1nc - spending

Trump’s budget SIGNALS our commitment to fiscal health – puts spending on a dietBoccia et al 5/23/17 (Romina, Thomas Spoehr, Michael Sargent, Robert Moffitt, Lindsey Burke, Policy Analysts @ Heritage Foundation, "Heritage Experts Analyze Trump's Budget," http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tsys7BhRhBMJ:www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/heritage-experts-analyze-trumps-budget+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

Balancing the Budget "The president's budget seeks to balance in no more than 10 years . This is a laudable and important goal that fiscal conservatives should keep their eye on. The budget does this in part with sensible mandatory spending reforms to Medicaid, welfare and disability programs. This budget proposal also follows the right approach on discretionary spending, by prioritizing national defense in a fiscally responsible way, with offsetting cuts to domestic programs that are redundant, improper, or otherwise wasteful. As is so often the case, however, the devil is in the details. Long-term budget solvency must include reforms to the largest entitlement programs: Medicare and Social Security. These programs alone consume 4 of every 10 federal dollars, and they are expanding. Moreover, this budget would rely on $2 trillion in economic feedback effects for deficit reduction, a figure that is highly uncertain. Greater spending cuts would have lent more fiscal

credibility. Overall, this budget takes important strides toward cutting the federal government down to size ." —Romina Boccia, Deputy Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and the Grover M. Hermann fellow in federal budgetary affairs Defense “Though the White House is right to call for more, much-needed defense funding, $603 billion represents only a $16.8-billion increase from the Obama administration’s meager planned defense spending for 2018. A $603 billion budget for 2018 might be enough to stop the immediate deterioration and cuts in forces, but it will certainly not be enough to reverse the ravages already experienced. Perhaps the most heartening thing about this request is the administration’s follow-through on its expressed intent to repeal the defense budget caps set by the Budget Control Act of 2011, which have been both disruptive and destructive to military readiness. The U.S. military—in both size and readiness—has shrunk to historically low levels, all while its budget has been held hostage to domestic policy whims. Naysayers downplay the poor state of the military. But those who deny the existence of readiness problems are contradicted by the repeated testimony of dozens of senior uniformed and civilian military leaders. Those leaders uniformly agree that today’s military is desperately overtaxed and under-resourced. As the Heritage Foundation’s Index of U.S. Military Strength reports, today our armed forces would be severely challenged to execute our defense strategy with the current force. The Heritage Foundation has proposed a 2018 funding level of $632 billion. It includes proposals for defense reform and savings to help restore our military’s strength and punch. Lawmakers finally need to demonstrate that they take the duty to provide for the common defense quite seriously. Lip service is not enough. We must begin to provide our men and women in uniform the equipment and resources they need to defend our country. Congress must hear and heed the Pentagon’s candid voice in the upcoming budget debates. And lawmakers must then act to begin rebuilding our depleted military now.” —Thomas Spoehr, Director of Heritage's Center for National Defense Transportation and Infrastructure “The administration’s budget contains a number of laudable transportation and infrastructure proposals that reform wasteful or improper programs while empowering states and the private sector to meet the nation’s burgeoning transportation needs. Many of the reforms were recommended by the Heritage Foundation in its roadmap for $1.1 trillion in infrastructure investment and Blueprint for Balance, including: structural reform of our outdated Air Traffic Control system; reforming the wasteful Essential Air Service program; and auctioning off valuable spectrum for private use. Also encouraging is the proposal to reform the financing of the nation’s inland waterways infrastructure, which has long required modernization. “However, many questions about the Administration’s signature infrastructure proposal remain. Worrisomely, the budget includes an additional $200 billion in spending as a placeholder for ‘private/public infrastructure investment’ with few details as to how the funds will be allocated. Details regarding the plan and whether they will be offset with meaningful cuts elsewhere will be crucial in evaluating the plan and ensuring a repeat of the 2009 stimulus boondoggle is avoided. In addition, the Budget includes a proposal to assume Highway Trust Fund spending levels fall to revenue levels—a savings of $15 billion to $20 billion per year. While limiting trust fund spending to revenues would be excellent policy, it is highly unlikely Congress will decide to rein in its overspending out of the Highway Trust Fund, which it has carried on for nearly 10 years. Simply assuming these savings will accrue without putting forward a substantive proposal to ensure that Congress stops its mismanagement of the trust fund would represent a nearly $100 billion budget gimmick and cannot be considered to have a real budgetary impact. “While the Budget contains many worthwhile reforms, more details regarding the administration’s infrastructure proposal are required in order to form a comprehensive evaluation of the administration’s infrastructure agenda.” —Michael Sargent, Policy Analyst in Heritage's Institute for Economic

Freedom and Opportunity Education “The Trump administration’s full budget for education for FY 2018

would make some long-overdue cuts at the Department of Education, eyeing reductions in

spending totaling $9.2 billion – a 13.6 percent cut in the agency’s current $68 billion annual budget. That type of

reduction signals a serious commitment to reducing federal intervention in education – a

necessary condition to make space for a restoration of state and local control.” —Lindsey Burke, Director of Heritage's Center for Education Policy

Federal school nutrition regulations are costly – take huge bites out of education fundingWolfgang 11 (Ben, Staff @ Wash Times, "‘Healthier’ school lunch at what cost?," 5/16, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:71upB-TAB50J:www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/16/healthier-school-lunch-at-what-cost/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

If the federal government gets its way, critics are warning, school lunches will be more expensive and less appetizing and ultimately will leave school districts footing the bill for costly food going down the garbage disposal . Under regulations proposed this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would have the final

say on what students eat. Educators fear the guidelines , trumpeted by first lady Michelle Obama and others as a key to

curbing childhood obesity, will take a huge bite out of school budgets while resulting in “healthier” meals that make youngsters turn up their noses. “Under the proposed rule, school meals would become so restrictive they would be unpalatable to many students,” said Karen Castaneda, director of food service at Pennridge School District in Perkasie, Pa. For example, Ms. Castaneda said, the proposed sodium restrictions for student lunches resemble diets previously reserved for those battling serious illnesses such as kidney disease. The rules also would require students to eat more fruits and vegetables, forcing schools to serve extra apples and broccoli even if experience shows that children can’t - or won’t - eat them.

Breakfast programs are especially worrisome. “The proposal will double the fruit serving … [and] would add a required meat serving daily,” said Sally Spero, food planning supervisor for the San Diego Unified School District. “Nothing is achieved when money is spent on food that children won’t even be able to consume and nothing is more

disheartening … than to see perfectly good and perfectly untouched food thrown into the trash.” The regulations would also require schools to spend more money for fresh fruits and vegetables . Many districts now serve cheaper canned fruits or frozen vegetables.

