There are many reasons politics is a popular disad on every topic, one of them is that it is generally a quick way to get to nuke war. No matter what the issue is, if its on the presidents agenda its a safe bet there will be people making hyperbolic statements about it. While most disads/advantages are always exaggerations, the impact evidence selected to read for politics is generally some of the worst.

That the evidence is bad, and more specifically that it is often biased, is an issue frequently brought up, less frequently focused on, and even less frequently a round winning issue. It should be.

Fishing for some examples I took a randoms troll through wiki town and grabbed some cards about the KORUS-FTA which has been and will be for the foreseeable future the most popular politics disad in high school and college. Some examples are more ridiculous than others, but all lend themselves to being defeated by an affirmative who aggressively pushes the bias issue.

Example 1- free trade. This impact is ludicrous- the claim being that our ability to get the free trade deal with South Korea will make or break global free trade. Before even looking at a card the empirically denied argument screams out t0 me- never had the trade deal before, have global trade. In addition the argument (prob requiring evidence) that this deal is tiny and insignificant are also round winners. The problem with these, and bias, as they are currently debated is the aff throws them out in the 2AC as blips , and the debate stops there. So in a 2AC I would phrase those two arguments like this

No Trade Impact

A. Empirically denied- global trade has progressed for decades without this deal, and the deal itself has been debated hotly for at least 5 years. There is no reason now is the key time to pass the deal or trade will collapse

B. The internal link is miniscule- South Korea is a tiny market, and the majority of liberalization is to allow easier exports into the US, an already saturated market in a country firmly in support of global trade. If trade is so sensitive to perception that failure of this deal will kill it, any number of past failures should of triggered the link- DOHA, Panama, etc.

Then I would stick to my guns and defend this argument, the neg isn’t going to just roll over. So lets move on to their card, they read the following “its key to trade” card:

CHANNEL NEWS ASIA  6 – 30 – 07
“US, SKorea set to sign free trade pact,” http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific_business/view/285400/1/.html

Washington believes if the trade agreement is approved, it could trigger a wave of trade liberalization and economic reform throughout Asia, where it has such pacts only with Singapore and Australia at present.  South Korea is the seventh largest trading partner of the United States and a top military ally in Asia.  “From an economic standpoint, the potential benefits of the FTA to America’s workers, farmers, manufacturers, and service suppliers are undeniable,” deputy US Trade Representative Karan Bhatia told a Congressional hearing recently.

This card says a few things that sound impressive

-7th largest partner

-wave of liberalization

-benefits undeniable

But lets look at each of these things and deconstruct them.

“7th largest”- Seems like we already trade with them a great deal. Is this deal going to bump them up the chain somehow? Lets assume they were our 1st largest trading partner- why is that a warrant for why the deal is key to global free trade? Its not, its a totally irrelevant statistic- it in no way supports the claim that the deal is key to free trade.

“Wave of liberalization”- this comes from “washington” which means someone who supports the trade deal, so it is essentially trying to pass of a clearly biased statement as an authority. This is a perfect instance to use bias as an argument- when proponents of the trade deal make outlandish claims we should discount them. No explanation is given other than they hope it will set off a wave of liberalization- in fact it mentions that we already have made some deals in the region, why didn’t they set off this wave? This quote sounds good in isolation, but there is literally nothing to back it up.

“undeniable benefits”- there is a huge difference between benefits and key to global free trade.  Workers getting higher wages and being able to buy cheaper goods could be “undeniable benefits”, but there is no attempt made in the evidence to actually connect these benefits to the expansion of global trade. Apples are undeniably good for me, that doesn’t mean they help free trade. This statement again comes from the admin trade rep- who has a stake in the debate.

Now you don’t necessarily need to go through all of that, but to win on an evidence takeout like this you need to go through their warrants and attack them aggressively- not just keep repeating what you said earlier. This is what separates the mediocre from the good- after you make that argument in the 2AC, in the 1AR you need to respond to their evidence by attacking the specific warrants. If you do, it will be almost impossible for them to recover because they really haven’t made an argument.

