Sequestration 1NC

Obama is pushing for a budget compromise --- he has momentum nowWasson, 7/21/2013 (Erik, Obama economic speech to fire first salvo in new budget fight, The Hill, p. http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/312467-obama-set-to-fire-opening-salvo-in-new-budget-showdown-) [MN]hetgsrhsgaHSRAgh

President Obama will deliver the first in a series of economic speeches Wednesday aimed at gaining the upper hand in this fall’s looming budget showdown with Congress. Obama will speak at Knox College in Illinois, the same location where he first outlined his economic vision as a Senate candidate in 2005. Senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeffier told reporters in an email Sunday that Obama wants to steer Congress away from “phony scandals” and to prioritize economic benefits for the middle class in the looming budget wars. Congress is deeply divided over whether to leave $109 billion in annual automatic budget cuts in place and will have to find a way to resolve their differences to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. Lawmakers will also have to find a way to raise the $16.4 trillion debt limit by November at the latest. Obama wants a clean increase but Republicans are demanding more spending cuts in exchange for raising it. “Why now? Well, we've made important progress with the Senate passing comprehensive immigration reform and will continue to work with the House to push to get that enacted into law. But the President thinks Washington has largely taken its eye off the ball on the most important issue facing the country,” Pfeffier wrote. “Instead of talking about how to help the middle class, too many in Congress are trying to score political points, refight old battles, and trump up phony scandals,” he added. Republicans have been focused on investigating the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya last year and examining Internal Revenue Service harassment of Tea Party groups—something Obama has condemned and the White House denies involvement in. Pfeiffer looked ahead to the looming budget fight, writing “in a couple of months, we will face some more critical budget deadlines that require Congressional action, not showdowns that only serve to harm families and businesses -- and the President wants to talk about the issues that should be at the core of that debate.”

The budget standoff has been at a low boil for months as Senate Democrats have tried to force House Republicans into a budget conference while highlighting the consequences of sequestration. The House GOP has not focused on the debt ceiling in weeks and will likely develop its approach after the August recess according to aides. Next week, the Senate will take up the first of its 12 annual appropriations bills that together come in with $91 billion more in spending than the House envisions for fiscal 2014. The large difference has most experts predicting a temporary stopgap spending measure to keep the government open after September.

Plan kills capital --- it’s massively unpopular

[insert link]

Controversy drains capital and spills over to Obama’s fiscal plan.Langekamp, 6/12/2013 (Andy – global political analyst at ECR Research and Interest & Currency Consultants, Obama to Take Over Baton From Fed?, The Huffington Post, p. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-langenkamp/obama-to-take-over-baton-_b_3571885.html) [MN]

As the U.S. Fed is not planning to boost the asset markets for much longer, growth will have to come from the private sector albeit with help from the government. However, it remains to be seen if politicians in the United States will be able to contribute to a healthy base for economic growth later this year. As growth has picked up, concerns over the fiscal health of the United States have receded into the background. The fiscal problems may be out of the limelight, but they have not gone away. A relatively quiet summer will be followed by a

hectic fall. Democrats and Republicans will cross fiscal swords . On October 1st, the U.S. federal budget runs out, the sequester for the fiscal year 2014 takes effect, and the U.S. will hit the debt ceiling. In 2014 too, the U.S. federal government may well need a so-called "continuing resolution" just to keep going. Political hot potatoes The fiscal debate is not the only "interesting" item on the agenda in the last part of the year. Political issues that could make waves in Q4 are the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the U.S., immigration law reform, the ongoing story of Obamacare, and the nomination of the next Fed chairperson. The above issues give the president some bargaining chips as he attempts to strike a fiscal deal. Maybe he can deliver a grand bargain via package deals . But equally, political hot potatoes could sour the mood sour so much that compromise is out of the question . The debate will then spiral out of control and create an (even more) poisonous atmosphere in Washington. Scandals threat to Obama? Lately, Obama has been under attack from various sides. Several scandals threaten to undermine his reputation. AP and Fox journalists have been spied upon and the Internal Revenue Service has deliberately targeted organizations linked to the Tea Party for extra scrutiny. Meanwhile, the effects of the affair surrounding the deadly assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi (Libya) are lingering on. The latest uproar of course concerns the National Security Agency's snooping activities. This has led to a global outcry and has undermined Obama's reputation and political power abroad. Obama's weakened hand reduces the chance that he can move the fiscal agenda forward. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama seems increasingly preoccupied with his legacy. U.S. presidents want to leave their mark on world affairs as the end of their last term approaches. Several have tried to solve the thorny Israeli-Palestinian problem (Clinton made a brave but ultimately naive and fruitless attempt). Obama appears to focus on, among others, reducing the world's nuclear stockpile -- witness his recent speech in Berlin --

and closing Guantánamo Bay. Still some cards up his sleeves? The U.S. president still has some political capital at his disposal . His approval rating (50 percent) may not be spectacular but it exceeds the dismal endorsement of Congress (15 percent). Many voters still give him the benefit of the doubt; just 26 percent of Americans are satisfied with the direction the U.S. is taking, but Obama's ratings indicate many do not believe he is to blame for their disappointment. In any case, the presidential "approval premium" has not been this high since Reagan. Perhaps this will give Mr. Obama the courage to get down to business in Q4 and take decisive steps towards restoring the fiscal health of America .