Any further fiscal expansion sparks a dollar crisisMacleod 2/24/17 (Alasdair, financial analyst @ Gold Eagle, "Global (economic) warming," http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1487954873.php)These are just some of the upcoming challenges facing America at the macro-level. If the economy was on its uppers, Trumpenomics

could be reasonably compared with Reaganomics. But that is not the case. The economy is operating close to capacity, by which we mean that any further fiscal and monetary expansion will begin to create supply

bottlenecks and economic overheating . Commodity prices are already rising, driven by Asia’s regeneration. An

accelerating US budget deficit , at this stage of the credit cycle, seems certain to lead in to a

dollar crisis , not in the distant future, but brought forward to later this year, taking US Treasury bond prices down with it. Bond

yields will rise The potential for rising dollar nominal bond yields, being suppressed too low for

this advanced stage of the credit cycle, is great and brings systemic dangers. American and international corporations rated at or close to junk will be threatened with bankruptcy. Investment-grade bonds will in turn become junk. Today’s level of private sector debt is simply unaffordable at much above zero interest rates. The effect of higher bond yields on government finances will be most unwelcome at a time of escalating US budget deficits. Worse still will be the effect on euro-denominated bond yields. A rise along the euro yield curve of not much more than one or two per cent could force the ECB into recapitalising itself at a most embarrassing juncture, and the survival of some major Eurozone banks, which have accumulated mountains of Eurozone sovereign

debt on slender capital bases, will also be threatened. And this is before we consider the financial consequences of a European Union that’s threatening to split up, raising questions about the euro’s own future. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Trump’s tax and infrastructure plans will bring forward the end of the dollar’s current credit cycle, and those of the euro and sterling with it, into a new crisis phase. A falling dollar will drive the gold price Whether or not the dollar rises or falls against other currencies is not the point, the point is its purchasing power is already declining against a basket of industrial materials, and therefore gold. This remains true even if Trump wises up to the risks he is creating, because China’s demand for natural resources and energy is already driving

commodity prices higher. Given the risks the dollar now face s in the coming months , it is hardly surprising the gold price is rising, after its weakness in the final quarter of last year. It has surprised many market observers that a higher interest rate outlook, accentuated by Trump’s plans, has failed to stop the gold price rising. And here we come across something else that most Western-centric market commentators fail to appreciate. At the margin, Asian governments and their peoples prefer physical gold to dollars. Dollars are for transactions, when you take them in payment and then pass them onto someone else in exchange for goods and services. Gold is for keeping, and saving for the financing of capital projects, the collateral of last resort for borrowing depreciating dollars. Looked at that way, it is understandable that Asia will continue to dump its excess dollars for gold. China has been expecting the switch out of dollars into gold for a considerable time. Indeed, it has contributed to it by setting up the Shanghai Gold Exchange, to give its own citizens the chance to protect themselves from declining fiat currencies by accumulating gold. More recently, it has introduced an international futures contract, pricing gold in yuan. It intends to do the same with oil futures but has deferred that part of the plan. China’s energy suppliers, receiving yuan, would be able to sell the yuan forward against oil, buy gold futures and take delivery of physical gold. This would badly undermine the dollar, and China is not yet ready for that eventuality, because she has too many dollars in her reserves. China still has about $1 trillion of US Treasuries and T-bills, which it is converting into commodity and energy stockpiles. Obviously, it will want to reduce its UST and T-bill holdings further, before it effectively pulls the plug on the dollar by launching the oil futures contract. Furthermore, China will probably wait to see what a meeting between Presidents Xi and Trump yields before launching the promised oil futures contract anyway. To summarise…. The global economy recovered during 2016, driven by China’s mercantilist plans. So massive has this stimulus been, that in the near future

a danger is developing of supply bottlenecks in key commodities. The US economy has finally begun to perform reasonably well, despite what the doomsayers have been telling us. The Trump stimulus, if carried through, is not only too much too late, it is conflicting and downright dangerous. US interest rates should have already been raised by now to more normal levels, but the normalisation of rates risks triggering a crisis through a mass liquidation of malinvestments. This may be the reason for

the Fed’s reluctance to raise them to the correct level. Furthermore, with a widening budget deficit in prospect, it is hard to see how US Treasuries will avoid tipping into a vicious bear market. The risk is of

a perfect storm .

That sparks US-China nuclear war and destroys global cooperation Porter 6 (Dave , Director of Business Development–Structures at General Dynamics, “Oregon Steel”, Blue Oregon, 12–8, http://www.blueoregon.com/2006/12/ff_oregon_steel.html)There could be a soft landing or a domestic and international disaster. As Clyde Prestowitz in "Three Billion New Capitalists: The

Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East" writes: "The nightmare scenario – an economic 9/11 – is a sudden , massive sell–off of dollars ; a world financial panic whose trigger might be as minor, relatively speaking, as the

assassination of a second–rate archduke in a third–rate European city. A collapse of the dollar and its consequent abandonment as the world's reserve currency would create a deep recession in the United States. Gas and fuel prices would soar, anything imported would suddenly become much more expensive, interest rates would jump, as would unemployment. The "stagflation" of the 1970's – slow growth and high unemployment combined with double–digit interest rates–

would look like a walk in the park. And since the United States is at present the world's only major net importer, all of the exporters that depend on it for their economic stability would suffer severely as well. It's the thought of these consequences that make the big dollar holders so nervous, and makes them, for now, hold on to their excess dollars."

Our economy has been totally mismanged and it's scary. And beyond the worldwide economic ruin, international

cooperation would break down and wars would erupt . Peoples around the world would be so

vulnerable and angry that they would blame and envy their neighbors. I am particularly concerned about China–US relations during the rest of the 21st century. Both countries would be under severe stress in such a scenario. Nuclear exchanges would not be impossible . As I have argued in our proposal "Developing the

China Connection through Educational Programs," we need to give our children the skills to get through such a crisis.

1nc - states

Text: The United States federal government should grant decision making and funding power over school lunch and nutritional programs to the states. The fifty state governments of the United States should substantially increase funding for nutrition education, Farm to School lunch programs, and require the removal of vending machines and competitive food options and that school lunches meet uniform nutritional standards requiring increased fruits and vegetables for elementary and secondary education.

States solve better and the CP’s key to avoid federal overreach—education policy is key Kevin D. Roberts, 17 – Ph.D., longtime educator who is Executive Vice President of the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin (2/7, “States, Not the Feds, Should Lead Education Reform.” http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2017/02/07/states_not_the_feds_should_lead_education_reform__110115.html)

The era of Donald Trump offers conservative reformers opportunities they have not seen since the 1980s. The most significant are in education , where the fed eral

government has aggrandized its power , rendering states impotent . This overreach comes at

the expense of two things very dear to the nation— our school children and our

understanding of shared power .

Though the Trump administration will no doubt address the former problem, its means

of doing so may very well exacerbate the latter . Too often, well-intentioned, conservative executives end up using federal power to heal the wounds caused by the very same bludgeon—federal power.

If President Trump is correct in his inaugural exhortation that “now is the hour of action,” then states —not federal bureaucrats— need to lead the charge on education

policy .

Among the many problems facing American education, the most significant may be our schools’ and colleges’ utter failure to teach civic education. Two generations of American students have been taught precious little about the American Founding or the Constitution, let alone the philosophical foundation of the American system of government—federalism. That notion of shared power between the federal government and states has, as a result, withered.

How fitting, then, that Texas—where the American spirit of independence, work ethic, freedom and a vibrant notion of state power is palpable—take the lead in renewing federalism. And how fitting that it do so in the policy area where revitalized state power is most needed: education.

During the otherwise-bleak years of the previous administration, the Lone Star State has shined as a beacon of liberty, deregulation and restrained government authority. Harkening to Justice Louis Brandeis's early-20th-century comment that “states are the laboratories of democracy,” Texas-based initiatives have sprouted across the nation. It's no Texan braggadocio to observe that nationwide, efforts in tort reform, deregulation, tax reduction and criminal justice reform originated in Texas. The resulting “Texas Model” has become the blueprint for leaders in dozens of states.

