Cndi 2017 – Title I finance Affirmative

Federal education funding is key to economic growth and competitiveness.

Epstein 12 [Diana Epstein (Evidence Team Lead at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, PhD in Policy Analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School, MPP in Public Policy from UC Berkeley), “Investing in Education Powers U.S. Competitiveness”, Center for American Progress, 2012, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED535994.pdf]

Education is the key to American competitiveness and a strong economy, and continued federal investment in education is needed in order to support improvements in student achievement and put our economy on the path to sustained growth. The United States suffers from persistent differences in achievement between groups of students defined by race/ethnicity or family income, and our students also rank well behind those in economically competitive countries on international tests. We must continue to invest in education in order to create a system that is more equitable and that produces American students who are more competitive in the global marketplace for talent. Federal education spending needs to be protected in the congressional super committee negotiations this fall. The super committee is charged with coming up with at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction, which comes on top of additional caps that were imposed on future discretionary appropriations as part of the debt-ceiling deal. Federal education spending is included in the pot of discretionary money subject to deficit-reducing cuts. If the committee can’t reach agreement and the automatic sequestration kicks in, education programs are projected to be cut by about 9 percent.1 That translates to about $4 billion worth of cuts to the education system. This would be a devastating blow to children across the country, especially during a time when almost half the states have slashed their education budgets.2 Education has already taken a hit in this year’s budget battle. The spring continuing resolution cut about $1.3 billion from the Department of Education, excluding Pell Grants—the federal program for qualified low-income college students.3 While President Barack Obama’s budget wisely proposed consolidating some education programs into new funding streams, the complete elimination of funding means fewer resources available to advance important education priorities. Of course, it matters how money is spent—education funding needs to be efficient and effective, and targeted to where it is needed most. In addition, innovations in federal funding such as the competitive Race to the Top program have demonstrated that federal funds can be used as a powerful lever to prompt important reforms in longstanding state policies. Cutting education spending would be shortsighted and harmful to our country’s future. Education spending makes up only 3 percent of the total federal budget,4 and cuts in this area would put a miniscule dent in the deficit. Not only would education cuts fail to contribute meaningfully to deficit reduction, but every cut now is a missed opportunity to lay the necessary foundation for future economic growth and a strong middle class. Education is one of those areas where spending now may not pay off right away because it takes years for school-age children to become working adults. This means it can be difficult for policymakers concerned with short-term election cycles to effectively make the case for this kind of long-term investment. Nonetheless, the strength of the American economy depends on a well-educated workforce. Smart and efficient federal investments in education can improve student achievement and put our economy on the path to sustained and robust growth. The public supports a strong education system The American people understand the critical importance of investing in education. The public has clearly expressed in nine different public opinion polls since January that it does not support cuts in education.5 In a January USA Today/Gallup poll, two-thirds of Americans opposed cuts in education—more than opposed cuts to any other area including Social Security, Medicare, and national defense.6 Similarly, when asked whether it was more important to reduce the deficit or prevent cuts in education, respondents to a January CNN poll chose to preserve education by a margin of 75 percent to 25 percent.7 In fact, lack of funding and financial support was cited as the biggest problem facing local schools, according to a new poll of the public’s attitudes toward public schools.8 People appear to be less supportive of increasing education spending, however, if it means they would have to pay more taxes. When asked about the level of government funding for public schools in their district, about 90 percent of respondents to a 2011 Education Next poll felt that funding should either increase or stay the same. Only 28 percent, though, felt that local taxes should increase to fund their district schools while 35 percent felt that local taxes should increase to fund schools across the nation.9 The American people are right to want to protect education funding. The United States suffers from persistent achievement gaps between groups of students defined by race/ ethnicity or family income. For example, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, black students scored 27 points below white students in fourth-grade reading and Hispanic students scored 26 points below white students in eighth-grade mathematics.10 Racial/ethnic and income achievement gaps run counter to America’s commitment to an equal and just society, and lower levels of achievement are also associated with poorer health, lower earnings, and higher levels of incarceration.11 Federal education programs provide more equitable resources for students who need it most—without federal support, many hard-fought gains would erode for children living in poverty. International tests demonstrate that U.S. students have fallen behind many of their international peers. The Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, assesses reading, math, and science literacy among 15-year-olds in the 34 member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, and 31 other countries and education systems. On the 2009 PISA exam in mathematics, the average score for U.S. students was below the OECD average, and 17 OECD countries had higher average scores than the United States. On the 2009 science exam, the U.S. average score was similar to the OECD average, and 12 OECD countries had higher average scores than the United States. The U.S. students scored at the OECD average in reading, though six other OECD countries scored higher than the United States.12 To achieve desired levels of economic growth and live up to our founding ideals, the United States must increase the overall level of achievement of students in the K-12 education system and close both international achievement gaps and the persistent achievement gaps between groups of American children defined by ethnicity or family income. Six reasons to support continued federal investment in education Investment in education makes intuitive sense to the American people, but in this tough budgetary climate, it seems that every public investment is on the table to be cut. Let’s look at six reasons why continued federal investment in education should be a nobrainer as the super committee negotiates this fall. Global competitiveness Too few of our students are performing at the levels needed to compete for the high-skill jobs that allow us to maintain global competitiveness. Only 33 percent of fourth graders and 33 percent of eighth graders scored at or above proficient in reading on the 2009 NAEP exam; only 39 percent of fourth graders and 34 percent of eighth graders were at or above proficient in mathematics.13 Furthermore, achievement tests demonstrate that international competitors are performing better than U.S. students, and in a globalized economy we cannot afford to fall any further behind. Research shows that investment in education is essential for our country’s short- and long-term economic growth. A recent report by McKinsey & Company estimates that bringing lower-performing states up to the national average between 1983 and 1998 would have added $425 billion to $710 billion to our 2008 GDP.14 Closing the racial/ ethnic and income achievement gaps between 1983 and 1998 would have also added to our GDP. The estimates are that closing the racial/ethnic gap would have added $310 billion to $525 billion by 2008 and closing the income achievement gap would have added between $400 billion and $670 billion to our 2008 GDP.15 Continuing to tolerate these achievement gaps is tantamount to accepting a chronic, self-induced economic recession. Closing the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 would have added $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion to our 2008 GDP. Another study found that increasing students’ scores on the PISA test by 25 points—one-fourth of a standard deviation— between 2010 and 2030 would result in economic gains for OECD countries. U.S. students currently rank below the students from many OECD countries on this test, but if the United States and other countries improved by this amount, the payoff to the United States would be more than $40 trillion by 2090.16 Ensuring all students reach high standards of achievement It is critically important that we close achievement gaps between groups of students defined by race/ethnicity and family income. As our population continues to become more diverse and as income inequality continues to increase, the federal government plays an essential role in funding schools so all children have the resources they need to achieve high standards. These types of achievement gaps run counter to America’s commitment to an equal and just society. Economic returns There are large economic returns to increasing our country’s high school and college graduation rates. Approximately 1.3 million students dropped out of the class of 2010; if half of those students had graduated from high school, the class of 2010 alone would earn $7.6 billion more per year and generate an additional $5.6 billion in increased spending and $2 billion in increased investing per year.17 Economic returns would be even higher if the dropout rate were cut further. Looking back to the beginning of the education pipeline, research shows that investing in early childhood has huge payoffs. Studies of the highly regarded Perry Preschool and Chicago Parent-Child Centers estimated a positive 9-to-1 benefit-cost ratio for Perry and 8-to-1 for CPC, with Perry’s annual return on investment estimated to be 4 percent for participants and 12 percent for society.18 The United States is one of only a handful of advanced countries that does not provide universal early childhood education—there are currently 5 million children ages 3 to 5 who are not attending preschool or kindergarten.19 Even if universal access is not possible in this budget climate, continued federal spending in this area is a prudent investment in terms of both long-term economic outcomes and future student achievement.20 Jobs The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the stimulus, saved between 250,000 and 350,000 jobs in education.21 Now those ARRA funds are drying up and states and local governments are cutting education budgets right and left. Cutting education further would mean eliminating more educator jobs, whereas investing in education could translate directly to job preservation and employment growth. Furthermore, the additional spending and investment gained by producing more high school graduates would lead to more job creation. Cutting the class of 2010’s dropout rate in half would have added up to 54,000 new jobs to the economy.22 Savings elsewhere Taxpayers are spared up to $13 for every $1 invested in quality early education, according to estimates.23 A key goal of early childhood education is to ensure children enter the K-12 system with the pre-literacy skills and vocabulary necessary to learn to read. Children who fail to learn to read by the third grade are far more likely than their peers to wind up receiving special education and related services.24 Investment in early childhood education reduces spending on K-12 special education as fewer children need to be classified as learning disabled. Continuing to invest federal resources in K-12 and early childhood education produces cost savings in other areas as well, including savings in higher education due to a decrease in the resources that must be spent on remediation. Higher graduation rates and generally greater skill levels among graduates may help reduce the rate of incarceration and lower participation in poverty-related programs, both of which result in future cost savings. Path to the middle class A recent article in The Atlantic Monthly by Don Peck discussed the decline of the middle class in America and how it might be restored.25 The richest 1 percent of Americans command an increasingly huge share of national income and wealth, while median incomes have declined. The Great Recession exacerbated this trend due to job losses concentrated in traditionally middle-class sectors compared to either high-level white-collar or low-skill blue-collar sectors. As the article points out, many of the manufacturing jobs the United States lost in recent years were available to workers without advanced education, but many of the middle-class jobs of the future will require at least some education beyond high school.26 Fields such as health care will grow, and many of these jobs require some level of postsecondary training though not necessarily a college degree. In addition to educating workers for these expanding fields, the United States will also need to create high-skill jobs requiring high levels of education in order to produce the continuing innovation that is necessary for economic growth. Improving our education system and increasing educational attainment is clearly one of the most important paths to restoring a strong and vibrant middle class.

