Structural_Racism.pdf
Racialized outcomes are often the product of cumulative effects of discrimination over time and across domains.50 For example,
housing discrimination constrains many black and Hispanic youth to attend high-poverty schools.51 Children in these schools are
much less likely than their affluent peers to attend college, and more likely to drop out of school or complete their education in a
correctional facility.52 All three outcomes reduce the labor market options these young adults are likely to have, with grave
implications for their chances to secure health and retirement benefits.53 It follows that in order to fully understand why so many
elderly African Americans and Hispanics live at or below the poverty line, we not only must retrace their life-long relationship to
the labor market, but also their relationship to the housing market, and to the educational, and criminal justices.
Neighborhood conditions also directly affect African Americans’ physical and mental health. Childhood obesity rates are high in
low-income neighborhoods as fear of crime and the lack of playgrounds and parks in poor areas keeps children indoors.54 Health
risks also abound. Although African Americans represent only 12.7 % of the U.S. population, they account for 26 % of asthma
deaths,55 the highest rate of any racial/ethnic group.56 This is outcome is predictable and largely the result of African Americans’
homes being close to toxic dumps, toxic flumes and other environment hazards. Segregation and unequal access to health care
mean that racial minorities receive less and worse health care than whites do, exacerbating health disparities.57
Educators agree that this lack of health well-being in turn depresses student academic performance and achievement.58 It would
make little sense then to assert that discriminatory practices in health or housing should not be considered when looking at
education. But this is the current position of the Supreme Court. Moreover, inequitable school systems and a youth control
complex push kids out of school and into inadequate local job markets that deny families shelter and stability and incentivize an
illicit economy. Felon disenfranchisement then commonly reduces the political participation of marginalized racial groups.
Employment, health, wealth, crime and safety, delinquency and risky behavior, educational achievement, recreation and where one
lives are all linked.59
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
38
RACISM IMPACTS
Racism culminates in catastrophic genocide
Munford 96 – Black Studies, Guelph U. Ontario. (Clarence J., Race and Reparations p. 3)
There is a worm lying coiled in the heart of western civilization, the worm of white racism. Like the DNA which governs the
genetic features of each individual human being, racism has controlled the evolutionary development of white civilization. While
interacting with many other factors of social life, it has ultimate control of societies that have been created or dominated by people
of European ancestry. The study of history of society reveals a genocidal instinct embedded in white civilization. Since the midfifteenth century this trait-enthroned as white world supremacy-has inflicted catastrophic damage on people of color and
around the globe. Dominating all the complex systems which drive Western societies, white racism singled out Africa and
Africans of the Diaspora for a holocaust of five hundred years and more-one which shows no signs of letting up. On the eve of
the twenty-first century, white racism threatens Black people with continued exploitation, degradation, social confinement, and
marginalization-and, failing that, extermination.
Racism is spirit murder – like a crime against humanity – it kills the self
WILLIAMS 87 – Associate Professor of Law, The City University of New York Law School at Queens College, (PATRICIA,
University of Miami Law Review, 42 U. Miami L. Rev. 127, September)
The second purpose of this article is to examine racism as a crime, an offense so deeply painful and assaultive as to constitute
something I call "spirit-murder." Society is only beginning to recognize that racism is as devastating, as costly, and as psychically
obliterating as robbery or assault; indeed they are often the same. Racism resembles other offenses against humanity whose
structures are so deeply embedded in culture as to prove extremely resistant to being recognized as forms of oppression. 7 It can be
as difficult to prove as [*130] child abuse or rape, where the victim is forced to convince others that he or she was not at fault, or
that the perpetrator was not just "playing around." As in rape cases, victims of racism must prove that they did not distort the
circumstances, misunderstand the intent, or even enjoy it.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
39
POVERTY DESTROYS THE ECONOMY – LABOR PRODUCTIVITY
Poverty destroys the economy, it destroys overall productivity
Center for American Progress, 08 (“The Price of Poverty,” 11/3,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/11/price_of_poverty.html
Arguments for ending child poverty often rely on a feeling that it is simply wrong to allow any child to miss out on the experiences
that so many take for granted. But now new research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the UK shows that a high child
poverty rate imposes a substantial drag on a country’s overall economy.
The Center for American Progress made this case in January 2007 in an innovative report from Harry Holzer and colleagues, which
laid out the heavy costs to the U.S. economy of not tackling child poverty. Inspired by this example, the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation report set out an estimated cost to the UK of £25 billion—around 1 percent of GDP.
The Rowntree report identifies two ways in which child poverty imposes costs. Growing up poor is associated with a range of
poorer outcomes in adulthood, and poor physical and mental health, which place extra burdens on public services. And the lost
potential associated with growing up poor means that we lose out on productivity, earnings, and taxation.
The research reviews evidence on the long-term effects that growing up poor has on children’s outcomes. As we reported earlier
this year, poverty has clear implications for health over the long term and therefore imposes additional costs on the health service.
Poverty can also damage mental health, leading to a higher risk of suicide and to a range of antisocial behaviors. And while poverty
does not lead children and young people to commit crimes, and the vast majority of poor children do not engage in criminal
behaviour, there are associations between economic disadvantage and criminality—leading again to higher costs for services and
society.
In order to estimate the costs of these additional services, researchers looked at the association between the number of children in
poverty in an area and the costs of services in this area, controlling for other factors that would make spending higher. Around half
the costs of child poverty, or £12 billion, are associated with this additional spending.
But if poverty imposes extra costs on society, it also drains the resources with which to meet them. Growing up poor has a strong
effect on educational outcomes and on the prospect of finding employment as an adult. The research also estimates the costs to the
economy of this loss of potential, both in terms of lost tax revenues and in terms of the benefits that are required to support adults
who would otherwise have been working. A conservative estimate puts these costs at £13 billion.
What does this mean for policy? Many believe that the moral case for ending child poverty is already clear. But this research makes
clear that failing to tackle poverty today imposes substantial financial costs on society as well. We’ve recently seen governments
across the world spending vast sums on stabilizing the banking system with the argument that not doing so would lead to even
greater costs in the long term. Investing in child poverty today should similarly be seen as spending to save.
37 million live below the poverty line, it destroys economic productivity and costs 4% of the gross domestic product
Blackwell, 08 – founder and CEO of PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing policies that create economic
and social equity, and co-chair of the Center for American Progress (CAP) Task Force on Poverty (Angela, CQ Congressional
Testimony, “REDUCING THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY”, 9/25, lexis
In this country, 37 million people live below the official poverty line $19,971 for a family of four1. Another perspective to grasp the
scale of poverty in America: Ninety million people nearly one out of three of all Americans have incomes below 200 percent of
federal poverty thresholds. Additionally, millions of Americans are just one layoff, one health crisis, or one family emergency away
from poverty's door. Poverty leads to suffering, imposing huge costs on society. The lower productivity and earnings of poor adults,
the high costs of poor health, increased crime, and shattered neighborhoods add up. Persistent childhood poverty is estimated to
cost our nation $500 billion each year, or about 4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.
The United States has experienced dramatic reductions in poverty. These reductions, however, have never been the inevitable result
of economic prosperity. In addition to good economic times, poverty reduction required sound federal and state policies, individual
initiative, strong social networks, and sustained national commitment. Despite increased employment among the poor, in recent
years these policy and commitment elements have eroded, and the result is increasing poverty five million additional Americans fell
into poverty during the past five years.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
40
POVERTY DESTROYS THE ECONOMY – LABOR PRODUCTIVITY
Poverty destroys the economy
Holzer, 07 – professor at Georgetown University and the Urban Institute (Harry, Testimony before the House Ways and Means
Committee, 1/24, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/01/holzer_testimony.html
Most arguments for reducing poverty in the U.S., especially among children, rest on a moral case for doing so – one that
emphasizes the unfairness of child poverty, and how it runs counter to our national creed of equal opportunity for all.
But there is also an economic case for reducing child poverty. When children grow up in poverty, they are more likely as adults to
have low earnings, which in turn reflect low productivity in the workforce. They are also more likely to engage in crime and to have
poor health later in life. Their reduced productive activity generates a direct loss of goods and services to the U.S. economy. Any
crime in which they engage imposes large monetary and other personal costs on their victims, as well as the costs to the taxpayer of
administering our huge criminal justice system. And their poor health generates illness and early mortality that requires large
healthcare expenditures, impedes productivity and ultimately reduces their quality and quantity of life.
In each case, we reviewed a range of rigorous research studies that estimate the average statistical relationships between growing up
in poverty, on the one hand; and one’s earnings, propensity to commit crime and quality of health later in life, on the other. We also
reviewed estimates of the costs that crime and poor health per person impose on the economy. Then we aggregated all of these
average costs per poor child across the total number of children growing up in poverty in the U.S. to estimate the aggregate costs of
child poverty to the U.S. economy. We had to make a number of critical assumptions about how to define and measure poverty,
what level of income to use as a non-poverty benchmark, and which effects are really caused by growing up in poverty and not
simply correlated with it.[2] Wherever possible, we made conservative assumptions, in order to generate lower-bound estimates.
Our results suggest that the costs to the U.S. associated with childhood poverty total about $500B per year, or the equivalent of
nearly 4 percent of GDP. More specifically, we estimate that childhood poverty each year:
· Reduces productivity and economic output by about 1.3 percent of GDP;
· Raises the costs of crime by 1.3 percent of GDP; and
· Raises health expenditures and reduces the value of health by 1.2 percent of GDP.
If anything, these estimates almost certainly understate the true costs of poverty to the U.S. economy. For one thing, they omit the
costs associated with poor adults who did not grow up poor as children. They ignore all other costs that poverty might impose on
the nation besides those associated with low productivity, crime and health – such as environmental costs, and much of the
suffering of the poor themselves.[3]
What does all of this imply for public policy? The high cost of childhood poverty to the U.S. suggests that investing significant
resources in poverty reduction might be more cost-effective over time than we previously thought. Of course, determining the
effectiveness of various policies requires careful evaluation research in a variety of areas. But a range of policies—such as universal
pre-kindergarten (or pre-K) programs, various school reform efforts, expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and
other income supports for the working poor, job training for poor adults, higher minimum wages and more collective bargaining,
low-income neighborhood revitalization and housing mobility, marriage promotion, and faith-based initiatives—might all be
potentially involved in this effort. Given the strong evidence that already exists on some of these efforts (like high-quality pre-K and
the EITC), some investments through these mechanisms seem particularly warranted.
At a minimum, the costs of poverty imply that we should work hard to identify cost-effective strategies of poverty remediation, and
we should not hesitate to invest significant resources when these strategies are identified. In the meantime, we should also
experiment with and evaluate a wide range of promising efforts.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
41
POVERTY DESTROYS THE ECONOMY – LABOR PRODUCTIVITY
Poverty decreases economic growth
Nilsen, 07 – Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office (Sigurd,
CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis
Economic Research Suggests a Negative Association between Poverty and Economic Growth
The economic literature suggests that poverty not only affects individuals but can also create larger challenges for economic growth.
Traditionally, research has focused on the importance of economic growth for generating rising living standards and alleviating
poverty, but more recently it has examined the reverse, the impact of poverty on economic growth. In the United States, poverty
can impact economic growth by affecting the accumulation of human capital and rates of crime and social unrest. While the
empirical research is limited, it points to the negative association between poverty and economic growth consistent with the
theoretical literature's conclusion that higher rates of poverty can result in lower rates of growth.
Research has shown that accumulation of human capital is one of the fundamental drivers of economic growth. Human capital
consists of the skills, abilities, talents, and knowledge of individuals as used in employment. The accumulation of human capital is
generally held to be a function of the education level, work experience, training, and healthiness of the workforce. Therefore,
schooling at the secondary and higher levels is a key component for building an educated labor force that is better at learning,
creating, and implementing new technologies. Health is also an important component of human capital, as it can enhance workers'
productivity by increasing their physical capacities, such as strength and endurance, as well as mental capacities, such as cognitive
functioning and reasoning ability.
Improved health increases workforce productivity by reducing incapacity, disability, and the number of days lost to sick leave, and
increasing the opportunities to accumulate work experience. Further, good health helps improve education by increasing levels of
schooling and scholastic performance.
The accumulation of human capital can be diminished when significant portions of the population have experienced long periods
of poverty, or were living in poverty at a critical developmental juncture. For example, recent research has found that the distinct
slowdown in some measures of human capital development is most heavily concentrated among youth from impoverished
backgrounds. When individuals who have experienced poverty enter the workforce, their contributions may be restricted or
minimal, while others may not enter the workforce in a significant way. Not only is the productive capability of some citizens lost,
but their purchasing power and savings, which could be channeled into productive investments, is forgone as well.
In addition to the effects of poverty on human capital, some economic literature suggests that poverty can affect economic growth
to the extent that it is associated with crime, violence, and social unrest. According to some theories, when citizens engage in
unproductive criminal activities they deter others from making productive investments or their actions force others to divert
resources toward defensive activities and expenditures. The increased risk due to insecurity can unfavorably affect investment
decisions-and hence economic growth-in areas afflicted by concentrated poverty. Although such theories link poverty to human
capital deficiencies and criminal activity, the magnitude of their impact on economic growth for an economy such as the United
States is unclear at this time. In addition, people living in impoverished conditions generate budgetary costs for the federal
government, which spends billions of dollars on programs to assist low-income individuals and families. Alleviating these
conditions would allow the federal government to redirect these resources toward other purposes.
While economic theory provides a guide to understanding how poverty might compromise economic growth, empirical researchers
have not as extensively studied poverty as a determinant of growth in the United States. Empirical evidence on the United States
and other rich nations is quite limited, but some recent studies support a negative association between poverty and economic
growth. For example, some research finds that economic growth is slower in U.S. metropolitan areas characterized by higher rates
of poverty than those with lower rates of poverty. Another study, using data from 21 wealthy countries, has found a similar negative
relationship between poverty and economic growth.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
42
CHILD POVERTY KILLS THE ECONOMY
Child poverty undermines labor productivity and the economy
Knitzer, 07 – Director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health
(Jane, CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis)
Child poverty is widespread. Overall, 39 percent of America's children more than 28 million children live in low-income families,
that is with income below twice the poverty level. This puts them at risk of not making it in the global economy, not having the
educational skills they need, not being healthy both mentally and physically, and not being effective parents when they become
adults.
Nationally, 18 percent, or nearly 13 million children are poor by official standards. Half of these children are in families with
incomes at or under $10,000.
Another 21 percent of children live in families with incomes between 100 and 200 percent of poverty. Although not poor by official
standards, these families face material hardships and disadvantages that are similar to those who are officially poor. Missed rent
payments, utility shut offs, inadequate access to health care, and unstable child care arrangements are common. These families are
but one or two crises away from official poverty (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2006).
Most low income children have parents who work. As the recent GAO report finds, the majority of the parents of these children
work 55 percent of children in low-income families have a parent who works work full-time, 52 weeks a year. The problem is they
do not earn enough money to support a family, even when they work more. They are held back by low-wage jobs that provide few
benefits and few prospects for advancement, even when they have a high school degree or even some college. Three quarters of
low-income children have parents with at least a high school diploma, but this no longer guarantees economic success (National
Center for Children in Poverty, 2006).
Research shows that it takes an income of about twice the poverty level to provide even basic necessities for a family, $40,000 for a
family of four, not the official $20,000, and, depending upon the local cost of living, it can take even more. It takes a full- time job
at more than $19 an hour to produce an annual income of $40,000, or two full-time jobs at nearly $10 an hour (Cauthen, 2006).
Not having enough money reduces the odds that children will have access to the kinds of resources and experiences that are
essential for children to thrive and to grow into productive adults. Too often they lack access to the things that higher- income
parents routinely provide for their children high quality health care, stimulating early learning programs, good schools, money for
college as well as books and other enriching activities. Instead, low-income parents struggle with more basic choices: When the
money runs out, is it heat or the medical bills? Is it good child care or unstable arrangement that cost less? Is it keeping young
children indoors and out of unsafe parks, risking obesity?
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
43
CHILD POVERTY KILLS THE ECONOMY
Child poverty destroys economic productivity
Knitzer, 07 – Director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health
(Jane, CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis)
Economic hardship has been linked to a myriad of adverse educational, health and other outcomes for children that limit future
productivity. Low-income children face elevated health, educational, environmental and family risks that jeopardize their successful transition to adulthood, with African American, Latino and American Indian
children facing compounded risks (Shonkoff, 2000). For example:
Health
Good health is the foundation for healthy development. Low-income children are more likely to be in fair or poor health (Centers for
Disease Control analysis of 2001 National Health Interview Survey?NHIS) and to lack access to quality health care . Low- income children are not as likely as their well-off peers to receive
preventive health care and their parents are less likely to receive guidance about child development. Three percent of low- income families report receiving advice and education from their physician compared to more
than half for more affluent families (Young, 1996). Even with Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), 11 percent of poor children lack access to health insurance, and for the first time in
more than a decade, the number of uninsured children is increasing (See: ).
Education
Researchers repeatedly document that there is a direct linear relationship, in the aggregate, between family income and children's achievement. Higher family income leads to higher academic achievement (Gershoff, 2003;
Lee & Burkham, 2002).
Less well known is that the achievement gap is real and significant from children's earliest years. Both math and reading scores are negatively related to poverty at kindergarten entry and for the most part, poor children
either do not catch up or the gap worsens. A review of national data sets on preschool and child care shows that at age 4 years, poor children are 18 months below the developmental norm for their age group. By age 10,
that gap is still present. Of particular concern is that there is a dramatic difference in early language by income. By the time children from middle-class families are in the third grade, they know about 12,000 words.
Children in low-income families with undereducated parents have vocabularies of 4,000 words (Klein & Knitzer, 2007).
Mental Health
Healthy social and emotional development is a core ingredient of successful adulthood. But low-income children are disproportionately exposed to circumstances that pose risks to such development.
Low-income children, especially young children, are more likely to be exposed to parental depression and other parental adversities including substance abuse and domestic violence. These risk factors have been linked
with an array of short and long term consequences for children, including depression, acting out behavior, and significant school problems.
the toll poverty takes is reflected in higher rates of diagnosable disorders, along with learning problems (Knitzer &
Cooper, 2006) that frequently translate into school drop out and sometimes child welfare and juvenile justice involvement. Two-thirds of
For older children,
youth with mental health problems drop out of high school. (Wagner, 2005).
What Research Says Can Help
It is widely accepted that high quality education is a major pathway out of poverty. But research also points to two other critical ingredients that promote future productivity.
Adequate Family Income
Too often, discussions about children and poverty focus only on the risks associated with poverty low educational achievement, social and behavioral problems, and poor health and then the policy solutions follow suit.
While it is critically important to address these problems, it is equally important for children's growth and development to address poverty itself. In short, money matters.
More than a decade of research shows that increasing the incomes of low-income families without any other changes can positively
affect child development, especially for younger children (Cauthen, 2002). Experimental studies of welfare programs offer some of the strongest evidence to date about the
importance of income. For example, welfare programs that increase family income through employment and earnings supplements have consistently shown improvements in school achievement among elementary
school- age children; other studies have also shown links between increased income and improved school readiness in young children (Dearing, McCartney, & Taylor, 2001).