Now lets look at an economy impact card

NEW YORK TIMES  7 – 1 – 07

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/business/worldbusiness/01trade.html

SEOUL, South Korea, June 30 — The United States and South Korea on Saturday signed the largest free trade deal for Washington since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992, though Democratic leaders in Congress warned that they would not approve it. The United States trade representative, Susan C. Schwab, and South Korea’s trade minister, Kim Hyun-chong, signed the deal only hours before President Bush’s “fast-track” authority to negotiate such an agreement — one that Congress must approve or reject but cannot revise — was to expire Saturday.  If approved by the legislatures of both countries, the agreement could expand trade between the countries, already worth about $79 billion a year, as much as $20 billion, according to recent estimates by United States and South Korean economists.  The deal, known as the Korean Free Trade Agreement, calls for eliminating tariffs on 95 percent of consumer and industrial products on both sides within three years. It would also help South Korea’s export-driven economy fight increasing pressure from a high-tech Japan and a low-cost China. And it would give American companies an important foothold in the thriving Northeast Asian economy, where they have steadily ceded market share to Chinese, European and Japanese competitors.  “America’s economic future depends heavily on more free trade agreements like the one we are signing today with Korea,” Ms. Schwab said at a signing ceremony in Washington.

The meat of this card is at the end, the part I italicized. Lets run it through the same kind of questioning. It clearly does not say the US economy or global economy will collapse. It says deals LIKE KORUS are key, not just KORUS itself. And again, its coming from an insider (Schwab) with a stake in the debate. So while it does have that good line “economic future depends” it is not really saying “failure of KORUS=mead 92″ which is what the neg is reading it to say.

To close, here is a bit better card than the ones we have gone through so far (which were somewhat easy, but in reality pretty typical). Post in the comments the kinds of arguments you would make/points you would bring up based on what the evidence says.

WSJ 12/6 “A Korea-U.S. Trade Deal, At Last” online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704767804576000542290721476.html

What a long, strange trip it’s been for the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. The two sides announced this weekend that they’ve reached a deal on revisions to the draft that was signed in 2007 but never ratified. It comes not a moment too soon, given the boost this will give to a U.S. economy stumbling its way to recovery and with tensions rising on the Korean peninsula. The saga is also a lesson to future U.S. Presidents on the importance of trade leadership. Having campaigned against the pact in 2008, President Obama rediscovered its benefits once in office. Yet by then he was forced to re-open negotiations to justify his earlier opposition. The result is a deal that is slightly better than the excellent 2007 text in some ways, but slightly worse in others. And this after a delay that has cost the U.S. global credibility on economic issues, not to mention the cost to U.S. growth. The good news is that the 2007 agreement stays mostly in place. South Korea still offers significant opening of its sheltered economy to American manufactured goods, agriculture and services. Within five years of ratification the deal will eliminate tariffs on 95% of the countries’ trade in goods, and it also clears the way for greater trade in services by, for instance, opening Korea’s banking industry. Meanwhile, some of the changes to that 2007 text are helpful. The trade in cars was the main sticking point, especially as Detroit worried about Korea’s longstanding use of technical barriers like onerous safety standards to limit imports. Negotiators have added a provision that ensures new environmental standards proposed by Seoul over the past three years won’t become de facto trade barriers. Yet some of the new auto provisions are worse than what Detroit had before. Conspicuously, Korea’s current 8% tariff on imported U.S. cars—which would have been eliminated immediately upon ratification under the 2007 deal—now will be cut in half immediately but eliminated only after five years. Compare that to the European Union’s agreement with Korea, which is signed and due to take effect next July. That deal gradually phases out Korea’s 8% car tariff over four years. That means that over the next few years Detroit will miss what would have been the advantage of zero tariffs compared to rates of 2% to 6% on EU cars, and toward the end of the five-year period tariffs on EU cars will be lower than on American cars. View Full Image Associated Press President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak The biggest mistake Mr. Obama and Democrats made was allowing one vocal lobby—Detroit and its unions—to hijack debate on a comprehensive deal covering almost all trade. Consider the main “victory” for Detroit: Korea has agreed to let America phase out its 25% tariff on pickup trucks more slowly. That will come at a stiff price to American buyers of those trucks, including many small businesses that delayed purchases during the recession. Some farmers have also become collateral damage. Seoul couldn’t walk away from re-opened talks empty-handed, and one concession it extracted is a two-year delay, to 2016, in eliminating tariffs on some U.S. pork. American pork producers are excited about any deal, but they still would have been better off under the 2007 text. Chilean pork already enjoys lower tariffs thanks to the Chile-Korea FTA and has been gaining market share. The new tariff-elimination date also falls only six months before Korea’s tariffs on EU pork will end under that deal, leaving Americans far less than the two-and-a-half years they would have had under the earlier text to get a marketing jump on their competitors. These caveats should not deter Congress from ratifying what is still an excellent deal. Mr. Obama has asked GOP House Speaker-designate John Boehner to assist in getting the pact approved, and we’re told Mr. Boehner has suggested grouping this deal together with pending agreements with Colombia and Panama in a single House vote. This would make it easier for pro-trade forces in Congress to concentrate their political capital. Mr. Boehner will bring a majority or more of his GOP Members along, but Mr. Obama will have to spend his own political capital to rebuild American public support for free trade and gain Democratic support. The President would have made more progress toward his goal of doubling American exports if he had supported this deal in 2008 and pressed it through Congress in 2009. The failure in leadership was to side with the United Auto Workers and other unions against the national interest. Those who think they’ll lose from trade always have the strongest motivation to lobby, while the consumers and businesses that benefit (such as American pickup truck buyers) are harder to organize. Every American President since Hoover in the 1920s has taken the broad view, speaking up for the many trade beneficiaries. U.S. public support for freer trade has eroded amid the recession and the lack of Presidential leadership. It is crucial for U.S. competitiveness in particular, and the world economy more broadly, that Mr. Obama and his allies make a strong and unapologetic case that trade is in the best interests of American businesses and workers.

