Answering CPs
Responses
When responding to a counterplan, there’s a handy acronym, POSTAL, that covers all the necessary components to respond. POSTAL stands for:
P - permutation
O - offense
S - solvency deficit
T - theory
A - (2AC) add-on that the CP cannot solve (policy debate specific)
L - links to the net benefit
Permutations
One of the integral parts of a counterplan is “competition.” There is no offense from a counterplan if it can be combined with the affirmative, because the two strategies are mutually compatible. A permutation tests this by making an argument that the plan can be combined with the counterplan. Importantly, the affirmative must make an argument that the permutation shields the link to the net benefit, meaning that the combination of the plan and the counterplan is able to resolve the disadvantage or net benefit from the counterplan. For example, if the affirmative reads a plan about the US federal government legalizing marijuana, and the negative reads a CP that state governments should legalize marijuana with a disadvantage about how federal marijuana legalization now will hurt Democratic chances in the midterm elections, and Democratic control is key to passing climate policy, the affirmative must then make an argument for how a permutation avoids the DA. This could be done by saying “permutation do both --- shields the link because state governments passing the plan means blowback isn’t attributed to Congress because they look like they’re just following on to what their constituents want.”
There are a few common types of permutations (perms):
Perm - do both: this permutation is very simple, saying that the best course of action is to enact both the plan and the permutation together.
Perm - do the counterplan: this permutation is often leveraged against process or agent CPs to say that the counterplan can be done as the affirmative.
There can be many other types of permutations, for example, permuting the plan and part of the CP, it just depends on how creative you get. However, there are a few types of permutations that are theoretically illegitimate:
Intrinsic --- intrinsic permutations add on something that was in neither the plan nor the CP. For example, the plan is that the United States federal government should implement a federal jobs guarantee. The negative reads a DA about how a federal jobs guarantee would hurt military recruitment, hurting US hegemony, causing war, and a CP to raise the living wage instead. An example of an intrinsic permutation could be: permutation - do both and have the US increase financial incentives to join the military. Since “financial incentives to join the military” was included in neither the plan nor the CP, this is intrinsic. This is bad because it allows the affirmative to fiat anything to get out of NEG disadvantages. To illustrate why intrinsic perms set a bad precedent, the AFF could say perm- do both and have all countries agree to never go to war. This is patently ridiculous (and cheating for multiple reasons), but shows why the affirmative should be limited to just parts of the plan and CP.
Severance --- severance permutations eliminate part of the plan. For example, if the plan is that the United States federal government should implement a federal jobs guarantee and the NEG reads a CP to provide a state jobs guarantee. If the affirmative says “permutation do the CP,” that’s severance because it’s jettisoning the “federal” part of jobs guarantee. Severance permutations are abusive because it prevents a stable advocacy for the negative to contest --- if the affirmative can just change the plan to get out of NEG arguments, it becomes impossible to be negative.
Offense
The next part of answering a counter-plan is to generate offense on the CP flow. Offense is just a reason why the CP is bad. So, for example, if the plan is for the United States to pass a federal jobs guarantee, the negative could read a disadvantage saying that passing the plan would negatively affect the ability to get some other current bill passed (for example, in 2022 it would be Build Back Better), and a CP to call a constitutional convention to amend the constitution to pass the plan, which avoids the disadvantage but still passes the plan. The affirmative could then read offense against this counterplan by making an argument that this causes a “runaway convention,” where it establishes precedent to amend the constitution and so people will continue amending it with terrible things.
Solvency Deficits
Solvency deficits are the most important part of answering a counter-plan. Since the point of a counter-plan is to soak up AFF offense, if the NEG wins that the CP solves the impacts from case, it becomes incredibly hard to win because all of the plan’s offense is now solved in the world of the NEG. Solvency deficits contest that part of the counterplan by saying that the counter-plan is not able to solve case for x, y, and z reasons. For example, if the AFF reads a plan to pass compulsory voting with an advantage about how that will lead to policies to stop warming. If the NEG reads a CP to just pass a carbon tax, the AFF could make a solvency deficit by saying that a carbon tax doesn’t solve warming. There are a couple of types of solvency deficits commonly read by the affirmative against any counterplan.