Sequestration collapses military power --- no chance of adjustmentW ashington P ost, 8/3/2013 (A decaying defense is no defense, p. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-decaying-defense-is-no-defense/2013/08/03/7e65c868-fb29-11e2-9bde-7ddaa186b751_story.html) [MN]

Mr. Obama’s latest budget proposes $150 billion in defense cuts over 10 years, which Mr. Hagel claims could be managed . Sequestration, however, requires $500 billion in cuts over 10 years. Mr. Hagel’s review estimates that closing

unnecessary facilities and duplicative offices could yield $60 billion over a decade. Reasonable measures to rein in personnel costs, which have soared 40 percent above inflation for more than a decade, might yield $50 billion over 10 years, while harsher personnel measures might produce $100 billion. The Pentagon reckons it can safely slash the size of some forces, such as the cargo plane fleet, the ground and tactical air forces and

the standing army and reserves a bit. But even assuming Congress would permit what Mr. Hagel sees as rational cuts — and

that is unlikely — these wouldn’t come close to satisfying the demands of the sequester. Instead, the Defense Department would have to choose between maintaining technological sophistication or numerical strength. If it chose the former, Mr. Hagel explained, it would keep “a force that would be technologically dominant but would be much smaller and able to go fewer places and do fewer things, especially if crises occurred at the same time in different regions of the world.” The other option would result in a larger force capable of international deployment but with aging weapons systems that rivals would have an easier time matching. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in testimony on Thursday that either way would “ mark a significant departure from the missions our nation has been accustomed to being able to accomplish.” The entire sequester, hitting defense and non-defense, was bad policy when lawmakers passed it, it was bad policy when they let it begin, and it remains bad policy. The president is right to press for the whole thing to end , along with Congress’s indefensibly short-term approach to budgeting. Political tactics may compel

him for the moment not to give national security special consideration, given House Republicans’ intransigence. But Mr. Obama ultimately can’t act as though the Defense Department’s sequester cuts are equivalent in consequence to every other item in the budget. The country’s defense is a core responsibility of the federal government, and its armed forces are critical to the nation’s ability to exert leadership , maintain alliances , defend human rights and preserve the nation’s safety .

Defense cuts undermines leadership --- results in multiple scenarios of nuclear war.F oreign P olicy I nitiative, 11/17/2011 (Defending Defense: Defense Spending, Super Committee, and the Price of Greatness, A Joint Project of the Foreign Policy Initiative, American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation, p. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/11/defending-defense-setting-the-record-straight-on-us-military-spending-requirements) [MN]

FACT : In order to maintain global leadership , the U nited S tates must make commensurate investments in defense of its national security and international interests. From the Cold War to the post-9/11 world, U.S. spending on national defense has yielded substantial strategic returns by: • protecting the security and prosperity of the U nited S tates and its allies; •

amplifying America’s diplomatic and economic leadership throughout the globe; • preventing the outbreak of the world wars that marked the early 20th century; and • preserving the delicate international order in the face of aggressive, illiberal threats . No doubt, the United States has invested non-trivial amounts on national defense to help achieve these strategic objectives.

But when viewed in historical perspective, the proportion of America’s annual economic output dedicated to the Defense Department from 1947 to today has been reasonable and acceptable—indeed, a fraction of what it dedicated during World War II. Figure 4 illustrates this. Moreover, in light of the various rounds of recent cuts to the Pentagon’s multi-year budget, defense spending as percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is on track to reach its lowest point since end of World War II. Yet defense cuts in recent years have come despite the fact that the United States is facing new threats in the 21st century to its national security and international interests. As Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution summarized in The Weekly Standard: The War on Terror: “The terrorists who would like to kill Americans on U.S. soil constantly search for safe havens from which to plan and carry out their attacks. American military actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere make it harder for them to strike and are a large part of the reason why for almost a decade there has been no repetition of September 11. To the degree that we limit our ability to deny them safe haven, we increase the chances they will succeed” (emphasis added). The Asia Pacific:

“Americanforces deployed in East Asia and the Western Pacific have for decades prevented the outbreak of major war, provided stability, and kept open international trading routes , making possible an unprecedented era of growth and

prosperity for Asians and Americans alike. Now the United States faces a new challenge and potential threat from a rising China which seeks eventually to push the U.S. military’s area of operations back to Hawaii and exercise hegemony over the world’s most rapidly growing

economies. Meanwhile, a nuclear-armed North Korea threatens war with South Korea and fires ballistic missiles over Japan that

will someday be capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. Democratic nations in the region, worried that the U nited

S tates may be losing influence, turn to Washington for reassurance that the U.S. security guarantee remains firm. If the

U nited S tates cannot provide that assurance because it is cutting back its military capabilities , they will have to

choose between accepting Chinese dominance and striking out on their own, possibly by build ing nuclear weapons ” (emphasis added).

The Middle East: “… Iran seeks to build its own nuclear arsenal, supports armed radical Islamic groups in Lebanon and Palestine,

and has linked up with anti-American dictatorships in the Western Hemisphere. The prospects of new instability in the region grow every day as a decrepit regime in Egypt clings to power, crushes all moderate opposition, and drives the M uslim

B rotherhood into the streets. A nuclear-armed Pakistan seems to be ever on the brink of collapse into anarchy and

radicalism. Turkey, once an ally, now seems bent on an increasingly anti-American Islamist course. The prospect of war between Hezbollah and Israel grows, and with it the possibility of war between Israel and Syria and possibly Iran .

There, too, nations in the region increasingly look to Washington for reassurance , and if they decide the U nited S tates

cannot be relied upon they will have to decide whether to succumb to Iranian influence or build their own nuclear weapons to

resist it” (emphasis added). Meeting these threats will require the U nited S tates to remain engaged diplomatically and militarily throughout the globe. And that will require continued investment in national defense. However, further cuts to Pentagon spending—especially the “devastating” sequestration cut if the Super Committee effort fails—will fundamentally undermine America’s strategy to defend its national security and international interests. In Secretary Panetta’s words, “we

would have to formulate a new security strategy that accepted substantial risk of not meeting our defense needs.” Conclusion: Defense spending and the price of greatness. Some today find it tempting to slash investments in America’s national security and international interests, especially given current efforts to reduce the federal debt and deficit. As this analysis has argued, however, defense spending—which has already faced nearly $1 trillion in cuts, arguably more—has done its part for deficit reduction. Moreover, further cuts to defense spending risk fundamentally eroding America’s standing and leadership role in the world .

