Funding!?

[Branarchist]

Hey All:

Long time, no see to most of y'all. To my more distant homies who I haven't seen in a while, I'm looking forward to seeing you at larger tournaments later on.

So, is funding actually becoming an issue in parli? I mean, we've all run lame funding presses when we had nothing else to run, but I seem to recall funding presses being one step above arguments like, "You don't mention innocent whales in your case. You hate them, don't you!? ADMIT IT!! YOU HATE WHALES, YOU AWFUL PEOPLE!!!" I've had a couple of novice teams lose on funding presses, and it's frustrating as hell to me, let alone them.

So, what do y'all think? Has funding become a legitimate issue? Do I really need to cut cards backing up John & Jed's old 'sell the navy's helium supply' answer? Are the local judges insane? Or have I finally joined the ranks of the washed up parli debaters ranting about how things were back in the day...

Viva la revolution,
Brandan

[Eagle of Meaux]

I think fiating funding and enforcement is perfectly legit, provided the team at least makes a pretense at jutifying it. I do however beleive that claiming advantages from specifying funding is highly abusive.

Keith

[stannard67]

I am always open to arguments that the aff/gov ought to SPECIFY their funding, enforcement, agent, implementation, etc. I am equally open to arguments as to why such burdens are unnecessary.

What I have seen in many parli rounds, however, is gov teams who take advantage of a lack of such specification in the PMC to shift in the MG, in order to get out of myriad opp arguments. That, in my opinion, proves the abuse of non-specification. (Examples available upon request)

stannard

[USC MissingLink]

I think that teams have confused two types of funding arguments - one that is legitimate and one that is not.

The illegitimate argument would be that there <em>isn't</em> money and therefore the plan <em>cannot</em> be implemented. As far as I'm concerned, this is taken care of with <em>fiat</em> - although a prudent Government team will specify <em>exactly where</em> that money is coming from, since fiat doesn't allow you to just invent money any more than it allows you to invent agents of action.

The legitimate funding press is not about whether or not the money is <em>there</em> but rather about the implications of using the money for a specific plan. Just because we assume that a government team can <em>fiat</em> $1 billion doesn't mean that fiat will protect them from arguments which claim that spending that $1 billion for this plan has disadvantages. This is where I think that it is prudent for Gov teams to specify thier funding source. Otherwise, the Opp can get up and paint a worse-case scenario (you're stealing money from public schools, you curr!).

I have never seen someone argue that funding doesn't exist for a plan. I have heard arguments that using the existing funding is a bad idea. I think that these arguments are important and worthy of discussion - and if done properly - a ballot.

jEd

[WWUPhil]

Yeah jed... right on.

The problem is that the debate becomes about "could" the plan be funded and the Opp wants to say that solvency is turned back or that this "feasability" problem precludes the implementation of plan to begin with. You will also see this as the impact/voter to Constitutionality positions. "The SC will find the plan unconstitutional so it can't be implimented." I feel this is the improper form of the debate. This kind of debate does not allow ingenuity and creativity. We could only debate about previously established ideas that are being implimented now and are "feasable." Then...

On the other hand you have the "should" debate. This is where we can talk about the implications to spending too much on a plan, or using the money unwisely compared to the gains it could provide elsewhere (I seldom here it explained in terms of opportunity cost). We can talk about what happens if the plan is unconst. and is voted down, or worse yet let to runamok, trampling rights in this nation (or others...like Yemen). Why not have this debate. It is real and allows for the most fair division of ground. It does not overly limit the ground of the Aff to choose the case, or the neg to make real arguments, rather than "feasability" claims. You may have seen Wyoming run some great Theory blocks on some of these issues.

We get to run DAs off of assumed funding, because parli is non-specific with plan text. I feel this is valuable, because we have no advocate for a specific set of plan planks, but dangerous because it allows shifting and abuse, as Matt says. Why can't the Aff declare a set funding proposal and let the DA ground come from that source.
Keith says it is illegit to claim advantages off your funding plank, but don't Neg teams run Das off the funding plank. If they get to say you suck for taking money from schools and hungry people, can't the aff say that taking money from facist drug enforcement programs is good? How are these two things dift. At the point that we allow funding disadvantages, we should allow advantages or spiked turns to the funding disad... but lets not let those answers come out in the MG when the Opp has already used its first 8 minutes.

[Dan6814]

If the government can claim advantages off the source of funds, what happens to opposition ground? I'm not a big T fan, but if we take as a reasonable standard that the topic limits the government to certain areas of discussion for the sake of predictability and division of ground, and the government team can now stop ANY policy that we're doing, co-opt the funding, and claim it as an advantage, how is any of that predictable from the topic, and how can a topic committee decide on a resolution that evenly splits gov and opp ground?