Growth solves war — robust statistical research proves it’s the most important factor.

Cortright 15, (Director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Linking Development and Peace: The Empirical Evidence, https://peacepolicy.nd.edu/2016/05/18/linking-development-and-peace-the-empirical-evidence/)

The connections between development and peace are firmly supported by social science research. All the standard indicators of economic development, including per capita income, economic growth rates, levels of trade and investment, and degree of market openness, are significantly correlated with peace. Virtually every study on the causes of war finds a strong connection between low income and the likelihood of armed conflict. Economist Edward Miguel describes this link as “one of the most robust empirical relationships in the economic literature.” Irrespective of all other variables and indicators, poverty as measured by low income bears a strong and statistically significant relationship to increased risk of civil conflict. No one has made this point more convincingly over the years than Paul Collier. He and his colleagues have shown that civil conflict is heavily concentrated in the poorest countries. The risk of civil war is strongly associated with joblessness, poverty and a general lack of development. They famously conclude, “The key root cause of conflict is the failure of economic development.” They also make the reverse point. Raising economic growth rates and levels of per capita income may be “the single most important step that can be taken” to reduce the likelihood of armed conflict.

Economic competitiveness key to international stability – deters challengers.

Hubbard 10 (Jesse Hubbard Program Assistant at Open Society Foundations Washington, District Of Columbia International Affairs Previous National Democratic Institute (NDI), National Defense University, Office of Congressman Jim Himes Education PPE at University of Oxford, 2010 “Hegemonic Stability Theory: An Empirical Analysis”

Regression analysis of this data shows that Pearson’s r-value is -.836. In the case of American hegemony, economic strength is a better predictor of violent conflict than even overall national power, which had an r-value of -.819. The data is also well within the realm of statistical significance, with a p-value of .0014. While the data for British hegemony was not as striking, the same overall pattern holds true in both cases. During both periods of hegemony, hegemonic strength was negatively related with violent conflict, and yet use of force by the hegemon was positively correlated with violent conflict in both cases. Finally, in both cases, economic power was more closely associated with conflict levels than military power. Statistical analysis created a more complicated picture of the hegemon’s role in fostering stability than initially anticipated. VI. Conclusions and Implications for Theory and Policy To elucidate some answers regarding the complexities my analysis unearthed, I turned first to the existing theoretical literature on hegemonic stability theory. The existing literature provides some potential frameworks for understanding these results. Since economic strength proved to be of such crucial importance, reexamining the literature that focuses on hegemonic stability theory’s economic implications was the logical first step. As explained above, the literature on hegemonic stability theory can be broadly divided into two camps – that which focuses on the international economic system, and that which focuses on armed conflict and instability. This research falls squarely into the second camp, but insights from the first camp are still of relevance. Even Kindleberger’s early work on this question is of relevance. Kindleberger posited that the economic instability between the First and Second World Wars could be attributed to the lack of an economic hegemon (Kindleberger 1973). But economic instability obviously has spillover effects into the international political arena. Keynes, writing after WWI, warned in his seminal tract The Economic Consequences of the Peace that Germany’s economic humiliation could have a radicalizing effect on the nation’s political culture (Keynes 1919). Given later events, his warning seems prescient. In the years since the Second World War, however, the European continent has not relapsed into armed conflict. What was different after the second global conflagration? Crucially, the United States was in a far more powerful position than Britain was after WWI. As the tables above show, Britain’s economic strength after the First World War was about 13% of the total in strength in the international system. In contrast, the United States possessed about 53% of relative economic power in the international system in the years immediately following WWII. The U.S. helped rebuild Europe’s economic strength with billions of dollars in investment through the Marshall Plan, assistance that was never available to the defeated powers after the First World War (Kindleberger 1973). The interwar years were also marked by a series of debilitating trade wars that likely worsened the Great Depression (Ibid.). In contrast, when Britain was more powerful, it was able to facilitate greater free trade, and after World War II, the United States played a leading role in creating institutions like the GATT that had an essential role in facilitating global trade (Organski 1958). The possibility that economic stability is an important factor in the overall security environment should not be discounted, especially given the results of my statistical analysis. Another theory that could provide insight into the patterns observed in this research is that of preponderance of power. Gilpin theorized that when a state has the preponderance of power in the international system, rivals are more likely to resolve their disagreements without resorting to armed conflict (Gilpin 1983). The logic behind this claim is simple – it makes more sense to challenge a weaker hegemon than a stronger one. This simple yet powerful theory can help explain the puzzlingly strong positive correlation between military conflicts engaged in by the hegemon and conflict overall. It is not necessarily that military involvement by the hegemon instigates further conflict in the international system. Rather, this military involvement could be a function of the hegemon’s weaker position, which is the true cause of the higher levels of conflict in the international system. Additionally, it is important to note that military power is, in the long run, dependent on economic strength. Thus, it is possible that as hegemons lose relative economic power, other nations are tempted to challenge them even if their short-term military capabilities are still strong. This would help explain some of the variation found between the economic and military data. The results of this analysis are of clear importance beyond the realm of theory. As the debate rages over the role of the United States in the world, hegemonic stability theory has some useful insights to bring to the table. What this research makes clear is that a strong hegemon can exert a positive influence on stability in the international system. However, this should not give policymakers a justification to engage in conflict or escalate military budgets purely for the sake of international stability. If anything, this research points to the central importance of economic influence in fostering international stability. To misconstrue these findings to justify anything else would be a grave error indeed. Hegemons may play a stabilizing role in the international system, but this role is complicated. It is economic strength, not military dominance that is the true test of hegemony. A weak state with a strong military is a paper tiger – it may appear fearsome, but it is vulnerable to even a short blast of wind.

The plan’s focus on low-income equality disrupts education federalism, solidifying strong federal leadership and oversight.

Robinson 15 [Kimberly J. Robinson (Professor of Law @ University of Richmond, J.D., Harvard Law School), “Disrupting Education Federalism”, Washington University Law Review Volume 92 Number 4 2015]