In contrast, welfare programs that increase levels of employment without increasing income have shown few consistent effects on children. Moreover, findings from welfare-to-work experiments show that when
programs reduce income, children are sometimes adversely affected (Cauthen, 2002). Other studies have shown links between increased income and reductions in acting out disorders in low-income children and youth
(Costello, Compton, Keeler, & Angold, 2003). And it's not just the amount of income that matters but also its predictability and stability over time; research has shown that unstable financial situations can have serious
consequences for children as well (Cauthen 2002; also Wagmiller, Lennon, Kuang, & Aber, 2006).
The financial investments that parents are able to make in their
children both to meet basic needs as well as to invest in materials, activities, and services that are developmentally enriching are
critical for child development. The inability to make such investments helps to explain why poverty negatively affects children's cognitive development. Likewise research shows that low levels of
Research suggests that income, controlling for other factors, affects children primarily through two mechanisms.
family income negatively affect children's social and emotional development by increasing levels of parental stress and depression and by affecting parenting behavior.
Healthy Relationships in the Early Years
Developmental research has for two decades pointed consistently to the importance of parents and to other protective relationships (Luthar, 2003) for all children of all ages. It also teaches us that the more risk factors,
whether demographic (single parent family, low maternal education) or environmental (parental substance abuse, community violence), absent effective interventions, the more likely children are to experience poor longterm negative outcomes.
Recent neuroscience research has dramatically deepened these understandings and focused attention on what happens in the earliest years. There are three core take home messages that have especially profound
implications for how we design programs and use public dollars to improve school outcomes and future productivity of children and youth. All findings point in the same direction a strengthened focus on young
children.
The earliest experiences shape the hard wiring of the brain. Early experiences and relationships interact with genetics to shape the architecture of the brain. How the early brain develops impacts later learning, the ability
to mange emotions and even the immune system. Depending upon the early experiences, that architecture is either sturdy or fragile. When it is sturdy, children are more likely to grow up and be productive, when it is not,
they risk problems not just as children, but also into adulthood.
The active ingredient in early brain development is relationships. When relationships with primary care givers (including families, but also child care providers, home-visitors and teachers) are appropriately nurturing,
stimulating and stable, young children thrive. When they are not, young children show signs of early learning, language and social and emotional challenges. At the extremes are the infants, toddlers and young children
who experience toxic stress, that is, exposure to persistently harmful environments, inconsistent caregiving, abuse and abandonment. Research documents how these experiences frequently leave life long scars (Luthar,
2003).
Once brain circuits are built, it becomes harder to change them. That is why adults who learn a language as adults even if fluent continue to have an accent. It is harder to change a four year old than a baby, and harder to
change an adolescent than a four year old. It is also much more costly. Children who do not develop the schools to succeed in the early grades, particularly the social and emotional skills, are more likely to end up as
problem learners and later dropouts (Raver & Knitzer, 2002). Estimates are that between one-quarter and one-third of children are at risk of early school failure. The potential health costs of poor early experiences are
also high. Children who experience high levels of stress, as adults, turn out to be at much greater risk for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension and substance abuse (Fellighetti, Anda, & Nordenberg, 1998).
What Economists Say About the Return on Investments in the Earliest Years
Economic analyses of three high-quality intensive early childhood demonstration programs that have followed children as they
became adults reinforce the rationale for increased, strategic early childhood investments. While the program specifics differed, each of the programs: began
early in children's lives; had clearly focused goals that emphasized the whole child; maintained sustained contact with the children often including through their transition to elementary school; had teachers who were well
educated, trained, and compensated; had small class sizes and high teacher-child ratios; and, involved and supported parents intensively (Galinsky, 2006).
By early adulthood, participants generally had: higher IQ's and mathematical ability; higher academic achievement; reduced need for
special education, lower grade retention rates, fewer school drop outs. At age 21, those in one preschool program studied were more than four times more likely than nonparticipants to be enrolled in a 4-year college degree program; were less likely to be unemployed and more likely to have higher earnings; had lower juvenile and adult crime rates; were less likely to depend on public
assistance, and less likely to be a teenage parent.
Economists are examining the implications of these findings to address the problem of lower skills and motivation among disadvantaged children, their diminished productivity as adults, as well as their costs to society.
One study estimates that by age 21, participants in its preschool program earned an average of $20,517 more than non-participants, and that the public saved a net of $19,097 on grade retention, special education, child
welfare, juvenile and adult justice expenditures (Reynolds et al., 2004).
Other analyses found that disadvantaged children from ages 8-13 with low levels of parental investments (time, activities, and family resources) without preschool had a 29 percent chance of graduating from high school.
With preschool, the chance of high school graduation rose to 53 percent (Heckman & Masterov, 2004).
The implication is clear. If we address poverty in the earliest years when it is in fact most widespread in this country and apply the
lessons from this research on investments in the early years, we stand the greatest chance of changing in a positive way what
happens to a child in a poor or low-income family and subsequently, that child as an adult.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
44
AT: STIMULUS SOLVED STATE BUDGET CRISIS
The stimulus postponed the state budget crisis
Lav and McNichol, 09 – *senior advisor to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities AND ** Senior Fellow at the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities (Iris and Elizabeth, “State Budget Troubles Worsen,” 5/18,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711
Federal Assistance Needed
Federal assistance can lessen the extent to which states take pro-cyclical actions that can further harm the economy. The American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act recognizes this fact and includes substantial assistance for states. The amount of funding that will
go to states to help them maintain current activities is approximately $135 billion to $140 billion — or about 40 percent of
projected state deficits. Most of this money is in the form of increased Medicaid funding and a “Fiscal Stabilization Fund.” This
funding will reduce the depth of state budget cuts and moderate state tax and fee increases. There are also other streams of funding
in the economic recovery bill that will flow through states to local governments or individuals, but those funds will not address state
budget shortfalls.
The federal stimulus isn’t enough
Johnson et al, 09 – Director of the State Fiscal Project at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Nicholas, “Tax Measures
Help Balance State Budgets A Common and Reasonable Response to Shortfalls,” 5/18,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2815
In the current recession, state budget shortfalls are projected to exceed $350 billion over the next two and a half years. Even with
assistance from the federal stimulus legislation, (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) states will continue to face large
budget gaps. The $135 billion to $140 billion that ARRA provides states to help balance budgets is expected to cover only about 40
percent of aggregate shortfalls. [5] The remaining shortfalls are still too large to close with budget cuts alone; tax increases should
remain on the table in most states. Indeed, most of the tax increases described earlier in this paper were proposed and/or enacted
after passage of ARRA.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
45
ECONOMIC GROWTH SOLVES WAR
Economic decline risks nuclear war, global instability and Russian and Chinese expansionism
Friedberg and Schoenfeld, 08 (Aaron, Prof. Politics. And IR @ Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, and Gabriel, Senior Editor
of Commentary and Visiting Scholar @ Witherspoon Institute, Wall Street Journal, “The Dangers of a Diminished America”,
10/21, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html)
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.
Current and historical data prove economic growth decreases the risk of war
Griswold, 05 (Daniel, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at Cato, “Peace on earth? Try free trade among men”,
http://www.freetrade.org/node/282)
As one little-noticed headline on an Associated Press story recently reported, "War declining worldwide, studies say." According to
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the number of armed conflicts around the world has been in decline for the
past half century. In just the past 15 years, ongoing conflicts have dropped from 33 to 18, with all of them now civil conflicts within
countries. As 2005 draws to an end, no two nations in the world are at war with each other. The death toll from war has also been falling. According to the AP story, "The number killed in battle has fallen to its
lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions, meanwhile, are growing in number." Those estimates are down sharply from annual tolls ranging from
40,000 to 100,000 in the 1990s, and from a peak of 700,000 in 1951 during the Korean War. Many causes lie behind the good news -- the end of the Cold War and the spread of democracy, among them -- but
expanding trade and globalization appear to be playing a major role. Far from stoking a "World on Fire," as one misguided
American author has argued, growing commercial ties between nations have had a dampening effect on armed conflict and war, for
three main reasons. First, trade and globalization have reinforced the trend toward democracy, and democracies don't pick fights
with each other. Freedom to trade nurtures democracy by expanding the middle class in globalizing countries and equipping people with tools of communication such as cell phones, satellite TV, and the
Internet. With trade comes more travel, more contact with people in other countries, and more exposure to new ideas. Thanks in part to globalization, almost two thirds of the world's countries today are democracies -- a
Second, as national economies become more integrated with each other, those nations have more to lose should war break
out. War in a globalized world not only means human casualties and bigger government, but also ruptured trade and investment ties
that impose lasting damage on the economy. In short, globalization has dramatically raised the economic cost of war. Third,
globalization allows nations to acquire wealth through production and trade rather than conquest of territory and resources.
Increasingly, wealth is measured in terms of intellectual property, financial assets, and human capital.
record high.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
46
ECONOMIC GROWTH SOLVES THE ENVIRONMENT
Growth solves the environment a. innovation
Zey, 98 [Michael, executive director of the Expansionary Institute and professor at Montclair State University School of Business,
Seizing the Future, p.36-37]
Third, growth itself contains the solutions to the problems it produces. Supporting this principle is the World Bank’s 1992 report
“Development and the Environment,” which blatantly states that growth is a powerful antidote to a number of ills plaguing Third
World countries, including the pollution that growth supposedly generates. The report thus contends that eliminating poverty
should remain the top goal of world policymakers. Although economic growth can initially lead to such problems as pollution and
waste, the resulting prosperity also facilitates the developments of technologies that lead to cleaner air and water. In fact, once a
nation’s per capita income rises to about $4000 in 1993 dollars, it produces less of some pollutants per capita, mainly due to the fact
that it can afford technology like catalytic converters and sewage systems that treat a variety of wastes. According to Norio
Yamamoto, research director of the Mitsubishi Research Institute, “We consider any kind of environmental damage to result from
mismanagement of the economy.” He claims that the pollution problems of poorer regions such as Eastern Europe can be traced
to their economic woes. Hence, he concludes that in order to ensure environmental safety “we need a sound economy on a global
basis.” So the answer to pollution, the supposed outgrowth of progress, ought to be more economic growth. The World Bank
estimated that every dollar invested in developing countries will grow to $100 in fifty years. As that happens, these countries can
take all the necessary steps to invest in pollution-free cars, catalytic converters, and other pollution-free technologies, such as the
cleanest of all energy sources, nuclear power.
b. empirical cross country studies
Anderson, 04 - fellow at the Hoover Institution, (Terry, Hoover Digest, Summer,
http://www.perc.org/publications/articles/econ_growth.php)
Market forces also cause economic growth, which in turn leads to environmental improvements. Put simply, poor people are willing
to sacrifice clean water and air, healthy forests, and wildlife habitat for economic growth. But as their incomes rise above
subsistence, "economic growth helps to undo the damage done in earlier years," says economist Bruce Yandle. "If economic growth
is good for the environment, policies that stimulate growth ought to be good for the environment." The link between greenhouse
gas emissions and economic prosperity is no different. Using data from the United States, Professor Robert McCormick finds that
"higher GDP reduces total net [greenhouse gas] emissions." He goes a step further by performing the complex task of estimating
net U.S. carbon emissions. This requires subtracting carbon sequestration (long-term storage of carbon in soil and water) from
carbon emissions. Think of it this way: When you build a house, the wood in it stores carbon. In a poor country that wood would
have been burned to cook supper or to provide heat, thus releasing carbon into the atmosphere. McCormick shows that economic
growth in the United States has increased carbon sequestration in many ways, including improved methods of storing waste,
increased forest coverage, and greater agricultural productivity that reduces the acreage of cultivated land. Because rich economies
sequester more carbon than poor ones, stored carbon must be subtracted from emissions to determine an economy's net addition
to greenhouse gas emissions. McCormick's data show that "rich countries take more carbon out of the air than poorer ones" and
that "the growth rate of net carbon emission per person will soon be negative in the United States." Put differently—richer may
well be cooler.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
47
COMPETITIVENESS GOOD – HEGEMONY IMPACT
Competitiveness is vital to hegemony
Segal, 4 – Senior Fellow in China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
(Adam, Foreign Affairs, “Is America Losing Its Edge?” November / December 2004,
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20041101facomment83601/adam-segal/is-america-losing-its-edge.html) // JMP
The U nited States' global primacy depends in large part on its ability to develop new technologies and industries faster than anyone
else. For the last five decades, U.S. scientific innovation and technological entrepreneurship have ensured the country's economic
prosperity and military power. It was Americans who invented and commercialized the semiconductor, the personal computer, and the Internet; other countries merely
followed the U.S. lead.
Today, however, this technological edge-so long taken for granted-may be slipping, and the most serious challenge is coming from
Asia. Through competitive tax policies, increased investment in research and development (R&D), and preferential policies for science and technology (S&T) personnel, Asian
governments are improving the quality of their science and ensuring the exploitation of future innovations. The percentage of patents issued to and science journal articles published by
scientists in China, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan is rising. Indian companies are quickly becoming the second-largest producers of application services in the world, developing,
supplying, and managing database and other types of software for clients around the world. South Korea has rapidly eaten away at the U.S. advantage in the manufacture of computer chips
and telecommunications software. And even China has made impressive gains in advanced technologies such as lasers, biotechnology, and advanced materials used in semiconductors,
aerospace, and many other types of manufacturing.
Although the United States' technical dominance remains solid, the globalization of research and development is exerting considerable pressures on the American system. Indeed, as the
United States is learning, globalization cuts both ways: it is both a potent catalyst of U.S. technological innovation and a significant threat to it. The
U nited S tates will never be able to
remain dominant only by continuing to innovate faster than everyone else. But this won't be easy;
to keep its privileged position in the world, the U nited S tates must get better at fostering technological entrepreneurship at home.
prevent rivals from developing new technologies; it can
Hegemony prevents a global nuclear exchange
Khalilzad, 95 – Rand Corportation
(Zalmay, “Losing the Moment?” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2, pg. 84, Spring, Lexis)
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance,
a world in which the U nited S tates exercises
leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of
law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats
of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile
global rival, enabling the U nited S tates and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear
exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power
system.
this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
48
COMPETITIVENESS KEY TO HEGEMONY
US industrial competitiveness is key to hegemony
Rocco Martino, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, ‘7
(A Strategy for Success: Innovation Will Renew American Leadership, Orbis, Volume 51, Issue 2,
http://www.fpri.org/orbis/5102/martino.innovationamericanleadership.pdf)
Much of the foreign policy discussion in the United States today is
focused upon the dilemma posed by the Iraq War and the threat
posed by Islamist terrorism. These problems are, of course, both
immediate and important. However, America also faces other challenges to
its physical security and economic prosperity, and these are more long-term
and probably more profound. There is, first, the threat posed by our
declining competitiveness in the global economy, a threat most obviously
represented by such rising economic powers as China and India.1 There is,
second, the threat posed by our increasing dependence on oil imports from
the Middle East. Moreover, these two threats are increasingly connected, as
China and India themselves are greatly increasing their demand for Middle
East oil.2
The United States of course faced great challenges to its security and
economy in the past, most obviously from Germany and Japan in the first half
of the twentieth century and from the Soviet Union in the second half. Crucial
to America’s ability to prevail over these past challenges was our technological
and industrial leadership, and especially our ability to continuously recreate it.
Indeed, the United States has been unique among great powers in its ability to
keep on creating and recreating new technologies and new industries, generation after generation. Perpetual innovation and technological leadership
might even be said to be the American way of maintaining primacy in world
affairs. They are almost certainly what America will have to pursue in order to
prevail over the contemporary challenges involving economic competitiveness and energy dependence.
There is therefore an urgent need for America to resume its historic
emphasis on innovation. The United States needs a national strategy focused
upon developing new technologies and creating new industries. Every
successful strategy must define an objective or mission, determine a solution, and assemble the means of execution. In this case, the objective is
economic superiority; the solution is new industries which build upon the
contemporary revolution in information technology; and the means of
execution will have to include a partnership of industry, government,
and people.3
Competitiveness is key to U.S. hegemony
Dr. Yuan, 2 (Jing-dong, Ph.D., Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, June 2002,
International Politics, palgrave database)
In sum, a country’s political and military prowess is based ultimately on its eco-nomic base in terms of industrial competitiveness
and technological leadership. While good strategy and skillful diplomacy can be important and, indeed, cru-cial under certain
circumstances,11 diplomatic possibilities remain predicated on overall economic and military capabilities. In the final analysis, such
capabilities provide the foundation of a country’s ability to carry out its various domestic and foreign policy objectives and protect a
country’s security interests over the long run. The shift from the traditional control of territories and resources to the mastery of
industrial competitiveness and technological leadership testifies that security has changed from a narrow, one-dimensional concern
over peace and war to a more diffuse worry about the ability to determine one’s own agenda rather than to face adverse
consequences resulting from decisions made abroad. 12 In this regard, the weakening of the state’s economic base evident by the
loss of industrial competitive-ness and technological leadership, can have adverse effects on long-term security interests.13
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
49
COMPETITIVENESS KEY TO THE ECONOMY
We’re on the brink-the U.S. is still the world’s most competitive economy but risks being toppled and thrown into a
depression.
AFP 5/14/’8 (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i0YLdkqpWnDMWuLrdj8SWsbZHMeA)
GENEVA (AFP) — The United States remains the world's most competitive economy but risks plunging into economic recession
just like Japan in the 1990s due to structural weaknesses, a new study warned Thursday.
The US once again ranked number one in an annual competitiveness survey by the Swiss-based Institute for Management
Development (IMD), but risks being toppled from its plinth with both Singapore and Hong Kong close behind.
"Singapore is closing the gap with the US and 2008 might be the turning point where the US falls from its leadership of top
competitors," the IMD said in a statement.
IMD economist Stephane Garelli said the US situation bears hallmarks of Japan's position twenty years ago, just before it slid into a
decade of recession, and when the Lausanne-based institute carried out its first competitiveness survey.
"The past crisis in Japan bears some resemblance with the present turmoil in the US," he said.
Depression won’t occur now – innovation will allow the economy to rebound.
WSJ, 9/29/08, “What Should Investors Do Now?”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122272238714287459.html
"We're going into another Great Depression." The failure on Monday of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the bailout plan
makes those G-D words seem possible for the first time. But I don't think another depression is likely, for two reasons.
First, when you spend time studying the Crash of 1929 and the depression that followed, what stands out the most is the dearth of
doomsayers. Even Roger Babson, the economist known to posterity as "the man who called the crash," did no such thing; he
forecast only a 15% to 20% drop, not the apocalypse that actually occurred. Depressions start not when lots of people are worried
about them, as we have today, but when no one is worried about them, as in 1929.
Second, the Great Depression and the Panic of 1873 (which triggered what arguably was the worst depression in U.S. history) both
occurred before the Federal Reserve Bank had aggressively grown into its role as "lender of last resort." In the wake of 1873, after a
railroad-building boom had swept the nation and then gone bust, companies and consumers alike were left gasping for capital.
Nothing but the passage of time could supply it; the Fed would not be established until 1913. After the crash of 1929, when the Fed
was still weak, years passed before the federal government could flood the economy with cash.