Yes CIR

CIR will pass --- it has support and Obama is pushing itZelizer, 8/5/2013 (Julian – professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, Crunch time for immigration, budget fights, CNN, p. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/05/opinion/zelizer-august-recess/?hpt=po_c2) [MN]

August is going to be a crucial month for President Barack Obama.As the 113th Congress takes its recess, legislators will be returning to their states and districts to hear from constituents.The stakes are particularly high for Obama and Democrats, who have one last chance to sway the House Republicans before two hugely important issues are resolved: the immigration bill and the budget.As politicians in both parties begin to prepare for the 2014 midterms and think about the 2016 elections,

this fall might be the last real opportunity for the president to win congressional support for these big measures.Obama has made some progress in the Senate, where a small group of centrists in both parties has been mobilizing support behind compromise. The biggest challenge comes in the House of Representatives, where Republicans from solidly conservative districts have shown almost no interest in

compromising on these issues.The congressional "recess," like others that occur during the year, creates a huge window for citizens to make an impact on what legislators are thinking, as well as on what they will fear doing. As the columnist Ezra Klein recently wrote in The Washington Post, congressional "recess" is a misleading term since, "No one plays kickball. There aren't any juice boxes. ... They're still working."While many politicians and pundits decry the fact that the recess period keeps getting longer, they serve an important role. The difference from the rest of the work year, Klein explains, is that legislators, who tend to work about 60-hour weeks during these off periods, focus primarily on constituent issues rather than on policymaking and fundraising.These kinds of activities include town halls, individual meetings and other civic events where citizens have a chance to make their voices heard directly.It is true that Washington-based groups play a much bigger role these days in determining who comes out in these events, through what is called "Astroturf" lobbying, but still local citizens will be the main presence in these events.Conservative voters will just be playing prevent defense this month. They will be coming out to these meetings to predictably voice their opposition to any immigration deal that includes a path to citizenship, and they will tell Republicans to stand firm on the budget and insist on the continuation of the cuts in domestic spending that were instituted by

sequestration. The administration has to counteract this pressure , or Republicans will return in September without any reason to say yes. Obama does have some allies in this battle, particularly on immigration. Business organizations that favor liberalized immigration policies are working hard to mobilize support in Republican districts so that voters can show that not everyone who lives in the red part of the map is against the bill.They have support from prominent conservatives such as Karl Rove, who remains a major fundraiser for the party. Religious organizations are also joining the cause, as are immigration rights advocates who will make their voices known.The Alliance for Citizenship, a coalition supporting the immigration bill that passed the Senate, plans to flood 52 districts and 360 events with their supporters. Clarissa Martinez-De-Castro of the group La Raza said, "There is one thing we must make absolutely clear and that is that the forces and the voices pressing for immigration reform are vast and growing ..."

U 2NC

A budget compromise is coming --- Obama has the upper hand and momentum to push a budget through. That’s Wasson 7/21

Political capital controls the uniqueness --- it provides Obama with enough leverage to swing the opposition on sequestration. That’s Langekamp 13

GOP coalition is weakening --- they will compromise on sequestrationTerbush, 8/1/2013 (Jon, How the GOP boxed itself in on a budget deal, The Week, p. http://theweek.com/article/index/247780/how-the-gop-boxed-itself-in-on-a-budget-deal) [HJ]

Lately, however, cracks have begun to emerge in the GOP's "no negotiations, period" tactic. And with another round of sequester cuts looming — including deep cuts to defense spending that the Pentagon has warned could be problematic for national security —

Republicans may finally be feeling enough pressure to cave .On Wednesday, the House pulled a housing and transportation spending bill from the floor for lack of votes, the latest in a string of legislative setbacks that is widely seen as a rolling embarrassment for the House Republican leadership, particularly Speaker John Boehner (Ohio). While seemingly minor, the failure underscored how difficult a time Republicans have had passing their own bills — which are designed to replace the sequester cuts with handpicked savings from elsewhere in the budget.The GOP's failure to reach an intraparty consensus on Wednesday, on just one

slice of the overall budget, spelled the "potential ruin of its entire posture toward Obama ," wrote New York's Jonathan