Education federalism should be restructured to embrace greater federal leadership and responsibility for a national effort to provide equal access to an excellent education. This Part recommends the key elements for strengthening the federal role in education to accomplish this goal. It identifies new federal responsibilities that should be undertaken and recommends reforms of existing federal education policy that would facilitate this goal. Any substantial strengthening and reform of the federal role in education will transform the nature of education federalism because substantive changes to federal authority over education directly affect the scope of state and local authority over education. These shifts in education federalism have occurred throughout U.S. history, including federally mandated school desegregation,1 46 NCLB,1 47 and, most recently, waivers to NCLB.148 In proposing the essential elements for a national effort to ensure equal access to an excellent education, I offer a broad theory to guide future reform by Congress, the executive branch, or both. The theory could be used to guide development of federal legislation, new initiatives by the Department of Education, or-most likely-a combination of the two. This theory is intentionally broad and does not propose a specific statute or federal initiative because a wide variety of federal statutes and initiatives could incorporate the elements identified here. Instead, this theory provides research and ideas that could inform a variety of federal reforms for many years to come. As Part III.B explains, I focus on future action by Congress and the executive branch, rather than doctrinal reform through the courts, because the legislative and executive branch enjoy numerous policymaking strengths over courts.1 49 The following six policymaking areas identify how the federal government's role in education should be expanded to ensure equal access to an excellent education: (1) Prioritizing a national goal of ensuring all children have equal access to an excellent education and acknowledging that achieving this goal will require disrupting education federalism;5 o (2) Incentivizing development of common opportunity-to-learn standards that identify the education resources that states must provide; '5 (3) Focusing rigorous research and technical assistance on the most effective approaches to ensuring equal access to an excellent education;1 52 (4) Distributing financial assistance with the goal of closing the opportunity and achievement gaps;1 (5) Demanding continuous improvement from states to ensure equal access to an excellent education through federal oversight that utilizes a collaborative enforcement model; 154 and (6) Establishing the federal government as the final guarantor of equal access to an excellent education'55 by strengthening the relationship between federal influence and responsibility. As the analysis below will show, each of these elements either suggests how to leverage existing strengths of federal policymaking more effectively or fills in important gaps of federal policymaking and enforcement.5 6 Federal education law and policy that encompasses these elements would greatly increase federal responsibility as part of a national effort to ensure equal access to an excellent education while setting the foundation for a shoulder-to-shoulder working relationship with the states to achieve this goal. In contrast to existing federal education policy that too often demands much from the states but gives them relatively little,' my proposed theory would strengthen the relationship between increasing federal demands for reform and greater federal responsibility for accomplishing those reforms. If federal education law and policymaking embraced each of these elements, collectively these reforms would place primary responsibility on the federal government for establishing a national framework for ensuring equal access to an excellent education. A. Prioritizing a National Goal ofEnsuring Equal Access to an Excellent Education The federal government must identify a national goal of ensuring that all children are provided equal access to an excellent education. Some national leaders already have noted the importance of this goal.' However, some key points are missing from this rhetoric that must be emphasized to support the type of comprehensive reforms envisioned in this Article. For instance, the nation's top education leaders, including the President, the Secretary of Education, and members of Congress, would need to initiate a national conversation on why the United States should no longer tolerate longstanding disparities in educational opportunity and why federal action is needed to address them. 59 Federal and national education leaders also must make the case that the entire nation would benefit from ending inequitable disparities in education because research reveals that reforms to help those who are disadvantaged typically do not succeed unless they benefit more privileged Americans.1 6 0 Therefore, the federal government must convince the more affluent segments of American society that a more equitable distribution of educational opportunity would inure to their benefit. This could be accomplished in part by publicizing existing research that quantifies the myriad of high costs that the United States pays for offering many schoolchildren a substandard education and that acknowledges that even many advantaged children are not competing effectively with their international peers.' 6' Initiating such a conversation also requires the federal government to prioritize equal access to an excellent education among its national policymaking agenda. One way that federal leaders are beginning to identify concrete ways to close the opportunity gap is through President Obama's call to Congress, elected leaders, and business executives to make high-quality preschool education available for all children.' 62 This call to close one element of the opportunity gap builds upon robust research that reveals that investing in preschool education yields substantial educational, societal, and financial benefits for the United States.163 Although closing the prekindergarten gap represents an important component of closing the opportunity gap, it remains only one small element of this gap in the United States. A broad call and initiative for closing the full spectrum of the opportunity gap from early childhood education through high school is essential and overdue. Establishing equal access to an excellent education as a national priority would require federal leadership to explain that a reexamination of the nation's approach to education federalism is warranted. Leaders would explain how education federalism has served as a barrier to past reforms'6 and the reasons that restructuring education federalism must occur if the United States is ever going to ensure equal access to an excellent education. 65 This discussion should highlight federal willingness to shoulder greater responsibility for leading the national effort to achieve this goal while emphasizing that effective comprehensive reform must involve a shoulder-to-shoulder partnership among the federal, state, and local governments. Fortunately, the federal government has proven its ability to herald the importance of new educational goals and approaches in the national interest.1 6 6 Research and history confirm that agenda setting serves as one of the strengths of the federal government in education policymaking. 6

Federal control in education spills over to environmental policy.

Kazman et al 16 [Sam Kazman (Competitive Enterprise Institute's general counsel), Ilya Shapiro (senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review, former special assistant/adviser to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule-of-law), Joshua P. Thompson (a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation), “Amicus Brief of Pacific Legal Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute and Cato Institute in Support of Petitioners”, Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 16-476, November 2016, https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/christie_v_ncaa_cert-stage.pdf]