I’m somewhat baffled by many of the debates I see lately (as well as with the decisions of other judges when I listen to them) with the strange focus on terminal impacts, both in what percentage of time is spent debating them, and then even after a lot of time is spent arguing defense to them with how large of a “risk” judges assign them. Especially with people who I have had conversations with about how to debate or adjudicate impacts who when they are then in a debate seem to disregard/not employ the views they had previously expressed.

So below the break are some thoughts on what is going wrong in these debates and in the deciding of said debates.

1. 99.9% of impacts are at best, 1 in 4. Mead, Khalilzad, Spicer, etc- none of these cards make an absolute claim “any economic decline = extinction”. This is for obvious reason- to do so would be stupid. Most authors use words like “could” or “may” to indicate that this is one possibility, albeit one they may think is likely. I can’t think of a popular impact card off the top of my head that I would say does not fit in this category. So when I hear a card like this read in a debate, I generally think to myself “1 in 4″. This is not the worst thing that can happen to your impact- in fact, a reasonable discussion of impacts is a lot easier to sound convincing on than a ridiculous one.

2. Treating terminal impacts as automatically 1 in 4 encourages more discussion of the link and internal link. This can be shown mathematically. If you assume a mead card means extinction every time, then reducing the risk of the link to 50% makes the chance of the disad overall 50%. If, however, you assume 1 in 4, than 1/2 the link = 1/8th the risk of the disad. The way debates seem to work now is you must spend a lot of time reading impact defense cards that state the obvious “not every economic decline causes war” in order to reduce the risk of the impact marginally- if you don’t, the fact that the neg has a “conceded extinction impact” means its “try or die for them” so no matter how high a percentage of your case you win, its irrelevant(for consistency I will continue to discuss as if you were aff vs a da but the same thing applies in reverse). Discussing the link and internal link is superior to debating the impact:

A. The link is the portion most related to the topic and the plan- what we are supposed to be learning about

B. Debating hegemony vs the economy divorced from a discussion of the links into those impacts is shallow and generally a waste of time. Usually each team has 1 poorly warranted laundry list impact card, and then 1 defense card that is reasonable and points out “not always” or “rarely”, an argument you don’t really need a piece of evidence for.