Today, however, the resolve of the Fed is not in question; nor is there any doubt that the Treasury Department is willing to provide
the financing it takes to get the economy moving again. Furthermore, U.S. nonfinancial companies have just under $1 trillion in
cash on their books. Even though Wall Street is dead, innovation is not: In the months to come, clever new financial go-betweens
will spring up and find a way to get that cash flowing again. It's hard to see how a depression could get under way when so much
capital is waiting in the wings.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
50
POVERTY DESTROYS US LEADERSHIP
Poverty destroys US moral leadership
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
It is a cruel irony that a lead singer with the name Katrina and a back-up band called the Waves performed a pop song in the 1980s
with bright lyrics and happy beat. Many years later, a natural disaster bearing the same name, backed by a surge of seawater,
consumed the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, America and the rest of the world
witnessed the desperate side of the world's wealthiest nation. Many people, who had neither time nor resources to escape the
storm's surge, and the destruction that followed, became first-hand witnesses to America's failure to adequately address its poverty
problem. The world was shocked to see Americans displaced and immobilized. Chilling reports of the disintegration of the
community with rampant plundering and lawlessness punctuated media broadcasts. The ravages of death and deprivation were
graphically [*488] depicted even as relief providers scrambled to address the massive needs of the displaced and injured. The failed
infrastructure and lack of services to help the unfortunates who remained behind to weather the storm resurrected the national
debate on poverty--who is responsible for giving willing Americans the tools to remove themselves from poverty to become
contributing members of society? n1
While the human and economic toll of this disaster is incalculable, perhaps there is a bright side. The debate over who is
responsible for ameliorating poverty and minimizing the divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots," as evidenced by the
seeming abandonment of the "have-nots" during the initial days after Hurricane Katrina, may have raised the awareness of the level
and gravity of the problem. In turn, this awareness may have created a basis for a public will to effectuate change and the will to
develop a popularly sanctioned way to make the change a reality.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
51
U.S. SOFT POWER KEY TO SOLVE ALL GLOBAL PROBLEMS
the collapse of U.S. soft power will shatter global cooperation on global problems, making nuclear proliferation,
environmental destruction, failed states and disease inevitable
Reiffel, 05 (Lex, Visiting Fellow at the Global Economy and Development Center of the Brookings Institution, REACHING
OUT: AMERICANS SERVING OVERSEAS, 12/27,
http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/20051207rieffel.pdf)
The United States is struggling to define a new role for itself in the post-Cold War world that protects its vital self interests without making the rest of the world
uncomfortable. In retrospect, the decade of the 1990s was a cakewalk. Together with its Cold War allies Americans focused on helping the transition countries in
Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union build functioning democratic political systems and growing market economies. The USA met this
immense challenge successfully, by and large, and it gained friends in the process. By contrast, the first five years of the new millennium have been mostly downhill
for the USA. The terrorist attacks on 9/11/01 changed the national mood in a matter of hours from gloating to a level of fear unknown since the Depression of
the 1930s. They also pushed sympathy for the USA among people in the rest of the world to new heights. However, the feeling of global solidarity
quickly dissipated after the military intervention in Iraq by a narrow US-led coalition. A major poll measuring the attitudes of foreigners
toward the USA found a sharp shift in opinion in the negative direction between 2002 and 2003, which has only partially recovered since then.1 The devastation
of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina at the end of August 2005 was another blow to American self-confidence as well as to its image in the rest of the world. It
cracked the veneer of the society reflected in the American movies and TV programs that flood the world. It exposed weaknesses in government institutions that
had been promoted for decades as models for other countries. Internal pressure to turn America’s back on the rest of the world is likely to
intensify as the country focuses attention on domestic problems such as the growing number of Americans without health insurance, educational
performance that is declining relative to other countries, deteriorating infrastructure, and increased dependence on foreign supplies of oil and gas. A more
isolationist sentiment would reduce the ability of the USA to use its overwhelming military power to promote peaceful change in
the developing countries that hold two-thirds of the world’s population and pose the gravest threats to global stability. Isolationism
might heighten the sense of security in the short run, but it would put the USA at the mercy of external forces in the long run. Accordingly, one of the great
challenges for the USA today is to build a broad coalition of like-minded nations and a set of international institutions capable of
maintaining order and addressing global problems such as nuclear proliferation, epidemics like HIV/AIDS and avian flu, failed
states like Somalia and Myanmar, and environmental degradation. The costs of acting alone or in small coalitions are now more
clearly seen to be unsustainable. The limitations of “hard” instruments of foreign policy have been amply demonstrated in Iraq.
Military power can dislodge a tyrant with great efficiency but cannot build stable and prosperous nations. Appropriately, the appointment of Karen Hughes as
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs suggests that the Bush Administration is gearing up to rely more on “soft” instruments.2
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
52
U.S. LEADERSHIP KEY TO SOLVE GLOBAL TERRORISM
U.S. credibility is vital to preventing future terrorist attacks and stopping escalation
PAN and TERKEL, Center for American Progress, 2004
[Michael Pan and Amanda Terkel, “Why Credibility Matters”, August 24, 2004,
<http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=165288>.]
Why is credibility so important? The conventional wisdom focuses on credibility for credibility's sake, but misses the real point: the
war on terrorism cannot be won if the rest of the world mistrusts the United States. At the start of the war on terrorism, the
Bush administration sent a clear message to the world's nations: "You're either with us, or against us." After three years, it appears
that far too few are with us. While America must always stand up for itself, we can neither protect nor defend ourselves if we
continue to go it alone. Without meaningful and sustained international cooperation, we can neither fight terrorism effectively nor
win. Here's why:
-Securing the world's ports. The Container Security Initiative (CSI) is designed to place customs inspectors in ports
worldwide in order to pre-screen 70 percent of U.S.-bound cargo. Only a few of the 20 planned ports worldwide have entered the
program. The current list of CSI participants is heavy on ports in Europe and Asia, but lacks any ports in the Middle East
and includes only one in Africa. The United States needs to work with the entire international community to quickly expand this
program to reduce the huge vulnerability of the world's ports.
-Controlling proliferation. The Aspen Strategy Group recently concluded that the threat of a nuclear attack is much greater than
the public realizes. Only eleven nations have committed to a version of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), aimed at stopping
shipments of weapons of mass destruction worldwide. The 9/11 Commission called for participation in PSI to be extended to
non-NATO countries, specifically Russia and China. To interdict a ship, the United States must secure permission from the flag
state of the vessel in question or the state whose coastal waters are being used for navigation. Otherwise, a United Nations Security
Council resolution is needed. U.S. credibility is key to convincing more nations, particularly those in Africa and the Middle
East, to participate in the PSI or to gain support within the Security Council.
-Rooting out terrorists. The war on terrorism involves not only preventing terrorist attacks before they occur, but also rooting
out terrorist sanctuaries around the world. The 9/11 Commission Report writes that the United States must "reach out, listen to,
and work with other countries that can help." While the administration has formed a relationship with Pakistan, it must also work
with other weak states that are havens for terrorists, such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia .
-Disrupting terrorist financial networks. Small amounts of money can fund devastating attacks. Since 9/11, $200 million in
terrorist assets has been seized, mostly from abroad, but the seizure rate has dramatically slowed. A new multilateral initiative led by
the United States is needed. According to the 9/11 Commission, "multilateral freezing mechanisms now require waiting periods
before being put into effect, eliminating the element of surprise and thus virtually ensuring that little money is actually frozen." As
a result, "worldwide asset freezes have not been adequately enforced and have been easily circumvented."
-Breaking up terrorist communications. Terrorists continue to use both low- and high-tech communications. Recent raids by
Pakistan unearthed the information that terrorists had been monitoring U.S. financial institutions. The United States needs
intelligence from other nations. Monitoring Osama bin Laden's low-tech means of communicating from hiding – such as putting a
message on the back of a donkey – requires knowledge from other nations.
-Sharing the burden. The United States currently has 19,000 troops in Afghanistan, but NATO's International Security Force
Assistance is providing only 6,536, including contributions from the United States. In Iraq, the U.S. has received little international
help in footing the $144.4 billion bill. The less credibility the United States has, the less the international community will want to
work with us, and the more we will have to pay. The president states, "We are fighting this evil [terrorism] in Iraq so we do not
have to fight it on the streets of our own cities." But every day, we do have to fight it in our own cities, as well as in Afghanistan,
Syria, the Philippines, Algeria, and Indonesia. We cannot go it alone. Cooperation matters and we need our credibility intact to
secure it.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
53
U.S. SOFT POWER KEY TO HARD POWER / WAR ON TERRORISM
soft power is key to hard power and the war on terrorism—its decline will cause domestic isolationism
Nye, 04 (Joseph, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Political Science Quarterly, Summer, ebsco)
THE COSTS OF IGNORING SOFT POWER
Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than
coercion or payments. When you can get others to want what you want, you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to
move them in your direction. Hard power, the ability to coerce, grows out of a country's military and economic might. Soft power arises from the
attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies. When our policies are seen as legitimate in they eyes of others, our soft power is
enhanced.
Skeptics about soft power say not to worry. Popularity is ephemeral and should not be a guide for foreign policy in any case. The United States can act without the world's applause. We are so strong
we can do as we wish. We are the world's only superpower, and that fact is bound to engender envy and resentment. Fouad Ajami has stated recently, "The United States need not worry about hearts and minds in foreign
lands."(FN9) Columnist Cal Thomas refers to "the and does."(FN10) Moreover, the United States has been unpopular in the past, yet managed to recover. We do not need permanent allies and institutions. We can always
pick up a coalition of the willing when we need to. Donald Rumsfeld is wont to say that the issues should determine the coalitions, not vice-versa.
But it would be a mistake to dismiss the recent decline in our
It is true that the United States has recovered from unpopular policies in the past, but that was against the backdrop
of the Cold War, in which other countries still feared the Soviet Union as the greater evil. Moreover, while America's size and
association with disruptive modernity are real and unavoidable, wise policies can soften the sharp edges of that reality and reduce
the resentments that they engender. That is what the United States did after World War II. We used our soft power resources and
co-opted others into a set of alliances and institutions that lasted for sixty years. We won the Cold War against the Soviet Union with a strategy of containment that
used our soft power as well as our hard power.
It is true that the new threat of transnational terrorism increased American vulnerability, and some of our unilateralism after September 11 was driven by fear. But the
United States cannot meet the new threat identified in the national security strategy without the cooperation of other countries.
They will cooperate, up to a point, out of mere self-interest, but their degree of cooperation is also affected by the attractiveness of
the United States. Take Pakistan for example. President Pervez Musharraf faces a complex game of cooperating with the United States on terrorism while managing a large anti-American constituency at home.
attractiveness so lightly.
He winds up balancing concessions and retractions. If the United States were more attractive to the Pakistani populace, we would see more non-cessions in the mix.
It is not smart to discount soft power as just a
question of image, public relations, and ephemeral popularity. As I argued earlier, it is a form of power--a means of obtaining desired outcomes. When we discount the importance of our attractiveness to other countries,
if the United States is so unpopular in a country that being pro-American is a kiss of death in their domestic
politics, political leaders are unlikely to make concessions to help us. Turkey, Mexico, and Chile were prime examples in the run-up
to the Iraq war in March 2003. When American policies lose their legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of others, attitudes of
distrust tend to fester and further reduce our leverage. For example, after September 11, there was an outpouring of sympathy from Germans for the United States, and Germany
we pay a price. Most important,
joined a military campaign against the al Qaeda network. But as the United States geared up for the unpopular Iraq war, Germans expressed widespread disbelief about the reasons the United States gave for going to war,
such as the alleged connection of Iraq to al Qaeda and the imminence of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. German suspicions were reinforced by what they saw as biased American media coverage during the
war and by the failure to find weapons or prove the connection to al Qaeda right after the war. The combination fostered a climate in which conspiracy theories flourished. By July 2003, one-third of Germans under the
Absurd views feed upon each other, and paranoia
can be contagious. American attitudes toward foreigners harden, and we begin to believe that the rest of the world really does hate
us. Some Americans begin to hold grudges, to mistrust all Muslims, to boycott French wines and rename french fries, to spread and believe false rumors.(FN12) In turn, foreigners see Americans as uninformed and
insensitive to anyone's interests but their own. They see our media wrapped in the American flag. Some Americans, in turn, succumb to residual strands of isolationism,
saying that if others choose to see us that way, "to hell with 'em." If foreigners are going to be like that, who cares whether we are
popular or not. But to the extent that we allow ourselves to become isolated, we embolden enemies such as al Qaeda. Such
reactions undercut our soft power and are self-defeating in terms of the outcomes we want.
Some hard-line skeptics might say
that whatever the merits of soft power, it has little role to play in the current war on terrorism. Osama bin Laden and his followers are repelled, not attracted
age of thirty said that they thought the American government might even have staged the original September 11 attacks.(FN11)
by American culture, values, and policies. Military power was essential in defeating the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and soft power will never convert fanatics. Charles Krauthammer, for example, argued soon
after the war in Afghanistan that our swift military victory proved that "the new unilateralism" worked. That is true up to a point, but the skeptics mistake half the answer for the whole solution.
Look again at
Afghanistan. Precision bombing and Special Forces defeated the Taliban government, but U.S. forces in Afghanistan wrapped up less than a quarter of al Qaeda, a transnational network with cells in sixty countries.
The United States cannot bomb al Qaeda cells in Hamburg, Kuala Lumpur, or Detroit. Success against them depends on close
civilian cooperation, whether sharing intelligence, coordinating police work across borders, or tracing global financial flows.
America's partners cooperate partly out self-interest, but the inherent attractiveness of U.S. policies can and does influence the
degree of cooperation.
Equally important, the current struggle against Islamist terrorism is not a clash of civilizations but a
contest whose outcome is closely tied to a civil war between moderates and extremists within Islamic civilization. The United States
and other advanced democracies will win only if moderate Muslims win, and the ability to attract the moderates is critical to victory.
We need to adopt policies that appeal to moderates and to use public diplomacy more effectively to explain our common interests.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
54
SOFT POWER KEY TO HEGEMONY
Soft power is key to leadership and hegemony
Nye. 6/2/04. (Joseph, Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “The Benefits of Soft Power”
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4290&t=leadership)
Soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others. In the business world, smart executives know that leadership is
not just a matter of issuing commands, but also involves leading by example and attracting others to do what you want. Similarly,
contemporary practices of community-based policing rely on making the police sufficiently friendly and attractive that a community
wants to help them achieve shared objectives. Political leaders have long understood the power that comes from attraction. If I can
get you to want to do what I want, then I do not have to use carrots or sticks to make you do it. Soft power is a staple of daily
democratic politics. The ability to establish preferences tends to be associated with intangible assets such as an attractive personality,
culture, political values and institutions, and policies that are seen as legitimate or having moral authority. If a leader represents
values that others want to follow, it will cost less to lead. Soft power is not merely the same as influence. After all, influence can also
rest on the hard power of threats or payments. And soft power is more than just persuasion or the ability to move people by
argument, though that is an important part of it. It is also the ability to attract, and attraction often leads to acquiescence. Simply
put, in behavioral terms, soft power is attractive power. Soft power resources are the assets that produce such attraction.
If I am persuaded to go along with your purposes without any explicit threat or exchange taking place—in short, if my behavior is
determined by an observable but intangible attraction—soft power is at work. Soft power uses a different type of currency—not
force, not money—to engender cooperation. It uses an attraction to shared values, and the justness and duty of contributing to the
achievement of those values.
Soft power is key to U.S. global leadership
Nye, 2004 (Joseph Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at Kennedy School of Government, “The Decline of
America’s Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs, May/June, lexis)
Soft power, therefore, is not just a matter of ephemeral popularity; it is a means of obtaining outcomes the United States wants. When
Washington discounts the importance of its attractiveness abroad, it pays a steep price. When the United States becomes so
unpopular that being pro-American is a kiss of death in other countries' domestic politics, foreign political leaders are unlikely to
make helpful concessions (witness the defiance of Chile, Mexico, and Turkey in March 2003). And when U.S. policies lose their legitimacy in the
eyes of others, distrust grows, reducing U.S. leverage in international affairs.
Soft power is key to US Dominance
Fallows 03 (James - a Washington Monthly contributing editor and a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. America’s
Warlords. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0303.fallows.html)
When people spoke of an American "empire" in the 1990s, they mainly used the term as a metaphor. The Soviet Union was gone;
formerly communist economies from Vietnam to Romania were competing to attract U.S. investors; American music, movies, and
computer programs were being pumped out around the world. Ambitious young people decided that they needed to learn English-even, sacre bleu, the ambitious young people of France. Old Europe's sense of being left behind by resurgent America gave the
most serious spur to continental unification since World War II. And even though U.S. troops were chronically involved in regional
wars and peacekeeping operations, the real foundation of American dominance seemed to be its "soft power"--the impact of
its world-leading universities, its dominant pop culture, its revived high-tech industries, its booming employment rolls, its openmarket ideology, and its continued ability to attract and use talent from around the world.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
55
SOFT POWER KEY TO HEGEMONY
soft power is key to burdensharing, reducing the risk of overstretch
BARBER 03 U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times
[Lionel, “The war on terror is about values as well as weapons,” Financial Times, 12/19, lexis]
'There is little of lasting consequence that the United States can accomplish in the world without the sustained co-operation of allies
and friends in Canada and Europe' The US emerged from the second world war with the most powerful economy, the strongest
airforce and navy and the most lethal weapon: the atomic bomb. For half a century, its foreign policy was based on patient containment and nuclear-armed deterrence of the
Soviet threat. Successive presidents, from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, recognised that US power was exercised most effectively through alliances and multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary
The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 changed the terms of engagement between the
US and the rest of the world. Gone are the doctrines of containment and deterrence. Confronted with the existential threat of
radical Islam, rogue states and weapons of mass destruction, President George W. Bush has elevated pre-emptive military action and
regime change to be his guiding principles. The counter-strategy is bold, dynamic and risky - especially when matched with Mr Bush's pledge to export
Fund, the World Bank, Nato and - at times - the United Nations.
freedom and democracy to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other despotic corners of the Middle East. The inescapable, slightly scary conclusion is that the Bush doctrine is
a neo-conservative blueprint to reshape the world in America's image. Yet there is another side to US foreign policy. The passage cited above, on the
importance of allies, could have come from the mouth of Truman. In fact, it appears in the same national security strategy document, published in
September 2002, that advocated pre-emptive military action in America's self-defence. The tensions between unilateral impulse and multilateral preference have coexisted since the US consciously assumed the role of superpower at the onset of the cold war. But they have become more acute under Mr Bush. This is partly because of his rhetoric but mainly because he has put
military power at the centre of his national security strategy. Is the US becoming mesmerised by its military power and blind to its limitations? Or can the administration sustain its revolutionary course, enabling an
America Unbound to emerge? "The (Bush) administration put American power at the centre of its strategy," say Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, authors of a recent study*. But, they add, that power derives from two
The war on terrorism is about values as much as the lethal pursuit of
Islamic extremists. One senior US official likens the challenge to defeating fascism in the 1930s, or even crushing the anarchists of the late 19th century who assassinated US President William McKinley, Tsar
sources: unparalleled military strength and the US's embodiment of freedom and democracy.