Chait.Since the House Republican plan imposes all its austerity on a narrow slice of the budget — programs that are neither automatic income support, like Medicare or Social Security, nor defense — the cuts are extremely deep. So deep, it turns out, that many House Republicans themselves can't tolerate them.Several things lent special significance to what would otherwise appear to be a tedious procedural snafu. First, the push-back occurred among the mainstream wing of the House GOP, which has until now dutifully obeyed its leadership, giving all the leverage to the party's radical wing. Second, House Republicans are not just complaining about the defense cuts but also the domestic spending levels — that is, they're objecting not only to the piece of sequestration that's supposed to be Obama's leverage over them, but also to the piece that's supposed to be their leverage over Obama. Third, and most significant, you have a House Republican openly subverting Boehner's no-negotiation approach . [New York Magazine]Following the bill's failure, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) declared in a statement that "sequestration — and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts — must be brought to an end.""The House, Senate, and White House must come together as soon as possible on a comprehensive compromise that repeals sequestration, takes the nation off this lurching path from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, reduces our deficits and debt, and provides a realistic top-line discretionary spending level to fund the government in a responsible — and attainable — way," he added.The vote also has implications beyond the sequester, touching the very core of the Republican Party's platform when it comes to fiscal issues: The budget championed by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Republicans have essentially been holding votes that would theoretically implement the painful cuts contained in Ryan's budget, but as Wednesday's failed vote showed, Republicans couldn't stomach passing them.Here's Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler on that point:Republicans don't control government. But ahead of the deadline for funding it, their plan was to proceed as if the Ryan budget was binding, and pass spending bills to actualize it — to stake out a bargaining position with the Senate at the right-most end of the possible.But they can't do it. It turns out that when you draft bills enumerating all the specific cuts required to comply with the budget's parameters, they don't come anywhere close to having enough political support to pass. Even in the GOP House. Slash community development block grants by 50 percent, and you don't just lose the Democrats, you lose a lot of Republicans who care about their districts. Combine that with nihilist defectors who won't vote for any appropriations unless they force the president to sign an Obamacare repeal bill at a bonfire ceremony on the House floor, and suddenly you're nowhere near 218. [TPM]That leaves Republicans with two options: Work with Democrats, or let the sequester bite deeper and hope the political fallout isn't too bad.For Republican leaders to whip the rank and file into accepting a deal — and perhaps a highly unfavorable one, from their perspective — will be no easy task given how deeply divided the party has become. A Pew survey this week showed that vocal chunks of the party actually wanted the GOP to move further to the right on a host of issues, and that the Tea Party, for all the stories about its imminent death, still held an outsize influence on the party's politics. Further, it found that 67 percent of GOP voters thought the party had already compromised enough or too much

with Democrats.Still, as the latest failure in the House showed, Republicans are at the very least warming to the idea of compromise . Whether Congress can actually hammer one out is another story entirely.

GOP weakness means a fiscal compromise will happenO’Brien, 8/3/2013 (Michael, GOP divide over budget strategy unlikely to help get a deal, NBC News, p. http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/03/19818955-gop-divide-over-budget-strategy-unlikely-to-help-get-a-deal?lite) [MN]

But as conservatives gird for the fight – Boehner has demanded a dollar of spending cuts for every new dollar borrowed – some Republicans, mostly in the Senate, have peeled away from a strategy that would again take the U nited S tates to the brink of defaulting on its debt, as almost happened in August 2011. In particular, a vocal minority of Republicans have rejected a strategy advanced by conservatives like Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in which GOP lawmakers would

vow not to raise the debt ceiling unless Obama’s signature health care reform law is defunded. “It’s a non-starter . And I noticed that if you

look at the names … they weren’t around when we risked a shutdown of the government last time,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said at an AFL-CIO forum on Tuesday. “It’s a fact. When there’s a risk of a shutdown of the government, the Congress is blamed by the American people.”

The fault line might raise hopes that the president might finally find enough Republicans , at least in the Senate, to

advance some sort of fiscal compromise . Obama tried to set the parameters for such an agreement when he offered a corporate tax cut in exchange for new infrastructure and transportation spending.

Budget compromise coming --- Obama’s capital is keyZelizer, 8/5/2013 (Julian – professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, Crunch time for immigration, budget fights, CNN, p. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/05/opinion/zelizer-august-recess/?hpt=po_c2) [MN]

August is going to be a crucial month for President Barack Obama. As the 113th Congress takes its recess, legislators will be

returning to their states and districts to hear from constituents. The stakes are particularly high for Obama and Democrats, who have one last chance to sway the House Republicans before two hugely important issues are resolved: the immigration bill

and the budget . As politicians in both parties begin to prepare for the 2014 midterms and think about the 2016 elections, this fall might be

the last real opportunity for the president to win congressional support for these big measures. Obama has made some progress in the Senate, where a small group of centrists in both parties has been mobilizing support behind compromise . The biggest challenge comes in the House of Representatives, where Republicans from solidly conservative districts have shown almost no interest in

compromising on these issues. The congressional "recess," like others that occur during the year, creates a huge window for citizens to make an impact on what legislators are thinking, as well as on what they will fear doing. As the columnist Ezra Klein recently wrote in The Washington Post, congressional "recess" is a misleading term since, "No one plays kickball. There aren't any juice boxes. ... They're still working." While many politicians and pundits decry the fact that the recess period keeps getting longer, they serve an important role. The difference from the rest of the work year, Klein explains, is that legislators, who tend to work about 60-hour weeks during these off periods, focus primarily on constituent issues rather than on policymaking and fundraising. These kinds of activities include town halls, individual meetings and other civic events where citizens have a chance to make their voices heard directly. It is true that Washington-based groups play a much bigger role these days in determining who comes out in these events, through what is called "Astroturf" lobbying, but still local citizens will be the main presence in these events. Conservative voters will just be playing prevent defense this month. They will be coming out to these meetings to predictably voice their opposition to any immigration deal that includes a path to citizenship, and they will tell Republicans to stand firm on the budget and insist on the continuation of the cuts in domestic spending that were instituted by sequestration. Theadministration has to counteract this pressure , or Republicans will return in September without any reason to say yes . Obama does have

some allies in this battle, particularly on immigration. Business organizations that favor liberalized immigration policies are working hard to mobilize support in Republican districts so that voters can show that not everyone who lives in the red part of the map is against the bill. They have support from prominent conservatives such as Karl Rove, who remains a major fundraiser for the party. Religious organizations are also joining the cause, as are immigration rights advocates who will make their voices known. The Alliance for Citizenship, a coalition supporting the immigration bill that passed the Senate, plans to flood 52 districts and 360 events with their supporters. Clarissa Martinez-De-Castro of the group La Raza said, "There is one thing we must make absolutely clear and that is that the forces and the voices pressing for immigration reform are vast and growing ..." With the budget, the administration's supporters face a more difficult challenge. Yet even here, there are many Republican leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, who have no appetite for a government shutdown in

September over the budget, and they have strong incentives to encourage voters to come out to these meetings and call for a more reasonable approach to this ongoing standoff.