For instance, the federal government could compel states to continue implementing education policies well after they have proven unpopular. Previously, the need to convince states to cooperate has given them significant leverage to influence federal policy. See Young, supra at 1074-75 (explaining that state resistence to federal education policy forced a federal agency to change its requirements). If, once adopted, the federal government could compel states to continue to implement particular policies, the political consequences could be far reaching. The federal government could dictate curricula or testing requirements in those states that previously embraced the federal policy. But see Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 741-42 (1974) (recognizing education as an area of traditional state and local control). It could also require states to continue enforcing their current bathroom policies, whatever those may be. Cf. G.G. ex rel. Grimm v. Gloucester Cnty. Sch. Bd., 822 F.3d 709 (4th Cir. 2016), cert. granted, No. 16-273 (Oct. 28, 2016). Limiting the anti-commandeering doctrine could also have severe repercussions in environmental policy. Federal-state cooperation on environmental regulation is particularly useful because states have greater local knowledge and more available enforcement officers. See Richard B. Stewart, Pyramids of Sacrifice? Problems of Federalism in Mandating State Implementation of National Environmental Policy, 86 Yale L.J. 1196, 1243-50 (1977). But if the federal government could indefinitely impose its will on states after they initially agree, that would threaten these cooperative federalism arrangements, with far reaching affects. Cf. Robert V. Percival, Environmental Federalism: Historical Roots and Contemporary Models, 54 Md. L. Rev. 1141, 1174 (1995).

Specifically, leads to the federalization of disaster management.

Roberts 15 [Patrick S. Roberts (Associate Professor at the Center for Public Administration and Policy in the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute), "The Centralization Paradox," American Interest, 6-10-2015, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/06/10/the-centralization-paradox/]

Derthick did not frame her criticism of American politics in such apocalyptic terms, but she did worry that the rise of a populist presidency could obscure how policy is actually made and put too great a distance between citizens and the policy process. A populist American President appears on television and video daily as a sponsor of grandiose policy proposals: free community college education; a mission to Mars. The populist-style President himself is a product of the cauldron of election contests that demand ambitious proposals but offer hazy details on implementation or any reasonable metric as to how such proposals might be evaluated. This sort of President nowadays invariably gets absorbed into an electronic celebrity culture saturated by advertising language. Nowhere is this form of political theater more evident than in recent education policy, where proposals for reform—first charter schools, then school choice and vouchers, then smaller class sizes—appear as “flavors of the month” without enough time having passed to evaluate their effects. Meanwhile, laws emerge behind the scenes from issue networks rather than the minds of lawmakers. The presidentialization of everything has spread beyond health, welfare, and education to other domains, including disaster management.10 At the founding, disaster management was a responsibility for states and localities, if for the government at all. Today, the President is the responder-in-chief to any major disaster, from floods to hurricanes to oil spills.11 Disasters make for good news stories, and responding to them is one way in which the President and the Federal government can palpably affect citizens’ lives and deliver benefits. The President cannot issue “waivers” in disaster management, but he does have sufficient discretion to issue “declarations” that trigger Federal resources to flow and pre-planned protocols to spring into action.12 The number of disaster declarations has increased over time. While “no dough for snow” was once a rallying cry at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it is now routine for the President to declare snow disasters. In emergency management, as in the tobacco settlement, politicians sometimes derive benefits from a social ill. Disaster losses offer politicians an opportunity to come to the rescue. It is too perverse to say that politicians hope for disaster losses, but they do have more incentives to respond ably than to take steps to prevent disaster losses in the first place by, for example, limiting development in flood plains and other risky locations. Questions about how to manage sustainable development, however, depend on context and buy-in rather than on rational planning.13 These decisions are best left to communities, which can draw on expert guidance to come to their own decisions about implementation. Making the presidency the locus of policymaking in areas previously reserved for the states, such as education or welfare, risks closing off avenues for participation and for creative implementation in different regions. Critics of the contemporary Anti-Federalist approach might point out that state legislatures, elected judges, and city councils are even more likely to be captured by special interests than Presidents.14 In reply, a defender of local and state prerogatives would point out that centralization is at best a temporary fix to special-interest control, and often no fix at all. Derthick’s study of the Federal and federalized tobacco settlement shows how mercenary state officials engaged in a “race to the trough” of tobacco settlements.

Disrupting federalism and ensuring strong federal control is key to natural disaster response.

Griffin 6 [Stephen M. Griffin (Professor in Constitutional Law, Tulane Law School), “Stop Federalism Before It Kills Again: Reflections on Hurricane Katrina”, TULANE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series Research Paper No. 06-04 March 2006, https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=407026027094103105084097031123004109116084085079093023074102119105026102117064064010048042116060045034000109120112006099087117060029080019010100095077072110089084080024100095102113085116100100087122069077031120067125101029023077090122102027086072&EXT=pdf]

