The United States federal government should substantally increase alternative energy incentives

1. His first argument is that if we can "irresponsibly spend", we can do the plan, and that we should maintain our national "credit score" and have a responsible plan for repayment of our debts. However, although it may make us feel good to have thrifty savers and spenders in Congress, he has yet to point out WHY excessive deficit spending is bad. We have engaged in massive deficit spending for years, with the deficit going up in some years, and down in others. During World War II, the deficit soared, and yet in the 1990's, we had a budget surplus. So why is the deficit too high now? How high does it need to get before the situation becomes critical? He cannot simply say that we need to be responsible unless he shows the consequences of being IRRESPONSIBLE. Until he shows some major impact to continued deficit spending, I will continue to argue that saving the world from biosphericide is more important than adding a few hundred million to the deficit. 2. His second argument is that I focus only on IFR's, and not on alternative energy as a whole. However, I don't have a burden to defend EVERY type of alternative energy. Rather, I chose one specific case which proves the general proposition, because this allows us to discuss the issue in greater depth. An in depth discussion of these issues is preferable to shallow, surface-level debate about 17 different types of energy. 3. His third argument is that the IFR is a "pet project" and that the government can only spend money on projects which have gathered significant public interest, and spending on "pet projects" is unconstitutional and a betrayal of the voters unless it is comparatively better than other needs. This argument is so totally baseless and without evidence that I'm not even sure how to respond. I guess I'll make several points: a. He has articulated no impact to spending money on pet projects. He argues that it may be unconstitutional, or a betrayal of voters, but I will answer that below. Other than that, he doesn't say WHY pet projects are bad. If a pet project will prevent the agonizing death of billions, then we should do it, regardless of whether or not it has widespread public support. b. Congress spends money on pet projects all the time. Almost every piece of spending legislation contains "pork barrel" projects designed to curry favor with a legislator's voters. Again, he doesn't say why THIS project is bad, only that in general such projects are bad. But if that's true, why haven't we seen the impacts he describes? c. Congress has the right to spend money on pretty much whatever it wants, and the taxpayers have only one remedy: vote the legislator out of office. In Frothingham v. Mellon, the Supreme Court said that taxpayers do not have a right to sue the government to stop unconstitutional government spending, unless the spending PERSONALLY affects them in some special or unique way as compared to other taxpayers. Furthermore, the Supreme Court in Helvering v. Davis said that the constitution gives the Congress the power to spend money on whatever it considers the "national good" without having its judgment challenged. Thus, because it is reasonable that saving the world from biosphericide is in the national good, spending money on even a "pet project" is not unconstitutional. 4. His fourth argument is that the free market has developed long term innovations in the past, and to allow the government to subsidize IFR development violates the "cardinal" of free competition. But why is free market competition good? He makes the argument that government funding of IFR's will distort the free market. Fine. But he still has the burden to show why this is bad. What will happen if IFR funding distorts the free market? IFR's won't be built by the free market, so the choice is between a distorted market with IFR technology, or a free market with traditional nuclear power. I have shown that we risk biosphericide if we use the free market. What is the impact to distorting the free market? 5. His fifth argument is that government acting to stop waste dumping in Yucca Mountain is fine, but investing in a company gives it unfair competition. I have three points: a. The IFR was developed at Argonne National Laboratory in Idaho. We can't begin to mass produce IFR's until the prototype is completed for government inspection and review. The funding is going to a national laboratory. I don't see how this creates some kind of new "nationalized entity with unlimited resources" to compete against private firms. The laboratory already exists. The prototype was only 2-3 years away from completion in the mid 1990's. This funding will complete the prototype so it can be mass produced. b. I sincerely hope that he's not arguing that government investment into research violates the free market. Without government research, we would not have the internet, which was created by the pre-cursor to DARPA. According to Neil Osterweil of the MedPage Daily, the National Institute for Health provides 28% of all funding for bio-medical research. He continues to claim that government investment would interfere in the "supposedly open market." However, the there is no "open market" – we subsidize the oil and coal industry now. If those subsidies were to end, coal and oil would become more expensive, and the "energy crisis" would return, and IFR's might seem economically competitive. However, because that is essentially impossible, the free market will continue to use oil, coal, and traditional nuclear – dooming the planet to biosphericide. c. Finally, on the off chance that he actually presents some evidence showing why the free market is good, I'll preempt that. The free market is terrible. According to Dr. Richard Robbins, capitalism and the free market will inevitably destroy the earth for four reasons: i. The technological revolution, including pesticides and automobiles, has done potentially irreversible damage to the environment. Regardless of the global warming debate, the millions of cars emitting pollution, the industrial waste, the contamination of waterways, and the destruction of forests have stressed the earth to its breaking point. ii. The free market has led a consumption movement which will cause cataclysmic change. In the drive to consume more goods, we have destroyed a large amount of our natural resources in order to turn it into "consumable products." Even the destruction happening in developing countries is caused by their supply of raw materials to be produced into products which we purchase. iii. Modern American lifestyles have influenced the free market to produce large amounts of beef for our consumption. However, cattle use huge amounts of resources compared to growing grains such as rice, and as the demand for beef will increase in the U.S. and developing countries, more strain will be put on the environment. iv. The free market prevents the development of an effective environmental movement. Poll after poll shows that Americans, even conservatives, support efforts to protect the environment. However, this is not translated into action because environmentalism conflicts with capitalism. The destruction of the planet due to ecological catastrophe is beyond the lifespan of any individual living now. Any rational free market participant would conclude that they shouldn't care about the environment, because "in the long run, we'll all be dead." Thus, the only people who have an economic incentive to care about the environment will be those who are living when the problem threatens their survival – and by then, it will be too late. 6. His sixth and final argument is that if federal subsidies are not the best way to reach alternative energy, then we should do them. However, he completely ignores all of my points from 3d from Round 2. I only have to prove that we SHOULD do the plan, not that it is the BEST plan.