Fiscal compromise is comingTelegraph Herald, 8/5/2013 (Budget battle changing for Republicans, p. http://www.thonline.com/news/national_world/article_f3685a35-6712-56e1-b7ab-2d2f9be89429.html) [HJ]

Conservatives were stunned that their more moderate colleagues could not stomach the reductions they all had agreed to a

few months ago as part of an austere Republican budget plan.But other Republicans saw the revolt as inevitable : The budget slashing that has dominated GOP spending talks over much of the last year may have run its course, they said, suggesting that the time might have come to compromise with the White House ."It might be a wake-up call ," Republican Sen.

Johnny Isakson, of Georgia, a soft-spoken grandfather and former Sunday school teacher, said as he rode the Senate subway back to his office. "We may have reached our point."If so, the nation's best hope for avoiding a budget crisis and a possible government shutdown this fall might rest in the office of the low-key former real estate broker.Isakson has assembled a group of like-minded GOP senators who have been meeting quietly with President Barack Obama's staff. They've been seeking a resolution to the budget stalemate that has preoccupied

Washington all year and threatens to create a new crisis soon after Congress returns to work in September.Their private talks gained sudden currency with the failure late Wednesday of the spending bill covering government transportation, housing and

community development programs. The revolt in the House sent Republican lawmakers home on a sour note, frustrated that they had weakened their hand heading into negotiations with the administration.

Ext – Talks Have Momentum

Private talks show momentum is growingBennett, 8/4/2013 (John, New Hope for Dodging Sequester, Defense News, p. http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130804/DEFREG02/308040003/New-Hope-Dodging-Sequester) [MN]

To be sure, the much-anticipated “grand bargain” talks — delayed for months while Congress haggled over issues such as gun control, immigration reform and student loan relief — are in their embryonic stages. But they began in recent days differently than in previous attempts to strike the big fiscal deal that has proved so elusive. “People are having serious discussions now about

how to go forward,” Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, one of the Republicans whom Obama has courted, told reporters July 31. “We’re dealing with the brain trust of this issue. “We’re spending a lot of time with their chief of staff, their head fiscal person, [and] Sylvia from OMB,” Corker said. He was referring to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy Rob Nabors and Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Matthews Burwell. That means the foundation for a possible fiscal deal is being laid not by Obama and congressional leaders, but by compromise-minded Senate Republicans and White House staffers eager to hand their boss a domestic

policy feat that would be rivaled only by the passage of his controversial health care reform law. The talks have produced common ground on some ways to potentially lessen the defense and discretionary cuts, senators told Defense News. “I think there is

commonality around the fact that we can substitute some mandatory spending reductions for some discretionary spending reductions,” Corker said. “It’s a more balanced way of looking at deficit reduction. You get the same amount of deficit reduction, but over the next 10 and 20 and 30 years, it makes our country much stronger.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has been involved in talks with the White House, said he is “ increasingly hopeful ” about a long-term fiscal agreement being approved and signed this year. “Once you

try and fail at something 50 times, the 51st try gets easier ,” Graham said. “We’re beginning to realize what’s possible politically and what’s not.”

Ext – GOP Split

GOP fracture makes a fiscal deal likelyKhimm, 7/31/2013 (Suzy, Congress at impasse as budget clock ticks down, MSNBC, p. http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/31/what-me-worry-congress-stalls-as-government-heads-to-shutdown/) [MN]

The biggest hope for a resolution seems to lie within an increasingly divided Republican caucus . Both January’s fiscal cliff deal and the punt on February’s debt ceiling were brokered by moderate Republicans splintering from their more conservative colleagues to strike a deal: Boehner broke from the right flank of his party and found common cause with Democrats. That coalition could pave the way for at least a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government. And the divide between the Republican’s right-wing flank and the establishment has only grown in recent weeks. In early July, a handful of Senate Republicans broke ranks to pass the Democratic transportation and housing bill out of the appropriations committee—and some were explicit about defying the House to do it. “Are we to be just a rubber stamp for the House?” said Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who supported the bill. More recently, the party has been torn over the push by Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, and other Senate conservatives to tie the 2014 budget to an amendment defunding Obamacare, threatening to shut down the government if it doesn’t pass. Other Republican members have already shot down the idea as a surefire disaster for the party: The campaign is doomed to fail in the Senate and would place the blame squarely on GOP shoulders for

picking a fight that didn’t have to happen in the first place. The messy fight could make the GOP leadership more willing to make a deal . But it could also strengthen Democratic resolve to stick to their guns on rejecting sequestration, demanding far more than they

got in January. The fiscal cliff deal truncated sequestration, but still let it take effect for 10 out of 12 months. Democratic leaders like Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland now insist the sequestration cuts are completely unacceptable, even for a short-term budget deal.

Ext – GOP Will Compromise

GOP house leaders will compromise.Fox News, 8/4/2013 (House Republican leaders outline agenda for immigration, ObamaCare, budget talks, p. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/04/cantor-suggest-house-gop-open-to-sequester-compromise-defends-government-abuse/) [HJ]

House Republican leaders on Sunday outlined their caucus game plan for a critical next few months and beyond,

suggesting a potential compromise on the sequester before an October deadline and a final vote on immigration reform.House Majority Leader Eric Cantor suggested that congressional Republicans are open to a compromise to end the deep, undiscerning cuts to the federal budget known as sequester but said the deal would require Democrats agreeing to entitlement cuts.