And that is precisely how our system should work . Though we are all familiar with the legitimate claims based on state sovereignty and the Tenth Amendment, our Founders viewed those as mere baseline expectations . In the realm of public policy, they saw the states as taking the initiative , being so bold and innovative that the federal government would have to serve as a check on them— not the other way around , as the case has been in recent years.

As the Obama administration would be the first to say, Texas has led those efforts to check federal power. That defensive posture was necessary—and, for the Republic, crucial. But now Texas and other states must seize the field of education

policy , exercising their own power with bold policy initiatives .

The timing for Texas policymakers is perfect. The state's biennial legislative session has just begun, and the momentum for an education overhaul has never been stronger. At the National School Choice Week rally earlier this week, both Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick gave rousing, full-throated endorsements of school choice reforms.

There are obstacles, to be sure, but even the defenders of the status quo recognize that it's hard to defend the mediocrity of the status quo.

Among the many school choice vehicles, the most far-reaching—for Texas and the United States—is an Education Savings Account (ESA). Built on the successes of early choice vehicles such as tax-credit scholarships, ESAs offer wider and easier usage, removing the barriers to access that have been foisted on choice programs by opponents. Parents may use an ESA to pay for a host of education-related expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, special needs programs and books.

In sum, an ESA gives parents an unprecedented means for customizing their child’s education—the exact opposite of the conveyor-belt, cookie-cutter approach that has become modern American education.

Though some reformers have advocated for federal ESAs, the inefficiency inherent

in the large federal bureaucracy begs for states to take the lead . Texas, the most populous state with a bent toward conservative, free-market reforms, has a unique opportunity to show that states , as our Founders expected, can be at the forefront of policy innovation.

There could not be more at stake. Our children deserve an end to zip-code discrimination, which dramatically limits their access to decent educational options. Furthermore, the civic health of our American Republic —in particular, the long-standing view that states, not the feds, would lead— hangs in the balance .

If there ever was a time for all Americans to summon the Spirit of 1836—the year of the Texas Revolution—now would be the time.

1nc - federalism

Uniqueness—Federalism is strong now. Education is key. Commitment and support are strong throughout the federal system. Somin 5/22/17

Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, and popular political participation., “Jeffrey Rosen on “federalism for the left and the right”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/05/22/jeffrey-rosen-on-federalism-for-the-left-and-the-right/?utm_term=.8c85cf84846fMany of the issues that recent presidents have tried to decide at the national level through executive orders are best resolved at the state or local levels

instead. In an era of fierce partisan divisions, all sides are beginning to see the virtues of our federal system in

accommodating differences—and encouraging experimentation—on issues such as immigration, law enforcement and education.

Federalism has long been a cause on the right, but now it’s just as likely to be a rallying cry on the left. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary’s immigration and border-security subcommittee, recently said: “The Constitution, specifically the Tenth Amendment, protects states’ rights, and it prohibits federal actions that commandeer state and local officials. When it comes to immigration, these principles seem to be overlooked”

The framers of the Constitution would be pleased with this emerging consensus. By creating a national government with limited powers, they intended to allow the states and local governments to pursue a range of different policies on matters within what used to be called their “police powers”—that is, their authority to regulate behavior, maintain order and promote the public good within their own

territory. The founders considered this arrangement the best way to protect liberty and diversity of opinion, as well as to defend political minorities from nationalist tyranny and concentrated power….

A respect for federalism and state autonomy is perhaps the only way that all sides can peacefully coexist in today’s political environment. With dysfunction now reigning on Capitol Hill and federal courts increasingly ready to strike down the unilateral action of presidents, Americans will at least be able to take some comfort in local autonomy and control. In these polarized times, citizens who strongly disagree with each other may be able to unite around the goal of making federal power less intrusive and national politics less of a contest where the winner takes all.

Link—Trump’s stance on education is key to federalist balance—Trump must follow through on current XO’sPease 5/16/17

“GETTING BACK TO THE CONSTITUTION IN EDUCATION”. Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. https://www.northdenvertribune.com/2017/05/16/federal-power-grab/

But an executive order is not enough and can be rescinded by the next president, as Trump is doing to his predecessor. The EO restricts itself to “under the law”

and Congress (both parties) clearly passed these major education laws identified in the order. Trump must more fully hinge his argument

on the Constitution and on the doctrine of federalism , which preceded the Constitution as a carry-over from the Articles of

Confederation, our first national constitution. He should do so by arguing that he has no authority to enforce law that violates the separation of powers as created by the Constitution, which he has sworn to uphold. He must also encourage Congress to

rescind those laws or, through the states, create a new amendment to the Constitution using Article 5 of the Constitution. Otherwise , this immediate

victory , his EO, will be short lived .

One of the first questions I ask students in an into to government class, since every textbook has a chapter on federalism is, “Who cares most whether Johnny can read, his mother or federal bureaucrats located hundreds often thousands of miles away.” It is generally agreed his mother does and is in a position to do most to remedy the problem by direct access to his teacher and school and can run for the school board if not satisfied.

A second question, “Who suffers most if the school fails Johnny?” Again, his mother as responsible bureaucrats have moved on and she is left long term with the consequences of their failure with Johnny. As a life-long student or instructor, I have never seen evidence that the federal government can administrate the needs of Johnny better than most parents.

My best and most caring teacher did her “magic” in a remote country school of two rooms; one a library the other a classroom. She taught all grades 1-8 at once with two or more

students from each grade. No electronic aid or devices—only a chalkboard and books. Government policies and money raining down from afar generally discourage individuality in teaching and creativity. Instead they often spawn collective thought, (the enemy of real education), by their distribution of money favoring some ideas and groups.

Federalism and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers to retain it and to specifically list the powers of the federal government in Article I Section 8 leaving all

other powers, in this case education , at state and local levels, was brilliant . Hopefully, the Trump EO will strike a new public debate eventually remov ing all federal influence and funding in education . Trump is not yet a

constitutionalist, but this move alone shows him closer than the vast majority of presidents in my lifetime.

Internal link—U.S. Federalism is modeled globallyCalabresi 95

Associate Professor at Northwestern University School of Law- (Steven, "Symposium: Reflections On United States V. Lopez: "A Government Of Limited And Enumerated Powers": In Defense Of United States V. Lopez," Michigan Law Review, December 1995, Lexis)

At the same time, U.S. -style constitutional federalism has become the order of the day in an extraordinarily large number of [*760] very important countries , some of which once might have been thought of as pure nation-states. Thus, the Federal

Republic of Germany, the Republic of Austria , the Russia n Federation, Spain , India , and Nigeria all have decentralized power by adopting constitutions that are significantly more federalist than the ones they replaced. Many other nations that had been influenced long ago by American federalism have chosen to retain and formalize their federal structures. Thus, the federalist constitutions of Australia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, for example, all are basically alive and well today. As one surveys the world in 1995,

American-style federalism of some kind or another is everywhere triumphant, while the forces of nationalism, although still dangerous, seem to be contained or in retreat. The few remaining highly centralized democratic nation-states like Great Britain, France, and Italy all face serious secessionist or devolutionary crises . Other highly centralized nation-states, like China, also seem ripe for a federalist , as well as a democratic, change . Even many existing federal and confederal entities seem to face serious pressure to devolve power further than they have done so far: thus, Russia, Spain, Canada, and Belgium all have very serious devolutionary or secessionist movements of some kind. Indeed, secessionist pressure has been so great that some federal structures recently have collapsed under its weight, as has happened in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union.

