AT States CP - Michigan 7 2023 STARTER

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2AC---AT: States CP
Perm do both
Perm do the counterplan and then federal follow-on.
Perm do the parts of the counterplan that have the states generate revenue and then do the plan using that funding. Solves the link to politics by avoiding fights over raising taxes and isn’t severance because it still redistributes income through a federal transfer program.
Counterplan can’t solve.
Geographic disparities means states can’t redistribute. Some states are just too poor, federal action is key
Brian Highsmith 19, Skadden Fellow, National Consumer Law Center. "The Implications of Inequality for Fiscal Federalism (or Why the Federal Government Should Pay for Local Public Schools)" 67 Buff. L. Rev. 407 //pipk
Many have missed the deep implications of economic inequality for core tenants of fiscal federalism. This framework shows that debates about the proper assignment of redistribution assume a different character depending on the preexisting level of inequality within the political community. Specifically, economic inequality raises the stakes of "fiscal splintering" for redistributive outcomes and possibilities: where economic resources are unevenly distributed across geography, the spatial definition of fiscal units takes on great significance. And the presence of economic inequality places a ceiling on local governments' ability to provide public goods or achieve redistribution, absent centrally-coordinated fiscal transfers.
Traditional models of fiscal federalism overlook this important relationship. Orthodox models of decentralization argue that location-mobility of residents is a disciplining measure for local governments. The consensus view is that mobility limits the ability of local governments to achieve redistribution, because high-income people will exit when it is attempted. 97 Others point to evidence showing that locations decisions are relatively inelastic to support their conclusion that redistribution can happen at the local level.98 I show that this debate does not need to be settled in order to conclude that rising levels of economic inequality support moving redistribution to higher levels of governance.
Just as scholars have argued that the competitive forces of residential mobility have the effect of making local redistribution impossible, these examples suggest that-on a static basis-high levels of inequality will tend to have the same effect. So as long as there are some constraints on mobility, then it can be said-without qualification-that rising inequality will always and necessarily have the effect of increasing the geographic clustering of resources. This follows mathematically from the fact that inequality is defined as an increasing concentration of economic resources across a population, and that people are indivisible economic units-they exist at only one place in time. And to the extent that economic resources are unevenly spread across a political community, then the exercise of line drawing-of determining the size and placement of the fiscal units-becomes increasingly important as a determinant of the practical availability of inter-unit economic redistribution.
For public finance scholars, the predominant policy response to the trend of economic stratification has been to increase the burden of taxation on very high-wealth individuals. 99 But as the model supporting this framework demonstrates, the case for centralizing redistribution depends in large part on the level of economic inequality in a polity-and is thus greatly strengthened by rising inequality. The significant implications of this basic relationship have not been fully explored. Service devolution to lower, smaller geographic units has been praised for various virtues according to America's favorite versions of democratic theory.100 But under a set of straightforward assumptions, these structures will also have the inevitable effect of deepening inequality and making the efficient provision of public services less likely. As a policy matter, it suggests that we should focus on either increasing the size of fiscal units of redistribution to include ultra-wealthy or alternatively shifting the site of redistribution to the circle that is large enough to include both the haves and the havenots.
I argue here that on policy matters involving some element of redistribution-that is, almost everything the government does-fiscal decentralization, under the background condition of economic segregation, will always result in increased inequality, compared to centralized redistribution. The existence of rising income inequality thus provides support for shifting the site of revenue collection to higher levels of government as a general policy, even as decision-making may be retained at local levels. This conclusion represents the opposite direction of recent policy debates, which have proposed sharply curbing or even eliminating federal support to states and local governments.
The federal government can easily capture the tremendous wealth that our economy produces, no matter how it is distributed over geographic space within the country. From this basic insight, we can both better understand the shortcomings of the current system and also make specific recommendations for reform. Instead of devolving the financing of public investments-whether schools or courts or infrastructure-to ill-equipped cities and states, the federal government should respond to rising economic inequality by assuming responsibility for their funding.
Local administration isn’t uniform, results in less uptake and reinforces inequality
Sarah K. Bruch et al 22, associate professor in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration and the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. Janet C. Gornick is a professor of political science and sociology, director of the Stone Center on Socio- Economic Inequality, and the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Distinguished Chair in Socio- Economic Inequality at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Joseph van der Naald is a PhD candidate in the sociology program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. "Geographic Inequality in Social Provision: Variation across the US States" Measuring Distribution and Mobility of Income and Wealth, Chapter 16. //pipk
The decentralized nature of the social safety net for economically vulnerable families with children is one of the most important structural features of the US welfare state. Our research establishes that the extent of crossstate variation in the generosity and inclusiveness of safety net provision is extensive, thus constituting a crucial form of inequality— inequality in the treatment of similar needs and claims by people who happen to live in different states.
