The growth in the popularity and importance of disadvantage arguments in debate has been, in some measure, due to the growing belief that debate should be viewed from a policy-making perspective. And, with the focus of contemporary debate shifting to the consequences of policy actions, there has been a concurrent increase in the sophistication of affirmative plans. Most affirmative teams not only carefully construct plans in order to avoid disadvantage arguments, but also tend to choose case areas that seem to be least prone to disadvantages. Thus, a policy optimization model can be useful to the debater for tracing the consequences of policy action. It allows the negative to place affirmative policies into the perspective of general goals so that specific sources of policy dysfunction may be discovered. By using the bell-shaped benefit curves and valley-shaped cost curves, a policy can be determined to be at its optimal level when the policy reaches a point that is at the greatest distance between costs and benefits. This implies that a policy designed to achieve a given objective may be adopted in varying degrees or that different policies may be adopted along a continuum of effect toward a goal. By using the model, policy actions can be compared to the desired objectives of the policy. If it can be agreed that a goal can be achieved in varying degrees and that there are desirable limits of policy effect, then the further application of this model will serve to clarify many sources of policy dysfunction. (HOD)