Impx—Federalism prevents violence, secessions, and rebellions—prefer empiricsLawoti 3/18/09“Federalism for Nepal”, Mahendra Lawoti is professor at the department of political science at Western Michigan University, writer of several books and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh with dissertation of Exclusionary Democratization: Multicultural Society and Political Institutions in Nepa., http://www.telegraphnepal.com/backup/telegraph/news_det.php?news_id=5041

Cross-national studies covering over 100 countries have shown that federalism minimizes violent

conflicts whereas unitary structures are more apt to exacerbate ethnic conflicts . Frank S. Cohen

(1997) analyzed ethnic conflicts and inter-governmental organizations over nine 5-year –periods (1945-1948 and 1985-1989) among 223 ethnic groups in

100 countries. He found that federalism generates increases in the incidence of protests (low-level ethnic conflicts) but stifles

the development of rebellions (high-level conflicts). Increased access to institutional power provided by federalism leads to more low-level conflicts because local groups mobilize at the

regional level to make demands on the regional governments. The perceptions that conflicts occur in federal structure is not entirely incorrect. But the conflicts are low-level and manageable ones. Often, these are desirable conflicts because they are expressions of disadvantaged groups and people for equality and justice, and part of a process that consolidates democracy. In addition, they also let off steam so that the protests do not turn into rebellions. As the demands at the regional levels are addressed, frustrations do not build up. It checks abrupt and severe outburst. That is why high levels of conflicts are found less in federal countries. On the other hand, Cohen found high levels of conflicts in unitary structures and centralized politics. According to Cohen (1997:624):

Federalism moderates politics by expanding the opportunity for victory . The increase in opportunities for political gain comes from the fragmentation/dispersion of policy-making power… the compartmentalizing character of federalism also assures cultural distinctiveness by offering dissatisfied ethnic minorities proximity to public affairs. Such close contact provides a feeling of both control and security that an ethnic group gains regarding its own affairs. In general, such institutional proximity expands the opportunities for political participation, socialization, and consequently, democratic consolidation.

Saidmeman, Lanoue, Campenini, and Stanton’s (2002: 118) findings also support Cohen’s analysis that federalism influences peace and violent dissent differently. They used Minority at Risk Phase III dataset and investigated 1264 ethnic groups. According to Saideman et al. (2002:118-120):

Federalism reduces the level of ethnic violence. In a federal structure, groups at the local

level can influence many of the issues that matter dearly to them- education, law

enforcement, and the like. Moreover, federal arrangements reduce the chances that any

group will realize its greatest nightmare: having its culture, political and educational

institutions destroyed by a hostile national majority .

These broad empirical studies support the earlier claims of Lijphart, Gurr, and Horowitz that power sharing and

autonomy granting institutions can foster peaceful accommodation and prevent violent conflicts among

different groups in culturally plural societies . Lijphart (1977:88), in his award winning book Democracy in Plural Societies,

argues that "Clear boundaries between the segments of a plural society have the advantage of limiting mutual contacts and consequently of limiting the chances of ever-present potential antagonisms to erupt into actual hostility". This is not to argue for isolated or closed polities, which is almost impossible in a progressively globalizing world. The case is that when quite distinct and self-differentiating cultures come into contact, antagonism between them may increase. Compared to federal structure, unitary structure may bring distinct cultural groups into intense contact more rapidly because more group members may stay within their regions of traditional settlements under federal arrangements whereas unitary structure may foster population movement.

Federalism reduces conflicts because it provides autonomy to groups. Disputants within federal structures or any mechanisms that provide autonomy are better able to work out agreements on more specific issues that surface repeatedly in the programs of communal movement (Gurr 1993:298-299). Autonomy agreements have helped dampen rebellions by Basques in Spain, the Moros in the Philippines, the Miskitos in Nicaragua, the people of Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts and the affairs of Ethiopia, among others (Gurr 1993:3190) The Indian experiences are also illustrative. Ghosh (1998) argues that India state manged many its violent ethnic conflicts by creating new states (Such as Andhra Pradesh, Gujurat, Punjab, Harayana, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland) and autonomous councils (Such as Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, Bodoland Autonomous Council, and Jharkhand Area autonomous Council, Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council). The basic idea, according to Ghosh (1998:61), was to devolve powers to make the ethnic/linguistic groups feel that their identity was being respected by the state.

By providing autonomy, federalism also undermines militant appeals. Because effective autonomy provides resources and institutions through which groups can make significant progress toward their objectives, many ethnic activities and supporters of ethnic movements are engaged through such arrangements. Thus it builds long-

term support for peaceful solutions and undermines appeals to militant action (Gurr 1993:303).

Policies of regional devolution in France, Spain and Italy, on the other hand, demonstrate that establishing self-managing autonomous regions can be politically and economically less burdensome for central states than keeping resistant peoples in line by force: autonomy arrangements have transformed destructive conflicts in these societies into positive interregional competition".

1nc - solvency

1. School lunch changes insignificant – must change the cultureHaskins 05 - senior fellow at Brookings [Ron Haskins, The School Lunch Lobby, 2005 / VOL. 5, NO. 3, http://educationnext.org/the-school-lunch-lobby/]The school-lunch reauthorization bill enacted by Congress last year contained a host of measures to improve nutrition, such as encouraging the Department of Agriculture to make more fresh fruits and vegetables available to local schools, creating an initiative to encourage partnerships between schools and local produce farms, and increasing the availability of whole grains in school meals. Of

course, Congress and school administrators must face the fact that students will not necessarily make the food choices that are best for their health . Children will choose a salad over a juicy cheeseburger about as often as they choose educational TV over MTV. It is hard to argue with any of these good food initiatives, but

expectations about how much school food programs can contribute to increasing the consumption of nutritious foods and reducing the national problem with childhood obesity should be modest. There are after all, around 120,000 elementary and secondary schools in the

United States, and more than 90 percent of them participate in the school-lunch program. Trying to move all these facilities in the same direction is a huge undertaking. What’s more, even if school food met every guideline for fat, saturated fat, and sugar, the impact on children’s weight would probably be modest because children’s consumption of food at home and in fast-food pens would continue unabated . By the time they reach middle and late childhood, students seem determined to

maximize consumption of their two favorite food groups: fat and sugar. Children’s preference for foods that are bound to make them fatter is established outside the school system. Unless we are prepared to remove all unhealthy foods from the schools–to minimize consumption of sugars and fats–there are obvious limits to the strategy of giving kids food choices. Schools can and should fight to improve the consumption of nutritious foods, and even to change students’ eating habits,

but unless the nation’s food culture , food advertising , and patterns of food consumption at home and in fast-food restaurants undergo massive change , the schools will be waging little more than a rear-guard action . Even so, given the level of federal spending on the school food programs, it is reasonable to expect both Congress and the Department of Agriculture to put pressure on schools to aggressively implement wellness policies that minimize the consumption of fat and sugar on school property. To do so, schools may well be forced to reduce some food

choices that have minimal nutritional value. Expect school lunch to continue moving inexorably along its well-traveled path of slow change and modest improvement while relying on its friends inside and outside Congress to fight off big shocks and spending cuts. At this very moment, as in 1981 and 1995, Washington is gearing up to make serious cuts in social programs to balance the budget. Will school lunch, and that 20 cents per meal middle-class subsidy, be on the menu? Fat chance.