A. Delay Deficit - This deficit is pretty simple it's just the delay caused by the counterplan means it can't solve for the affs harms. This deficit is really good with affs that rely on timeframe for solvency especially one that describes ongoing harms. However, this deficit only really works with process counterplans and some advantage counterplans not really with agent counterplans.
B. Certainty Deficit - This deficit argues that the counterplan can't solve for the aff because there isn't a 100 percent chance it can so any risk that it can't solve for the aff means that you auto vote aff on a risk of the counterplan not solving.
C. Perception Deficit - This deficit argues that the counterplan illicit a different perception from other actors than the plan does so it can't solve. This deficit applies to any counterplan and is a good go to for answering counterplans because it can be tricky to answer.
Theory
Finally, theoretical arguments are often used against counter-plans. The most common types of theory are arguments about the “status” of the counter-plan.
Status refers to when the NEG is allowed to “kick out of” or not go for the counter-plan. The 2N/AR does not go for every argument presented in the 1AC/NC because that would spread the final speech out too thin and prevent them from decisively winning the most important issue in the round. For example, if the 1NC reads 3 DAs, they will not go for all 3 DAs in the final speech, but instead choose one of them to explain thoroughly and argue why that is the most important and round-winning argument. In order to do this, the NEG must “kick” the other 2 DAs by conceding defense on them. While it seems anathema to concede an argument, a defensive argument on a flow that one is not going for cannot hurt the NEG in the round, so it instead becomes strategic. Once counter-plans are introduced into the debate, this process of kicking them becomes more contentious. Often the affirmative will say that the negative should not be able to kick out of counter-plans because it skews the 1AR’s time --- if the negative can introduce a new “world” into the debate (the counter-plan) and then just say they’re not going for it in the 2NR if it’s answered sufficiently hurts the affirmative’s time allocation because the 1AR now lost time. This is not the same with disadvantages because the affirmative can punish the NEG for reading many disadvantages with straight turns. However, the negative argues that they should be able to kick out of counter-plans with impunity because it tests the affirmative from multiple angles like in real life which leads to better education, and that kicking out of a counter-plan is no different from kicking out of a disadvantage or the affirmative collapsing to only one of the original advantages. Status thus refers to when the negative is allowed to kick out of counterplans. There are three different types:
Conditionality --- this says all counterplans are “conditional,” meaning that the negative is able to kick out of any of them in the final speech.
Dispositional --- this says that the negative may only kick out of a counterplan if the affirmative makes a certain set of arguments; for example, a common condition for dispositionality is that the negative may not kick out of the counterplan unless the affirmative makes a permutation.
Unconditional --- this says that the negative may not kick out of the counterplan at all, they read it in the 1NC and they’ll go for it in the 2NR.
In CX, it is always a good idea to ask what the status of the counterplan(s) is in order to determine whether or not to make a theory argument about the status. Conditionality is often regarded as the most abusive, and unconditional as the fairest.
In addition, there are a littany of common theory arguments pertaining to the function of the counterplan. For example, people will often argue that PICs, consult CPs, process CPs, and delay CPs are unfair.
Add-ons
This is not applicable to LD, but is useful to know if you transition to policy debate.
Links to the net benefit
In the case of an external net benefit, it is possible that the counterplan 'triggers' the same disadvantage that the affirmative does. If this is the case, the counterplan is said to link to the net benefit. For example, the negative reads a politics disadvantage that explains why implementing a carbon tax is too controversial and would prevent passing a certain bill. If the negative also reads a counterplan that proposes a ban on fossil fuel subsidies, the affirmative can claim that this counterplan is equally controversial and therefore equally likely to prevent passing that bill. Making a 'links to the net benefit' argument is often strategic because affs can use the 2NR's response to delink from a disadvantage. In the example used above, the negative may argue that policies like banning fossil fuel subsidies can be bipartisan and encourage members of Congress to work together on future bills. If the plan and counterplan are similar enough, this argument may also be a reason that a carbon tax would encourage collaboration in Congress, therefore mitigating the risk of the disadvantage.