Alexander III and numerous lesser victims. It is a campaign without mercy prosecuted on US terms. There will be no more wars fought by committee, as in Kosovo. The mission determines the coalition. Nato is not
needed for toppling the Taliban. But its troops are expected to turn up for post-combat peacekeeping in Afghanistan. The US's go-it-alone strategy reached its apogee in the invasion of Iraq. Here was a war fought
without the support of traditional allies, principally Canada, France and Germany; without backing from the United Nations Security Council; and without conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein controlled biological,
chemical and nuclear weapons that posed an imminent threat to the US. Since the summer, the White House has made some effort to repair the diplomatic damage. The appointment of James Baker, secretary of state in
Mr Bush's father's administration, as special envoy to deal with Iraqi debt could foreshadow efforts to use the capture of Mr Hussein to bridge divisions with Europe. But the overall mood remains unrepentant. The
Beyond recrimination
and reconciliation, however, a more subtle debate is under way. At its heart lies the E-word: the notion that the US is evolving, willynilly, into an empire, with all its trappings and temptations. The US remains the pre-eminent power, despite the rise of China. But
the commitments implied by the global war on terrorism are worryingly open-ended. "Look at the ubiquity of the world's problems compared with the need to
decision explicitly to bar countries that opposed the war from postwar construction contracts reflects the president's post-September 11 slogan: "Either you are with us or against us."
focus American power to be effective," says Steven Miller, director of the international security programme at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School. "We can handle only so many crises at once." He criticises the way the
invasion of Iraq deflected attention from North Korea's seemingly successful effort to build a nuclear bomb, a far more pressing threat to US national security. Dimitri Simes, director of the Nixon Centre, a Washington
think-tank, warned recently in Foreign Affairs against "global social engineering". Driving away authoritarian nations such as China and Saudi Arabia could undermine the struggle against terrorism and WMD
The risk is of "overreach" - that the US will take on too many commitments or
find itself unable to withdraw from its many obligations, just as the Spanish empire did in the 17th century. Its dominance also risks counterreactions among other nations or combinations of states. These dangers were the subject of a private study ordered by the office of
Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, in 2001. At that time, Mr Rumsfeld was worried about foreign entanglements. He wanted to reduce deployments in
Bosnia, Kosovo, the Sinai desert, Saudi Arabia and other isolated places in the Gulf. He was also searching for lessons on the rise and fall of the great empires. The
panel's findings were not entirely reassuring: "Military power by itself is never enough to sustain your predominance. The US
cannot avoid history." ** Paul Kennedy, the Yale University professor who wrote a bestseller about "imperial overstretch" in the late-1980s, feels
vindicated. While US defence spending has been strongly increasing over the past years, it is struggling to keep up with overseas commitments. He estimates that
proliferation. International crusading, he argues, cannot be pursued on the cheap.
the invasion and occupation of Iraq have already cost Dollars 150bn (Pounds 86bn, Euros 122bn) including the recently voted congressional reconstruction package
of Dollars 87bn. By contrast, the first Gulf war cost Dollars 7bn, thanks to extensive contributions from allies, mainly Japan, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Kuwait and the
Gulf states. Whatever the political misgivings in Washington, the practical case for burden-sharing is unanswerable. Richard Haass,
president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior State Department official, argues that superpower dependence on inter-national
goodwill is a fact of life.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
56
SOFT POWER KEY TO DEMOCRACY PROMOTION
Soft power key to democracy promotion
Khouri 05 (Rami, Commentator for the Daily Star, Citing Harvard Professor Stephen Walt, “The World Loves America but Resists
its Power”, yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6321)
He also quotes numerous surveys and other evidence showing that Arabs favor democracy, but are cynical of American attempts to
promote democracy in the Arab world (such as through the Iraq war). He concludes that American policy to push democratic
reforms in the Arab world will probably result in Islamist-led governments that are critical of the United States, and "is unlikely to
have much effect on anti-American terrorism emanating from there." A better approach, he suggests, would be for Washington to
"focus on pushing Arab governments to make political space for liberal, secular, leftist, nationalist and other non-Islamist parties to
set down roots and mobilize voters." He also sees the US focus on elections as the centerpiece of its democracy promotion strategy
as "troubling," along with the "unjustified" confidence that Washington has in its ability to predict, and even direct, the course of
politics in other countries, noting that its "hubris should have been crushed in Iraq." Walt in his article takes this issue to a global
level, saying that leaders around the world must grapple with how they respond to and deal with American power. He says: "The
United States will not and should not exit the world stage anytime soon. But it must make its dominant position acceptable to
others – by using military force sparingly, by fostering greater cooperation with key allies, and, most important of all, by rebuilding
its crumbling international image." He notes that even America's allies often oppose and resist its dominance, and things have
worsened since September 11, 2001, because American policies "have reinforced the belief that the United States does not abide by
its own ideals." Walt suggests several appropriate new strategies, including the US resuming its traditional role as an "offshore
balancer" (ready to engage directly in areas of strategic importance rather than control or occupy them directly), and defending its
international legitimacy. The most important recommendation in the article comes at the end, where Walt says: "US foreign policy
must reflect a greater appreciation of what US power can and cannot accomplish. Possessing unmatched strength does not mean
the United States can or should impose its values on others, no matter how selfless Americans think their motives are. Instead of
telling the world what to do and how to live - a temptation that both neoconservative empire-builders and liberal internationalists
find hard to resist - the United States must lead by example. Over time, other nations will see how Americans live and what they
stand for, and the rest of the world will want those things too."
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
57
SOFT POWER SOLVES ENVIRONMENT
Soft power is key to environmental protection
Closson in 04 (Michael, executive director of Acterra, a regional environmental organization, 8/4, Palo Alto Weekly,
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2004/2004_08_04.ehrlich04ja.shtml)
Is our society sustainable given mankind's current course? For those of us who actually ask the question and answer it in the negative, the next obvious question is: What is required to move the human race onto a
sustainable path? These are the two big questions that Paul and Anne Ehrlich address in their important new book, "One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption and the Human Future." Fortunately, they have the
expertise and insight to address the first forthrightly and answer the second creatively. Paul Erhlich's breakthrough book was "The Population Bomb" in 1968, which accurately predicted that many in poor countries
. A professor of biological sciences at
Stanford, Paul is the founder of the university's Center for Conservation Biology, where Anne works as a policy coordinator and a
research associate in the Department of Biological Sciences. Their latest book's title refers to the great capital city of the Assyrian Empire that flourished six centuries prior to the
would starve to death in coming decades. He and his wife Anne have since co-authored hundreds of articles and several books on environmental topics
birth of Christ in Mesopotamia's Fertile Crescent. Nineveh's environment, initially verdant due to copious irrigation, gradually succumbed to desertification brought on by salinization and soil degradation. While
Nineveh's leaders concentrated on conquest and the pursuit of riches, their empire decayed. Today, ironically, its ruins lie in the sand near the Iraqi city of Mosul. Rudyard Kipling, in his 1897 poem "Recessional," refers
to Nineveh's fate as a cautionary lesson for the then far-flung British Empire. The Ehrlichs likewise see a parallel between the tragic path trod by Nineveh's rulers and the one pursued by America's current leaders. Like
our country's rulers appear incapable of recognizing, not to mention addressing, the extent and gravity of the environmental
deterioration. The Ehrlichs' basic premise is that our natural environment is rapidly degrading as evidenced by a number of
interrelated trends such as global climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the spread of toxic chemicals . If we allow these trends to persist, our life
Nineveh's,
support systems will be seriously eroded, imperiling society's ability to sustain itself. In other words, human beings are on a collision course with the natural world. Since the above circumstance is human-induced, it is
imperative for us to alter our collective behavior if we want our children and their children to have a viable future. Three primary forces drive this unsustainable trend, according to the authors: population expansion,
We inhabit a relatively small planet containing a finite amount of natural
resources. Yet we - especially Americans - consume resources such as oil, forests and fresh water as if they are plentiful. Closely related to
conspicuous consumption (by the wealthy), and the use of inappropriate technologies.
this profligate consumption and its environmental impacts is our choice of technologies. Our continuing dependence on fossil fuels is particularly problematic given the fact that they - and their associated chemicals and
With a much
smaller global population, the environmental effects of conspicuous consumption and destructive technologies would be less
dramatic. But with the world's human population over six billion and likely to peak at 10 billion sometime this century, many
observers think that we already exceed the Earth's capacity. The situation is dire, the authors write: "In some respects, it is almost as if
plastics - are related, directly or indirectly, with most of the human activities that wreak environmental havoc. Exacerbating both of the above is the growing number of people inhabiting the Earth.
society had a death wish, because in the end even the well-buffered rich will pay a huge cost for the environmental consequences of (our) technological choices. A culture dominated by short-term greed is
preventing us from even starting on the task of steering us away from the collision course with nature." How do we turn this situation around? How do we learn to live in harmony with rather than in opposition to our
that the United States has a major leadership role to play in this great turning. Not only is our country the
most powerful and affluent nation on the face of the Earth, our society is the largest engine of global ecological destruction. For
natural environment? The authors believe
example, with fewer than 5 percent of the world's population, we consume 23 percent of the energy produced - the vast bulk of it generated by burning fossil fuels. Shifting onto a sustainable path will not be easy. Many
of us are locked into increasingly dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors reflected in our giant SUVs, mega houses and large families. And, the greater our wealth, the more we consume and the larger our environmental
impacts. To select an example close to home, according to a recent study by the group Sustainable San Mateo County, per capita electricity use in the affluent town of Atherton is 5.5 times that of the nearby lower income
community of East Palo Alto. The Ehrlichs' prescription for change is multi-faceted but hinges on educating broad segments of the public about the nature and extent of the challenge we confront and strategies for
remedying the situation. They go into some detail on ways to restructure our government to reduce the inordinate power of moneyed interests - particularly multinational corporations - and facilitate a return to truly
they stress the importance of the United States leading by example and using the "soft power" of diplomacy
and foreign aid rather than the militaristic strategies currently in vogue in Washington. And a good deal of this leadership should be
devoted to reducing the vast disparities of wealth that fuel both environmental destruction and political unrest, including -- not
incidentally -- terrorism.
representative democracy. In addition,
soft power is vital to preventing environmental destruction, disease, crime and terrorism
Nye, 04 (Joseph, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Political Science Quarterly, Summer, ebsco)
But not all the important types of power come out of the barrel of a gun. Hard power is relevant to getting the outcomes we want
on all three chessboards, but many of the transnational issues, such as climate change, the spread of infectious diseases,
international crime, and terrorism, cannot be resolved by military force alone. Representing the dark side of globalization, these
issues are inherently multilateral and require cooperation for their solution. Soft power is particularly important in dealing with the
issues that arise from the bottom chessboard of transnational relations. To describe such a world as an American empire fails to
capture the real nature of the foreign policy tasks that we face.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
58
SOFT POWER SOLVES THE ECONOMY
Soft power key to the economy – hard power deters investors and has no affect has no enforcement mechanism in
economics
Nye in ’04.
(Joseph, Professor of IR at Harvard, Soft power: the means to success in world politics, p.18-25)
However, in a global economy even the United States must consider how the use of force might jeopardize its economic objectives.
After its victory in World War II the United States helped to restructure Japan's economy, but it is hard to imagine that the United
States today could effectively threaten force to open Japanese markets or change the value of the yen. Nor can one easily imagine
the United States using force to resolve disputes with Canada or Europe. Unlike earlier periods, islands of peace where the use of
force is no longer an option in relations among states have come to characterize relations among most modern liberal democracies,
and not just in Europe. The existence of such islands of peace is evidence of the increasing importance of soft power where there
are shared values about what constitutes acceptable behavior among similar democratic states. In their relations with each other, all
advanced democracies are from Venus. Even nondemocratic countries that feel fewer popular moral constraints on the use of force
have to consider its effects on their economic objectives. War risks deterring investors who control flows of capital in a globalized
economy.31 A century ago, it may have been easier to seize another state's territory by force than "to develop the sophisticated
economic and trading apparatus needed to derive benefit from commercial exchange with it."32 But it is difficult to imagine a
scenario today in which, for example, Japan would try to or succeed in using military force to colonize its neighbors. As two RAND
analysts argue, "In the information age, 'cooperative' advantages will become increasingly important. Moreover, societies that
improve their abilities to cooperate with friends and allies may also gain competitive advantages against rivals."
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
59
SOLVENCY – GENERIC SOCIAL SERVICES
Expanding social services is vital to reducing poverty
Rank, 06 – George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (Mark, 20 Wash. U. J.L. &
Pol'y 17, “POVERTY, JUSTICE, AND COMMUNITY LAWYERING: INTERDISCIPLINARY AND CLINICAL
PERSPECTIVES: Toward a New Understanding of American Poverty”, lexis
Another key strategy for addressing poverty is to increase the accessibility of several vital social and public goods. In some respects,
the conditions of poverty and near poverty in the United States are worse than the statistics indicate. This is because several key
resources have become increasingly unattainable for a number of American households. In particular, quality education, health care,
affordable housing, and child care are either out of reach or obtainable only at considerable economic expenditure and hardship.
n111 Yet, these social goods are vital in building and maintaining healthy and productive citizens and families.
Virtually every other Western industrial society provides greater access to health care, affordable housing, and child care than does
the United States. n112 These societies also do not display the wide fluctuations in educational quality to which American children
are subjected at the primary and secondary levels. n113 The underlying [*49] reason for this is the belief that there are certain social and public goods
to which all individuals have a right, and that making such resources accessible results in more productive citizens and societies in both the short and the long run. In
addition, these countries recognize that such goods and services reduce the harshness of poverty and economic vulnerability. If the
United States is to seriously address the widespread nature of poverty, it must address the fact that too many Americans are unable
to access affordable and quality health care, child care, housing, and education. Many ideas exist on how to provide universal or near universal
coverage of these vital social goods. n114
A third strategy for reducing American poverty is to adopt policies that encourage the building of individual assets. Social policies are frequently designed to alleviate
the current conditions of poverty. Indeed, the strategies of making work pay and providing access to key social goods are each aimed at improving the current
economic conditions of individuals and families. This is understandable, given that poverty affects individuals in the here and now. Yet, poverty alleviation
approaches must also pay attention to longer-term processes and solutions. In particular, asset accumulation is crucial, both during
the individual life course and within the communities in which Americans reside. The acquisition of assets allows individuals to
more effectively function and to reduce their risk of poverty . Assets enable individuals to ride out periods of economic vulnerability. They also allow
for the growth and strengthening of individual development. Assets build a stake in the future that income by itself often cannot provide.
Unfortunately, opportunities to acquire such assets have been in short supply for lower-income individuals. This is in contrast to middle and upper income families,
who have been able to take advantage of asset building policies through the tax code, including the home mortgage deduction, the lower tax rate on capital gains, the
deduction allowed for contributions to individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and the exclusion of employer contributions to pension funds. n115
[*50] Various policies can encourage asset building at the lower income level. One innovative tool for asset building by lower income families is the Individual
Development Account (IDA). n116 IDAs allow lower income individuals and families to participate in matched savings accounts, with a match of at least one to
one, and often much higher. n117 Assets accumulated in these accounts can be used for a broad array of development purposes intended to strengthen a family's
economic position, such as job training, education, starting a small business, or owning a home. The 1996 federal welfare reform legislation included a provision
allowing each state to use part of its block grant money to establish and fund IDAs; more than forty states currently have some form of IDA policy. n118
Additional asset-based development policies should also be developed. One example is a children's trust fund policy. Under this policy, the government would
contribute monetary funds on a regular basis to an account for each child, beginning at the child's birth. The program would be universal in that all children would
be entitled to such a fund, yet it would also be progressive in that lower income families would receive a greater proportional amount of resources than middle-or
upper-income children. At age eighteen, children would be allowed to use their trust funds for particular purposes, such as furthering their education, receiving
technical training, or perhaps investing in a home a bit later in life. The idea of children's trust funds has been adopted in the United Kingdom, and discussions are
beginning to take place in the United States. n119
In summary, the strategies discussed here have the potential to move millions of Americans out of poverty, and to prevent millions
from falling into poverty. They are built on an understanding of poverty that is quite different from the common view that exists
[*51] today. Such an understanding recognizes that much of American poverty is the result of failures within our economic and
political structures. The strategies discussed here focus on moderating these structural failures. They include ensuring that work
exists that pays a living wage, increasing the availability of and access to key resources, such as education and health care, and
encouraging the building of individual assets. Taken together, these policies can dramatically reduce the extent of poverty and
economic vulnerability that currently exists in the United States.
Such policies also have the capacity to make America a more productive and livable society. These strategies all focus on investing
in people and families. Making work pay invests in those employed at low-wage jobs. Increasing access to quality education and health care invests in children
and families. Building assets is a direct investment in the lives of individuals and the communities in which they live. Taken as a whole, these strategies are about
alleviating poverty, but they are also about investing in Americans so that they are able to live up to their full potentials. As a result, the initiatives outlined here are
clearly beneficial to the majority of the American population.
In conclusion, a new way of thinking is needed to confront the widespread nature of American poverty. As George Bernard Shaw once wrote: "Progress is
impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." n120 For too long, we have followed a path that has produced the
highest rate of poverty in the Western industrialized world. Clearly, the time has come for a new way of thinking and dealing with the problem of American poverty.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
60
SOLVENCY – GENERIC SOCIAL SERVICE SPENDING
Expanding benefits through state programs is vital to reducing poverty
Blank, 08 – Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution (Rebecca, CQ Congressional Testimony, “REDUCING THE NUMBER
OF FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY,” 9/25, lexis
Policy Strategy II: Assuring the Presence of an Effective Safety Net
Not all adults can or should be expected to work. Recognizing this, we provide support to elderly adults or those with serious
physical or mental disabilities. For the past two decades, we have focused on how to move more adults off welfare and into work. It
is time to re-open the conversation about the appropriate size and structure of the safety net for those who are unable to hold
stable employment. Two particular policies are worth focusing on.
Help disconnected women and their families stabilize their incomes. Rising numbers of single mothers have become
"disconnected," that is, neither working nor receiving welfare. Between the mid 1990s and the mid 2000s, there was a doubling in
the number of single mothers who reported they were not working nor on welfare, so that more than 20% of single mothers with
low levels of education are currently disconnected. Close to 90% of these women report incomes below the poverty line, and many
report extreme poverty, with incomes below 50% of the poverty line. The research suggests that many of these women have
multiple barriers to work, including obstacles such as mental or physical health problems (particularly depression) that may not
qualify them for disability payments but which interfere with their employment and earnings. A disproportionate share of these
women are caring for someone with mental or physical health problems. An unusually high share report past or current histories of
domestic violence or sexual abuse, problems with substance abuse, limitations in cognitive functioning, undiagnosed learning
disabilities, or care responsibilities for very young children. While many of these women work frequently, they appear to have
difficulty maintaining stable, full-time employment.
States are struggling with how to best help this population, and a number of innovative state programs have been designed to
identify and provide special support to this group. We need to find ways to provide greater assistance, through provisions in the
TANF program that let states identify and focus services on this population without being punished by federal regulations because
they are not moving these women into work quickly enough. Elsewhere, I have laid out a proposal for how to help such women
(Blank, 2007). We also need to be sure that all of these women receive services for which they are eligible, such as food stamps.
