Welfare

You no doubt put as much time into this debate as I have, and I respect you for taking this so seriously. I have not yet debated someone on your intellectual level, and I will try to match your intelligence in my argument. My opening statement for this round will be a response to my opponents previous opening statement. "I must point out that this does seem to contradict yourresolution of welfare being detrimental to the United States. " Forgive me for this confusion, I merely meant to point out in the beginning of the argument that I am not against the concept of welfare, I am against however what certain politicians have interpreted as the meaning of welfare. This is why I said that welfare, when used appropriately, can contribute to society. "Understandably, it is quite easy to conceive why tax payingcitizens would have an issue with the government seizing any portion of theirincome for any reason whatsoever. Consequently, this is the reason why thisparticular message has been so effective in its vitriolic intent. However, thetrue nature of this issue is far more complex than partisan chicanery and couldpotentially have disastrous consequences if abandoned. " There are indeed many American citizens who feel that they have been done an injustice by being forced to pay welfare, but like my opponent said, there is so much more to this issue than that. I will return to this thought after quoting something else my opponent said:"Consumers can only purchase these items if they have some level of disposablecapital/income; by ensuring that individuals in the middle and lower class havea “safety-net” to aid them, they can continue to consume and the market cancontinue to operate. " My opponent makes an excellent case here, but seems to have forgotten one thing about how a capitalistic economy functions, and that is the men and women who work in these businesses. They, like other Americans need to feed their families, but the money they make in their businesses goes partially to welfare. The very same system my opponent says helps keep these businesses above water. So if the money that goes into the businesses is partially be taken out to go back to those paying for the product, how is this helping the business? In a functioning capitalistic economy, a working citizen pays for goods or services provided by a business, by doing so, this business receives the money it needs to make a profit and flourish. The worker receives the items he or she needs, hopefully at a reasonable price, and then will come back again when they need to. Without the worker making any money, the owner of the store is basically giving their product to the consumer, seeing as how it was the store owners money that is being used to purchase his own items. "Thus indicating that not only is welfare not a detriment toUS society but an economic benefit, one in which their economic woes would onlyincrease without. " My opponent believes that any increase in the United States GDP comes from investments in welfare programs. My opponent did not provide evidence that welfare was the cause of the increase, merely that our GDP increased while we had investments put into welfare. If welfare deducted from the national debt then maybe it would be considered not detrimental, but in any society where men and women choose not to work, and are then in turn paid for not working, this is ethically and economically unsound. If every man and woman in the United States decided at one point, "Hell, I'm not going to work, I could be paid $10 bucks an hour to do nothing. " Then our country would fail, it would die, and I'm grateful that every night I can go to bed knowing that there are still men and women who work to pay for those who don't. Who complain, but still pay their money to those people so they can sit at home and cheer on Obama for being their hero. Please tell me that's not wrong. Again, welfare to those who are working, and trying to get a job is fine, because we know that they will eventually give back to society. I showed my opponent a video about a woman in the UK who admittedly chooses not to work, and lives off her peers. She even admitted that there are people out there who are in worse condition to work, but do so anyway. "I’m not entirely sure where this figure came from but it ishighly inaccurate; the Final Monthly Treasury Statement from the US Government,states that the prior fiscal year to date contribution towards the TemporaryAssistance for Needy Families (TANF), or more commonly referred to as welfare,was approximately $17 billion. (4) This figure is nowhere near $1 trillion. "Forgive me pro, I found that statistic here: . http://www.nationalreview.com...- trillion-nro-staff "This statement is entirely speculatory; neither I nor Conhave any understanding of the circumstances in which 4 million Americans haverequired the aid of TANF. Certainly not to the point of being able to refer tothese circumstances as “dumb decisions”; according to Con, a “dumb” decisionwould be a woman having pre-marital sex while living in an area where birthcontrol and abortion are not readily available. This situation is furtheraggravated by the great likelihood that had she sought out an abortion, shecould have been ostracized by her community; given the current climate onabortion in the United States"For the sake of the argument I will use the condom as an example of birth control, simply because it is fact that it is the most effective form of its kind, besides abstinence. Condoms are 98% percent effective when used correctly, since this is not always the case, the overall effectiveness of the condom has lowered to 85% . http://www.advocatesforyouth.org...If a girl really wanted to have a 100% guarantee that she would not become pregnant, she would have to simply not have sex. Teens, as immature as they have proved themselves to be, know that they are taking a risk by having sex at this age. So when the girl becomes pregnant, and she relies on welfare to pay for her child, she was the one making the "dumb" decision. Yes, It is pretty dumb. My opponent also stretches it a bit to say that the community kept her from having it. Planned parenthood makes it perfectly easy enough to have an abortion if they want to. No one man woman or child would ever know. My opponent provided no evidence that there is only a fraction of the population guilty of fraud. Since the government is not efficient at stopping those people from doing it before they have done some real damage (see my source from the last round on welfare fraud) it could be considered detrimental to the United States. Thank you for reading.