2. No Solvency - Food outside school is still unhealthy and promotes industrial farming culture

3. School lunch regulations aren’t followed – too expensiveFox News 1 – 25 – 17 [Republicans look to scrap Michelle Obama school lunch plan, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/25/republicans-look-to-scrap-michelle-obama-school-lunch-plan.html]

Since 2012, the U.S. Department of Ag riculture has implemented the requirement – tied to the 2010 law –

that schools include either a fruit or vegetable for lunches subsidized by the federal government. However, a report published in August 2015 by researchers at the University of Vermont found even though students added

more fruits and vegetables to their plates, “ children consumed fewer [fruits and vegetables] and wasted more during the school year immediately following implementation of the USDA rule.” Titled “Impact of the National School Lunch Program on Fruit and Vegetable Selection,” the report noted that average waste increased from a quarter cup to more than one-third of a cup per tray. Observing students at two northeastern elementary schools during more than 20 visits to each, researchers took photos of students’ trays after they chose their items, as they were exiting the lunch line and again as they went by the garbage cans. The study's conclusions comport with widespread complaints from school officials and parents that the program encourages food waste. It also has drawn criticism for cost, implementation difficulties and unpopularity with students. Further,

since the restrictions on calories, fat, sugar, sodium, whole grains, fruits and vegetables went into effect, it is estimated that over 1.2 million students have stopped eating school lunches , according to EAGnews.org. School systems also dropped out of the program because it led in some cases to compliance costs exceeding the amount of federal subsidies received.

4. States and localities backlash and opt-out of the lunches - they will always choose the cheapest option

5. Childhood health practices don’t influence adult behavior – obesity rates proveBasham & Luik 08 – Professor at Johns Hopkins & Senior Fellow at the Democracy Institute, London [Basham, Patrick, and John Luik. "Is the obesity epidemic exaggerated? Yes." BMJ: British Medical Journal 336.7638 (2008): 244]

There is considerable evidence that most fat adults were not fat children .14 Moreover, the thousand families cohort study found both little consistency between childhood overweight and adult obesity and no net increase in adult risk of disease for overweight children or teenagers. Nor did childhood thinness protect against either adult obesity or coronary vascular disease.14 15

Some in the public health community believe that deliberate exaggeration or, indeed, misrepresentation of the risks of

diseases or certain behaviours or our capacity to prevent or treat them on a population-wide basis is justified, if not demanded, in the interests of health. Since many of the exaggerations come from people who understand the scientific uncertainties

around overweight and obesity, it seems that these individuals have adopted such an approach to the obesity epidemic. The unwelcome implications of this for science policy and for evidence based medicine dwarf those of any obesity epidemic, real or imagined.

1nc - health

1. Health care costs going down – limited deficit impactGrunwald 14 - senior national correspondent at Time magazine [Michael Grunwald, Lower Health Care Costs Brighten America's Debt Outlook, Jul 16, 2014, http://time.com/2993605/health-care-debt-deficits-budget/ ]

For years, America’s health care costs grew at an unsustainable rate. That was the main reason America’s long-term fiscal position

looked unsustainable as well; Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs were spiraling out of control. But our health care cost inflation is no longer unsustainable . That’s huge news, because it means our long-term deficits should be manageable, too. Louise Sheiner and Brendan Mochoruck of the Brookings Institution compared the Congressional Budget Office’s latest fiscal outlook with its projections from five years ago, and the shift is striking. In 2009, the CBO expected Medicare spending to skyrocket from 3% to 6% of GDP by 2030; it now expects much

more modest growth to less than 4% of GDP. Overall, former CBO director Peter Orszag, President Obama’s first budget director, calculated the projected savings in federal health spending since the 2009 report at $7.9 trillion. Those numbers, like all long-term budget estimates, could change radically. And while Obamacare’s cost controls contributed to the cost slowdown, it’s not clear how much they contributed. Policy wonks and political hacks will have

plenty of time to argue about why the cost curve is bending. But the trend itself, as Orszag argues, is the most important trend in fiscal policy in decades . It’s the difference between a deficit crisis and a phantom deficit crisis. In 2009, graphs of projected federal health spending looked like ski slopes; graphs of all other

spending looked like sidewalks. The long-term deficit problem was basically a medical problem. Now it’s not such a problem. The question is whether Washington will notice. Republicans have spent the last five-and-a-half years griping about the budget deficit, and most of their gripes have been absurd. They were wrong to accuse President Obama of creating a record trillion-dollar deficit, which he actually inherited from President Bush. They were wrong to criticize Obama for increasing the deficit with his 2009 stimulus bill, which was an amazingly effective Keynesian response to an economic crisis; the budget-balancing austerity approach the GOP was advocating led to much slower recoveries and double-dip recessions in Europe. And they were wrong to accuse Obama of turning the U.S. into Greece; the deficit has shrunk by more than half during his presidency, dropping from 10 percent of GDP to less than 4 percent as the recovery has progressed. We still have a big national debt, and the CBO expects it to grow from 74% of GDP today to 106% in 25 years. We’ll spend trillions of dollars servicing that debt, and we should remember how Bush squandered President Clinton’s surpluses with unpaid-for tax cuts and unpaid-

for wars every time we cut the check. But we are not Greece. Our finances are looking better in every way.

2. Too long of a timeframe - it takes decades for the change of school diets to have an effect on military recruitment

3. Obesity epidemic is exaggeratedBasham & Luik 08 – Professor at Johns Hopkins & Senior Fellow at the Democracy Institute, London [Basham, Patrick, and John Luik. "Is the obesity epidemic exaggerated? Yes." BMJ: British Medical Journal 336.7638 (2008): 244]

The claims , both in the media and in professional publications , about an epidemic, its causes,

consequences, and cure often exceed the scientific evidence and mistakenly suggest an unjustified degree of certainty. The fact that cases are “clearly above normal expectancy” anchors the concept of an epidemic. In this respect, describing obesity as an epidemic is subject to two difficulties.

Definition of normal

Firstly, it is difficult to determine normal expectancy. Much of the data on overweight and

obesity are limited , equivocal, and compromised in terms of extent and the reliability of the measurements and

the populations sampled. In the US, for example, data about population weights date from only 1960. Several pieces of evidence, however, suggest that the contemporary situation may be close to,

rather than in excess of, normal. The earliest national survey shows that in 1960 45% of the US population was overweight, accordingto sex specific weight for height tables (corresponding to a body mass index of 25 to <30).1 In the 1970s, 22% of US men aged 18-19 were overweight compared with 16.7% of boys aged 12-19 in 2002.2 Fogel’s ongoing work in various countries on the relation between health, mortality, nutrition, and technology suggests that as populations grow healthier, prosperous, and long lived

they gain in height and weight.3 Moreover, current data are highly equivocal in their support for claims of an epidemic. For example, the average population weight gain in the US in the past 42 years is 10.9 kg or 0.26 kg a year.4 Yet, between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, there were no significant changes in the prevalence of overweight or obesity among US adults or in the prevalence of overweight among children.2