Changing social safety nets has a big impact on poverty rates
Rank, 06 – George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (Mark, 20 Wash. U. J.L. &
Pol'y 17, “POVERTY, JUSTICE, AND COMMUNITY LAWYERING: INTERDISCIPLINARY AND CLINICAL
PERSPECTIVES: Toward a New Understanding of American Poverty”, lexis
Similarly, changes in various social supports and the social safety net available to families will make a difference in terms of how
well such households are able to avoid poverty or near poverty. When such supports were increased through the War on Poverty
initiatives of the 1960s, poverty rates declined. n57 Likewise, when Social Security benefits were expanded during the 1960s and
1970s, poverty rates among the elderly declined precipitously. n58 Conversely, when social supports have been weakened and
eroded, as was the case with children's programs during the past twenty-five years, poverty rates have gone up. n59
The recognition of poverty as a structural failing also makes it quite clear why the United States has such high poverty rates as
compared to other Western countries. These rates have nothing to do with Americans being less motivated or less skilled than
individuals in other countries, but have to do instead with the fact that our economy has produced a plethora of low-wage jobs in
the face of global competition and that our social policies have done relatively little to support families compared to those of our
European neighbors. From this perspective, one of the keys to addressing poverty is to increase the labor market opportunities and
social supports available to American households.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
61
SOLVENCY – GENERIC SOCIAL SERVICES
Federal poverty reduction programs are empirically successful
Weil, 06 – President of the Food Research and Action Center (James, Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy,
May–June 2006, “The Federal Government—the Indispensable Player in Redressing Poverty,”
http://www.frac.org/pdf/Weil06.pdf
When Attacking Poverty, the Federal Government Often Is Very Effective
That the business sector, state and local governments, and charity are inadequate to the task of redressing poverty and ensuring
opportunity would not mean that the federal government should play an important role if the federal government also were
unsuccessful or institutionally incapable. But the federal government possesses the resources and has proven itself as an actor—the
most successful actor—in these arenas, especially when (as discussed earlier) it moves both economic and spending policy in the
same positive direction. When it did that in the 1960s and the late 1990s, progress was substantial.
Separately in this issue Peter Edelman addresses the canard (from Ronald Reagan among others) that “we fought a war on poverty
and poverty won.”49 The fact is that many federal initiatives from the last seventy years have been extraordinarily successful. Their
impact has been incomplete but still formidable:
■ The federal government has transformed old age from a frequent sentence of poverty to, typically, albeit not universally, a state of
economic and health security. In 2003 public benefit programs reduced by more than 80 percent the number of seniors who
otherwise would be living in poverty (14 million fewer seniors).50
■ Public benefit programs (overwhelmingly federal or federal-state programs), such as TANF, social security, Supplemental Security
Income, food stamps, and others, lifted nearly one in three otherwise poor children out of poverty in 2003.51
■ Public benefits substantially reduce the severity of poverty even for those they do not lift out of poverty. In 2003 for those who
remained poor the programs increased their average income from 29 percent to 57 percent of the poverty line.52
■ In the 1960s studies found deep hunger and malnutrition in many poor areas of the country. While hunger and food insecurity
are still widespread problems, food stamps, school meals, WIC, and related programs have made severe hunger much less common.
■ In the first fifteen years after Medicaid began, black infant mortality dropped by 49 percent, more than nine times the rate of
improvement of the preceding fifteen years.53
Indisputably these results are not good enough. The work of ensuring that the federal government lives up to its responsibilities and
appropriately takes on poverty, insecurity, and unequal opportunity through its economic and spending policies is hardly finished.
And that work is not easy, short-term, or assured of success. But there is no alternative. The federal government is the
indispensable player in redressing poverty.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
62
SOLVENCY – FEDERAL BLOCK GRANTS
Federalism is a vital model for anti-poverty success, federal leadership and resources work best with local
implementation strategies
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
Our development of a way requires recognition that only the federal government has the financial resources needed to eliminate the
root causes of poverty on a national basis. n3 A serious federal response to poverty in America could result in significant changes in
public and private agencies providing poverty services to the poor. Because such changes can affect social service jobs, careers,
institutions, and political systems, anticipating bureaucratic and local political resistance to new programs is a prerequisite to the
design of a comprehensive anti-poverty initiative. Failure to pay attention to area politics will result in well-intentioned plans being
rendered ineffectual at the local level. At the same time, understanding what happens when new programs "hit the ground" in local
communities and capitalizing on local knowledge about economic and social issues can greatly assist the implementation of a new
federal response to poverty.
Minimizing the angst of change for local service agencies and political institutions requires effective communication and
coordination at all levels of government--federal, state, and local. This effect might best be accomplished by utilizing the inherent
potential of [*490] shared government. Federalism, a product of the American experiment in self-government, affords an effective
mechanism to target federally managed resources to communities through locally developed anti-poverty plans. n4 Employed in this
way, the resources of the federal government and the strings that such funds would place on them, can afford state and local
governments an opportunity to join with other local organizations in a unique and dynamic collaboration.
Local political realities and bureaucratic resistance marginalized past anti-poverty programs. n5 Many nonprofit organizations rely
on local political largesse for future funding, which can affect their mission. n6 Local political interference gave the impression of
afflicting some anti-poverty programs created in the 1960s. n7 Additionally, [*491] federal political factors can blunt the bestdesigned anti-poverty programs. n8 The most important factor in designing a federal response to poverty is its interaction with state
and local political realities. Moreover, a serviceable plan can only be written and enforced by local citizens knowledgeable about
economic and social conditions. n9
Antipoverty programs should be developed locally
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
Anti-poverty plans need to be developed locally--not nationally. A local plan will ensure local participation by the stakeholders who
can contribute their knowledge of local economic factors, existing services and unmet needs. n19 Each community has its own
resources and circumstances for the existence and magnitude of poverty in its region. Local participation not only ensures an
accurate analysis of these conditions but could act as an incentive to local communities. n20 The payoff for local [*495]
communities could be a reward of federal money (authorized by new federal legislation) to implement a plan, which they themselves
have designed. Federalism provides the structure to carry out the needed planning and the flexibility to allocate resources to
respond to those local priorities. n21
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
63
INCREASING SOCIAL SERVICES SOLVE STRUCTURAL RACISM
Expanding federal social services is vital to addressing structural racism
Wiley and Powell, 06 - *Director of the Center for Social Inclusion AND **Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race
and Ethnicity (Maya and John, “Tearing Down Structural Racism and Rebuilding Communities,” Clearinghouse Review, May-June,
online)
The racialized poverty of the region and of New Orleans represents the effects of a shrinking city tax base, propelled by white
flight. The racialized poverty there also represents the racially driven failure of the nation to invest in blacks, Latinos, Native
Americans, and Asians as potent human resources for the country’s future. For example, the New Deal excluded almost three-fifths
of the black community from the benefits of Social Security Insurance by excluding domes- tic and agricultural workers from eligibility.59Driven by Southern Dixiecrats intent on maintaining the social, eco- nomic, and political subordination of blacks, the white
power structure demonstrated a willingness to seal the fates of poor white agricultural and domestic workers to preserve white racial
hegemony. Furthermore, by allowing unions to discriminate on the basis of race while empowering union organizing under the
Wagoner Act, unions not only participated in the strat- ification of black workers even in the industrializing north but also helped
weaken the labor movement possibilitiesin the South.60 New Deal policies had a tremendous impact on the wealth-creat- ing
possibilities for whites with wealth and educational opportunities which increased opportunities for future gen- erations. By the
same token, the disin- vestment and exclusion that these poli- cies advanced for black people and other communities of color have
perpetuated multigenerational poverty and nonac- cess to opportunity.
The current discussion around rebuild-ing appears to be headed away from a stronger, more equitable region. Having spent forty
years to gain political ascen-dancy, often using a strategy of pander-ing to white Southern racism in coded language, the political
right can now move its agenda. The political right has a vision for a radically different America based on less government and
more cor- porate prerogative. The White House recently repealed laws mandating stan- dard local wages for recovery construction workers, suspended affirmative action in contracting requirements and environmental regulations, allowed states to cap their
Medicaid spending, and even worked to eliminate estate taxes.
This ideological approach harms people of color and whites. Consider the fact that in 2004 the richest 10 percent of Americans
received tax cuts worth two times what the government would spend on job training, college Pell grants, pub-lic housing, low
income rental subsidies, and child care.61The portrait painted by both our historic and current federal policies reinforces a
structure of racial segregation, disinvestment, and lack of sustainability for all our communities and the nation.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
64
SOLVENCY – MOVEMENTS / SOCIAL CHANGE
Consciousness raising empirically changes culture
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
n89 The disability rights movement of the twentieth century serves as a prime example of the impact that organized social
awareness can create. Prior to the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, society viewed a disability as a medical condition that
needed to be cured and viewed people with disabilities as "unfortunates." See Samuel R. Bagenstos, The Future of Disability Law,
114 YALE L.J. 1, 12 (2004). Disability advocates, however, successfully argued that a disability is not merely a medical condition
that inhibits the potential of a disabled person; rather, it constitutes discrimination necessitating civil rights protection and
accommodations for people who have disabilities. Id. The disability advocacy movement effectively shifted the focus of how to
assist individuals with disabilities from providing public entitlements to empowering individuals by giving them civil rights. Id.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
65
SOLVENCY – JOB TRAINING
Increasing jobs is the most effective form of poverty reduction
Haskins, 07 – Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation (Ron, CQ
Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY”, 1/24, lexis
Rather than chase a goal that is far out of our reach to eliminate child poverty, a more modest but potentially more effective set of
strategies lies close at hand. Figure 1 portrays the results of an analysis performed by Isabel Sawhill, my colleague at Brookings.
Based on Census Bureau data for 2002, the analysis systematically varies factors correlated with poverty and then, based on the
magnitude of each factor's correlation with poverty and on data from a random sample of Americans, estimates how changing that
factor would change the poverty rate. The figure shows the impact on poverty of assuming everyone works full time, of increasing
the frequency of marriage to match the rate that prevailed in 1970, of assuming everyone completed high school, of reducing family
size so that no family had more than two children, and of doubling cash welfare. As you can see by the height of the bar graphs, the
most effective way to reduce poverty would be to increase work levels; the second most effective way would be to increase marriage
rates. Increasing education, reducing family size, and doubling cash welfare are much less effective in reducing poverty.
This analysis, like the study being released today by the Committee, is based on statistical manipulations of data and not what
actually happens when something in the environment (such as work or marriage rates) changes. But, thanks in large part to this
Committee, the nation has conducted a huge experiment that shows what happens to poverty rates when more people work. In the
welfare reform legislation of 1996, welfare rules were dramatically changed so that mothers on welfare had to look for work or have
their cash benefit reduced or even terminated. In addition, mothers were confronted with a 5-year time limit. In part because of
these new rules, the mid- and late-1990s saw the largest increase ever in work by females heading families. As many as two million
poor mothers left or avoided welfare and found jobs. Figure 2 shows what happened to child poverty during the period of
increased employment by single mothers. Child poverty declined for seven consecutive years beginning in 1993, falling by nearly 29
percent over the period. Black child poverty fell even more, by about 32 percent, reaching its lowest level ever. Even after some
mothers lost their jobs during and following the recession of 2001 and child poverty increased, it peaked in 2004 (it declined again
in 2005) at a rate that was more than 20 percent below its mid-1990s peak.
In line with the prediction of the Sawhill analysis, these results present a vivid demonstration that poverty can be reduced by people
making the right decisions in this case the decision to go to work. Congress and President Clinton encouraged work; many poor
mothers went to work; child poverty dropped.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
66
SOLVENCY – ASSET BUILDING
Asset building strategies are vital to poverty reduction
Blackwell, 08 – founder and CEO of PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing policies that create economic
and social equity, and co-chair of the Center for American Progress (CAP) Task Force on Poverty (Angela, CQ Congressional
Testimony, “REDUCING THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY”, 9/25, lexis
Building wealth is an integral element of a strategy to prevent or reduce poverty. Assets protect against economic vulnerability,
helping workers and families withstand the temporary income shocks that come with unexpected events such as medical
emergencies or job loss. Assets can also be an entryway to upward mobility creating the possibility of getting a college education,
buying a home, or starting a small business. Moreover, having assets can foster long-term planning, provide a foundation for taking
prudent risks, and increase community involvement and civic participation.
Unfortunately, asset inequality is severe in the United States and substantially larger than income inequality. Over one-third of all
households have few or no assets. There are key steps that can help more low-income families begin to create wealth. First, raising
labor force participation and paying a decent wage are integral to efforts to help people save and accumulate wealth. Similarly,
ensuring opportunities for lifelong learning helps people earn more and save for the future.
Families need better saving vehicles to help them meet their long- term goals whether saving for a home, for more education, for
the future of their children, or for their own retirement. The CAP Task Force advocates policies that decrease the costs of being
poor and that reduce or eliminate assets tests in means-tested programs; it also stresses the need for federal tax policy that will
provide tax-based help for savings efforts among low-income households.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
67
POVERTY DESTROYS CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Poverty destroys civic engagement
Loffredo, 93 - Assistant Professor of Law, City University of New York Law School at Queens College (Stephen, 141 U. Pa. L.
Rev. 1277, “POVERTY, DEMOCRACY AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW,” lexis
Other industrialized nations provide greater assistance than the United States to individuals in need, n212 and they provide it in a
less stigmatizing, punitive fashion. n213 Poor people have not "done well politically" in the United States when measured against
the achievements of lower classes in comparable and even less affluent democracies. Extreme forms of deprivation that are
prevalent here are not plausible or acceptable political results in other industrialized countries. n214 This too supports the
conclusion that poor people in the United States do not exercise a fair, "democratic" share of political power.
A conservative response might emphasize that the poor have a relatively low participation rate in the political arena. n215 The
[*1327] poor do not vote, this argument goes, and you cannot be a winner if you do not play the game. The argument is ironic
coming from conservatives, who have consistently endeavored to block political participation by poor people. n216 Moreover, the
fact of nonparticipation cannot be dismissed as merely a bad political choice by the poor. n217 As one commentator notes,
"[p]eople who are literally struggling to find enough to eat are highly unlikely to participate in the political process." n218 The
failure to vote corresponds to other indicators of political powerlessness, including poor people's inability to amplify their voice
through financial resources, the creation of organizational structures, or the building of coalitions with more affluent groups. n219
The "politically quiescent" attitude of the poor, therefore, is less a matter of free choice, n220 than of the mutually reinforcing
effects of "low resources," weak political [*1328] incentives, and "inadequate skills" that trap the poor in what democratic theorist
Robert Dahl has termed a "cycle of defeat." n221
The poor lack political power and are effectively excluded from democratic participation
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
Designing an effective national anti-poverty campaign cannot be done in a vacuum; it requires recognition of and deference to local
political realities. Social and economic change is difficult to accomplish [*492] under the best of circumstances. n10 The
identification and analysis of the enormous costs of poverty (i.e., ghettoization with blight, resulting in flight and disinvestment,
increased crime, tax base erosion, and lack of job opportunities for residents trapped in these poor areas) lead to the inescapable
conclusion that change is needed. n11
Although it seems nonsensical for the federal government to ignore the costs of poverty, there has been little attention, let alone
action, to address the causes of poverty in the last twenty five years. Clearly no holistic will to address poverty exists today as it
existed in generations past. n12 At the dawn of the twenty-first century, even as the national political scene is marked by the
emergence of religious groups as discrete and potent political forces, no political will has surfaced to address poverty, much less
defeat it. n13 The poor do not vote in large numbers and are ignored as a political force. n14 They [*493] are implicitly, and
perhaps explicitly, excluded from participating in our democratic system. n15 Absent political power, the poor lack adequate means
to lobby Congress for programs to advance their economic interests. Accordingly, public interest lawyers and active citizens must
fill the breach by advocating for the poor and promoting the democratic participation intended by our nation's forefathers.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
68
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IS VITAL TO RESTORING THE PUBLIC SPHERE
civic education is vital to understanding public policy and reinvirogating the public sphere
Galston 01 (William, University of Maryland School of Public Affairs, Annual Review of Political Science,
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.polisci.4.1.217?cookieSet=1)
Intuitively, it may seem implausible that civic knowledge is central to democratic citizenship. Why does it matter whether young
people can identify their senators or name the branches of government? Surprisingly, recent research suggests important links
between basic civic information and civic attributes we have reason to care about. The major findings may be summarized as
follows:
1. Civic knowledge helps citizens understand their interests as individuals and as members of groups. The more knowledge we have,
the better we can understand the impact of public policies on our interests, and the more effectively we can promote our interests in the political
process. Delli Carpini & Keeter (1996:238–64) offer a wealth of evidence that political knowledge fosters citizens' "enlightened self-interest"—the ability to connect
personal/group interests with specific public issues and to connect those issues with candidates who are more likely to share their views and promote their interests.
Political knowledge, then, is a key determinant of instrumental rationality (see also Zaller 1992).
2. Civic knowledge increases the consistency of views across issues and across time. Utilizing panel surveys from ANES, Delli Carpini & Keeter (1996:232–34) find a
strong linear relation between political knowledge and the stability of political attitudes. They also find that more knowledgeable voters display much higher levels of
ideological consistency (as measured along a unidimensional liberal-conservative axis) between issues than do the less well informed (Delli Carpini & Keeter
1996:236–38).
3. Unless citizens possess a basic level of civic knowledge—especially concerning political institutions and processes—it is difficult
for them to understand political events or to integrate new information into an existing framework. (By analogy, imagine trying to
make sense of the flow of events in a sports competition for which one does not know the rules of the game.) Popkin & Dimock
(1999) distinguish between "personal character" and "political character" (conduct judged in the specific context of political roles,
institutions, issues, and responsibilities). They show that low-information citizens are much more likely to judge officials according
to their perception of noncontextual personal character. "Without knowledge of how government works, it is difficult to assess the true priorities of a
legislator in the American system.… Voters less able to use these political cues will rely on estimates of personal character instead of attitudes about parties and
issues.… [R]eliance on personal character as a proxy for political character is related to uncertainty, and uncertainty is related to a lack of understanding about
politics" (Popkin & Dimock 1999:125, 127).
4. General civic knowledge can alter our views on specific public issues. For example, the more knowledge citizens have about civic matters, the less likely they are to
fear new immigrants and their impact on our country (Popkin & Dimock 2000).
5. The more knowledge citizens have of civic affairs, the less likely they are to experience a generalized mistrust of, or alienation
from, public life. Ignorance is the father of fear, and knowledge is the mother of trust. One possible explanation for this relationship is the phenomenon of
attribution error. More knowledgeable citizens tend to judge the behavior of public officials as they judge their own—in the context of circumstances and incentives,
with due regard for innocent oversights and errors as well as sheer chance. By contrast, less knowledgeable citizens are more likely to view public officials' blunders
as signs of bad character (Popkin & Dimock 1999:127–29). Moreover, low-information citizens encountering vigorous political debate with its
inevitable charges and countercharges are more likely to conclude that there are no white knights and adopt a "plague on both your
houses" stance. For those who understand politics, debate can be as clear as a tennis match; for those who do not, it more closely
resembles a food fight (Popkin & Dimock 1999:134).
6. Civic knowledge promotes support for democratic values. For example, the more knowledge citizens have of political principles
and institutions, the more likely they are to support core democratic principles, starting with tolerance. Delli Carpini & Keeter
(1996:221–24) explore three possible explanations for this linkage and find substantial support for the "social learning" hypothesis
that specific knowledge of civil rights and civil liberties increases tolerance for unpopular minorities. Nie et al (1996:71–72) find
direct paths from education to both knowledge of democratic principles and tolerance.
7. Civic knowledge promotes political participation. All other things being equal, the more knowledge citizens have, the more likely
they are to participate in public matters. For example, the regression analysis of Delli Carpini & Keeter (1996:226–27) shows a highly significant
independent effect of political knowledge on the probability of voting. Popkin & Dimock (1996) agree: "The results of our model highlight the strong and
independent influence of contextual knowledge on turnout. Controlling for correlated measures of sophistication, knowledge about politics stands out as a
consistently strong factor shaping the decision to vote." Their multivariate analysis leads them to conclude, "The dominant feature of nonvoting in America is lack of
knowledge about government; not distrust of government, lack of interest in politics, lack of media exposure to politics, or feelings of inefficacy" (Popkin & Dimock
1999:142).