Hurricane Katrina operated like a CT or MRI scan on governance in the United States and the results were not pretty. It is widely agreed that our separated system of federal, state, and local jurisdictions did not work together and did not work well. In this short article, I will first survey the harm done by our federal system, then offer some historical perspective on what went wrong, and finally try to analyze what, if anything, we can learn from this experience. Before I proceed, it is necessary to offer some caveats. First, although I consider the role of the constitutional system in what happened during Hurricane Katrina, I do not address the role of constitutional law. That is, I am not addressing the role of the Supreme Court, but rather the structure of government originally created by the Constitution. Second, I’m not asserting that the Constitution was the sole or even primary cause of the disaster, but a contributing cause. Third, by attributing some blame to federalism, I am not suggesting that our system of government needs to be replaced with a non-federal system. I am rather trying to think about how and to what extent our federal structure could be reformed consistent with the Constitution. AN ANATOMY OF KATRINA’S FEDERAL FAILURES On Wednesday, August 31, 2005, two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff held a press conference at which he was asked a question about the chain of command and how conflicts among levels of government are worked out during a national disaster. He responded: “‘[W]e come in to assist local and state authorities. Under the constitution, state and local authorities have the principal first line of response obligation . . . . DHS has the coordinating role, or the managing role . . . . [T]he president has, of course, the ultimate responsibility for all the federal effort here . . . . I want to emphasize the federal government does not supersede the state and local government. We fit . . . in a comprehensive response plan.’”2 Secretary Chertoff was reflecting the official policy of the federal government, as embodied in the “National Response Plan,” adopted in late 2004.3 In the plan (a largely technical document authored by the Department of Homeland Security and meant for the bureaucracy), the emphasis was on having the lowest level of government possible handle disaster response. The plan states under “Planning Assumptions & Considerations”: “Incidents are typically managed at the lowest possible geographic, organizational, and jurisdictional level.”4 One of the most unusual characteristics of Hurricane Katrina was how it blasted away nearly all of the local government infrastructure in New Orleans and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It therefore removed the basis on which the National Response Plan was built.5 Katrina challenged assumptions going back many decades as to how the federal structure should operate, not just during a crisis, but also in preparing for crisis situations. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, journalists and the public began asking why the effort to aid the Gulf Coast floundered so badly. A number of news stories, notably by the Newhouse News Service and New York Times, laid part of the blame on a defective system of governance. The Newhouse News Service story stated that the muddled response to Hurricane Katrina exposed something known by Washington insiders: “For reasons that run deep and probably can’t be fixed, Washington has difficulty making long-range plans, coordinating its actions and tackling the tough political decisions required for swift disaster response and other critical responsibilities.”6 A number of factors were cited: (1) power and authority are fragmented as the framers intended; (2) election cycles mean attention spans are short; (3) bureaucracy stifles initiative; and (4) intense partisan conflict.7 “Chief among the federal government’s structure problems is its division of responsibility, said Paul Light, professor of public service at New York University. ‘It’s built into the Constitution that we have a federal system where states and localities have a lot of responsibility,’ he said. ‘Part of this is embedded in the system that we don’t want a strong federal presence . . . . The founders were clear in wanting to protect citizens from the national government.’”8 An important theme here was that the eighteenth-century federal order persists and has certain effects. In this system, there are separate governments that do not ordinarily share power. If coordinated action is required, everyone has a veto over the outcome of the process before the bargaining starts. Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote of Hurricane Katrina: “The failure to respond to that disaster exposed one of the few real structural weaknesses in our Constitution: a mechanism to coordinate the work of local, state and national governments.”9 News reports showed that a week after Katrina made landfall, local, state and federal officials were still arguing over who was in charge. The New York Times also analyzed the breakdown in the government’s response: “As the city [of New Orleans] bec[ame] paralyzed both by water and by lawlessness, so did the response by government. The fractured division of responsibility – Gov. Blanco controlled state agencies and the National Guard, Mayor Nagin directed city workers and Mr. Brown, the head of FEMA, served as the point man for the federal government – meant no one person was in charge. Americans watching on television saw the often-haggard governor, the voluble mayor and the usually upbeat FEMA chief appear at competing daily press briefings and interviews.”11 And: “The power-sharing arrangement was by design, and as the days wore on, it would prove disastrous. Under the Bush administration, FEMA redefined its role, offering assistance but remaining subordinate to state and local governments. ‘Our typical role is to work with the state in support of local and state agencies,’ said David Passey, a FEMA spokesman.”12 The consequences of this governmental paralysis were appalling human suffering, the humiliation of the U.S. government in the eyes of the nation and the world,13 and delay after delay in the rendering of needed aid. The evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the Louisiana Superdome arena was delayed unnecessarily because the federal and state governments could not communicate effectively about who was supposed to provide transportation.14 No effective communication meant that officials were unaware that there were thousands of people at the New Orleans Convention Center without food, water, or medicine.15 The New Orleans police were immediately overwhelmed by the storm16 and military help from the National Guard and U.S. Army was delayed by the slowness of the original federal response and fights over jurisdiction.17 As a result, law and order broke down in New Orleans.18 Part of the problem was that the scale of devastation was vast. During hearings held by the House Select Committee to investigate the federal response, former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) head Michael Brown stated: “‘[Hurricane Katrina] was beyond the capacity of the state and local governments, and it was beyond the capacity of FEMA,’ . . . ‘It was the largest natural disaster ever to strike the United States – 92,000 square miles. Logistics were falling apart.’”19 Admiral Timothy Keating, Commander, Northern Command, testified: “’During the first four days, no single organization or agency was in charge of providing a coordinated