3. The disad turns the case is the most overrated argument in debate. I wrote a post a while ago about the difference between the “disad” turns the case and “war” turns the case and said that the disad turning the case was useful, war turns the case is not. I was wrong, they are both basically useless unless dropped. What I mean by that is I cannot remember the last time I judged a debate or heard a judge discuss a round where they decided the disad turned the case despite the aff team not dropping that argument. The reason for this is simple- most of the times its a real stretch. Failure to pass the KORUS-FTA hurts US trade leadership, which undermines the WTO, which prevents IPR protections… instability in Afghanistan. The KORUS-FTA has nothing to do with Afghanistan. Any time you spend arguing it turns the case would be better spent

A. winning your own impact

B. Attacking the case solvency

4. Link defense beats impact offense every time. Over the last year or so I have judged quite a few debates where the neg went for a single disad and some case arguments, and in the process of doing so they read 4-10 impacts to their disad, and the aff read a ton of cards reading impact defense to all of them. If the neg reads 5 add on impacts in the block, you are much more likely to win reading your 4-6 response cards on a single link defense argument and crushing on it than you are trying to keep up with all their impacts. There are at least 3 reasons for this

A. Collapse- the neg can kick any impact you have good defense on at no cost to themselves strategically, wasting your 1AR time

B. Timewise the 1AR cannot keep up tit for tat with every argument from the block- spending a ton of time on impact defense means your other arguments on the line by line will suffer, increasing the overall “risk” of the disad the neg will win. When the neg wins a very large risk of the link and has 10 impacts, no matter how mitigated they are, the impact defense is usually irrelevant unless you win an overwhelming amount of case.

C. Most impact defense is stupid in that it is a 1 sentence card that states something obvious, especially impact defense cards read in the 1AR.

5. Impact defense is the worst way to deal with affirmatives that have a lot of advantages. This should be obvious- its too big of a time investment to win too little. When an aff reads a ridiculous internal link to warming and then 20 warming impacts, just go for no internal link. The further back the chain of events you attack the more impacts you take out- its that simple. This is why you should be going for counterplans more - because counterplans are basically kick ass internal link answers. They force the aff to either zero in on a few things the CP doesn’t solve or lose.

6. Magnitude comparisons are useless unless there is actually a difference in magnitude -i.e. either your card is much better, the other team truly has a regional only conflict (with no escalation /extinction impact), or you read a card like “BW use o/w nuke war” and they only have nuke war impacts. This is because in the average debate I see each team has read 3+ extinction impacts by the final rebuttals. To make magnitude relevant you need to combine it with your impact defense, which is essentially then a probability argument- how likely is something to cause extinction- not “our extinction is bigger”.

The University of Texas National Institute in Forensics (UTNIF) summer institute blog posted a card this morning from The New York Timesthat is “sure to be oft-cited at next weekend’s Tournament of Champions.” The evidence is from an op-ed by Thomas Friedman entitled “Everybody Loves A Winner”:

In politics and diplomacy, success breeds authority and authority breeds more success. No one ever said it better than Osama bin Laden: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

Have no illusions, the rest of the world was watching our health care debate very closely, waiting to see who would be the strong horse — Obama or his Democratic and Republican health care opponents? At every turn in the debate, America’s enemies and rivals were gauging what the outcome might mean for their own ability to push around an untested U.S. president.

It remains to be seen whether, in the long run, America will be made physically healthier by the bill’s passage. But, in the short run, Obama definitely was made geopolitically healthier.

“When others see the president as a winner or as somebody who has real authority in his own house, it absolutely makes a difference,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said to me in an interview. “All you have to do is look at how many minority or weak coalition governments there are around the world who can’t deliver something big in their own country, but basically just teeter on the edge, because they can’t put together the votes to do anything consequential, because of the divided electorate.” President Obama has had “a divided electorate and was still able to muscle the thing through.”

When President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia spoke by phone with Obama the morning after the health care vote — to finalize the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty — he began by saying that before discussing nukes, “I want to congratulate you, Mr. President, on the health care vote,” an administration official said. That was not just rank flattery. According to an American negotiator, all throughout the arms talks, which paralleled the health care debate, the Russians kept asking: “Can you actually get this ratified by the Senate” if an arms deal is cut? Winning passage of the health care bill demonstrated to the Russians that Obama could get something hard passed.