Ext – Yes Continuing Resolution

The continuing resolution will passSahadi, 8/5/2013 (Jeanne, Washington’s budget brawl: 8 things you need to know, CNN Money, p. http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/05/news/economy/budget-fight/) [MN]

When Congress returns from its five-week summer break in September, lawmakers will face some make-or-break fiscal issues that they have once again left to the last minute. The stars seem aligned for an ugly fight over the federal budget, automatic spending cuts and the debt ceiling. At the heart of the issue: The two parties can't agree on a level of spending going forward, and there is disagreement even among Republicans as well. Experts expect deals will be struck by key deadlines, but that's hardly guaranteed. What's the first thing lawmakers must do? Fund the government past Sept. 30, which marks the last day of fiscal year 2013. Given the serious differences between the House and Senate on spending, there's no chance they will pass a real budget for fiscal year 2014. So lawmakers will at least have to pass a temporary funding bill known as a "continuing resolution," or CR, by Oct. 1. And if it's very short term,

Congress will have to pass another one -- or several -- before Dec. 31. Are they likely to pass a funding bill? Probably , but a lot could complicate the effort.

Sequestration Key 2NC

Extend Washington Post 13 --- sequestration undermines the effectiveness of the military by forcing tech and personnel cuts.

The timeframe is quick and the military is on the brink.Kredo, 7/23/2013 (Adam – senior writer for the Washington Free Beacon, Experts: Sequester Cuts Will Devastate U.S. Military, The Washington Free Beacon, p. http://freebeacon.com/experts-sequester-cuts-will-devastate-u-s-military/) [HJ]

Deep budgetary cuts known as sequestration have already slashed billions from the defense budget.However, another round of cuts set in place for October will further demoralize and destroy a military still reeling from two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,

according to those who testified before the Senate Budget Committee.“Sequestration was set up to be so stupid that no group of rational people would ever let it happen. Yet it’s happening,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), one of several lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who decried the sequestration.Warner described the cuts as “stupidity on steroids” and said that over the next decade, these cuts will “actually [cost] the taxpayer more dollars” as a result of the damage they will do to the military’s readiness and the overall U.S. economy.Sequestration, which was enacted last year after Congress failed to agree on a budget compromise, will cut some $1 trillion from the defense budget over the next decade.It has already led the military to ground warplanes, cut training, reduce operations, furlough employees, and

severely reduce troop levels.Additional cuts will not just prevent the military from responding to multiple global threats . They could create an economic catastrophe at home, military experts and Pentagon employees warned.Jennifer-Cari Green, a 26-year-old single mother and medical worker at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington, told lawmakers how forced furloughs have pushed her into poverty.“My salary has been subject to the three year federal pay freeze,” Green told lawmakers. “Because of the hiring freeze at DOD, I have been expected to do the work of two positions for over a year.”Forced to take an 11-day furlough, Green has lost about 32 percent of her take-home pay. She said the Pentagon had claimed that furloughed employees would only lose 20 percent of their take-home pay. Because of this, she cannot afford basic amenities for her child or even pay rent.“This furlough will likely cause me to slip below the line into poverty,” she said. “It feels punitive and I worry that it will make a ‘beggar’ out of me. I am afraid that I will be forced to seek handouts, government assistance, food bank donations, etc.”The furloughs have also impacted employee morale, Green said.“It is extremely difficult to come to work and do justice to this job, to care for our patients with the level of compassion, patience, concern, and courtesy they deserve when you know you don’t even have enough money to buy the bare necessities as a working adult,” Green said.“I am just one example of hundreds of thousands of federal employees whose lives are being so drastically damaged by these policies,” she said.While the sequestration is squeezing Americans domestically, it is

also gutting U.S. military assets abroad , experts said.The U nited S tates is almost at the point where it cannot respond to multiple conflicts in different regions, according to military expert Tom Donnelly, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).“The president’s defense guidance did represent the crossing of a Rubicon for this country,” Donnelly said. “To be a global power, to play the role the U.S. has played, requires us to be able to do two things at once, to fight two major campaigns at once.”However, “we have crossed that threshold … and we see the consequences not only of the strategic changing of course that’s been made, but by the steady erosion in the ability of the U.S. Army to execute the strategy that’s long been accepted by presidents of both parties”From the Middle East to the Pacific, the U nited S tates is sending a message to its allies and enemies alike that it is pulling back.“There’s no way the world is going to stay the same if the U.S. plays a lesser role in the world,” Donnelly said. It will be “less secure, less prosperous, and less free.”

Sequestration undermines military deterrence and invites aggressionO’Hanlon, 8/5/2013 (Michael – senior fellow at the Brooking Institution, A Weaker Military, Politico, p. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/opinion-a-weaker-military-95205.html?hp=l6) [MN]

The cuts are simply too high . That’s the key takeaway from a little-noticed new Pentagon report, the summary of which was unveiled last week by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and his deputy Ash Carter. The report, the Defense Department’s so-called Strategic Choices and Management Review, is designed to cope with the likelihood of additional defense budget reductions. It was a worthy exercise designed to produce options for Pentagon planners as they craft future budgets. But the review should have an additional purpose: to warn againstexcessive defense cuts in a time of considerable strategic turbulence abroad . And on this point, while Hagel and Carter understandably treaded lightly given political sensitivities in this budget environment, there is a very troubling message in their findings. The starkest example of this concerns the U.S. Army, which could lose another 70,000 to 100,000 soldiers in its active force and a comparable number in its reserve component under sequestration – the automated budget cuts, mandated by Congress, that began in March. That means another round of 15 to 20 percent cuts on top of the 15 percent cuts already underway. The Army would wind up significantly smaller than in the Clinton administration or at any other time since before World War II . A sense of perspective is in order. Today’s American military today is still quite expensive. And it is the second largest in the world, after China’s, in terms of personnel. But it is only modestly larger than those of North Korea, India, and Russia. And the U.S. Army is substantially smaller than several others in the world today, including India, China, and North Korea. But the costly, all-consuming ground wars of the last decade are coming to an end, right? Well, maybe.

