PART ONE: Topicality  Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment in the United States.

T: Substantially  Many definitions of “substantially” (adv.) used in debate are of “substantial” (adj.)  “Substantial/substantially” means  Essentially  Important  In the Main  Large  To make greater/augment  Material/real  Excludes material qualifications

Substantially [cont’d]  Potential issues include  Do you meet an (arbitrary), quantified increase in TII  Whether the increase can be qualified

T: Increase  “Increase” means  Augment numbers or quantity  To make greater/larger  To make a qualitative improvement  Potential disputes include  Whether there must be pre-existing TII to be increased  Whether the aff must increase the size of TII, or can just improve it

T: Its  “Its” means the possessive form of “it”; used as a modifier before a noun  In this case, “transportation infrastructure investment” belong to “The United States federal government”  Controversy: is “its” exclusive? Are coop affs (with states, private entities, other countries) permissible?

Investment  Means deploying resources (time, money, material) with the expectation of some future gain  Is used *broadly* and *frequently* in the context of infrastructure  May end up meaning “all government money spent on infrastructure”

Debating Topicality  Like almost all theory, revolves around two impacts  Fairness  Education  You need to focus on three issues  Caselists (content and size)  Division of ground  Types of literature  Good T debating requires an appropriate mix of both offense and defense

PART TWO: Non-Topicality Procedurals  Plan vagueness  Solvency advocate (lack thereof)  Specification  Agent  Enforcement  Funding

PART THREE: Framework  What is this about? The controversy behind almost all framework debates is which types o f impacts “count” when the judge renders a decision  A secondary question the involves what mechanisms the debaters can use to access those impacts  Useful analogs include  Legal rules of evidence  Criteria debates from old school CEDA or LD  Methodological disputes

Framework [cont’d]  What impacts are we competing for?  Education  Fairness  “Good political agents”  What are the approaches negatives take to defending framework against non-traditional affs?  “T”: you are not what the resolution says, debate like a T violation (caveman)  Traditional framework: policymaking is good, you’re not it (old school)  Cooptive frameworks: fair play, etc.

Framework [cont’d]  Judges and framework debates  Be aware of the judge’s identity and social location/status  Ideologues  K all the way  K no way  Centrists (largely incoherent)—both sides get to weigh their impacts

Framework [cont’d]  Traditional framework—instrumental implementation of the plan  Predictable ground [impact: fairness, via competition]  Rez mandates policy focus (resolved, USFG, etc)  Literature that neg mandates is more predictable  Are an infinite number of FORM/CONTENT combos  Education  Policy education leads to a more informed citizenry/bolsters demcoracy  Training—we learn to play future roles  Advocacy  Empathy  Research Skills  Engagement—avoids “right wing takeover”  Switch-side debate is valauble  Laboratory considerations (experimentation)  Know thy enemy

Framework [cont’d]  Form  We need a consensus about what we are debating about for a meaningful debate to occur  Rules are necessary to guide discussion and can promote creativity  Defensive arguments  Playing by the rules can combat bad biopower(s)  The world works this way  Reciprocity  Affirmative choice (if affirmative)

Expansive Affirmative FW  Meaning of words is arbitrary/predictability is a praxis, not a truth  Counter-definitions of worlds that allow an individualized focus  USFG is the people  Resolves refers to us, not the USFG  Debates do not leave the room  Policymakers do evil things, policymaking logic does evil things

Expansive FW [cont’d]  Epistemological kritiks (knowledge from policy land is bad/tainted)  Politically-centered kritiks  Friere  Identity politics  Schlag  Ethics kritiks  Language kritiks/dirty words  General “case outweighs”