Dan

[WWUPhil]

Dan,
I know what you are getting at... but how is it equitable to allow the neg to claim disadvantage to the aff cutting a program that they never said they were cutting? How does the aff research the turns to these magical trade off DAs? How predicatble are the resolutions these days. how is it uniquely more abusive to spring a funding plank on a team over springing a whole case advocacy on a team? This is extemperaneous debate right? None of us have ever been caught off gaurd by the interpretation given, have we?

[NoGraveButTheSea]

Current National Missile Defense=13 trillion$

Sen. Ted Kennedy offers diplomatic disarm. of WOMD
by all CONFIRMED nuclear powers. He cites defense experts that say if we do this and other nations agree to (as most of them already have or are close to commiting)
we can reduce NMD program to 4 trillion in 5-7 years.
4 trillion dollar program more than enoough to deal with "rogue state" issues/weapons etc. (not eliminate decrease is major issue)
This gives us trillions of freed up military surplus bucks to use to fund our crappy debate cases. It's juuuust that easy.
Hope that adds to the discussion. (go ahead tear me up Phil im used to it from you by now, LOL I will persuade you eventually)
Will C.

[WWUPhil]

I am with you man. That is the case one of my teams ran this weekend at Berkeley on a poorly wordy resolution about Air Force and Bake Sales... let's just say I saw it on a bumper sticker once and it was shorter and more eloquent.

I am also a fan of eliminating the write-off for the three martini business lunch... West Wing has also provided a few other ideas.

So what happens if you just show a good place to take it from, but you don't claim a unique advantage from it?

And isn't the funding legit as long as it closely resembles the normal means? Isn't slash and allocate the normal means? How is that extra-topical?

Now if my funding plank was to sell pirated copies of Windows, thereby collapsing the evil empire forever, that would be a little extra-topical.

Still trying to spark conversation and get people to think about this one.

Will... GO to Barts dude. That's what people in Ltown do when they are dumped. I grew up there.

[Western Amy]

I wonder, isn't it multiple fiats to not only fiat funding of your program, but also exactly what program is canceled for it? Does congress actually even do that, cancel a program and enact a new (soemtimes completeley unrelated one) in the same piece of legislation?

I'm nto a big fan of the "fiat abuse" argument, but i do consider myself a policymaker.

[WWUPhil]

I didn't say cancel a program, I said move the funding from one place to another. that is one action. one fiat. This "cancelling" is what policy makers do when they move funding from one omnibus funding proposal to another, but they earmark it within that proposal...it is all part of one process, and it is all interrelated.

[Dan6814]

Actually, Congress doesn't authorize/cancel a program in the same bill in which they allocate funding; it's the difference between an authorization bill and an appropriation bill. Of course, if we brought that up, then any policy which requires funding would be fiat abuse, as it requires both authorization and then appropriation.

Dan

[UCSDanny]

Hi.

I in essence agree with you completely, and if this were a debate round wouldn't be arguing anything, as I think funding debates are boring, and especially in parli without any cards, irrelevant. Maybe if we had evidence saying "this is the next thing on the choping block" it'd make sense, but the way people have described it is, "lemme pick the program that'd resonate the best with my judges/audience and say that will be cut even tho I really have no clue what would be" and then the Opp saying "no, not that one" and it being a moot point.

However, for sake of argument...

you're right, I personally wouldn't argue extra-T on your missile defense argument as long as you're not claiming advantages off disarmament or the scenario you painted. But isn't it the same abuse extra-t is trying to counter, at least kinda? My understanding of extra-t is that you are going beyond the bounds of the resolution and claiming you can act under that with fiat. A good example of this was our quarters round at Azusa.

The res was "TH would change its fp -> USA" and they had 2 planks, 1) columbia wouldn't comply with US conditions, and 2) columbia will switch to crop switching instead of spraying" We called extra T on the 2nd plank and they accepted that and severed adv 1 I think. The idea of course being they don't get fiat control over what the columbian gov't does in respect to plan columbia except that which deals with changing FP -> USA.

My point here, is that in advocating where the funding will come from, which would be unrelated to the topic, aren't you going beyond the bounds of the resolution? In essence, you are violating the same "idea" an extra-T would call for. Furthermore, if funding is central to your plan, say you're gonna build millions of houses or something, then aren't you in essence using an extra topical plan plank to fund your plan? And if that were true, couldn't I argue Extra-T and force you to sever your whole case or something?

just wondering and thought I'd argue =)

seeya
-danny
ucsd

[BrendoFTC]

Here's how I buy my way out of any funding arguements: I pay out of my own pocket. Let the OPP prove I don't have the money. I'm dead serious, unless they care to audit me in the LOC, they just don't know that I can't pay for my plan. Funding debates are legitimate, but with such a massive amount of easy sources of $ that judges think are cool, [1% cigarette tax, divert NMD funds, etc], any OPP team who runs them id either
A: Grasping at straws
or B: An economics-savy duo who can run gov bond default positions and international economy disads.
Don't waste my time, Kritik me if you're that desperate.