Association with mortality

Secondly, the determination o f the categories of normal, overweight, and obese is entirely arbitrary and at odds with the underlying evidence about the association between b ody m ass i ndex and mortality , a fact that destroys the index’s scientific pretensions and diagnostic value. The bands

for overweight and obesity in the US, for example, are the product of the 1997 National Institutes for Health task force report on the prevention and treatment of obesity that supposedly links these bands to increased risk of death. However, the

study on which the report is based does not support these linkages.5 It found that the death risks for men with a body

mass index of 19-21 were the same as those for men who were overweight and obese (29-31). The study’s findings are not unusual. Flegal and colleagues found the weight group with the lowest death rate was overweight,6 while Gronniger’s

analysis found negligible differences in risk of death among people with body mass values from 20 to 25.7 Even where there are significant associations, the risks are so modest as to be highly suspect . For example, whereas the reported lung cancer risks for smokers are typically 10-15 times higher than for non-smokers, the death risks for overweight and obese

people are in many instances closer to 0.5-1.75 above those for people with normal weight.8 Despite the supposedly abnormal

levels of overweight and obesity, life expectancy continues to increase. According to the UK Office for National Statistics, the current life expectancy of 77.2 years for men and 81.5 for women will rise by 2031 to 82.7 and 86.2, respectively.9

4. Healthcare cost rise is inevitable - insurance collapse and social security bankruptcy proves

5. No impact to economic decline --- countries respond with cooperation not conflict Clary 15—PhD in Political Science from MIT and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown [Christopher, “Economic Stress and International Cooperation: Evidence from International Rivalries,” MIT Political Science Department, Research Paper No. 2015-8, p. 4]

Economic crises lead to conciliatory behavior through five primary channels. (1) Economic crises lead to austerity pressures , which in turn incent leaders to search for ways to cut defense expenditures.

(2) Economic crises also encourage strategic reassessment , so that leaders can argue to their peers

and their publics that defense spending can be arrested without endangering the state. This can lead to threat deflation, where elites attempt to downplay the seriousness of the threat posed by a former rival. (3) If a state faces multiple threats, economic crises provoke elites to consider threat prioritizatio n, a process that is postponed during periods of economic normalcy. (4) Economic crises increase the political and economic benefit from international economic cooperation . Leaders seek foreign aid, enhanced trade, and increased investment from abroad during

periods of economic trouble. This search is made easier if tensions are reduced with historic rivals. (5)

Finally, during crises, elites are more prone to select leaders who are perceived as capable of resolving economic difficulties , permitting the emergence of leaders who hold heterodox foreign policy views. Collectively, these mechanisms make it much more likely that a leader will prefer conciliatory policies compared to during periods of economic normalcy. This section reviews this causal logic in greater detail, while also providing historical examples that these mechanisms recur in practice.

6. US leadership is inevitableBeckley 11—Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a Fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia [Michael, “The Unipolar Era: Why American Power Persists and China’s Rise Is Limited,” September, http://michaelbeckleydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/beckley_writing-sample6.pdf]

The second assumption is that U.S. hegemony is highly consolidated . In other words, American power is

entrenched to the point that other countries accept it as a fact of life they must deal with rather than a condition they can hope to change. The U.S. enjoys this status because it is the world’s first extant hegemon – it did not overturn an existing international order, rather, the existing order collapsed around it, leaving the U.S. alone at the apex of a global system of alliances and international institutions.21 As a

result, the U.S. has become the “greatest superpower ever” with a more complete and dominant portfolio of economic, military, and institutional capabilities than past hegemons ever had.22

In terms of economic capabilities, the U.S. combines size with a high level of development and a low

level of dependency , not only possessing the largest GDP in the world , but also the highest

per- ‐ capita GDP and the lowest ratio of trade to GDP among the major powers.23 The military gap between the U.S. and others is even starker. U.S. military spending constitutes nearly 50 percent of global military spending and is eight times greater than that of the number- ‐ two power (China).

Even before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. had over 200,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen deployed in more than a

hundred countries. As a result, the U.S. is the only country with global power projection capability . The U.S. also plays a leading role in all major international institutions. In the United Nations (UN), the U.S. is one of five permanent members of the Security Council and thus holds veto rights over all matters that come before the

council. The U.S. can also ignore the Security Council, as it did in waging war in Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq in

2003, because it is capable of unilaterally deploying decisive military power. The U.S. is also the dominant power in

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe is always an American officer,

and NATO allies depend on the U.S. for security much more than the other way around. Moreover, American contributions to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are sufficient to give the U.S. veto power over any major policy change, and U.S. market power makes it the most influential member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

These dominant capabilities translate into influence . Most obviously, they provide the U.S. with an array of tools with which to reward and punish other states. The United States can provide, restrict, or deny access to the American market, technology, foreign aid, political support in international organizations, bribes, and White House visits. These tit-‐for-‐tat bargains with individual

states, however, are not as consequential as America’s power over aspects of the international system. Hegemony is not just preponderant power , it is “structural power.” 24 It is the power to set agendas, to shape the

normative frameworks within which states relate to each other, and to change the range of

choices open to others without putting pressure directly on them . It is, at once, less visible but more profound than brute force.25

In past bipolar and multipolar eras, U.S. structural power was constrained by the twin risks of “abandonment” and “entrapment.”26 Because other great powers were around to provide vital services and protection for weaker states, the United States had to go to great lengths to attract and retain allies. During the Cold War, for example, medium powers, such as Egypt and India, played the superpowers off against each other, extracting concessions from one by threatening to abandon it and align with the other.27 Even nominal American allies frequently pursued strategies that ran counter to U.S. interests: France defected from NATO’s military command and attempted to undermine the Bretton Woods system by purchasing large amounts of gold from the U.S. treasury; Germany and Japan resisted U.S. demands to devalue their currencies; and many states rebuffed American requests for military and financial assistance in the war in Vietnam. Some weaker states also entrapped the U.S., dragging it into conflicts, such as the wars in Korea and Vietnam, it might have avoided if not for the need to enlist allies in the struggle against another major power.

Traditional theories assume that hegemons inevitably get bogged down and suffer from strategic overextension.28 But I argue this scenario does not apply in a world in which hegemony is backed by a unipolar distribution of power. Today, with no superpower rival, the U.S. has less need for staunch allies and is therefore more insulated from abandonment and entrapment.29 Allied threats to abandon America are not as consequential as they once were

because the U.S. can provide for its own security and cobble together “coalitions of the willing” to accomplish

many of its aims. This reduced dependency also means the U.S. is less likely to be dragged into conflicts by its alliance commitments.30 Weaker states, on the other hand, face heightened risks of abandonment and entrapment by the United States. With no alternative superpower patron to turn

to, weaker states face a choice of participating in the American- ‐ led order or risking exclusion from the international community. In order to maintain good relations with the United States, weaker

states may follow it into conflicts that do not directly serve their own national interests.31 In short, the U.S. now has more leverage vis- ‐ à - ‐ vis weaker states than before . As a result, it can demand a higher price for its support and privilege its own interests with greater impunity.