effort for rescue operations.’”20 In its report, the Committee concluded: “The catastrophic nature of Katrina confirmed once again that the standard ‘reactive’ nature of federal assistance, while appropriate for most disasters, does not work during disasters of this scale. When local and state governments are functionally overwhelmed or incapacitated, the federal government must be prepared to respond proactively.”21 The Committee was referring to what is known as a “pull” system, in which federal authorities wait for state authorities (who are supposed to combine local requests) to request resources in an emergency. This was a fundamental assumption of the National Response Plan.22 Hurricane Katrina posed multiple challenges for this philosophy, ultimately grounded in values of federalism. Because local governments and communications had been wiped out, state authorities did not know what to request. The extent of the crisis meant that state officials were themselves overwhelmed and unable to cope.23 The Committee noted that a “push” system, in which federal authorities try to anticipate state needs in advance of a storm, is not a new concept, but it has rarely been tried.24 As these sources indicate, most of the worry over federalism expressed in Katrina’s wake had to do with the response to the immediate aftermath. Less noticed was the role of federalism in the levee and communications failures that led to the drowning of New Orleans. The levees that failed so spectacularly in New Orleans were the result of a long-term federal project, the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project begun after Hurricane Betsy in 1965.25 This was a joint federal, state, and local effort with shared costs.26 After the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) built the levees, they were turned over to local sponsors.27 Different parts of the Pontchartrain project “were turned over to four different local sponsors – to include the Orleans, East Jefferson, Lake Borgne, and Pontchartrain levee districts. In addition, there are separate water and sewer districts that are responsible for maintaining pumping stations.”28 USACE had doubts about this, but fragmentation was what local authorities preferred.29 According to USACE, multiple authorities meant that when different elements of the protection plan came together, “‘the weakest (or lowest) segment or element controlled the overall performance.’”30 Raymond Seed, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley stated, “No one is in charge. You have got multiple agencies, multiple organizations, some of whom aren’t on speaking terms with each other, sharing responsibilities for public safety.” 31 This meant that levee boards could oppose measures that could have made the levees safer.32 According to the House Committee, part of the problem with communications was the failure of state and local authorities to use federal dollars effectively to develop interoperable communications. When the crisis hit, different agencies could not communicate with one another due to different types of systems.33 This is a general problem in the United States: “A Conference of Mayors 2004 survey of 192 cities showed 44 percent reported an accident within the preceding year in which the lack of interoperable communications made response difficult; 49 percent of cities are not interoperable with state police; 60 percent are not interoperable with their state emergency operations centers; and 83 percent are not interoperable with the federal law enforcement agencies.”34 But the Committee found that the main problem with achieving interoperability was not lack of funding, but rather agreement and planning across state and local jurisdictions.35 Federalism in terms of local control reared its ugly side soon after the storm passed. To assist evacuees from New Orleans, particularly those who were renters, FEMA wanted to set up large towns of mobile homes in Louisiana parishes out of the disaster zone. To help meet this goal, FEMA ordered thousands of mobile homes.36 But the parishes refused, often citing concerns about the behavior of the (mostly African-American) former residents of New Orleans.37 Racial stereotypes were not far below the surface in these public debates. So the mobile homes sat empty in (ironically) Hope, Arkansas.38 All of these melancholy examples of governmental failure tell us something valuable about the nature of federalism. Federalism is not simply about the sheer fact of the existence of federal and state governments. Federalism is also about localism. Despite being dependent for their legal authority on state governments, local governments have substantial legal and political authority. Federal disaster policy has been based formally on the idea that local governments know local conditions best. Hence, the requirement that the federal government wait patiently as state governments collate local requests in time of disaster. Consider also the concealed assumption that the federal system must be a certain way because it has always been that way. From this point of view, we may be struggling with the legacy of an eighteenth century constitutional system, but at least it is a system that the founding generation designed and thought was well-justified. Among other effects, this saves officials from having to fully confront their own responsibility for how the system is run. Finally, consider how these examples suggest that federalism is an instance of the historic American commitment to the near-maximum fragmentation of governmental authority. There was no inherent reason, for example, why levee board boundaries had to coincide with parish boundaries. Levees and floodwalls extend over city and parish boundaries in order to protect flood plains whose limits are determined by the natural environment, not politics. Similarly, there was no justification for allowing local and state authorities to fight for years over who was going to buy which communications system. Indeed, they would not have been able to fight at all were it not for the federal dollars they were receiving. This is a national problem and can only be solved by a national mandate. NATURAL DISASTERS IN FEDERAL HISTORY If more intergovernmental coordination is the answer to the problems exposed by Hurricane Katrina, the founding generation as well as contemporary constitutional scholars might reply that effective coordination of all levels of government was not the point of the original constitutional plan. From the point of view of the eighteenth century, a “coordinated” response by all levels of government to a policy problem poses a great risk of tyranny. What of natural disasters, events that are nearly by definition beyond the capacity of state and local governments? Here we encounter a reality that has been made more familiar by works such as John Barry’s Rising Tide, a popular history of the vast flooding unleashed by the Mississippi River in 1927.39 That is, it took many decades and repeated disasters to convince national officials, including the President, that the federal government had a role to play in alleviating the effects of natural disasters. For much of American history, victims of natural disasters were pretty much on their own.40 Barry notes that in the late nineteenth century, “President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, had vetoed an emergency appropriation of $10,000 for drought victims in Texas, declaring that the government had no ‘warrant in the Constitution . . . to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds . . . [for] relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service.’”41 As a matter of policy at least, the federal government was not concerned with whether U.S. citizens starved or died from lack of food, water, or medical care after a natural disaster. It was certainly not concerned with providing financial assistance so that they could get back on their feet.42 That was a matter for private relief efforts and whatever local officials had on hand. Part of the point of Barry’s book is that the provision of federal assistance after the 1927 flood and the assumption of federal responsibility for flood control along the Mississippi River represented a great change in the American system of governance.43 Barry might be exaggerating somewhat, but his book does provide evidence for something historians and legal scholars have long emphasized – that the twentieth century saw a major change in the constitutional order, one involving greater federal involvement in matters previously jealously guarded by state and local governments. The change is usually attributed to the Great Depression and the New Deal period, although Barry’s work shows that change was in the air even in the 1920s. Most of us have grown up in a world in which federal assistance in time of disaster is taken for granted. Consider the primary conclusion of the House Select Committee: “Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare.”44 This conclusion implies that the nation fell short on a key constitutional commitment. But is this conclusion consistent with historic understandings of federalism? To put this in a more pointed way, when did the national government formally commit itself to having primary responsibility for the welfare of the people of the states? Of course, the Committee could not point to a constitutional amendment or a widely understood legal commitment originating from the Preamble to the Constitution. The Committee report is quite revealing on this score. As noted above, the Committee argued that the federal government must respond “proactively”45 to a disaster like Katrina. Yet when discussing the military’s role, the Committee made this general remark: “The Select Committee does not believe there is a simple answer to improving state and federal integration. Local control and state sovereignty are important principles rooted in the nation’s birth that cannot be discarded merely to achieve more efficient joint military operations on American soil.”46 Thus, the Committee’s report points ultimately in two directions – both toward greater federal responsibility in time of national catastrophe and toward a continued essential role for state and local governments. How could it be otherwise? The Committee could not by itself surmount the conflicts inherent in American federalism. Why was the Committee confused in this way? The answer lies in the process of constitutional change.47 When it criticized the national response, the Committee invoked a value system that was a product of informal twentieth century constitutional change and was not implied by anything in the text of the Constitution. This kind of criticism would not have occurred to anyone in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. During the twentieth century and especially during the New Deal, the constitutional order changed in a somewhat helter-skelter unplanned fashion. Certainly no constitutional amendment was approved that might have provided firm legitimacy and guidance to the federal government’s new power. The formal structure of American federalism remained intact. And so it is still the case that when natural disasters strike, the divided power of the federal structure presents a coordination problem. The kind of coordination that had to occur to avoid the Katrina disaster requires long-term planning before the event. The American constitutional system makes taking intergovernmental action difficult and complex. The process of coordinating governments can take years. In many ways, the government was just at the beginning of that process at the time of Katrina,48 although we are now four years distant from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that set the latest round of disaster coordination in motion. Suppose, however, that we don’t have the luxury of taking the time to satisfy every official with a veto. This is the key point of tension between what contemporary governance demands and what the Constitution permits. The kind of limited change that occurred in 1927 can take us only so far. What Hurricane Katrina showed was that even after decades of experience with natural disasters, the federal and state governments were still uncoordinated and unprepared. The reasons they were unprepared go to the heart of the constitutional order. FEDERAL LESSONS Unless we learn some lessons, Katrina will happen again. It may be a massive earthquake, an influenza pandemic, a terrorist attack, or even another hurricane, but the same ill-coordinated response will indeed happen again unless some attention is paid to the constitutional and institutional lessons of Katrina. We need to “stop federalism” before it kills again. That is, we need to stop our customary thinking about what federalism requires in order to prevent another horrific loss of life and property. First, let’s approach the difficult questions left by the legacy of decades of informal constitutional change not reflected in the text of the Constitution. These changes mean that there is no real sense in which we can act to preserve and extend eighteenth century federal values. Much of the formal institutional structure is there (but not all – see the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments), but its meaning has been altered by informal constitutional change, most of which occurred in the twentieth century. So if we sound the call, as the House Committee did, for remaining faithful to the values of eighteenth century federalism, we become unthinking believers in an ideology that does not relate to contemporary reality. Moreover, the formal structure that does carry over from the eighteenth century is misleading because it has been supplemented and subtly altered by continuous institutional change. The federal system as it exists today is our system, not that of the founding generation. “We” – generations still alive – created it and we are continuing to change it. The best example during the Bush administration was the No Child Left Behind Act,49 legislation that involved an unprecedented intrusion into a subject, education, that everyone used to agree should be left to the states – at least left to the states for most of American history.50 In any event, if this system is ours, we are responsible for its successful operation and we can decide to change it for good and sufficient reasons. There is nothing in the Constitution to prevent us from doing better the next time. We can stop traditional federalist ways of thinking in order to prevent disasters and aid disaster victims when the worst occurs. An obvious place to start, one that has occurred to both the White House and the House Select Committee, is with the assumption that the initiative should lie with state and local governments and that the federal government should wait until their help is requested. The federal government already had installations, resources and personnel in the New Orleans area prior to Katrina and could have moved far more aggressively on its own to render assistance. Only previous national policy, based not on the Constitution itself, but on a sense of constitutional protocol, stood in the way.