Our enemies surely noticed, too. You don’t have to be Machiavelli to believe that the leaders of Iran and Venezuela shared the barely disguised Republican hope that health care would fail and, therefore, Obama’s whole political agenda would be stalled and, therefore, his presidency enfeebled. He would then be a lame duck for the next three years and America would be a lame power.

Given the time and energy and political capital that was spent on health care, “failure would have been unilateral disarmament,” added Gates. “Failure would have badly weakened the president in terms of dealing with others — his ability to do various kinds of national security things. … You know, people made fun of Madeleine [Albright] for saying it, but I think she was dead on: most of the rest of the world does see us as the ‘indispensable nation.’ ”

Indeed, our allies often complain about a world of too much American power, but they are not stupid. They know that a world of too little American power is one they would enjoy even less. They know that a weak America is like a world with no health insurance — and a lot of pre-existing conditions.

Gen. James Jones, the president’s national security adviser, told me that he recently met with a key NATO counterpart, who concluded a breakfast by congratulating him on the health care vote and pronouncing: “America is back.”

But is it? While Obama’s health care victory prevented a power outage for him, it does not guarantee a power surge. Ultimately, what makes a strong president is a strong country — a country whose underlying economic prowess, balance sheet and innovative capacity enable it to generate and project both military power and what the political scientist Joe Nye calls “soft power” — being an example that others want to emulate.

What matters most now is how Obama uses the political capital that health care’s passage has earned him. I continue to believe that the most important foreign policy issue America faces today is its ability to successfully engage in nation building — nation building at home.

Obama’s success in passing health care and the bounce it has put in his step will be nothing but a sugar high if we can’t get our deficit under control, inspire a new generation of start-ups, upgrade our railroads and Internet and continue to attract the world’s smartest and most energetic immigrants.

An effective, self-confident president with a weak country is nothing more than a bluffer. An effective, self-confident president, though, at least increases the odds of us building a stronger country.

The UTNIF blog tags the card as “DOMESTIC POLICY SUCCESSES KEY TO SOFT POWER – HEALTH CARE PROVES ITS TRUE, BUT OBAMA STILL HAS SOMETHING ELSE TO PROVE.”

What do you think? How can this evidence best be used in a debate? As an Obama bad disadvantage (plan key to Obama’s credibility / soft power bad)? As an add-on against Obama bad politics disadvantages (the plan is a win, it’s key to soft power)? Feel free to discuss in the comments.

One topic that I have been involved in a lot of debates about is what makes the best politics uniqueness card. Is it better to dominantly control uniqueness with a “lost will pass with 97 votes in the senate” card, to have a more brinkish card “Lost will pass with 1 vote to spare now” or to have a speculative card ” there is a 75% chance that lost will pass” that eschews vote counts all together? This is by no means an exhaustive list of the kind of cards you could have, and each one has certain merits in regard to link uniqueness, degree of link etc.

Below I have taken some uniqueness cards from the NDT on the financial reform disad read by various squads. Some of them fall into the above categories. Think about what the reasons are one card would help you in the 2NC more than others, one reason few people consider being “what if I need to kick this disad”. Dates should be given marginal if any importance due to the length of the tournament.

A.

(David Wessel, 3/20/10, ” Politics continues to threaten finance reform “, http://www.poconorecord.com/ apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/ 20100321/NEWS04/3210314/-1/ NEWSMAP)