[USC MissingLink]

<img src=http://www.net-benefits.net/emoticons/hearhear.gif ALT=":hear">

I like that... clever :)

jEd

[WWUPhil]

I don't like that.

Your personal finances are not public record and are not in the scope of readily available knowledg, or commmon knowledge. Wow, the first time I have seen a legit use of that rule.

For higher beings sake... jesus. As Danny says, the funding of the plan is normal means and as long as you claim no advantage from the normal place that you pull the money from, it is fine. We have no evidence of which program is on the block next.
As per the extra-t arg, I think I argued before that it is only xtra-t if it is a plank of action beyond the scope of the res. If the funding is normal means, then you are chill.

Again... if funding planks are illegit, then why are funding DAs legit where the neg gets to pick but the aff doesn't?

[USC MissingLink]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Your personal finances are not public record and are not in the scope of readily available knowledg, or commmon knowledge. Wow, the first time I have seen a legit use of that rule.[/quote]Oh. Hmm... yeah. I don't like that either now.

jEd

[Dan6814]

To Phil:

The only legitimate opp argument relying on funding is that the overwhelmingly likely source of funding for your program is X, and cutting X is disadvantageous because of Y impacts. If the government team can present a compelling case to say that the overwhelmingly likely source of funding for the program is X, and cutting X is advantageous because of Y impacts, then that's a reasonable advantage to claim. But just as the opp can't pick a program like Social Security and force the gov to fund their new idea through that, the gov shouldn't be able to decide where their money comes from.

Dan

[WWUPhil]

Now you got to it Dan. That is exactly what I think... problem is, how do we prove which is the most likely source? Maybe we need evidence in parli. I think that is the only way to have the funding debate fairly.

Right on man.

[stannard67]

The only legitimate way for the gov to get out of the various quandries mentioned thus far is to specify the means of funding in the PMC.

It's fine for the gov to say "normal means," but that invites legitimate debate about what "normal means" means. If the opp WINS that debate, and thereby wins a link to a disad, then as I see it, the gov is out of luck, and has to answer that disad as if they linked to it.

Most parli rounds I see, however, contain little to no specification--no agent, no funding, etc. Typically, the opp will make a few weak presses against the plan (eg, "where does their funding come from?") and the MG procedes to enlighten us all about those specifics.

Less typically, but still a regular occurance: the opp actually puts out a legitimate counterplan (eg, agent counterplan, alternative source of funding, etc), political disad, econ disad, whatever... and then the MG again waxes eloquent with brand new information about those specifics, which suddenly and conveniently don't link to any opp arguments.

That's why I think specification procedurals are legitimate arguments...even moreso in parli, perhaps, than in NDT/CEDA (although I think they're legitimate there too, albeit not for the same reasons, since 2ACs seldom shift in the same, dramatic manner than most MGs do).

stannard

[Gavin499]

Perhaps it's just me thinking... but with normal means isn't it always deficit spending? Seriously, the multi-trillion dollar debt and horrible allocation of funds would tend to make us believe that when there isn't money it's pretty darn normal to print more... Just curious...

Gavin

[joecool12321]

So to be clear, Matt, you see potential abuse as a voter? I tend to lean this way, as well, but what if I say "normal means", the Opp gets up and says, "You kill welfare, DA1, DA2", and I get up and say, "Sure, the money comes from welfare: Turn DA1, turn DA2, additional benefit 1"? It doesn't seem like I'm actually abusive, although I could have been.

--Joey

[BrendoFTC]

Yeah, a few things:
1.Personal tax records are a public record in CA, although there is a three year holding period before they can be requested from the dep of records.
2.I only run this in a round that does not need funding because... see #3
3.ITS A JOKE!!!
Geeezzz!!!
I can't believe somebody read and decided to answer that stupid stupid joke.
But as long as I'm here, I might as well say that the "secured knowledge" arguement is bunk unless you also explain the inherrant abusiveness of the arg. It's just as "abusive" as claiming normal means otherwise, but more than that, I maintain it is just as legit as saying fiat provides that the government would amend the budget already drawn up for the next fiscal year and spare a few bucks for this plan. Fund out of my own pocket is a joke, but so is "normal means", so if you hear it in a round, argue the stinkin' case and get off of my funding back.

[USC MissingLink]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But as long as I'm here, I might as well say that the "secured knowledge" arguement is bunk unless you also explain the inherrant abusiveness of the arg.[/quote]Not really. The problem, as was so elequently pointed out, is that an argument like "I'll pay for it" sets a precident for other arguments like "I'll enforce it" or "I'll invent it" or "I'll create it."