Natural disasters cause extinction – outweighs war.

Sid-Ahmed 5 [Mohamed, Al-Ahram Weekly Editor, Jan 6, “The post-earthquake world,” http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/op3.htm]

The human species has never been exposed to a natural upheaval of this magnitude within living memory. What happened in South Asia is the ecological equivalent of 9/11. Ecological problems like global warming and climatic disturbances in general threaten to make our natural habitat unfit for human life. The extinction of the species has become a very real possibility, whether by our own hand or as a result of natural disasters of a much greater magnitude than the Indian Ocean earthquake and the killer waves it spawned. Human civilisation has developed in the hope that Man will be able to reach welfare and prosperity on earth for everybody. But now things seem to be moving in the opposite direction, exposing planet Earth to the end of its role as a nurturing place for human life. Today, human conflicts have become less of a threat than the confrontation between Man and Nature. At least they are less likely to bring about the end of the human species. The reactions of Nature as a result of its exposure to the onslaughts of human societies have become more important in determining the fate of the human species than any harm it can inflict on itself. Until recently, the threat Nature represented was perceived as likely to arise only in the long run, related for instance to how global warming would affect life on our planet. Such a threat could take decades, even centuries, to reach a critical level. This perception has changed following the devastating earthquake and tsunamis that hit the coastal regions of South Asia and, less violently, of East Africa, on 26 December. This cataclysmic event has underscored the vulnerability of our world before the wrath of Nature and shaken the sanguine belief that the end of the world is a long way away. Gone are the days when we could comfort ourselves with the notion that the extinction of the human race will not occur before a long-term future that will only materialise after millions of years and not affect us directly in any way. We are now forced to live with the possibility of an imminent demise of humankind.