After Iraq and Afghanistan, many believe the country’s military priorities can and should turn to air and sea operations, special forces, cyber, and the like. And there’s some truth to that argument. But latching onto some strategic fad to justify radical cuts in the U.S. Army or Marine Corps is no way to run a military. To understand why, just look at how advocates of a “revolution in military affairs” were able to warp America’s approach to war in the years before the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. These proponents argued for cuts of tens of thousands more soldiers than were implemented; thankfully their more extreme views were not adopted. The subsequent decade then proved that even with all the progress in sensors and munitions and other military capabilities, the United States still needed forces on the ground to deal with complex insurgencies and other threats. We also learned the hard way after Vietnam. That war led the Army, and the nation, to dismiss future counterinsurgency operations as unappealing and unnecessary. It was a good assumption, until it wasn’t, and our preparedness for both Iraq and Afghanistan was much weaker than it should have been as a result. Throughout the 1990s, U.S. ground forces were sized and shaped primarily to maintain a two-war capability. The wars were assumed to begin in fairly rapid succession (though not exactly simultaneously), and then overlap, lasting several months to

perhaps a year or two. Three separate administrations—George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, and a total of five defense secretaries (Richard Cheney, Les Aspin, William Perry, William Cohen and Donald Rumsfeld)—endorsed some variant of the two-war capability. They formalized the logic in the first Bush administration’s 1992 “Base Force” concept, the Clinton administration’s 1993 “Bottom-Up Review” followed four years later by the first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and then secretary Rumsfeld’s own 2001 and 2006 QDRs. These reviews all gave considerable attention to both Iraq and North Korea as plausible adversaries. More generally, though, they postulated that the United States could not predict all future enemies or conflicts, and that there was a strong deterrent logic in being able to handle more than one problem at a time . Otherwise, if engaged in a single war in one place, the United States could be vulnerable to opportunistic adversaries elsewhere . With Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gone, much of this specific force sizing

can and should change. But the core deterrent logic of being able to conduct more than one large operation at a time should not be simply dismissed. And the possible need for stabilization or counterinsurgency capabilities should not be downplayed to excess, either. The Obama administration initially agreed. Its 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review stated that after successfully concluding current wars, “in the mid- to long term, U.S. military forces must plan and prepare to prevail in a broad range of operations that may occur in multiple theaters in overlapping time frames. That includes maintaining the ability to prevail against two capable nation-state aggressors.” Still, Obama scaled back the presumed likelihood of two truly simultaneous large land wars in which simultaneous offensive operations would be needed. That was a reasonable modification given the changed strategic environment. But the January 2012, Pentagon guidance went further, placing somewhat more limited demands upon U.S. forces. It stated: “Even when U.S. forces are committed to a large-scale operation in one region, they will be capable of denying the objectives of—or imposing unacceptable costs on—an opportunistic aggressor in a second region.” The same review also stated that planning for large-scale stabilization missions would no longer drive the size of U.S. ground forces. Now, the Strategic Choices and Management Review would go further still, taking the 2012 strategic guidance as an invitation to cut back ground forces quite substantially. But it would go too far, leaving the U.S. military without the ability to conduct one large operation while simultaneously sustaining perhaps two smaller, multinational ones. We may not need a two-war requirement per se, but a prudent new ground-force planning paradigm should still have the capacity for “one war plus two missions” or “1 + 2.” Those missions might, for example, include residual efforts in Afghanistan or perhaps contribution to a future multilateral stabilization force in Syria or Yemen (even if such missions seem unlikely and undesirable at present). They could include U.S. participation in a future international force designed to help implement a two-state peace deal in Israel and Palestine. They could include deterrent deployments in places like Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates if Iran becomes belligerent after a possible U.S. airstrike against its nuclear facilities (I do not advocate or predict such an operation at present, but a force planner cannot prudently rule it out either). And with North Korea still threatening the South and still building nuclear weapons, it would be most imprudent to weaken our deterrent capabilities for that theater. This “1+2” approach strikes the right balance. It

is prudent because it provides some additional capability if and when the United States again engages in a major conflict, and because it provides a bit of a combat cushion should that war go less well than initially hoped. It is modest and economical, however because it assumes only one such conflict at a time (despite the experience of the last decade) and because it does not envision major ground wars against the world’s major overseas powers on their territories. And it allows for a smaller Army than today. Still, by my calculations, it would require something like 450,000 active-duty soldiers, not the 400,000 or even less that could result from sequestration. Simply put, and as the

new Pentagon review demonstrates, sequestration-scale defense reductions on top of those already in the works are a bad idea —

not only because of the pace at which they would require cuts in the short term , but because they would simply cut

the U.S. military too much for the dangerous world in which we live.

Impact – AT: No Sequestration Impact

1. Even a limited cut hurts military power --- the DOD would have to make costly trade-offs. That’s the 1NC Washington Post 13 evidence

2. Adversaries would believe the U.S. could be exploited even if sequestration didn’t have a tangible effect --- that’s the 1NC FPI 11 evidence.