You even claim that an advantage of this approach is that it's difficult (I'd say impossible) for opp to prove you <em>don't</em> have the resources to pay for your project. Similarly, it would be impossible for an opp team to prove that you haven't invented a cure for AIDS which you have the means to distribute in Africa through an organization that you have created.

jEd

[BrendoFTC]

Thank you Jed, that's actually something that ties into the overall point of the "normal means" fiat power. As you so aptly point out, it would be faulty to allow a debater to claim that their plan allows the cure to be distributed through Africa, but it is equally faulty to allow the claim of "normal means" as funding to be used without such question.
#1: I would say that if a plan involved using normal means to distribute this cure, it takes the assumption that there is a specific infrastructure that already exists to do so in a status quo sphere of normalcy, as the use of "normal" means is synonomous with "regular" or "usual" means. That just isn't true with the African AIDS cure example, nor with most good ideas that aren't currently being done.
But this is a throwaway response when viewed with the straight logical answer
#2: There are no funds for this plan, [accepting that it isn't an SQ plan to begin with], as the next years fiscal budget was set in October. The only way to pay in normal means is A: Deficit spending- which links to a series of government bond default and international investment disadvantages; B: Diverting/depriving funds from currently allocated sources [and we all know that instead of short-changing his silly little war, Bush will leave a few more schools with their asbestos problems]; or C: The government would just print more money like it used to before the civil war and that's just asinine.
My pocket funding is a joke intended to point out exactly how ridiculous "normal means" is. I gave some perfectly acceptable sources of funding in my first post before someone actually took me to task on a punchline. The point is this, the funding debate is legitimate, as all rejoinder and refutation is the use of arguementation, it just isn't fun or educational. So as I said, if my plan is so good that there's actually no Opp ground [and that's rarely the case], kritik me, counter-plan me, do anything that we might enjoy before resorting to the funding arguement. Please.

[WWUPhil]

"I can't believe somebody read and decided to answer that stupid stupid joke."

Hey Brendan,
Maybe you should stop saying stupid things then... this wasn't the only stupid thing you said that I responded to. I guess you should explain when you are joking and when you are saying stupid things, it would be easier for us.

Thanks for your more valuable contributions to the subject in later posts.I hope someone reads those and responds to them, or would that shock you too?
Check back with me in three years on your personal finances.

[stannard67]

>>>
So to be clear, Matt, you see potential abuse as a voter? I tend to lean this way, as well, but what if I say "normal means", the Opp gets up and says, "You kill welfare, DA1, DA2", and I get up and say, "Sure, the money comes from welfare: Turn DA1, turn DA2, additional benefit 1"? It doesn't seem like I'm actually abusive, although I could have been.
>>>

1. Your example doesn't constitute abuse. If I understand you correctly, you're granting the opp's definition of normal means, then impact-turning their disads. I'd have to know more about the arguments you mention, but that's how I see it.

2. Shifting in the MG is not potential abuse; it's actual abuse. The government team is exploiting the initial lack of specificity to link-out of opp positions by later clarification.

3. There are reasons why potential abuse may also be a voter. Without commenting on the merits of such arguments, here are a couple:
A- Potential abuse skews prep time and LOR issue-selection, since we are not sure whether the abuse will occur and have to anticipate or pre-empt it.
B- Voting against potential abuse can set a community precedent against actual abuse.

By the way, is anyone willing to DEFEND the practice of shifting, or later clarification, in the MG? If no one is willing to defend it, why do so many MGs do it???

stannard

[BrendoFTC]

Hey Phil,
It has recently come to my attention that points I explain in the course of normal conversation lose something in the translation to type: subtext. My original post was based on the presupposition of the not-uncommon sentiment among many debaters that funding debates are unnecessary. I then offer a funding solution that is meant to gloss the subject entirely in an effort to move the debate round into more productive areas. I mention that most funding debates are illegit and run by teams who are grasping at straws or economics majors. The further explanation in later posts gives my actual arguements as to my views on "normal means" fiat that are only prefaced and not explained by my original post. The ironic value of the pocket funds I guess is lost without talking the point out, but forgive me, I'm new at computers.
Moreover, please do not take anything I post as an insult to the value of this site as a whole or the wealth of views and opinions that I'm enjoyig on it daily. Thanks for responding in any event.

[WWUPhil]

Thank you for clarifying, but the point still remains that we as critiques and you as debater should be able/willing to argue/vote for all things. Glossing the opponents funding argument will lose my ballot, assuming the opp has made decent funding args. We need to explain the rational for how to actually answer a funding position, rather than assuming the judge will agree with your witty remark (refraining from anti-worlds comment). You later gave some explaination. Thanks.