We argue that this form of inequality deserves more sustained attention, particularly with regard to policy design and reform. In designing social policies, there is a clear trade- off between uniformity through national provision, reflective of equality in social rights and equity considerations, and variability through state or local provision, indicating substantial inequality in rights and a lack of centralized effort aimed at equity in provision (Obinger, Castles, and Leibfried 2005). As Aaron Wildavsky (1985) famously noted, “federalism means inequality”— and our work confirms that.
While more research is needed, the findings we present in this chapter demonstrate that the United States’ decentralized safety net leads to crossstate inequalities in public supports for citizens with similar needs. That is an important finding, because this policy variation is associated with states’ racial and ethnic composition, such that social policies reflect and reinforce localized structures of inequality. The implications of policy decentralization for the patterning of racial inequality in the US are most visible, as we have shown, in the disparity between the two programs that we examined closely: TANF and SSI.
One of our key conclusions is that, among programs that operate with greater levels of state discretion, states with a higher proportion of Blacks and historically marginalized populations provide lesser benefits and serve fewer needy individuals. That is, while program design provides all states the same degree of discretion, that discretion is used in ways that reflect the state’s racial composition. As we noted earlier, links between states’ social provision and their racial and ethnic composition are complex. Our motivating concern was that correlations between policy features and racial and ethnic composition might lead to an insidious form of disparity: Blacks and members of other marginalized populations, due to their patterns of residential location, may receive less generous and less inclusive social protection. Our empirical results support that conclusion.
When analyzing potential improvements to the US safety net, it is crucial that we better understand the role of state and local policymakers and administrators, as well as the equalizing role that the federal government and/or more uniform policy designs can play in ensuring equal protection and rights. Both of these analytic perspectives are increasingly pressing; the effects of the COVID- 19 pandemic, and the concurrent economic and social crises, have already revealed familiar patterns of racial inequality, with respect to both health outcomes and economic insecurity (Gould and Wilson 2020).
Uniform fifty state fiat is a voting issue. Distorts the literature, is bad for education, disincentivizes research, avoids clash in favor of fiat. Our counter-interp is they can fiat non-uniformity to allow for state variation which allows for better clash because that’s what the literature assumes. Even if it’s not a voter, they didn’t fiat uniformity of implementation, just uniformity of policy. Variation is still inevitable which means the relative federal efficacy of implementation is still a deficit they can’t fiat through.
Fiscal volatility disad.
The counterplan causes it. Makes the inevitable next recession worse, which means we control the internal link to the economy impact.
John R. Brooks II 14, Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. Fiscal Federalism as Risk-Sharing: The Insurance Role of Redistributive Taxation, 68 Tax L. Rev. 89 //pipk
B. Insurance Function
While a state may rationally choose to perform some redistribution without causing crippling levels of migration, that does not mean that there are no costs of state-level redistribution and progressive income taxes. This Section focuses on two other costs of a progressive income tax: fiscal volatility and the actuarial costs of a smaller risk pool.
These costs are rooted in the insurance function of a redistributive tax-and-transfer system, rather than solely its redistributive function. State fiscal volatility reflects the increased demand on the system as a result of individual income fluctuations and shocks that are at least somewhat independent of individuals' endowments and effort, and shows the strain on a state as it tries to smooth the volatility of individuals' incomes. And this is partly because a state risk pool is smaller and more cross-correlated than a federal risk pool, and thus does not provide sufficient income smoothing. 165
1. Fiscal Volatility
Due to the fluctuation of incomes with the business cycle, personal income taxes are among the most volatile of revenue sources, second only to corporate income taxes. 166 As a result, states that rely heavily on personal income taxes face the risk of budget shortfalls during an economic downturn, precisely when the demand for social services is likely to be higher. 167 Furthermore, state reliance on personal income taxes has increased, going from 16.6% of total state and local tax revenues in 1977 to a peak of 22.9% in 2008, before dropping to 20.5% in [*121] 2010 168 (the drop in response to the Great Recession being evidence of precisely that short-term volatility).
A progressive income tax is especially volatile, since it raises a greater proportion of its revenue from the wealthiest residents. Income for those in higher brackets tends to be more volatile, especially because capital income is a larger proportion of overall income for high earners, 169 and thus a progressive income tax is likely to be more volatile than a proportional income tax that has the same expected revenue. 170 Finally, as income inequality increases, the relative reliance on volatile upper incomes is becoming even more pronounced. 171
The procyclical volatility on the revenue side is also exacerbated by the procyclical nature of much state spending. States carry a large share of the burden of redistributive social insurance programs, such as Medicaid, TANF, and unemployment insurance. 172 Ironically, given the classic fiscal federalism view that redistribution and social insurance should be centralized, the design of much of these programs derives from some of the same theories of fiscal federalism. Oates and Musgrave, among others, argue that a major problem with state-level programs such as these is the potential for spillovers to nonresidents, which could lead to underprovision of goods and services, since the costs to the state could outweigh the benefits to its residents. 173 The way to address this, they argue, is with federal matching grants as a Pigouvian subsidy. 174 The matching grant lowers the price to the state government down to a level where they are willing to provide the good or service. The catch, however, is that states have to step up and allocate some of their budgets to the program, in amounts that may be somewhat out of reach during economic downturns. 175
To be clear, however, the state budget problems are not only because of the volatility of the progressive income tax and the provision of social services. Indeed, the federal government relies largely on a [*122] personal income tax, and a much more progressive one, without nearly as much budget strain, and obviously spends a lot on redistributive social insurance programs. As discussed below, this is in part because the federal government is better able to handle the risk of revenue volatility, but state expenditure volatility also stems from the additional features of state tax and budget policy discussed in Part III.