This is not to say that the U.S. can completely shirk its alliance commitments and force weaker states to bear the costs of maintaining international order. Indeed, America’s influence stems in part from its globe-‐girdling network of alliances and institutions, a system

that is extremely expensive to maintain and requires sustained U.S. engagement. Rather, I argue that the United States is both “system- ‐ maker and privilege- ‐ taker ” – it pays a significant share of system- ‐ maintenance costs, but takes a disproportionate share of the benefits.32

For example, the U.S. bears major military burdens. 33 It formally guarantees the security of over 50 countries, has fought twice as many wars after the Cold War as during it, and spends 25 percent more (in real dollars) on defense today than it did in 1968 at the

height of combat in Vietnam.34 On the other hand, by maintaining robust military capabilities, the U.S. is

able to employ “force without war,” pressuring other countries into concessions by simply shifting U.S. military units around or putting them on alert.35 Military dominance also allows the U.S. to run a protection racket, garnering influence through the provision of security. As Joseph Nye explains:

Even if the direct use of force were banned among a group of countries, military force would still play an important political role. For example, the American military role in deterring threats to allies, or of assuring access to a crucial resource such as oil in the

Persian Gulf, means that the provision of protective force can be used in bargaining situations. Sometimes the linkage may be direct; more often it is a factor not mentioned openly but present in the back of [officials’] minds.36

7. US leadership doesn’t solve warsMonteiro 14—Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale [Nuno, Theory of Unipolar Politics, p. 181-184]

At the same time, the first two-and-a-half decades of our unipolar system have been anything but peaceful in what concerns U.S, involvement in interstate conflict. U.S. forces have been employed in four interstate wars – Kuwait (1991), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001-), and Iraq (2oo3-2011) – in addition to many smaller interventions including Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, and Sudan.5 As a result, the United

States has been at war for fifteen of the twenty-five years since the end of the Cold War , In fact,

the first two-and-a-half decades of unipolarity — representing around 1o percent of U.S. history account for more than 30 percent of the nation's total wartime . 6 For critics of U.S. interventionism, " the central

question [of contemporary international politics] is how to contain and moderate the use of military

force by the U nited S tates."8

Table 5 presents a list of great powers divided into three periods: from 1816 to 1945, multipolarity; from 1946 to 1989, bipolarity; and unipolarity since 1990.9 Table 6 then presents summary data about the incidence of war during each of these periods.

Unipolarity is by far the most conflict prone of all systems according to two important criteria: the percentage of years that great powers spend at war and the incidence of war involving great powers. In multipolarity, 18 percent of great-power years were spent at war versus 16 percent in bipolarity. In unipolarity, in

contrast, a remarkable 64 percent of great-power years have been until now spent at war – by far the

highest percentage in all systems . Furthermore, during multipolarity and bipolarity the probability that war involving a great power would, break out in any given year was, respectively, 4.2 percent and 3.4 percent. Under unipolarity , it is 16.o percent – or around four times higher .

It might be argued that the higher number of years that great powers spent at war under unipolarity are

merely the result of the long, grinding, and unforeseen occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S. forces.11

But even if these two wars had gone according to U.S. plans – if the Afghanistan War had ended in the spring

of 2002 and the Iraq War in the summer of 2003 – unipolarity would still be particularly prone to great-

power involvement in war . Even if the United States had not occupied either Afghanistan or Iraq, it would still have spent 16.0 percent of the post-Cold War years at war, which is about the

same as the respective percentages for bipolar and multipolar systems. In other words, even if the United States had refrained from any military occupations, the frequency of its use of military force in major operations would still give us no reason to believe that unipolarity is any more peaceful than any other past configuration of the international system.

As things turned out in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the last two-and-a-half decades saw a sharp increase in

both the incidence of conflict and the percentage of great-power years spent at war. This is a particularly puzzling finding given that the current unipole – the United States – is a democracy in a world populated by more democracies than at any time in the past. In light of arguments about how democracies are better able to solve disputes peacefully, choose to engage only in those wars they can win, and tend to fight shorter wars, the United States should have spent fewer years at war than previous nondemocratic great powers.12

As we can see, post-Cold War history can be used in support of both the widespread claim that the

overall level of conflict has declined and of the claim that the United States has experienced an unprecedented

level of involvement in interstate war . Reality seems to be chafing against the view that unipolarity produces no incentives for conflict; at least in what concerns the unipole's involvement in interstate

wars, the past two-and-a-half decades seem to point in the opposite direction.

1nc – injustice

1. Food justice movements are strong and solving now – they are combatting racial and injustices in food distributionSmith 16 – Truthout News Analyst [Rory Smith, The Future of the Food Justice Movement, May 07, 2016, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35915-the-future-of-the-food-justice-movement]

The food justice movement -- a loose but expansive conglomeration of organizations working to create a more just food

system in the United States -- has accomplished a great deal over the last 30 years. But can it manage to converge in its diversity and create a countermovement potent enough to transform the current food regime? Or is it too shallow and too spread, destined to disappear in its disjointedness. Things may seem a little out of sorts when one in six Americans -- residents of the most affluent country on the planet -- don't have enough to eat, and when the percentage of hungry people in the United States has

gone up 57 percent since the late 1990s. Sprinkle in that little detail about how Black and Latino neighborhoods are often left practically devoid of fresh produce but flooded with fast food restaurants

(something that contributes to high rates of obesity, diabetes and thyroid disease), and you might start to question one or two things. Toss in the fact that many of the 2 million farm laborers who produce US consumers' fruits and vegetables are not only subjected to brutal labor conditions but also can't afford to consume the very same food they pick, and you might really start to wonder. And when you top off this gallimaufry with one more slight detail -- that there are 1 billion people around the world suffering from malnourishment, a number that hasn't changed significantly since the 1970s -- the inequity of the current food regime becomes

pretty clear. It was the food justice movement that first recognized this reality , and it has spent the last 30 years challenging and redressing these inequalities. The Black Panthers' Free Breakfast for School Children Program, Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, and the family farming caucuses that swept the United States during the 1980s were early proponents of food justice. And while these original players have been all but subsumed by the passage of time, they have been replaced by hundreds of thousands of farmworkers, urban and rural farmers, activists, consumers and academics who are all working

to institute a fairer and more just food system. This effort is what Eric Holt-Giménez, the executive director of Food First, calls " converging in our diversity," and it is the linchpin of creating a just food system: a system that stresses the right of communities everywhere to produce, distribute and have equal access to healthy food, irrespective of class, gender or ethnicity. Just when that Rust Cohle-like pessimism seems to have obtruded on our collective consciousness -- foregrounded by our failure to engineer any overhaul of the US financial system and scientists' incredulous

predictions on global warming -- the food justice movement could be that slow-cooked countermovemen t that we have all been waiting for. Everyone has some kind of a relationship with food. It is the cornerstone of culture and life, as well as of the capitalist system. If any revolution is going to be successful, this seems like a good place for it to start.