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
69
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IS VITAL TO RESTORING THE PUBLIC SPHERE
Civic engagement promotes and foster a public sphere and integrative social bonds of social capital
Lee, professor of Mississippi State University, 2004
(Matthew R. The University of North Carolina Press, “Love Thy Neighbor?
Moral Communities, Civic Engagement, and Juvenile Homicide in Rural Areas”, Social Forces, March, projectmuse)
The civil society literature provides theoretical tools for refining the moral communities thesis and addressing the shortcomings
evident in prior research. Civil society theorists highlight the role of civic engagement and its correlate, social capital, in promoting a
vibrant public sphere and fostering integrative social bonds. Recent scholarship has highlighted the immense benefit derived from
civic [End Page 1009] engagement and high stocks of social capital for Americans at large and U.S. youth in particular (see Baron,
Field & Schuller 2000; Lin 2001; Portes 1998; Putnam 2000). Within this literature, social capital is broadly defined as integration
within social networks that promote norms of reciprocity, trust, and an ethic of civic engagement. Thus, networks, norms, and trust are
considered by many leading scholars to be the three defining features of social capital. When working in concert, this triad
promotes social integration, effective action, and the pursuit of the collective good (Putnam 2000).
Dialogic deliberation is necessary to preserve democracy
Weaver 05 (Heather, Education Specialist, Washington Campus Compact, Western Washington University, “Shared Reflection, Reciprocal Communication,
Collaborative Action: Exploring the Role of Dialogue in Bridging Education and Democracy,” Journal for Civic Commitment, Spring,
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/other/engagement/Journal/index5.jsp)
<David Bohm, an English scientist first known in the twentieth century for his work on quantum physics, later became interested in applying the key themes of his
science (the interconnectedness of all things; and the role of change, or flow, in manifesting that interconnectedness) to the human world, and specifically to matters
of human communication. This led him to a longtime exploration of dialogue as a mode of communication, through which he became a groundbreaking voice on
the idea and practice of dialogue. For Bohm, the defining characteristic of dialogue was in how it created a communicative flow. He saw
dialogue as quite distinct from other modes of communication such as discussion (1996, 6-7): ‘Dialogue’ comes from the Greek word, dialogos. Logos means ‘the
word,’ or… the ‘meaning of the word.’ And dia means ‘through’ – it doesn’t mean ‘two.’ A dialogue can be among any number of people, not just two…. This
derivation suggests… a stream of meaning flowing among and through us and between us. This will make possible a flow of meaning in
the whole group, out of which many emerge some new understanding. It’s something new, which may not have been the starting
point at all. It’s something creative. And this shared meaning is the ‘glue’ or ‘cement’ that holds people and societies together.
Contrast this with the word ‘discussion,’ which has the same root as ‘percussion’ and ‘concussion.’ It really means to break things up. It emphasizes the idea of
analysis, where there may be many points of view, and where everybody is presenting a different one – analyzing and breaking up. That obviously has its value, but it
is limited….The people who take part are not really open to questioning their fundamental assumptions. For a democracy to thrive, there must be a
space for the ongoing exchange of new perspectives. Antjie Krog relates this process to the emergence of truth, a truth she encourages us to see as:
“the widest possible compilation of people’s perceptions, stories, myths, and experiences” (1999, 21-22). A wide compilation of ideas tends not to result from
debates or discussions. Even though divergent views emerge during a debate, the aim of debate is to, in the end, reduce a diversity of perspectives to one winning
view. The same is true of a consensus-oriented discussion which, though it promotes a wide array of ideas, still aims at moving from a
diversity of ideas toward one commonly held view. Dialogue differs in principle from these modes of communication. It encourages
an ongoing and open plurality of ideas. It is generative rather than reductive. And it is inherently educative and democratic.
Shaping Dialogue
With his tireless assertion that “American renewal is predicated on a vibrant public conversation,” socio-political philosopher
Cornel West urges us to understand and engage in the connection between dialogue and democracy (1994, 34). Expanding upon
this point, philosopher of education bell hooks shows us that democratic dialogue amounts to democratic education, noting that:
“Learning is never confined solely to an institutionalized classroom....Conversation is the central location of pedagogy for the
democratic educator” (2003, 41-44).>
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
70
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT KEY TO DEMOCRACY
Civic engagement is vital to democracy
Watson, 04 (J.B. Watson, Assistant Professor of sociology and gerontology coordinator @ Stephen F. Austin State University, “A
Justification of the Civic Engagement Model,” p. 73-74, Service Learning: History, Theory, and Issues)
The civic engagement of ordinary citizens with voluntary associations, social institutions, and government in local communities is a
central feature of strong democracies. Further, a fundamental feature of democratic governmental structure is its relationship to
civil society, defined as "voluntary social activity not compelled by the state" (Bahlmueller, 1997, p. 3). Through voluntary
participation in civil society associations at the local and regional level, citizens pursue activities that potentially serve the public
good. Through this rudimentary civic engagement, citizens learn the attitudes, habits, skills, and knowledge foundational to the
democratic process-(Patrick, 1998). Unfortunately, in 1998 the National Commission on Civic Renewal (NCCR) highlighted the
declining quantity and quality of civic engagement at all levels of American life. A number of other studies concur on the decline of
involvement in civic activities (Bahlmueller, 1997; McGrath, 2001; Putnam, 1995). This concern about the nature and extent of civic
engagement in the United States has impacted the debate on the proper role of higher education in a democracy. Higher education
institutions, as transmitters of essential elements of the dominant culture, struggle with the development of mechanisms to socialize
the next generation about democratic values. A national debate has emerged on the higher education response to this perceived
need for revitalizing constructive democratic engagement, building civil society, and increasing citizen participation in government
at all levels. Colleges and universities have responded with a number of civic engagement initiatives, including university-community
partnerships, empirical studies of political engagement, community-based (collaborative) research, and the development of new (or
expanded) service-learning programs (Jacoby 2003).
A renewal of civic participation via community based organizations is key to social capital and creating a foundation for
democracy which will otherwise weaken.
Cohen 03--Professor of Political Science at Columbia University—( Jean L., “Civic Innovation in America: Towards a Reflexive
Politics”, The Good Society 12.1 (2003) 56-62, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/good_society/v012/12.1cohen.html)
Civic Innovation in America is a refreshing addition to what has become a growth industry of writing on American civil society. Unlike
the influential approach of Robert Putnam, this is not a backward-looking lament about the decline of associational life, although
Sirianni and Friedland are aware of the worrisome signs of civic disaffection and citizen passivity in the U.S. 1Yet they don't join
neo-communitarian efforts to revive traditionalistic types of "mediating institutions" in order to secure social integration. 2Although
not adverse to mobilizing old forms of social capital—such as congregation-based community organizations within and across
denominational lines—they are primarily interested in networks that expand local organizing capacities for new purposes and with
fresh democratic methods. 3 Indeed, the focus of Civic Innovation is on significant recent attempts "from below" to reinvent and
revitalize American democracy. Accordingly, the book points the reader to the ongoing public work of citizens and the actual
processes of civic innovation that have sprung up in recent years. The authors maintain that: "Over the past several decades
American society has displayed a substantial capacity for civic innovation, and the future of our democracy will depend on
whether we can deepen and extend such innovation to solve major public problems, and transform the way we do politics."
4Theirs is a forward-looking approach: it highlights new forms of cooperative civic participation in civil society and discusses the
new modes of governance needed to support them.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
71
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT KEY TO DEMOCRACY
civic detachment is increasing and destroying u.s. democracy
Galston, 01 (William, professor at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland, The Chronicle of Higher Education,
11/16, http://www.pewtrusts.com/news/news_subpage.cfm?content_item_id=850&content_type_id=14&page=nr3)
Political engagement
is not sufficient for political effectiveness, but it is necessary. If young adults have legitimate generational interests that do not
wholly coincide with the interests of their elders, those interests cannot help shape public decisions unless they are forcefully
articulated. The withdrawal of a cohort of citizens from public affairs disturbs the balance of public deliberation--to the detriment of those
who withdraw, but of the rest of us as well. Second, political scientists have found that civic attitudes and patterns of behavior formed when young tend to
persist throughout adult life. The young Americans who banded together to battle the Great Depression and fight in World War II became what the political scientist Robert
For many reasons, the civic detachment of today's youth should not be regarded with equanimity. Let me begin with a truism about representative democracy:
Putnam has called the "civic generation," unabashedly patriotic and pervasively participatory. The young Americans who came of age during Vietnam and Watergate cannot shed their deep
If today's young Americans continue to regard civic affairs as irrelevant, they are likely to abstain
from political involvement throughout their lives. Third, the relationship between citizenship and self-development, although much debated of late among political
suspicion of politicians and political power.
theorists, should at least be considered. Even if we agree (and we may not) on the activities that constitute good citizenship, one may still wonder why it is good to be a good citizen. It is
possible, I believe, for many individuals to realize their good in ways that do not involve the active exercise of citizenship. A private life is not necessarily an impoverished life. Still, there is
something to the proposition that under appropriate circumstances, political engagement helps develop important human capacities . I have in mind the sorts of
intellectual and moral qualities that Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill emphasized--among
them, enlarged interests, a wider human sympathy, a sense
of active responsibility for oneself, the skills needed to work with others toward goods that can only be obtained or created through
collective action, and the powers of sympathetic understanding needed to build bridges of persuasive words to those with whom
one must act. It may well be that even as civic engagement has declined, it has become not less, but more necessary for the development of the human
capacities that I've just sketched. Underlying this conjecture is the suspicion that, as the market has become more pervasive during the past generation as organizing
metaphor and as daily experience, the range of opportunities to develop nonmarket skills and dispositions has narrowed. For various reasons, the solidary
organizations that dominated the American landscape from the 1930s through the early 1960s--men's clubs, unions, and hierarchical religious organizations, for
example--have weakened, and the principle of individual choice has emerged as our central value. Indeed, citizenship itself has become optional, as the
sense of civic obligation to vote--or for that matter to do anything else of civic consequence--has faded and as the military draft has been
replaced by all-volunteer armed forces. When the chips are down, we prefer exit to voice, and any sense of loyalty to something larger than
ourselves has all but disappeared. In this context, the experience of collective action directed toward common purposes is one of
the few conceivable counterweights to today's hyperextended principle of individual choice . Finally, I would offer an old-fashioned argument for
civic engagement based on obligation. Most young Americans derive great benefits from their membership in a stable, prosperous, and free society. These goods do not fall like manna
from heaven; they must be produced, and renewed, by each generation. When all the subtleties are stripped away, there remains the injunction to do one's fair share to uphold the
institutions that help secure these advantages. Absent this principle of reciprocity, young people are likely to live not only selfishly but also heedlessly. It is hard to see how they can build
If civic engagement is more necessary than ever, our failure to encourage it among young adults looms
all the larger. We have allowed our politics to degenerate into an unedifying spectator sport that breeds cynicism, especially among the young.
good and satisfying lives on this basis.
We have presided over the erosion of institutions, such as political parties, that once invited young people into civic life. We have abolished the civic experiences shared by previous generations of young Americans--for
instance, the military draft--without putting anything much in their place. Although we should get to work right away on these sources of civic disengagement, they will be hard to fix, at least in the short run. Another
problem, however, would be easier to solve, if we put our minds to it--namely, our failure to transmit basic civic knowledge and skills to the next generation of citizens. The evidence of this failure is now
incontrovertible. In our decentralized system of public education, the closest thing we have to a national examination is the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The results of the most recent NAEP of civic
knowledge, administered in 1998, were discouraging. About three-quarters of all students scored below the level of proficiency. Thirty-five percent of high-school seniors tested below basic, indicating near-total civic
ignorance. Another 39 percent were only at the basic level, a level of working knowledge below what they need to function competently as citizens. When we combine these results with other data from the past decade
of survey research, we are driven to a gloomy conclusion: Whether we are concerned with the rules of the political game, political players, domestic policy, foreign policy, or political geography, student mastery is
startlingly low. This raises a puzzle. The level of formal schooling in the United States is much higher than it was 50 years ago. But the civic knowledge of today's students is, at best, no higher than that of their parents
and grandparents. We have made a major investment in formal education, without any discernible payoff in increased civic knowledge. It is easy to dismiss these findings as irrelevant. Who cares whether young people
master the boring content of civics courses? Why does it matter whether they can identify their congressman or name the branches of government? But, surprisingly, recent research ably analyzed by Michael X. Delli
Carpini and Scott Keeter in What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters documents important links between basic civic information and civic attributes that we have good reason to care about. Other
civic knowledge enhances support for democratic values, promotes political participation, helps citizens to understand
better the impact of public policy on their interests, gives citizens the framework they need to learn more about civic affairs, and
reduces generalized mistrust and fear of public life.
The terrible events of September 11, and their aftermath, have created a surge of patriotism and a new sense
things being equal,
of connection between young Americans and their public institutions. For many, it is their first experience of public service as meaningful; of national leaders, local leaders, police of-ficers,
firemen, and their fellow citizens as virtuous, even heroic. But no civic invisible hand guarantees that these effects will endure. At best, we have an opportunity--which may prove fleeting-to solidify this new civic sense. If we clean up our politics, rebuild the institutions that ask citizens to participate, multiply opportunities for
national and community service, and restore the civic mission of our educational institutions, we have a chance to reverse the cynicism
evoked by the politics of the past three decades. If we squander this opportunity, the civic outpouring we've seen this autumn is likely to fade, leaving young Americans
with only a dim memory of what might have been.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
72
DOMINATION OF THE PUBLIC SPHERE CAUSES MILITARISM
the domination of the public sphere is fueling public militarism
Boggs, 05 (Carl, teaches political science at the University of Southern California, Imperial delusions: American militarism and
endless war, p. 81-82)
One of the great casualties of an expanding security state, of the milita-
rization of American society in general, is democratic politics, gener-
ally
considered to be the centerpiece of the U.S. historical experience. Em-
pire, the war economy, a national security apparatus, militarism in
the
service of corporate and geopolitical interests—all of these have had a pow-
erfully corrosive impact on domestic politics since the onset of
the cold war.
The events of 9/11 and their aftermath, including the war on terrorism and
new military adventures abroad, have only deepened
this trend. A shrinking
public sphere, marked by increasing xenophobia, jingoism, celebrations of
armed violence, and narrowing political
debates, has become a seemingly
durable feature of American society: not only in politics but in mass media,
popular culture, professional life,
and academia. Despite troop and base reductions here and there over the past few
decades, the U.S. military has steadily extended its power across
both the in-
ternational and domestic terrain. As we have seen, the Pentagon system
functions to protect Empire, which, since the fall of the
USSR and end of
the cold war, has risen to unchallenged hegemony. The military and secu-
rity network presided over by the United States
requires patriotic mobiliza-
tion that in turn depends on an efficient propaganda system operating
largely in the service of government agendas.
Where such mobilization is
highly effective, as in the case of the two Gulf Wars, the result is a strong au-
thoritarianism marked by ideological
conformism, institutional narrowing,
a regime of surveillance, media manipulation, secrecy in government deci-
sion making, the growing
concentration of power in a few hands. If Empire
signifies an increasingly militarized politics and society, where "national se-
curity" priorities
shape elite agendas, then democracy winds up as some-
thing of a charade where lies, myths, distortions, and cover-ups that shape
public life are
embraced and passed on by Republican and Democratic
politicians alike. This is probably more true of international affairs than of any other
realm. The maintenance of Empire, always costly and destructive,
requires ongoing legitimation, which it receives from politicians, officials,
the
media, and intellectuals who exercise their influence within reputedly
free and open public forums. With the disappearance of any semblance of
a
Soviet challenge by the early 1990s, global terrorism soon furnished the
perfect demonized enemy, joined by a few "rogue states" led by
modern-
day Hitlers. Public support for U.S. militarism was of course much easier to
galvanize after 9/11, patriotism reaching its highest point
since World War
II as the fear of new terrorist episodes lent a sense of national urgency to
crucial state functions: surveillance, intelligence, law
enforcement, military
preparedness. In such a setting, new weapons systems were much easier to
justify and sell. In his 2002 State of the Union
address Bush argued for a
military budget reaching nearly $400 billion, including new requests for
high-tech weaponry, mobile antiterror units,
space militarization, nuclear
modernization, and expanded worldwide military deployments.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
73
UNCHECKED PATRIOTISM CAUSES MILITARISM
unchecked patriotism is the legitimation mechanism for militarism
Boggs, 05 (Carl, teaches political science at the University of Southern California, Imperial delusions: American militarism and
endless war, p. 95)
The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the only serious counterweight
to U.S. geopolitical domination. The circumstances of 9/11 and the war on
terrorism
enabled the Bush administration to move full speed ahead toward
a more ambitious grand strategy, which the PNAC statement had earlier affirmed. U.S. global
supremacy would now become post-cold war reality—
a reality to be achieved and sustained by military force, where necessary. As
the lone superpower,
therefore, the United States would strive to prevent
any rival centers of power or independence. The National Security Strategy
that Bush presented to Congress
in September 2002 was abundantly clear
on this point. In seeking to amass such unchallengeable worldwide power,
the United States was now committed to
erecting and sustaining the most
awesome military machine ever known. In domestic politics, however, hegemony cannot be established by
force alone, or even
primarily by force: as Antonio Gramsci argued several
decades ago, institutional power cannot last very long in the absence of sup-
porting
belief systems. In the case of U.S. military power, the war economy,
and Empire, patriotic ideology furnishes the main legitimating
values,
myths, and attitudes to be instilled in the general population—or so the political and military leaders fervently hope. The United States has
been intensely nationalistic throughout its history, a country blessed with a special political mission reflected in such ref-
erences as "Manifest Destiny," "the
American Century," and, more recently,
"The New American Century." From the time of the Revolutionary War,
American leaders have anointed themselves with a noble calling legitimated
by the founding of constitutional order, ideals of liberty and democracy, the
westward
frontier push, and a sense of progress rooted in Enlightenment val-
ues of science, technology, and industrial growph. Beneath these seemingly
benign virtues can
be found an uneasy but often virulent mix of capitalism,
racism, imperialism, and militarism—first visible on a global scale with the
Spanish-American War and
then, more powerfully, after the military victories of World War II. Although nationalism in the United States in some
ways takes on the
character of a secular religion, it has always been presented
as more benevolent, superior to the cruder forms associated with rival
powers, with Fascism, or with the third world. As Barbara Ehrenreich observes:
"By convincing ourselves that our nationalism is
unique among nationalisms, we do not have to acknowledge its primitive and bloody side."10
Americans have enlisted God and
history on their side to justify imperial
expansion and military conquest, beginning with the Indian wars, defined
at the time as a
crusade for white/European civilization. Superpatriotism
took hold during the Spanish-American War, which laid waste to
the
Philippines and inaugurated the rise of U.S. global power. Through all the
patriotic symbols and sacred rituals, through a long
series of military tri-umphs, Americans have increasingly come to define themselves as some-
thing of a chosen people—a beacon
of freedom, democracy, and progress to
be judged according to different standards than others. Within this ideological matrix
patriotism would be recurrently fueled by war and the struggle
to tame foreign demons. Patriotism would provide a sense of
national
catharsis, feelings of unity that might compensate for the harsh realities of
daily life. The celebration of war and the defeat of
terrible alien forces took
on new meaning during the first Gulf War, witnessed by a rapt population
as a flag-waving media spectacle.
patriotism fuels global militarism and will collapse hegemony
Boggs, 05 (Carl, teaches political science at the University of Southern California, Imperial delusions: American militarism and
endless war, p. 97)
Patriotism furnishes the most important source of ideological legiti-
mation for militarism, war, and Empire; it is absolutely
necessary if elite adventures abroad are to be justified. The seductive power of patriotism,
moreover, naturally intensifies at a time
of war or preparation for war. A
global superpower clearly requires a strong consensual basis—a point that
will be more fully
explored in the final chapter. At the same time, however
effective patriotism might be in helping secure legitimation domestically,
its
ideological availability for American power in world politics is destined to fall
drastically short, as the sources of opposition to
Empire flourish in a context of superpower ultrapatriotism and militarism. We know that history is
filled with the wreckage of
states seeking imperial power through military
force.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
74
UNCHECKED PATRIOTISM CAUSES MILITARISM
patriotism greases the wheels towards war
Boggs, 05 (Carl, teaches political science at the University of Southern California, Imperial delusions: American militarism and
endless war, p. 96-7)
Patriotism shapes the entire American landscape: media, popular cul-
ture, sports, politics, foreign relations. With 9/11, the war on
terrorism, and
then the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the press eagerly adopted the lan-
guage of war and patriotism,
endorsing uncritically every move by Bush and
joining the government in a common enterprise. CBS news anchor Dan
Rather said he would follow
any orders laid down by the president. ABC's
Cokie Roberts said: "Look, I am, I will just confess to you, a total sucker for
the guys who stand up with the ribbons
on and stuff, and they say it's true
and I'm ready to believe it."12 Judging from the degree to which right-wing
interests have permeated the corporate media,
confessions of this sort probably turned out to be close to the norm. Further, as we have seen, dissent
after 9/11 was commonly attacked as a sign of
treason in much the same
way critics were scorned during the cold war as un-American, Communists,
or fellow travelers of the USSR.
