The Wild, Wild West of “Expanding” Social Security: Winning Against “Shoehorn” Social Security Affs12/18/2023 Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate Since the summer we’ve known that people were going to interpret “expanding” social security in pretty unlimiting ways. For the most part, we’ve got a small an awesome topic that requires the affirmative to make a giant change to the economy, most often through either a federal jobs guarantee or establishing a basic income. Fewer teams have ventured into the social security area (except when talking just about expanding SSI to the territories), but many of those that have do so in ways that fundamentally change what social security is. We saw this during camp season, when affs were written to “expand” social security by making it include universal health insurance. This past weekend, in the finals of the Holiday Classic, I judged an aff that expanded social security to include a “Federal Indian Health Insurance Program.” The team that read this is taking advantage of the fact that "expand social security" could mean anything, and they’re shoehorning their very not-social-security idea into social security by calling it an expansion. You can expand social security to be universal healthcare, to be health insurance for natives, etc etc ad infinitum. You can expand social security to have it include monthly snack boxes from around the world, if you want. How do you beat all the potential affs this strategy opens up? Read the complete article below the fold. Every move has a counter-move, and the more divorced your idea is from a real literature base the more likely it is that there’s a good way to strategically punish teams doing it. The strategic drawback of shoehorning novel ideas into social security is the PIC out of social security. The core of this strategy is that I don't think the teams doing this have a real defense of why social security is key.
Consider the following debate: Plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal redistribution by expanding social security to include a Federal Indian Health Insurance Plan. Counterplan: The United States federal government should establish a Federal Indian Health Insurance Plan. That CP does 100% of everything the aff cares about (FIHIP) but 0% of social security. It competes because perm do both links to social security modification bad args, and perm do the counterplan severs expanding social security. Of course, counterplans need net benefits, and that means you need a DA to modifying/expanding social security. The aff is probably relying on the fact that not many neg teams have developed a DA that fits that mold. Well, Team Wyoming has. Against small or novel social security affs, we read a social security reform DA that says that there's a carefully negotiated compromise on social security reform that will happen in the status quo, but expanding or tinkering with social security collapses that deal. Social security reform is key to the program's sustainability, and collapse of social security writ large spurs an especially durable and pernicious form of populism. So you could read the SSR DA and the PIC out of social security expansion, and just do FIHIP on its own. That said, the teams reading this aff are going to know this is a glaring weakness, and they aren't going to just roll over. Most likely, the 2AC is going to have a few social security key solvency deficits. But, just because there's a goalie doesn't mean you shouldn't take a shot. I guarantee you these solvency deficits can't hold up against a smart neg team. It’s smoke and mirrors because there really isn’t a good social security key argument when your aff isn’t really about social security. So for example, they might have some ev that says the "Social Security Administration is really good at implementing policies" that they’ll tag as “social security key.” Here are a few answers to that: (1) the SSA has never done health insurance, they do social security. Being good at poker doesn't make me a NASCAR driver, these are literal different things. (2) The SSA being good at stuff doesn't mean other agencies aren't good at stuff. Medicare and Medicaid are good at healthcare, definitely better at it than the SSA since they actually do it. (3) The SSA is probably really bad at it's job! Cut some ev about this. (4) In the debate I judged, the aff cited empirical examples of local agencies doing awesome stuff with indigenous healthcare, like in Seattle. The City of Seattle is not the SSA, and the aff says they're doing great- ipso facto, the solvency deficit is wrong! (5) Read or add a counterplan plank to create a new agency to implement the plan modeled on the SSA- that completely moots the solvency deficit. Any solvency deficit these "shoehorn X into social security" teams come up with is probably going to be held together with duck tape and rubber bands, because no one thinks social security is the best vehicle for all these not-really-social-security affs. If you press on the solvency deficits like I did the above example, the neg should come out ahead. Now that’s my best idea for how to debate these affs, but I do have some other stray thoughts. Rock Springs has experimented with a T violation that "expand has to be pre-existing" to limit out shoehorned affs. I like that idea! I think it’s worth playing around with, though maybe not making it the “all things equal” 2NR. I think there’s other big drawbacks to shoehorning new social programs into social security. Social security is only eligible to those 62 and older. If the aff adds their program to social security, don't the pre-existing rules of social security apply? FIHIP advocates want every indigenous person to have health insurance, not just the elderly! The aff starts from only solving ~20% of the intended targets! I also think there's probably an even more straight-forward "you collapse social security" link to social security DAs to these affs. No ev about normal means for funding is going to assume the plan is shoehorned into social security, but, in real life, if I was like "social security is now responsible for all native healthcare", wouldn't the most logical place the money comes from be.... social security? It seems like there's a logical argument the plan would insta-zap the social security trust fund and raid all the current social security payments to pay for this new vision of what social security is that the aff creates.
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