3. Perception is key --- it invites counter-balancing and aggression.Spencer, 9/15/2000 (Jack - policy analyst for defense and national security at the Heritage Foundation, The Facts About Military Readiness, p. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2000/09/BG1394-The-Facts-About-Military-Readiness) [MN]

U.S. military readiness cannot be gauged by comparing America's armed forces with other nations' militaries. Instead, the capability of U.S. forces to support America's national security requirements should be the measure of U.S. military readiness. Such a standard is necessary because America may confront threats from many different nations at once. America's national security requirements dictate that the armed forces must be prepared to defeat groups of adversaries in a given war. America, as the sole remaining superpower, has many enemie s. Because attacking America or its interests alone would surely end in defeat for a single nation, these enemies are likely to form alliances . Therefore, basing readiness on American military superiority over any single nation has little saliency . The evidence indicates that the U.S. armed forces are not ready to support America's national security requirements. Moreover, regarding the broader capability to defeat groups of enemies, military readiness has been declining. The National Security Strategy, the U.S. official statement of national security objectives,3 concludes that the United States "must have the capability to deter and, if deterrence fails, defeat large-scale, cross-border aggression in two distant theaters in overlapping time frames."4 According to some of the military's highest-ranking officials, however, the United States cannot achieve this goal. Commandant of the Marine Corps General James Jones, former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson, and Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael Ryan have all expressed serious concerns about their respective services' ability to carry out a two major theater war strategy.5 Recently retired Generals Anthony Zinni of the U.S. Marine Corps and George Joulwan of the U.S. Army have even questioned America's ability to conduct one major theater war the size of the 1991 Gulf War.6 Military readiness is vital because declines in America's military readiness signal to the rest of the world that the U nited States is not prepared to defend its interests. Therefore, potentially hostile nations will be more likely to lash out against American allies and interests, inevitably leading to U.S. involvement in combat . A high state of military readiness is more likely to deter potentially hostile nations from acting aggressively in regions of vital national interest, thereby preserving peace.

Impact – Turns Economy

Budget fight causes an economic shockHunt, 8/4/2013 (Albert, Obama, Republicans Gird for Next Round of Debt Chicken, Bloomberg, p. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-04/obama-republicans-gird-for-next-round-of-debt-chicken.html) [HJ]

In Washington, both sides anticipate a huge fight this autumn over the budget, the mandatory spending cuts under the so-called sequestration and the debt ceiling. They’re expecting the other guy to jump first.House Republicans think President Barack Obama is bluffing when he says he won’t negotiate on lifting the debt ceiling. They contend that the president’s position isn’t nearly as strong as it was at the end of last year, when the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush were about to expire. Obama, who had lots of leverage then, got half a loaf.The White House recalls Speaker John Boehner’s discomfort with the game House Republicans played with the debt ceiling in 2011, which hurt both the economy and their party. Privately, they say that Boehner doesn’t wish to wage that fight again when the limit is reached late this year and that his demand that any increase in the debt ceiling be matched by comparable spending reductions is a bluff. That position is

unacceptable to Obama and Democrats.The stakes are high in this game of chicken; a miscalculation could send shock waves through the economy .

Failure to raise the debt ceiling collapses the U.S. economySahadi, 8/5/2013 (Jeanne, Washington’s budget brawl: 8 things you need to know, CNN Money, p. http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/05/news/economy/budget-fight/) [MN]

Raising the ceiling simply lets Treasury continue to pay all the country's obligations that Congress has already approved -- whether it's a payment to a federal contractor, a Social Security check to a senior, or interest on the debt to a bond investor.What happens if the debt ceiling isn't raised? Uncle Sam still has revenue coming in to pay for government services and agencies. Just not enough to pay for everything. And the longer the debt ceiling crisis lasts, the harder it would be to keep government operations

running."After two weeks you'd have ab solute paralysis ," said Steve Bell, economic policy director at the Bipartisan Policy Center.More problematic: The country could no longer pay all of its bills in full and on time. Treasury then would have to make legally murky decisions about who to pay and who to stiff.Even if bond investors continue to be paid on time, the country could still be perceived as in default if it fails to pay its other legal obligations.And if the full faith and credit of the U nited

S tates is called into question, that could be disastrous for markets and interest rates -- which would harm the U.S. economy and Americans' financial well being.

Impact – AT: Empirically Denied

The conditions for this budget fight make an economic collapse likelyJohnson, 7/28/2013 (Steven, Congress Budget Showdown Looms, Reuters, p. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/28/congress-budget_n_3666377.html) [MN]

Another year, another battle over the U.S. budget. It's hardly what investors need, but it looks like they're going to get it just the same.That doesn't mean it's time to panic. Last December's showdown over tax policy, while unpleasant, turned out to be just a minor speed bump for the U.S. stock market, which raced to record highs after Congress struck a last-minute deal on New Year's

Day.But with investors already nervous about the Federal Reserve's plan to start scaling back its stimulus program, another fiscal policy standoff could be more disruptive this time around .In recent days, both Democrats and Republicans have been digging in their heels , setting up another possible nerve-wracking battle over the debt ceiling, which the Treasury expects to hit by November."Hearing Washington banter back and forth over this again was like a recurring bad dream," said Ron Florance, deputy chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Private Bank, which manages $170 billion in assets."We've already had the Federal Reserve adding volatility to markets, which, frankly, it should be doing at this point. Now we may see the legislative branch adding volatility, which it should not be doing," Florance said.A similar drama over the debt ceiling in 2011 wore on for months, ultimately costing the United States its top triple-A credit rating and unleashing a global market rout.Of course, much depends on how the economy performs in the second half of the year and what the Fed decides to do. If growth picks up steam and the Fed only modestly pulls back in its $85 billion-a-month buying of debt securities, as expected, then it might be easier to overlook Washington gridlock.But if the economy stumbles, or if the Fed puts on the brakes harder and causes long-term interest rates to rise further and faster than expected, things could get dicey .