Efforts to understand recent terrorism in
the historical context of U.S. military interventions and proxy wars—that is, in terms of blowback—are deemed not
worthy of discussion. In November
2001 the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, founded by Lynne
Cheney, launched its Defense of Civilization Fund to
support the study of
"American values" and isolate "blame America" academics, all with the sup-
port of corporate foundations. Bush administration
spokespersons gave
speeches celebrating the presumed superiority of American traditions and
institutions and justifying their
export to supposedly backward reaches ot
the world, beginning with the axis of evil. Demons had to be slayed. And if
people from
other nations and cultures felt hatred or resentment toward the
United States, this was simply a matter of jealousy, as the elite intoned—
envy over American
freedom and prosperity. Not surprisingly, such attitudes
were reflected across a wide spectrum of the population. One citizen randomly interviewed said what
might have been fairly representative: "I guess
it's my plain old American arrogance. We are the best. I think we've proved
that over and over. We're vastly
educated, we're vastly experienced, we're
stable—plus we have resources."13 If the war on terrorism—however justified—serves elite power, a
more
robust patriotism becomes the cornerstone of its mass legitimating ideology'.
It might be argued, as Norman Mailer has, that 9/11
provoked a "mass iden-
tity crisis" in American society, introducing new levels of anxiety, fear, and
paranoia into public life. Dismissing the notion that the attacks
brought a
heightened sense of national unity, Mailer finds instead an "odious self-
serving patriotism" contaminating an American politics already diminished
by
the cult of violence, the fetishism of technology, election frauds, and cor-
porate scandals.14 Mailer is not the only commentator to find an ideologi-
cal emptiness
in American society tied to an erosion of effective gover-nance, brought to the surface by 9/11—a predicament that also provided
new opportunities for solving
the legitimation crisis. One way out has been
to extend U.S. global power in the face of new enemies, with hopes of re-fashioning a
domestic consensus. Surely an energized patriotism wedded to
a revitalized militarism constitutes one possible remedy for a nation
that
long ago had grown ideologically and culturally stale. Corporate globalization, the war on terrorism, the doctrine of pre
emptive strikes, aggressive moves in the Middle East, an expanded military-industrial complex—all this is the work of an imperial
agenda having pre-
cious little to do with the requirements of national security. Patriotic
ideology, however, lends an aura of
necessity to these trends, and the terror-
ist attacks provided the fuel. After 9/11, Mailer writes, "we were plunged
into a fever of patriotism. If our longterm comfortable and complacent
sense that America was just the greatest country ever had been brought into
doubt, the instinctive reflex was to reaffirm
ourselves. We had to overcome
the identity crisis—hell, overpower it, wave a flag."15 And these highly emo-
tional attitudes were made palatable to a public
bombarded with the inces- sant rantings of a jingoistic media. It is easy enough to see how warfare
could become a safety valve for a variety
of
challenges, from economic stagnation to resource needs to the electoral worries of politicians. War and
preparation for war can
revive the national psyche, as shown during the first
Gulf War, offering the illusion of empowerment mixed with the allure of
high-tech entertainment. And
terrorism, even more than Communism before it, represents the perfect target. It conjures images of unspeakably criminal villains carrying out evil designs against
innocent civilians, whereas
Communism, though godless and evil, was always a more distinctly political
threat. The time-honored idea that patriotic citizens ought
to stand up, fight
back, and help vanquish the evildoers fits domestic even more than the
global needs of the system. In Mailer's words: "Flag conservatives truly
believe America is not only fit to run the world but that it must. Without a
commitment to Empire the country will go down the drain."16 If Mailer
proves to be
correct, the future implications of such desperate maneuvers
might be too horrifying to contemplate.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
75
STRONG PUBLIC SPHERE KEY TO HUMAN SURVIVAL
Promoting a healthy democratic public sphere is vital to human survival
Lakeland 93 (Paul, professor of religious studies at Fairfield University, “Preserving The Lifeworld, Restoring the Public Sphere,
Renewing Higher Education,” Cross Currents, Winter, Vol. 43 Issue 4, p488, 15p http://www.crosscurrents.org/lakeland2)
<How did we get from a democratic society in which the citizens--no matter how small a minority of the total community they constituted--truly felt they owned it,
to one in which so many are alienated from the political process? One reason is that in the earlier years the expansion of citizenship and the subsequent
increase in educational opportunities did not lead to the admission of these newly educated classes into the dialogue. Educational
reform and improvement in the standard of living took place within European societies whose class, gender, and race-based social constraints underwent no serious
change; a little learning did not a gentleman make. Another, more recent reason is that democratization was accompanied by capitalization, so that
the passive consumption of culture and commodities with its attendant apolitical sociability was the path preferred by, or at least
open to, the vast majority. In other words, there are just a lot more citizens; but many of these citizens are the victims of structural
oppression, and all are lured by the blandishments of material ease. Again, to return to Habermas's forms of expression, all this
amounts to the progressive colonization of the lifeworld by the system. If, in the past two hundred years, the public sphere has so
completely failed to fulfill its promise as a market-place for the discourse of a free society, the project must be to restore it through
the revival of true communicative action, that is, to persuade people to talk to one another with respect, to listen fairly, to argue
cleanly, and to move towards consensus on norms for action. That way lies a democratic future. Any other way leads to one or
another form of totalitarianism, including the totalitarianism of mass consumption culture whose victims are so easily persuaded to
pursue its spurious salvation and ersatz heaven. However, the character of our modern world requires that steps taken to transform
the public sphere respect and reflect the complexity of modern society. We are not just so many individuals sorted into different
social classes. We are rather members of a number of sub-groups, perhaps defined by race, class, gender or religion, as well as
members of the larger body politic. What will be needed is a confluence of these autonomous publics or distinct interest groups
coming together in common concern for the preservation of democratic life. The public sphere will have to include many more
voices than it did in the time of Samuel Johnson, and the consensus on social goods may seem even more elusive; but the dynamics
of the process, so argues Habermas, will help ensure the preservation of a human society. This late twentieth-century world possesses
further characteristics that distinguish it from Athens, or Dr. Johnson's London. It is, as we have already noted, profoundly multicultural, and monocultural societies
can be restored only by acts of violence. Second, in such a world societies have a tendency to understand themselves primarily as systems, and to
apply systems-theory to the elucidation of their concerns and the solution of their problems. Thus they assert instrumental action as
paradigmatic, consigning the specifically human communicative action to a secondary role. Third, societies show an extraordinary
degree of professionalization (which some see as fragmentation) of social life. Fourth, they seem to prize technical expertise over
moral influence. Finally, they put their faith in science and technology, rather than in some less tangible medium of meaning. The multicultural
complexion of the modern world is a fact that could not be undone, even if it were desirable to do so. But the other four characteristics are much less firmly
entrenched. This flexibility is fortunate, since the preservation of democracy in our world is going to require some adjustment in the degree
to which the world is seen as system. In addition to calling for a new kind of harmony carved out of a wider participation of
autonomous publics (racial, gender-based, sexual orientation-based, and so on), we need to redress the balance between expertise
and influence and to look beyond the scientism of the machine age. Without these changes, the world will incline to making the
human person an instrument of society. When that happens, the distinctively human activities of caring, thinking, and creating are
either marginalized, relegated to some domestic privacy, or put to the service of the system. Is it not the case that today the vast
majority of our citizens find their true human fulfillment at those times when they are not engaged as "productive members of
society"? (Ask a group of students some time what they are really fascinated by, and then ask them what they expect to be their
career directions, and note the wide discrepancies.) If so, can we not trace a connection between this unfortunate fact and the
decline of "civic virtue," the rise of a taboo-morality ("If I don't get caught, it's OK") that seems increasingly to govern public life,
and the combination of apathy and cynicism which most Americans reserve for reflection upon the political process?>
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
76
TOPICALITY – SOCIAL SERVICES
Social services include federally financed state programs aimed at reducing poverty
Code of Federal Regulations, 09 (Current as of 4/30, “TITLE 29 -- LABOR SUBTITLE A -- OFFICE OF THE
SECRETARY OF LABOR, PART 2 -- GENERAL REGULATIONS, SUBPART D -- EQUAL TREATMENT IN
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR PROGRAMS FOR RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS; PROTECTION OF RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY OF DEPARTMENT OF LABOR SOCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS AND BENEFICIARIES,” 29 CFR 2.31
§ 2.31 Definitions.
As used in the regulations in this subpart:
(a) The term Federal financial assistance means assistance that non-Federal entities (including State and local governments) receive
or administer in the form of grants, contracts, loans, loan guarantees, property, cooperative agreements, direct appropriations, or
other direct or indirect assistance, but does not include a tax credit, deduction or exemption.
(b) The term social service program means a program that is administered or supported by the Federal Government, or by a State
or local government using Federal financial assistance, and that provides services directed at reducing poverty, improving
opportunities for low-income children, revitalizing low-income communities, empowering low-income families and low-income
individuals to become self-sufficient, or otherwise helping people in need. Such programs include, but are not limited to, the
following:
(1) Child care services and services to meet the special needs of children, older individuals, and individuals with disabilities
(including physical, mental, or emotional disabilities);
(2) Job training and related services, and employment services;
(3) Information, referral, and counseling services;
(4) Literacy and mentoring programs; and
(5) Services for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency and substance abuse, services for the prevention of crime and
the provision of assistance to the victims and the families of criminal offenders, and services related to intervention in, and
prevention of domestic violence.
Social services are funded mainly through block grants
Stein, 01 *Professor of Social Welfare at the State University of New York, Albany (Theodore, Social Policy and Policymaking by
the Branches of Government and the Public-At-Large, p. 299-301
Social services are funded mainly, but not exclusively, through the use of block grants, which were discussed in previous chapters,
for example, in chapter 9 where the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant was reviewed, in chapter 11
where block grants for food and housing were discussed, and in chapter 12 where block grants to provide health care were
described.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
77
POVERTY LINE DEFINITION
The federal government uses the DHS poverty guidelines to determine program eligibility
Department of Health and Human Services, 09 (“THE 2009 HHS POVERTY GUIDELINES”,
http://aspe.hhs.gov/POVERTY/09poverty.shtml
There are two slightly different versions of the federal poverty measure:
The poverty thresholds, and
The poverty guidelines.
The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure. They are updated each year by the Census Bureau
(although they were originally developed by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration). The thresholds are used
mainly for statistical purposes — for instance, preparing estimates of the number of Americans in poverty each year. (In other
words, all official poverty population figures are calculated using the poverty thresholds, not the guidelines.) Poverty thresholds
since 1980 and weighted average poverty thresholds since 1959 are available on the Census Bureau’s Web site. For an example of
how the Census Bureau applies the thresholds to a family’s income to determine its poverty status, see “How the Census Bureau
Measures Poverty” on the Census Bureau’s web site.
The poverty guidelines are the other version of the federal poverty measure. They are issued each year in the Federal Register by the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for
administrative purposes — for instance, determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs. The Federal Register notice
of the 2009 poverty guidelines is available.
The poverty guidelines are sometimes loosely referred to as the “federal poverty level” (FPL), but that phrase is ambiguous and
should be avoided, especially in situations (e.g., legislative or administrative) where precision is important.
Key differences between poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines are outlined in a table under Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQs). See also the discussion of this topic on the Institute for Research on Poverty’s web site.
Here is a list of DHS poverty guidelines for 2009
Department of Health and Human Services, 09 (“THE 2009 HHS POVERTY GUIDELINES”,
http://aspe.hhs.gov/POVERTY/09poverty.shtml
The 2009 Poverty Guidelines for the
48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia
Persons in family
Poverty guideline
1
$10,830
2
14,570
3
18,310
4
22,050
5
25,790
6
29,530
7
33,270
8
37,010
For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
78
AT: STATES COUNTERPLAN
Federal action is crucial, state budgets can’t provide adequate resources
Weil, 06 – President of the Food Research and Action Center (James, Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy,
May–June 2006, “The Federal Government—the Indispensable Player in Redressing Poverty,”
http://www.frac.org/pdf/Weil06.pdf
Resource Disparities from Place to Place Are Even Greater in the Short Term
Not only is there a long-term disparity in state resources (and state poverty rates) that calls for a national response, but also there
are short-term spikes in need and troughs in resources that exacerbate long-term disparities or that themselves create a more urgent
need for federal investment.
Some of these are caused by natural or man-made disasters—a September 11 attack or a Hurricane Katrina. Most have economic
causes. Although to some significant degree state economic trends move “in sync” with the nation’s economy, sometimes a local,
state, or regional economy diverges from the direction of the nation as a whole. An industry or economic sector such as defense or
the Internet or agriculture or oil and gas is hit hard by its own climatic, economic, or political cycle or by worldwide supply and
demand forces.
In such circumstances, a state faces a “double whammy.” First, its people have greater need for help: unemployment rises; wages,
private health insurance coverage, and other benefits decline; poverty grows. Second, state tax resources decline. The state has
declining capacity to cope with rising need, even if other states and the nation as a whole do not face similar problems. In these
circumstances the national government, with its ability to distribute resources across state lines, can be particularly effective in
responding, meeting the growing need, and priming the local economic pump with countercyclical spending.
The Federal Fiscal Advantage Is Even More Pronounced During a Nationwide Economic Problem
When the nation as a whole faces particularly rough times—that is, during a widespread recession—the federal government is the
one that has the resources to respond. The recession means that need increases in many geographic areas for job creation,
unemployment insurance, public assistance, and other spending to keep families from suffering greater deprivation as their earnings
decline or disappear. The private market cannot respond: businesses are the ones laying people off and reducing wages. Charities
and state and local governments face declining resources themselves as their contributions and tax revenues shrink.
In these circumstances, although the federal government suffers shrinking tax revenues also, the federal government has the ability
to run a deficit—to increase essential social spending even in the face of declining revenues. States generally cannot. They may have
tied their own hands with balanced-budget provisions in their constitutions, so their inability to respond has political as well as fiscal
origins, but their inability to respond is indisputable.
The federal government’s ability to borrow not only gives it the resources to act, and act decisively, but also makes it the unique
countercyclical actor—it can spend in a way that softens the impact of the recession and should stabilize the economy and restart
growth. Individual states do not have comparable capacity or the same interest in taking large fiscal risks to prime the national
economy, especially because other states may not be sharing the burden and doing the same.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
79
AT: STATES COUNTERPLAN
State efforts to increase social spending undermine their ability to attract business investment, it kills their economies
Weil, 06 – President of the Food Research and Action Center (James, Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy,
May–June 2006, “The Federal Government—the Indispensable Player in Redressing Poverty,”
http://www.frac.org/pdf/Weil06.pdf
States and Localities Limit Benefits So as Not to Draw More Nonresident Poor People
Many in state governments believe that grants to and tax benefits for businesses are necessary to retain jobs or win the interstate
(and increasingly international) competition to lure businesses that create local jobs and economic growth. Businesses already in the
state, or thinking of migrating in, look for public investments in roads, other infrastructure, and education. These take a large share
of state revenues.
At the same time, many state officials believe that laws supporting higher compensation (e.g., a state minimum wage or laws
mandating health benefits or paid leave) and laws granting more generous public assistance, potentially accompanied by higher
taxes, will repel business and wealthy individuals. As one expert observer of this phenomenon explained, [t]he ability of jurisdictions
to break the link between taxes and expenditures is limited by the threat of relocation by highly mobile, relatively wealthy
individuals.
In an effort to attract these relocators, jurisdictions offer selective tax breaks or lower the overall burden or progressivity of broadbased taxes. This, then, cripples the ability of the jurisdictions to fund public goods and services through a tax system based on
ability to pay.46
Although the extent to which businesses actually make location decisions based on state incentives and taxes is in doubt, that these
considerations weigh heavily on state officials making budget decisions is not. The result is an interstate competition to create the
best “business climate.”
At the same time, states fear that if their public benefits are more generous than those of other states, they will become magnets for
the poor—that low-income people will move into the state to obtain the benefits.47 Again, many doubt how valid this fear is, but it
is common. It is a contributing factor to what has been called “the race to the bottom”—the perceived need of states to keep their
benefits as low as or lower than those in other states, and particularly neighboring states. Through this mechanism the interstate
competition squeezes down antipoverty efforts. Undoubtedly racial bias and stereotypes exacerbate the situation. With a
disproportionate number of poor people being people of color, the in-migration that the state is trying to deter may well be a feared
in-migration of people of color.
Both sides of this set of beliefs—the fear that low-income people will migrate into the state and the fear that businesses will not (or
that existing businesses will leave)—almost certainly have become more pronounced in recent decades as personal and business
mobility has increased considerably. This increase is both a cause and effect of our growing national identity and sensitivity to
national and international economic trends. Perceived disincentives for states to act to help the poor have increased, while
individuals, the business sector, and states have come to rely more and more on the national government to act.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
80
AT: SINGLE ISSUE COUNTERPLAN
A broad strategy is vital to poverty reduction, single issue focuses won’t solve
Blackwell, 08 – founder and CEO of PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing policies that create economic
and social equity, and co-chair of the Center for American Progress (CAP) Task Force on Poverty (Angela, CQ Congressional
Testimony, “REDUCING THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY”, 9/25, lexis
The CAP task force recommends that the United States set a national goal of cutting poverty in half over the next 10 years.4 To
accomplish this goal, the task force proposes 12 recommendations grouped under four principles:
--First, the goal should promote decent work. People should work, and jobs should pay enough to ensure that employees and their
families can avoid poverty, meet basic needs, and allow them to save for the future.
--Second, it should provide opportunity for all. Children should grow up in conditions that maximize their opportunities for
success; adults should have opportunities throughout their lives to connect to work, become better educated, live in a good
neighborhood, and advance in the workforce.