2. The plan is insufficient – their evidence is about much broader changes to the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act

3. poverty and racism exist for lots of reasons – school lunches isn’t enough – need major changesLayton 15 – Covers national education for the Washington Post [Lyndsey Layton, Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty, January 16, 2015,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html?utm_term=.9964a392f895]

For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation. The Southern

Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013

school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program

is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers. “We’ve all known this was the trend, that we would get to a majority, but it’s here sooner rather than later,” said Michael A. Rebell of the Campaign for Educational

Equity at Teachers College at Columbia University, noting that the poverty rate has been increasing even as the

economy has improved. “A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public

school.” The shift to a majority-poor student population means that in public schools, a growing number of children start kindergarten already trailing their more privileged peers and rarely, if ever, catch up. They are less likely to have support at home , are less frequently exposed to enriching activities outside of school , and are more likely to drop out and never attend college. It also means that education policy, funding decisions and classroom instruction must adapt to the needy children who arrive at school each day. “When they first come in my door in the morning, the first thing I do is an inventory of immediate needs: Did you eat? Are you clean? A big part of my job is making them feel safe,” said Sonya Romero-Smith, a veteran teacher at Lew Wallace Elementary School in Albuquerque. Fourteen of her 18 kindergartners are eligible for free lunches. She helps them clean up with bathroom wipes and toothbrushes, and she stocks a drawer with clean socks, underwear, pants and shoes. Romero-Smith, 40, who has been a teacher for 19 years, became a foster mother in November to two girls, sisters who attend her school. They had been homeless, their father living on the streets and their mother in jail, she said. When she brought the girls home, she was shocked by the disarray of their young lives. “Getting rid of bedbugs, that took us a while. Night terrors, that took a little while. Hoarding food, flushing a toilet and washing hands, it took us a little while,” she said. “You spend some time with little ones like this and it’s gut wrenching. . . . These kids aren’t thinking, ‘Am I going to take a test today?’ They’re thinking, ‘Am I going to be okay?’ ” The job of

teacher has expanded to “counselor, therapist, doctor, parent, attorney,” she said. Schools, already under intense pressure to deliver better test results and meet more rigorous standards, face the doubly difficult task of trying to raise the achievement of poor children so that they approach the same level as their more affluent peers. “This is a watershed moment when you look at that map,” said Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation, the nation’s oldest education philanthropy, referring to a large swath of the country filled with high-poverty schools. “The fact is,

we’ve had growing inequality in the country for many years,” he said. “It didn’t happen overnight, but it’s steadily been happening. Government used to be a source of leadership and innovation around issues of economic prosperity and upward mobility. Now we’re a country disinclined to invest in our young people.” The data show poor students spread across the country, but the highest rates are concentrated in Southern and Western states. In 21 states, at least half the public school children were eligible for free and reduced-price lunches — ranging from Mississippi, where more than 70 percent of students were from low-income families, to Illinois, where one of every two students was low-income. Carey Wright, Mississippi’s

state superintendent of education, said quality preschool is the key to helping poor children. “That’s huge,” she said. “These children can learn at the highest levels, but you have to provide for them. You can’t assume they have books at home, or they visit the library or go on vacations. You have to think about what you’re doing across the state and ensuring they’re getting what other children get.” Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, was born in a charity hospital in 1959 to a single mother. Federal programs helped shrink the obstacles he faced, first by providing him with Head Start, the early-childhood education program, and later, Pell grants to help pay tuition at the University of Texas, he said. The country needs to make that same commitment today to help poor children, he said. “Even at 8 or 9 years old, I knew that America wanted me to succeed,” he said. “What we know is that the mobility escalator has simply stopped for some Americans. I was able to ride that mobility escalator in part because there were so

many people, and parts of our society, cheering me on.” “We need to fix the escalator,” he said. “We fix it by recommitting ourselves to the idea of public education. We have the capacity. The question is, do we have

the will?” The new report raises questions among educators and officials about whether states

and the federal government are devoting enough money — and using it effectively — to meet the complex needs of poor children. The Obama administration wants Congress to add $1 billion to the $14.4 billion it spends annually to help states educate poor children. It also wants Congress to fund preschool for those from low-income families. Collectively, the states and the federal government spend about $500 billion annually on primary and secondary schools,

about $79 billion of it from Washington. The amount spent on each student can vary wildly from state to state. States with high student-poverty rates tend to spend less per student: Of the 27 states with the highest percentages of student poverty, all but five spent less than the national average of $10,938 per student. Republicans in Congress have been wary of new spending programs, arguing that more money is not necessarily the answer and that federal dollars could be more effective if redundant programs were streamlined and more power was given to states. Many Republicans also think that the government ought to give tax dollars to low-income families to use as vouchers for private-school tuition, believing that is a better alternative to public schools. GOP leaders in Congress have rebuffed President Obama’s calls to fund preschool for low-income families, although a number of Republican and Democratic governors have initiated state programs in the past several years. The report comes as Congress begins debate about rewriting the country’s main federal education law, first passed as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and designed to help states educate poor children. The most recent version of the law, known as No Child Left Behind, has emphasized accountability and outcomes, measuring whether schools met benchmarks and sanctioning them when they fell short. That

federal focus on results, as opposed to need, is wrongheaded, Rebell said. “We have to think about how to give these kids a meaningful education,” he said. “We have to give them quality teachers , small class sizes, up-to-date equipment . But in addition, if we’re serious, we have to do things that overcome the damages of poverty . We have to meet their health needs, their mental health needs, after-school programs , summer programs , parent engagement, early-childhood services . These are the so-called

wraparound services. Some people think of them as add-ons. They’re not. They’re imperative.”

4. Racism sustains food inequality, not the other way around – the plan can’t solve

5. Consequences outweigh moral decision making – it’s the only effective way to make good policy decisionsIsaac 02 - Professor of political science at Indiana-Bloomington, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Public Life, PhD from Yale [Jeffery C., Dissent Magazine, Vol. 49, Iss. 2, “Ends, Means, and Politics,” p. Proquest]

As a result, the most important political questions are simply not asked. It is assumed that U.S. military intervention is an act of "aggression," but no consideration is given to the aggression to which intervention is a response. The status quo ante in Afghanistan is not, as peace activists would have it, peace, but rather terrorist violence abetted by a regime--the Taliban--that rose to power through brutality and repression. This requires us to ask a question that most "peace" activists would prefer not to ask: What should be done to respond to the violence of a Saddam Hussein, or a Milosevic, or a Taliban regime? What means are likely to stop violence and bring criminals to justice? Calls for diplomacy and international law are well intended and important; they implicate a decent and civilized ethic of global order. But they are also vague and empty, because they are not accompanied by any account of how diplomacy or international law can work effectively to address the problem at hand. The campus left offers no such account. To do so would require it to contemplate tragic choices in which moral goodness is of limited utility. Here what matters is not purity of intention but the intelligent exercise of power. Power is not a dirty word or an unfortunate feature of the world. It is the core of politics. Power is the

ability to effect outcomes in the world. Politics, in large part, involves contests over the distribution and use of power. To accomplish anything in the political world, one must attend to the means that are necessary to bring it about. And to develop such means is to develop, and to exercise, power. To say this is

not to say that power is beyond morality. It is to say that power is not reducible to morality . As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught, an unyielding concern with moral goodness undercuts political responsibility . The concern may be morally laudable,

reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers from three fatal flaws: (1) It fails to see that the purity of one's intention does not ensure the achievement of what one intends. Abjuring violence or refusing to

make common cause with morally compromised parties may seem like the right thing; but if such tactics entail impotence, then it is hard to view them as serving any moral good beyond the clean conscience of their supporters; (2) it fails to see that in a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity is not simply a form of powerlessness; it is often a form of complicity in injustice. This is why, from the standpoint of politics--as opposed to religion--pacifism is always a potentially immoral stand. In categorically repudiating violence, it

refuses in principle to oppose certain violent injustices with any effect; and (3) it fails to see that politics is as much about unintended consequences as it is about intentions ; it is the effects of action, rather than the motives of action, that is most significant. Just as the alignment with "good" may engender impotence, it is often the pursuit of "good" that generates evil. This is the lesson of communism in the twentieth century: it is not enough that one's goals be sincere or idealistic; it is equally important, always, to ask about the effects of pursuing these goals and to judge these

effects in pragmatic and historically contextualized ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this judgment. It alienates those who are

not true believers. It promotes arrogance. And it undermines political effectiveness .