increasing taxes, as a practical matter, is necessary for the financial well being of the USA

It's not only an important topic, but one that has faced, and will continue to face America for many years in the future. With that being said, I truly feel that my opponent has missed the mark with his/her comments and arguments. I will begin by refuting these arguments, and proceed with my own afterwards. 1. The question "where are the cuts going to come from to balance the budget, if there are no tax increases? " is the wrong question to be asking. Cuts don't require tax increases. .. at least. .. not the right cuts. You see, in order to balance the budget, one of two things can happen. First, we can assess how much we have to spend, and not spend more than that, or we can assess how much we're spending, and earn enough to cover that. Obviously a combination of the two is also possible, but this debate seems to be strictly about either raising taxes or cutting programs. I'll allow that to stand and debate on the maker's ground. 2. Why not make cuts to defense, social security, general government expenses, or health care? You present a straw man argument about cutting the spending that's used on the poor (I'm assuming this means forms of welfare). While any form of cutting spending would help us balance the budget, I agree that we shouldn't start here. I say that we cut programs, and in my own argumentation I'll tell you where and why and how this will work to not only balance the budget, but make the areas in which cuts were made more effective. 3. In 2013, total expenditures from the U. S. Government is 3.8 trillion dollars (do a quick search of wikipedia and it's easy to find). Our total revenue is a meager 2.9 trillion dollars. This is a deficit of 900 billion dollars. Now. .. even if all of this revenue came from taxes, which it doesn't, then this would be a nearly 33% increase in taxes. .. to just MEET the expenditures of the U. S. Government. 33 PERCENT! !! ! This simply cannot happen. In order to win this debate, my opponent doesn't just have to prove that cutting programs won't work, but rather that raising taxes (more than) 33% is a viable and sustainable way of living and thriving. Now let's move on to my own argumentation and theory of how to balance the budget. Step one: Privatize the military. Entirely. This means that 500 billion dollars that we spend is now going towards the 900 billion dollars we need to balance the budget. Over half way there and I only needed one sentence! Imagine what I'm going to do when I'm finished. .. Now obviously you say that we need the military because how else are we going to defend our freedoms in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, North Korea, Russia, China, Ecuador, Cuba, and everywhere else that I've missed? Easy. .. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THOSE PLACES. Worry about us. By eliminating the national military, we not only save 500 billion dollars, but we actually make our self defense better. When we eliminate the national military, we are forced to rely on state militias to defend our home turf. This is actually a much more efficient way of doing it anyway. When state militias are formed, it creates pride in one's own state, and develops competition amongst state militias. These are both very good. First with the pride factor, people love their sports teams for the simple reason that they grew up where those teams are. While this isn't universally true, it's usually the case. The same applies for militias. People are going to be proud of the militia in their home state. But it also increases competition. Militias will be the new standard for combat. If Wisconsin (god forbid) had the top militia, then others would be trying to match and exceed the standard set by Wisconsin. Basic market principles have proven this time and time again. So now we have militias competing at being the best at protecting the citizens. That sounds like something I want my defenders doing. Plus, they'll have specific information in how to deal with attacks, natural disasters, and other concerns in their areas. We no longer have major snafu's from governmental organizations when the next Katrina hits. Because Louisiana's militia has trained for this. They're able to do it more effectively. But i still have 400 billion dollars to go. So let's eliminate social security. BAM! !! now we're making 100 billion dollars every year! Not only does this solve our problem of balancing the budget, but it gets rid of a failing system that clearly can't keep up with growing demands. We've got a win-win here and I haven't even had to talk about worthless government programs like Ron Paul's ever so beloved EPA. Go me! Why the social security you ask? I'd say "good question" but I hate lying. We should first discuss how social security works. Basically, those who are working, pay into the system, so that those who have already payed into the system and since retired are able to receive the money that those still working are paying into it. The money being payed into the system isn't being invested like a bank would do, but rather just being given out. This wasn't a problem when it was created because there were 16 people paying in to every one person taking out. Now. .. we're down to a 2-1 paying in to paying out ratio. This trend is a bad one. At this rate, Social Security will be bankrupt by 2041. Which means I won't even have retired yet. So we cut our losses and bite the bullet of having all the baby boomers and their kids pissed at us. Sorry grandma. OR. .. we privatize it and turn it into a profitable business that is able to sustain itself far into the forseeable future. Either way we've cut spending enough to more than balance the budget. It's actually pretty easy to comprehend. If a business isn't making enough to pay all the bills, it shouldn't just raise prices on its goods and services, it should fire people, or change its business practices. The government is a failing business that we try to save by charging more for the "chicken parmigiana". It's a ludicrous notion that raising taxes will solve all of our problems. In reality, more taxes means less money to spend, which both scares consumers and gives them less money to spend. A scared consumer won't spend the money they do have, and because they don't have as much, even if they wanted to spend they couldn't. You can't expect an economy to thrive when people won't and can't spend money. Instead, you cut programs until you don't exceed the revenue, and you don't have any problems with consumers. Instead, you have a government that isn't in the red, but rather is able to live within its means and survive well into the future. I look forward to saying the same thing over and over again another two times.