--Third, it should ensure economic security. Americans should not fall into poverty when they cannot work or when work is
unavailable, is unstable, or pays so little that they cannot make ends meet.
--And fourth, it should help people build wealth. All Americans should have the opportunity to build assets that allow them to
weather periods of flux and volatility, and to have the resources that can be essential to advancement and upward mobility.
These four principles and the following recommendations will cut poverty in half only if they are able to work in tandem. Ending
poverty in this country requires more than a single approach or policy solution. Good jobs and benefits matter, as do strong
families. High-quality education is essential, as are safe and enriching neighborhoods. Opportunities to increase assets and wealth
must be widely available; economic security and access to healthcare are crucial. Protections must be provided for the most
vulnerable. Of course, personal initiative also matters greatly. But policies that promote personal responsibility are not enough.
They must be paired with policies of social responsibility. All of these things working together will alleviate and ultimately eliminate
poverty.
A broad range of social services is vital to poverty reduction
Edwards, 08 – US Senator and chair of the Community Action Partnership, Inc (John, CQ Congressional Testimony,
“REDUCING THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY,” 9/25, lexis
There should be some factor built into the formula based upon geographical conditions. What it takes a family to survive in New
York City, Chicago or San Francisco is different than the cost of living in Jacksonville, Florida. There is evidence to support that 37
million people live in poverty in America today. This number is growing every year. Our society has failed to provide the policy
leadership necessary to aid people to get out of poverty and to stay out.
Many people require long-term sustained support to get and remain out of poverty. The fact is the lack of such sustained services
only guarantees people to escape poverty modestly or if at all. Such sustained services that support work should be explored. Such
services like childcare, transportation, health care, and the like that support work must be given top priority by policy makers.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
81
AT: FREE MARKET GOOD CRITIQUE
Poverty is the result of structural failings, not individual failings
Rank, 06 – George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (Mark, 20 Wash. U. J.L. &
Pol'y 17, “POVERTY, JUSTICE, AND COMMUNITY LAWYERING: INTERDISCIPLINARY AND CLINICAL
PERSPECTIVES: Toward a New Understanding of American Poverty”, lexis
The starting point for a new paradigm is the recognition that American poverty is largely the result of structural, rather than
individual, failings. There simply are not enough viable opportunities for all Americans. Individual attributes, such as the lack of
education or skills, help explain who is more likely to be left out in the competition to locate and secure such opportunities, but
cannot explain why there is a shortage of opportunities in the first place. To answer that question, we must turn to the inability of
the economic, political, and social structures to provide the support and opportunities necessary to lift all Americans out of poverty.
[*27] The most obvious example of this is the mismatch between the number of decent paying jobs and the pool of workers in search of such jobs. During the past
thirty years, the U.S. economy has produced increasing numbers of low-paying jobs, part-time jobs, and jobs without benefits. For example, the Census Bureau
estimated that the median earnings of workers paid hourly wages in 2003 was $ 10.85 per hour, barely enough to raise a family of four above the poverty line for a
year. n35 At the same time, approximately three million Americans worked part-time because of a shortage of full-time jobs. n36
As a result, a higher percentage of the U.S. workforce falls into the low-wage sector than is true in comparable developed countries. For example, Timothy Smeeding
and colleagues found that 25% of all American full-time workers could be classified as being in low-wage work (defined as earning less than 65% of the national
median for full-time jobs). n37 This was by far the highest percentage of the countries analyzed, with the overall average of non-U.S. countries falling at 12%. n38
In addition, there are simply not enough jobs to go around. During the past forty years, U.S. monthly unemployment rates have averaged between four
and ten percent. n39 These percentages represent individuals who are out of work, but actively seeking employment (they do not include those who have given up
on their search for a job, referred to as discouraged workers, or those in correctional facilities). n40 In 2001, nearly seven million people were unemployed at any
particular point in time, while more than fifteen million people experienced unemployment at some point during the year. n41
Labor economist Timothy Bartik has taken several different approaches to estimate the number of jobs that would be needed to [*28] significantly reduce poverty
in the United States. n42 Even in the booming economy of the late 1990s, between five and nine million more jobs were required in order to meet the needs of low
income households. n43 Similarly, Philip Harvey noted:
[A] number of job vacancy surveys have been conducted in various parts of the country over the past several decades, and their results paint a consistent portrait of
U.S. labor markets. The surveys show that in periods of relative prosperity as well as during recessions, the number of job seekers generally exceeds - usually by a
wide margin - the number of job vacancies in the labor markets surveyed. n44
Exacerbating the lack of decent paying jobs is the fact that the American social safety net is extremely weak, resulting in sizeable
numbers of families falling through its rather large holes. Despite the popular rhetoric that vast amounts of tax dollars are spent on
public assistance, the fact is that the American welfare state, and particularly its social safety net, can be more accurately described in
minimalist terms. Compared to other Western industrialized countries, the United States devotes far fewer resources to programs
aimed at assisting the economically vulnerable. n45 As Charles Noble wrote: "The U.S. welfare state is striking precisely because it is
so limited in scope and ambition." n46
In contrast, most European countries provide a range of social and insurance programs that largely prevent families from falling
into poverty. n47 These include substantial family or children's allowances [*29] designed to transfer cash assistance to families
with children. n48 Unemployment assistance is far more generous in these countries than in the United States. Further, these
countries routinely provide universal health coverage, along with considerable support for child care. n49 The United States fails to
offer the universal coverage for child care, medical insurance, child allowances, or affordable housing that most other developed
countries routinely provide. n50 The result is an increasing number of families at risk of economic vulnerability and poverty.
These social policy differences substantially reduce the extent of poverty in Europe and Canada, while they exert a much smaller
impact in America on poverty reduction. As Rebecca Blank noted:
The national choice in the United States to provide relatively less generous transfers to low-income families has meant higher
relative poverty rates in this country. While low-income families in the United States work more than in many other countries, they
are not able to make up for lower governmental income support relative to their European counterparts. n51
Researchers using the Luxembourg Income Study (an international collection of economic surveys), documented the inability of the
American safety net to significantly reduce the risk of poverty. For example, Finnish social scientist Veli-Matti Ritakallio examined
the extent to which cash assistance reduced poverty in eight European countries, Canada, and the United States. n52 European and
Canadian assistance programs reduced their rates of poverty by an average of 79%. n53 Finland, for instance, reduced the
percentage of its poor residents from 33% to 4%. n54 In contrast, the United States only reduced its percentage at any given time
from 29% to 18%. n55 As [*30] a result, the current rates of U.S. poverty are among the highest in the industrialized world.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
82
AT: FREE MARKET GOOD CRITIQUE
The free market can’t solve poverty
Weil, 06 – President of the Food Research and Action Center (James, Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy,
May–June 2006, “The Federal Government—the Indispensable Player in Redressing Poverty,”
http://www.frac.org/pdf/Weil06.pdf
One sector besides the national government does, in theory, have adequate resources for a job as big as redressing poverty: the
private, for-profit sector. That sector plays the central role in generating the productivity and growth that make economic security
possible for most people. But experience makes clear that growth alone will not foster adequate opportunity and security for
workers at the bottom, much less for those who cannot work. As Christopher Jencks has written:
[A] market economy is not designed to ensure that workers get paid what other people think they deserve. The logic of a market
economy is that we should all be paid the smallest amount that will ensure that our work gets done, and that is what low-wage
workers generally receive.45
The work of ensuring equal opportunity, adequate economic opportunity, and the redress of poverty is left, then, to the public
sector.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
83
AT: ECONOMIC FRAMING BAD
Economic framing is vital to mobilizing public action to reduce poverty
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
The will to fight poverty is also depreciated by an abiding cynicism about government's ability to effectively address such social
issues. This distrust is not new; it has been evident for nearly fifteen years. n16 Despite a fifty percent reduction in poverty during
the 1960s, many now accept the cliche that, in the War on Poverty, poverty won. n17 Today, with increased skepticism about the
effectiveness of government programs, many citizens balk [*494] at the idea of increased spending for anti-poverty programs.
They see little proof that government can reduce poverty. Yet, the public may be unaware of evidence to the contrary. n18 If the
case can be made that the economic costs of poverty, especially over a long period of time, are more expensive than the investment
in social service programs needed to address these problems, then a public demand may generate politically-driven action. Of
course, political awareness and action are the precursors to additional federal funding.
Anti-poverty plans need to be developed locally--not nationally. A local plan will ensure local participation by the stakeholders who
can contribute their knowledge of local economic factors, existing services and unmet needs. n19 Each community has its own
resources and circumstances for the existence and magnitude of poverty in its region. Local participation not only ensures an
accurate analysis of these conditions but could act as an incentive to local communities. n20 The payoff for local [*495]
communities could be a reward of federal money (authorized by new federal legislation) to implement a plan, which they themselves
have designed. Federalism provides the structure to carry out the needed planning and the flexibility to allocate resources to
respond to those local priorities. n21
Once the sources and costs of poverty are fully understood, the public will better grasp that poverty reduction serves the citizenry's
self-interests. This awareness will galvanize public sentiment and energize efforts to ensure the interests of the poor are promoted.
n22 Educating the populace entails underscoring both the economic costs of poverty and highlighting its moral injustice. An
initiative worthy of consideration would call upon Congress to fund programs that support groups that advocate for the interests of
the poor. n23 If the American [*496] people do not believe that cronyism and lobbying can be brought under control, then it is
only fair that the poor have their own advocates. Such an initiative would begin to address the unjust power imbalance, which
dominates current political structures, and allow the poor to compete with the myriad of other interest groups.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
84
AT: ECONOMIC FRAMING BAD
Framing poverty in terms of greater economic productivity is vital to overcoming negative myths about the poor
Volz et al, 06 – Executive Director of the Community Economic Development and Resource Center (Gregory, 2 Tenn. J. L. &
Pol'y 487, “Poverty in the Aftemath of Katrina: Reimagining Citizen Leadership in the Context of Federalism,” Spring, lexis
The problem of generating a national will to fight poverty is exacerbated by the limited political power of the poor, as well as the
heterogeneous nature of those stricken by poverty and the concomitant difficulty of efforts to organize the poor toward concerted
action. Our political system is built on interest groups competing for power, support, and funding. n28 A dearth of political power
leaves the best interests of the poor dependent on the goodwill and selflessness of others. Charity is a wonderful quality as it [*498]
can satisfy a donor's altruistic desires, and it is certainly appreciated by the willing recipient, but a real solution to poverty requires
making people self-sufficient. Future anti-poverty efforts should support efforts to help the poor contribute to the common good,
rather than make them mere consumers of poverty services and government-dispensed benefits. This recognition acts to restore a
sense of human dignity to the poor and offers additional motivation for the public to address poverty.
Due recognition must be given to the persistent historical and still-prevalent myth that the poor find themselves in poverty because
they are morally weak. n29 Another popular excuse for why people do not help the poor is the often-cited and sometimes
misunderstood Biblical quotation that the poor will always be with us. n30 The statement's context suggests that it was not meant as
a statement of perpetual fact or an excuse for failing to help the poor. n31 Conversely, the Bible contains numerous [*499]
references commanding help for the poor in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. n32
[*500] Some subscribe to the notion that the poor are lazy. However, blaming the poor for having a "bad attitude" is
counterproductive, as it diverts attention from constructive action. Moreover, some citizens are accustomed to public assistance and
fear accepting a job may do more harm than good. They fear that they may fail in their quest to be gainfully employed, which
threatens their future livelihood. Although a large number of welfare recipients have gone to work over the past ten years, as a
result of a healthy economy and the sanctions of the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act, n33 reduced
opportunity for welfare dependency has not reduced poverty. n34 In fact, poverty rates have increased each of the past four years,
despite the fact that the numbers of individuals receiving welfare are at historically low rates. n35 These changes suggest that
systemic and structural forces are the primary causes of poverty, not individual lack of initiative.
[*501] B. Establishing an Affirmative Argument to Fight Poverty
If these unsupportable, but popular, negative myths are properly understood and discarded, the articulation of three key reasons
justifying a societal effort to fight poverty becomes meaningful.
1. Economic Costs
Fully exposed, the excessive economic cost of poverty commands a prompt political response. Such costs include: (1) losses caused
by high rates of criminal activity, the expenses of criminal justice and prohibitive incarceration costs; n36 (2) huge entitlement costs
paid to impoverished families; n37 (3) diminished tax collection from jobless or unemployable wage earners; and (4) lost creative
potential of impoverished citizens. n38 Other costs are less [*502] obvious, but no less real. For example, poverty is frequently
place-based, concentrated in certain geographical areas because of the flight of more affluent citizens, business disinvestment,
increased crime, tax base erosion, and public education failure, which all culminate in depressed living standards. n39 Moreover, the
societal cost of poverty is hundreds of billions of dollars per year. n40
2. Civic Harmony
Persistent and deepening poverty sows the seeds for discontent, which is especially true where the prevalent values place primacy
on material gains. Our nation was born of necessitous circumstances. n41 As the divide [*503] between the poor and the rest of
society widens, especially given the currency of materialism, so too does the necessity of allowing all citizens to meet their basic
needs.
A distinct basis for the initiative rests on cultural grounds. The future of American society has been questioned based on cultural
decline. In some measure, the growth of crime is attributable to "the ebbing of religious faith." n42 As we will discuss, a broadbased poverty initiative consistent with the underlying concerns of Abrahamic religions creates a legitimate and fixed reason for
societal action and may have the corollary effect of promoting the relevance of religious institutions. n43 In turn, this initiative
could reverse the perceived marginalization of religion and herald an era of religious renewal. Moreover, achievement of the core
purpose of the anti-poverty program would raise the level of society and reduce the cultural slide.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
85
FEDERAL SOCIAL SERVICES EXIST NOW
The federal government spends 400 billion a year on social service programs fighting poverty
Nilsen, 07 – Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office (Sigurd,
CQ Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY,” 1/24, lexis
Currently, the federal government, often in partnership with the states, has created an array of programs to assist low-income
individuals and families. According to a recent study by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the federal government spent
over $400 billion on 84 programs in 2004 that provided cash and noncash benefits to individuals and families with limited income.
These programs cover a broad array of services: Examples include income supports or transfers such as the Earned Income Tax
Credit and TANF; work supports such as subsidized child care and job training; health supports and insurance through programs
like the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and Medicaid; and other social services such as food, housing, and
utility assistance. Table 1 provides a list of examples of selected programs.
Federal and state governments spend 679 billion a year on social services for persons in poverty
Rector, 08 – Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation (Robert, CQ Congressional
Testimony, “REDUCING THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY” 9/25, lexis
In FY2008, federal, state and local governments will spend $679 billion on means-tested welfare programs. Means-tested welfare
programs provide: cash, food, housing, free or subsidized medical care, and targeted social services to poor and low income
Americans. This high level of spending is not the result of a temporary, short-term surge in expenditures, but, rather, is the product
of a steady incremental growth in spending over the last two decades.
-- In 2008, means-tested welfare spending will exceed total defense outlays including the cost of the war in Iraq.
-- Total welfare spending amounts to around $6,000 for each person in the lowest income third of the population.1
-- Since the beginning of the War on Poverty under Lyndon Johnson, the U.S has spent $14.3 trillion on welfare (in constant 2007
dollars).
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
86
AT: PLAN COSTS POLITICAL CAPITAL
Block grants are politically popular
Stein, 01 *Professor of Social Welfare at the State University of New York, Albany (Theodore, Social Policy and Policymaking by
the Branches of Government and the Public-At-Large, p. 299-301
Block grants are attractive to policymakers for both practical and political reasons. At a practical level, government officials may
favor them because program costs are predetermined. Recall the discussion in chapter 10 of the TANF program, which ended the
cash entitlement that had existed under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program (AFDC). The open-ended nature of
AFDC meant that program costs could vary considerably in relation to the employment rate and the increased demand for aid
when unemployment was high. With a block grant, government officials know in advance what a program will cost, and this is a
significant advantage in budgeting. Some block grants are limited use, for example, providing a specific service to a targeted
population; the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant described in chapter 12 is an example. Funding for other block grants is
flexible, meaning that state and local officials have discretion in deciding how the grant will be spent. Flexible grants may be used to
fund a variety of programs that take into account local need.
Block grants have another practical aspect that lies in the permission granted by Congress to local officials to transfer funds from
one grant to another. This was referred to in chapter 10, where I reported that states may transfer up to 30 percent of funds from
the TANF block grant to the Child Care Development Block Grant. Finally, block grants are politically attractive because they send
a message to recipients that there is no entitlement to government assistance, and they reduce the federal role in deciding what
services are most helpful by transferring decisionmaking authority to state and local units of government that are better able to
make decisions concerning local need.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
87
AT: SPENDING DISAD
Decreasing poverty will save 500 billion a year
Haskins, 07 – Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation (Ron, CQ
Congressional Testimony, “THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF POVERTY”, 1/24, lexis
The report by my friend Harry Holzer and his colleagues that you are releasing today is a challenging and exceptionally interesting
product of sophisticated social science methods. I suspect that economists and other experts would challenge some of the
assumptions underlying the report and might come up with slightly different results than those reported by Holzer. But I think the
conclusion that if we eliminated childhood poverty we would save on the order of $500 billion a year because of increased labor,
reduced crime, and reduced need for health care is reasonable. Regardless of the exact level of savings, nearly every expert would
grant that eliminating poverty would produce economic benefits and that the benefits would be substantial. In short, I applaud this
report, especially because it gives us yet another reason to do everything possible to reduce poverty.
ENDI 09
Poverty Aff
88
AT: ECONOMY IMPACT TURNS THE CASE
Decreasing unemployment or boosting the economy doesn’t decrease poverty
Blank, 08 – Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution (Rebecca, CQ Congressional Testimony, “REDUCING THE NUMBER
OF FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY,” 9/25, lexis
Chairman Schumer, Ranking Member Saxton, and distinguished members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to talk
with you today about the problems faced by very low-income families in the United States. A Quick Review of the RecentlyReleased Data on Poverty for 2007 The Census Bureau recently released the official numbers on income and poverty last year
(2007) in the United States. Let me underscore a few of the key facts that these data illustrate.
First, poverty did not fall to any appreciable extent during the economic expansion of the 2000s. This is quite unusual. Figure 1
shows the poverty rate and the unemployment rate. In past decades, these two indicators have moved together. When
unemployment fell in the 1980s expansion, so did poverty. Unemployment and poverty both fell rapidly in the strong expansion of
the 1990s. But when unemployment fell after 2003, poverty remained essentially flat.
The increase in poverty in 2007 is surprising. This was a year when GDP growth averaged 2%, with two quarters of GDP growth in
excess of 4.5%. Average unemployment was largely the same as in the previous year. This does not bode well for 2008 when all
economic indicators look far worse. Second, the rise in poverty reflects the generally sluggish growth in income by all families in the
bottom half of the income distribution. Figure 2 shows an index of household income growth at the 20th, 50th, 80th and 95th
percentiles of the income distribution over the last 30 years. Income among the bottom 20 percent grew as fast (or as slowly) as
among those at the median (the 50th percentile) throughout this period. While these lower-income families achieved significant
income gains over the last 30 years, particularly over the 1990s, both families in the middle of the income distribution and those at
the bottom have lower household incomes in 2007 than they had in 2000. While incomes at the top of the distribution incomes
have not risen rapidly in the 2000s, they have risen over the past 10 years.