The United States Federal Government should Significantly Reform its Policy Towards Russia

Thank you for accepting and responding. In this round, I’ll clear up some misunderstandings about my plan, some logical fallacies, and deal with the ethanol subsidies argument. In the United States there were 1.5 million homeless children in the United States. This is more than double the number that you presented. It is imperative that the United States help those who need help in our country rather than other countries. I whole heartedly agree with Con that this is important. In fact, even MORE important than the US. But! That has nothing to do with my plan. As you know, my funding was Ethanol Subsidies. If my funding was “Money for US orphans”, then there would be a problem because I’m taking money away from the US orphans. But no, I’m not doing anything derogatory to that effect. In the SQ, certain measures are being taken to help the US orphans. With my plan, those measures are still there the same amount. This argument is a logical fallacy, namely false dilemma. Con is trying to make you vote against my plan when this point doesn’t even apply. HIV and AIDS This point is a misunderstanding about my plan. I am not cutting Russia’s efforts to work on HIV/AIDS, even though they mostly fail. I know that it is helpful to teach people drug abstinence as well. This plan is merely giving USAID money so they can work on some problems, including HIV/AIDS. I’m not ending drug prevention. In fact, I’m encouraging that and other effective ways of working on the problem. This is also a false dilemma fallacy. Foreign Aid being cut: The United States needs to get the economy "back on track" and hopefully begin to eliminate the budget deficit to do this the United States needs money. One place to get money is from the foreign aid budget. Again, I agree this is important. But this is, again, a false dilemma. With my plan, foreign aid will still be cut. The evidence from Samuel Worthington talking about foreign aid being cut still stands because Foreign Aid will STILL be cut, even with this plan. So there’s no extra debt there. The only difference is that we’re sending a billion to Russia in aid with this plan. So my opponent’s argument is more like “We shouldn’t create extra debt”. I agree we shouldn’t create extra debt. My plan ISN’T creating debt. You see, in the Status Quo, 1 billion goes to ethanol subsidies. With this plan it’s beingdiverted to USAID. We won’t be spending any extra money. Thus this debt argument is a fallacy and doesn’t apply. The only real argument in the last round was the ethanol subsidies one. Con provided evidence hailing ethanol subsidies as the next greatest thing after sliced bread. But… 1: Biased source. This source is ABOUT ethanol. Of course it’s going to be praising ethanol. 2: This plan is not cutting all funding to ethanol, just 1/7 of it. 3: I have my own source that disproves each of these points. This is the main response. Environment --Using ethanol as a motor fuel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 46%. Using just 10% ethanol in your gas tank reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 19%.— Corn-based ethanol, the kind produced in the United States, saves little if any carbon and produces little if any net gain in energy compared with petroleum. Even the most optimistic studies give corn ethanol only a tiny advantage over petroleum, nowhere near large enough to justify the scale of current subsidies. (1) Economy--Also, Ethanol is cheaper. It costs only 75 cents a gallon to refine Ethanol fuel. Meanwhile it can cost up to $1.60 to refine oil. Ethanol supports local farmers as well, for obvious reasons.-- First consider opportunity costs. Economists use this term to mean the full costs of goods and services, taking into account all opportunities sacrificed to produce and use them. The opportunity costs of petroleum, ethanol, and other transportation fuels include costs of production, most of which are reflected in market prices, plus other costs, which are not. The effects of pollution, including both climate impacts and harm to local air quality, are one reason that opportunity costs exceed market prices. National security risks arising from dependence on foreign energy suppliers are a further important opportunity cost. The ostensible purpose of ethanol policy is to offset these costs by encouraging substitution of low-carbon domestic fuel for high-carbon foreign fuel, but in reality, the policy makes the situation worse, not better……the costs of U.S. ethanol policy exceeded its benefits by more than $3 billion per year. Letting ethanol subsidies and tariffs expire as scheduled would have been a fine holiday gift for the U.S. economy. (1) Ouch, that means that we’re losing 3 billion each year because of ethanol. That’s bad for our economy, not GOOD. 2: Regarding the “supporting farmer” issue: Farmers can make corn for other purposes. It’s not like corn is only useful as ethanol. Ethanol causes inflation because it means less corn is being used as it should be and instead is being used for ethanol. That means when you buy something with corn in it, it’s expensive because of ethanol. “Also, other countries such as Brazil” The article goes on to say why Brazil is successful. In the case of ethanol, comparative advantage belongs, hands down, to sugarcane-based ethanol from Brazil. The net energy yield from sugarcane-based Brazilian ethanol is about 8:1, compared to barely more than, or perhaps less than, 1:1 for the U.S. corn-based product. Unfortunately, Brazilian ethanol is saddled with a prohibitive $.54 per gallon tariff, just renewed. The result is an enormous loss of potential gains from trade in the form of a cleaner environment and lower consumer costs--gains that far outweigh the added profits of U.S. corn farmers and ethanol distillers. (1) In other words, it’s only successful because their ethanol is better. Let’s move on to a misunderstanding of our case concerning corruption in Russia. Corruption in Russia I agree that Russia has a very corrupt system and wastes money a lot. In fact, that’s WHY we need this plan! You see, Con is basing this argument on the misunderstanding that we’re giving this money to USAID who will give it to Russia. No, instead, USAID administers the money themselves. We don’t have to worry about Russia’s government misspending the money if they don’t even handle it! This argument falls apart. Moving on to my advantages. 1. Humanization: Cross-apply what I said above. This argument is a false dilemma fallacy. 2. HIV/AIDS combated Ah, I get what my opponent is saying. Con is trying to say that we don’t need to help work on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I have several responses. 1: The 1 billion my plan is sending goes to a lot more than just HIV/AIDS. EVEN IF Con was right about this (which he is not), it wouldn’t be enough reason to vote against me. 2: Con ignored my inherency evidence stating that Russia’s work on HIV/AIDS has failed. Cross-Apply that. Evidence trumps his illogical argument. 3. National Security Misunderstanding again. My inherency evidence stated that cutting foreign aid will make the US unsafe. Thus, by sending 1 billion to Russia at no debt to us, we’re reversing this partway in respect to Russia. My evidence proves my point. Secondly, Con provided no counter evidence. He has the burden of rebuttal. He must prove the opposite. there are many domestic problems that need to be solved Again, I agree. But this plan isn’t hurting our work on those problems. Instead, it’s making us more fiscally responsible. Thank you. My opponent has provided no reason to vote Con. Thus please vote Pro. (1): http://oilprice.com...