The details illustrated that on financial reform, if not on much else, Democrats are closing in on a consensus. On key points, Mr. Dodd is moving toward his House counterpart, Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, who shepherded a bill through an unruly committee and the full House three months ago. The substance demonstrated the influence that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke are exerting. On nearly every big issue, Mr. Dodd is moving closer to their positions. The Fed isn’t sidelined, as Mr. Dodd initially proposed, but gets a central role in supervising big banks and the financial system. A mechanism, albeit clunky, is created so the Fed and Treasury can take over a big failing financial firm instead of choosing between bankruptcy (Lehman) or bailout (American International Group). Banks can’t shop for the softest regulator. Regulators get lots of discretion, flexibility and authority to restrain financial firms of all sorts. An agency largely independent of bank regulators is created to regulate consumer finance. All that lifts the odds that President Barack Obama will mark the third anniversary of the onset of the crisis in August by signing a bill that makes the biggest changes to U.S. financial regulation since the 1930s. Mr. Dodd plans to push a bill through committee on a party-line vote before Congress breaks for two weeks on March 26, and then try — again — to cut a deal with enough Republicans to get a bill through the full Senate this summer. Without Republican partners, Mr. Dodd had to move left; to get the Republican votes he needs on the Senate floor, he’ll have to move right. Like so much else in Washington these days, though, the fate of financial regulation is linked to the fate of health-care legislation. If that fails and already bitter partisan bickering intensifies, Republicans are more likely to stick to a “just say no” strategy. If a health-care bill passes, financial regulation is more likely to pass, too. “The politics are different than health care,” says Douglas Elliott, a former investment banker now at the Brookings Institution think tank. “The public really wants something to get done, though they don’t know what. And they hate bankers. That’ll make it harder for Republicans to filibuster.”

B.

Seib 3/22/10 (Christine, Times Online, “Obama goes into battle for Wall Street reform,”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article7070616.ece)

President Obama has promised to use every tool at his disposal to reform Wall Street, despite what he said was an “army of lobbyists already arm-twisting members … to reject these reforms”. Although a vital healthcare vote was scheduled for yesterday, the President devoted his weekly radio address on Saturday to the financial reform Bill, which he said was essential. Senators will today begin thrashing out legislation to overhaul the US financial system as the Senate Banking Committee starts a week of meetings on a draft financial reform Bill. Republicans on the committee refuse to support the draft Bill created by Senator Christopher Dodd, the Democrat committee chairman. President Obama is particularly keen to see creation of a new consumer financial protection agency, a proposal that Republicans have criticised as creating further bureaucracy and that the financial industry has fought hard against, most recently with a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign. US moves forward on financial reform Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chairman, also urged the Senate Banking Committee to support the proposed reforms. On Saturday he said that the existence of “too big to fail” companies was pernicious and a barrier to competition. “It is unconscionable that the fate of the world economy should be so closely tied to the fortunes of a relatively small number of giant financial firms,” he said. Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, will take up the argument for Senator Dodd’s bill today, when he is scheduled to address the American Enterprise Institute on the legislation. Senator Dodd created the Bill alone after he failed, despite months of discussion, to come up with a bill in partnership with Senator Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the committee. The Republicans have filed about 400 amendments to the draft legislation. Both parties have agreed that reform is needed to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis, but Republicans are opposed to key elements in the draft Bill. They would prefer that consumer protection powers be given to existing regulators rather than create a new protection agency. The Republicans disagree over the need for a $50 billion fund that banks would contribute to in case regulators needed money to liquidate a failing company. And a number of committee members are unsure about the President’s so-called Volcker rule, which would outlaw proprietary trading by banks. Senator Dodd is under pressure from the White House to get his Bill passed. The President set out his plans last June for the biggest overhaul of US financial regulation since the Great Depression.

C.