As a result of balanced budget requirements, debt limits, and other fiscal institutions, 176 states cannot easily borrow to make up revenue shortfalls during an economic downturn. This means that a state may not be able even to maintain its baseline level of expenditures and services, much less deal with the increased demand for safety net services during a downturn. 177 The federal government, by contrast, can borrow cheaply and easily, and is thus much more able to maintain or even increase spending during a recession.
Since a state cannot implement counter-cyclical budget policy well using debt, the standard answer has been for it to instead maintain a rainy-day fund - set aside a portion of revenue during strong economic times in order to make up revenue shortfalls during weaker times. 178 Yet as an empirical matter, state RDFs are generally underfunded and do not sufficiently cover costs during downturns. 179 This is especially so during extreme times such as the period beginning with the 2008 financial crisis. Even a fully funded RDF would be unlikely to cover extreme events such as that. 180
As a result of limited borrowing capacity and limited use of RDFs, states that rely more heavily on volatile personal income taxes face more revenue, and thus expenditure, volatility. This exacerbates the economic effects of the business cycle, rather than mitigating them the way Keynesian theory teaches. The resulting economic slowdown, job losses, and the like, are very real costs to states. This is not the way insurance ought to operate.
State fiscal volatility crushes federalism
Brian Galle & Jonathan Klick 10, Assistant Professor, Boston College Law School. Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School. "Recessions and the Social Safety Net: The Alternative Minimum Tax as a Countercyclical Fiscal Stabilizer, 63 Stan. L. Rev. 187" //pipk
The inability of states to smooth expenditures over the business cycle has implications beyond sound fiscal housekeeping. Ultimately, the pathologies of state budgeting imperil the project of federalism itself. State budget crises prompt demands for federal bailouts, as evidenced in the most recent federal stimulus package. 11 Federal bailouts answer a short-term problem of how to maintain spending levels in a fiscal crunch, but they also risk undermining the goals of federalism. Most significantly, bailouts result in a softening of the budget constraint that states face. Each new bailout erodes the incentive for fiscal responsibility in the future, jeopardizing the supposed efficiency benefits of decentralization. Moreover, to the extent that federal bailouts come with strings attached (as is almost always the case), state fiscal autonomy is also compromised. 12 Over time, if states cannot responsibly manage their own finances, there will be increasing pressure to return the task of revenue raising to the federal government. Centralized funding in turn implies either federal control over policy or legal controversy over the rules for disbursing federal grants.
Extinction
Craig S Lerner 17, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. 19 N.C. J.L. & Tech. 69 "The Tower of Babel Revisited: Global Governance as a Problematic Solution to Existential Threats" https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1345&context=ncjolt
The previous section has sketched the cost to a unified response to the panoply of existential threats we face. This section restates the argument in a positive light: there are indeed benefits to a decentralized response.
The tradeoff between centralization and decentralization is an enduring political issue and is salient in the context of responses to existential threats. The case for centralization is clear: some nations, by failing to address climate change or regulate science, are imposing risks on other nations. These nations are said to create negative externalities that are borne, unfairly, by others.146 But this is simply a new presentation of a common problem. Whenever one jurisdiction engages in activities that create externalities that jeopardize the welfare of others, the situation arguably calls for centralization and the harmonization of regulation across jurisdictions.147
However, the counter-argument must be addressed: centralization and harmonization mean not only the stifling of local preferences but also reduced experimentation. Within the constitutional framework of the United States, it is generally considered to be advantageous that states preserve a sphere of autonomy and can act as “laboratories,” testing which regulations work and which do not. 148 With respect to some matters, it is preferable that a single rule applies to all states, but in other respects, regulatory differences are beneficial. When capital moves freely among jurisdictions, better regulatory approaches can be tested and rewarded.149
In assessing the tradeoff between centralization and its opposite, the costs and benefits must be analyzed in each circumstance. The context in which the tradeoff is considered here is that of the problem posed by catastrophic threats to humanity. As set forth elaborately above, 150 these threats are varied and complex, seemingly defying our poor human powers to resolve. And furthermore, responding to one threat can exacerbate other threats, thereby multiplying the complexity. In light of these monumental difficulties, there are compelling, if often underappreciated, advantages to a decentralized response.
Professor John McGinnis’s 

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