The Boston Globe 3-16-10

Holding out hope for a bipartisan deal with Republicans, Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd introduced a far-reaching bill yesterday to overhaul the nation’s financial regulatory system. On nearly all of the key issues, the measure takes a relatively tough line with financial firms. A new consumer protection agency, for instance, would have the authority to write and enforce rules that would apply to banks with more than $10 billion in assets, as well as mortgage companies, credit card issuers, and other large nonbank lenders – a broader scope than Republicans have been willing to grant. Dodd’s bill also would give shareholders of public companies more say on executive pay and in nominating directors, an idea that has faced fierce opposition from Republicans and many financial firms. “Our regulatory structure, constructed in a piecemeal fashion over many decades, remains hopelessly inadequate,” said Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, at a news conference. “There hasn’t been financial reform on the scale that I’m proposing this afternoon since the 1930s.” The measure also adopts the “Volcker Rule,” a proposal from the Obama administration that would require regulators to prohibit banks from investing in or owning hedge funds and private equity funds. This idea has been opposed by Wall Street. The bill also extends federal regulation to new corners of the financial system. Credit-rating agencies such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s would be supervised by a new office in the Securities and Exchange Commission and would be subject to regulatory action and private lawsuits for the first time. Trading in derivatives would be regulated and some trades publicly reported for the first time. Hedge funds with more than $100 million in assets would be required to register with the SEC and to disclose financial information to regulators. President Obama said in a statement that the proposal would provide a foundation for strengthening the nation’s financial system. “As the bill moves forward, I will take every opportunity to work with chairman Dodd and his colleagues to strengthen the bill and will fight against efforts to weaken it,” he said. “We will stand firm against any attempt by the financial sector to avoid their responsibilities: In any future crisis the big financial companies must pay, not taxpayers.” Despite the inclusion of proposals aimed at pleasing Democrats, Dodd’s staff labored throughout the weekend to piece together language that would also preserve the possibility of winning GOP support. “I don’t have standing with me today bipartisan support at this podium,” Dodd said. But he noted that “at any stage in the development of a bill, you can develop that consensus.” For instance, Dodd proposed housing a new consumer regulator in the Federal Reserve, a compromise that has garnered Republican support but is anathema to liberal Democrats and consumer advocates who argue that the Fed failed miserably in protecting consumers in recent years. Such groups have insisted on an independent, standalone agency such as one the Obama administration proposed and the House included in its version of reform legislation passed in December. The key supporter of that agency, however, praised Dodd’s overall proposal. “Despite the banks’ ferocious lobbying for business as usual, chairman Dodd took an important step today by advancing new laws to prevent the next crisis,” Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who is chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel that oversees the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said in a statement. Warren developed the idea of a standalone consumer agency. “We’re now heading toward a series of votes in which the choice will be clear: families or banks,” she said. Dodd said his bill incorporated many of the compromises he reached in recent weeks with Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, with whom he had been negotiating before revealing last week he would forge ahead alone. Still, he acknowledged that key elements will remain controversial.

D.

Matthew Rusling, 3/19/2010 (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-03/19/c_13217313.htm )

- U.S. Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd Monday unveiled a bill aimed at overhauling the country’s banking system to avoid the risk of another financial crisis.

In spite of a number of controversial provisions within the bill, reform is likely to pass, as many blame the nation’s banking sector for sparking the worst recession since the 1930s, experts said.

Dodd, the bill’s sponsor, said Monday on CBS’ “Early Show” that the legislation would stop banks from becoming “too big to fail” — a catchphrase often used to describe financial institutions whose failure could spark widespread economic calamity.

E.

Kaer 3/19 “summers criticizes bank lobbying on Reg Reform,” lexis

Though he did not specifically referto Summers, Sen. Bob Corker, who spoke later at the same event, said mixed messages from the White House have some wondering whether the administration really wants a bill. “The only question I have,” he said, is “do they want a bill or an issue?”

The Tennessee Republican credited the Treasury Department for working constructively with Capitol Hill toward a compromise, but he said the “characters” at the department are so divided over what they want in a bill, it isn’t clear what they could support.

“The Treasury Department is made up of lots of different characters inside of it that actually have 180-degree different views on lots of things,” Corker said. “It’s not homogeneous, either. As a matter of fact,I’ll bet you couldn’t get Treasury to agree.”

Corker, who had hoped to reach a bipartisan reform bill deal with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, said Senate Republicans still want to pass a bill, but he predicted a compromise would not be reached until after a planned committee vote next week.

“This next week in essence it’s going to be a partisan markup,” Corker said. “The goal is to get the bill out of committee and then make arrangements to come up with a bipartisan bill, hopefully by the time the bill goes to the floor.”

http://bgdailynews.com/articles/2009/06/11/opinion/commentary/comment2.txt

Recall that Kennedy’s successor, with far more political capital than Kennedy had, promised to defeat poverty. Historian Steven Hayward notes that in 1966, Lyndon Johnson’s commander in the War on Poverty, Sargent Shriver, told Congress that the White House believed poverty in America would be eliminated within 10 years. “Why,” Hayward wryly asks, “should social science be more difficult than rocket science?”

I don’t know that one is more difficult than the other, but I do know that they are not interchangeable. Physics is good at figuring out how to split atoms. Sociology, not so much.