Governments should value economic equality before prosperity

Sources My opponent claims his arguments are purely moral and not objective, but he attempts to support his claims with factual information, which demands the use of sources. When I addressed the issue of movies, I was referring to the fact that he did not make an argument for certain points and that he tried to have unlinked videos make those points for him. My opponent claims I’m dodging certain points of his argument, but I’m not. I’m simply disregarding opinionated intellectual property that has no objective value and is not even linked. I’d like to remind my opponent and the voters on this debate that any objective claims made in a debate without sources are not reputable claims, and that it is the task of the debater to articulate his views, not for him to refer us to intellectual works that will make his arguments for him. In this round my opponent uses Wikipedia and other unreliable sources; I will point them out as I go through his points. Deflecting from the Resolution Let me reiterate that my opponent’s very broad definition of economic equality is not set in stone. Indeed the very first thing I did in this debate was state that economic equality was essentially the redistribution of wealth, and I confined the definition purely to the economic realm. Pollution may be an issue of quality of life, but it is not an issue of economic equality. Enforcement of the law is integral to keeping society safe, but it is not an issue of economic equality. While both issues may be indirectly related to economics, they do not fit into the resolution and are not worth debating and only serve to distract from the resolution. Enforcement of the law ensures that the economy can be run without corruption or coercion, thus it is merely a bureaucratic necessity for the economy. Whether or not we manage industrial waste effectively has an effect on how industry is managed, but it really has nothing to do with economic equality; it is an entirely different issue to be argued in another debate. It honestly seems like my opponent expected me to argue for pollution and lawlessness, rather than prosperity. GDP My opponent twists my words. No measurement system is perfect, especially not in the realm of social sciences. GDP is merely a measurement of economic growth and prosperity, a measurement based on the grand sum of goods and services. More goods and services generally mean that more jobs are being created and more wealth is being generated, so this is in my mind the most practical way to measure prosperity. When you compare my choice of definition for economic prosperity to my opponent’s choice of definition for economic equality, you’ll see a key difference. My measurement is based in science and fact, whereas my opponent’s measurement is unnecessarily vague and barely touches upon actual economics. Pollution How much smog you breathe in is not related to the amount of money you make, as my opponent claims. Pollution may drive down property values if it is severe enough, but this has nothing to do with whether the government should focus on economic equality or economic prosperity. My opponent is trying to commoditize air and trees, and he’s trying to argue that we should conserve parks. Again, this is not a debate about conservationism or pollution; it is a debate about whether or not the government should redistribute wealth. Law Enforcement I’ve covered this already. It is in the interest of any legitimate capitalist government to ensure that laws are enforced, so that the government (and more importantly, its financial transactions,) has legitimacy. It seems that my opponent wants me to argue for lawlessness, but I will not.Minimum Wage I read through my opponent’s sources and discarded the Wikipedia sources, since they are unreliable; but I read the Forbes source and actually found an interesting paragraph that supports my argument quite nicely.“The Irish minimum wage has become controversial after its economy contracted at an alarming rate following the collapse of its construction sector and spiraling deflation. "A lot of employers, particularly in the Irish construction and leisure and hotel sector, want to have the minimum wage cut," says Robin Chater, secretary general of the Federation for European Employers. Ireland has a significant immigrant population and many of its largely Eastern European workers would rather take a pay packet that's below the Irish minimum wage than head back to their home countries where pay is even worse and jobs are scarcer. In Latvia for instance, the monthly minimum wage is 343 euros ($495), while in Bulgaria it's just 240 euros ($345).” It would seem that the Irish actually want the minimum wage cut, because they CAN’T FIND WORK IN IRELAND. Wages are too high and employers are required to pay employees more than what their work is valued at, which leads to less hirings. Again, this is the result of government efforts to create a “fair” economy. These are words from my opponent’s only credible source. Taxes My opponent agrees that the income tax is too complicated and that it allows special interest groups to take advantage of our tax code, yet he insists upon more taxes. More taxes are not the answer and taxing the poor is not the answer, just as taxing the rich isn’t the answer. We should have the lowest taxes possible, so that we can put as much money into the hands of people as possible. Progressive taxes are flawed, because they punish you for being successful. The more you tax, the less economic growth there is, because the government is removing capital from the economy. Less capital means less job creation, less job creation means more unemployment, and more unemployment means less taxable income, less taxable income means higher tax rates for working Americans. It’s a vicious cycle really, and it does little to foster economic equality since the rich are more likely to hold onto their wealth than spend it if interest rates and taxes are raised, which means that the little guy ends up jobless or missing out on a raise/promotion. [1]Recession As I stated before, there are booms and busts, ups and downs, in any free market economy. More government spending and higher interest rates slow the economy down, while lower interest rates and less government spending speed the economy up. The housing bubble collapsing did not cause the Great Recession, crony capitalism caused the Great Recession. The government bailing out banks and industries to ensure a “fair economy” made a bust into an economic disaster. [2] It’s actually funny too, perhaps if you had read some of Ayn Rand’s work you would see that while industrialists were often the protagonists in her novels, the antagonists were the crony capitalists and legislators that tried to ensure a “fair” and “equal” economy. In Atlas Shrugged for example, the crony capitalists used their sway in Washington to pass bills like the “Equal Opportunity Act,” which made it a law that no one person could own two companies. Then there was the “Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog” agreement that James Taggart pushed through early in the novel, which forced more efficient railroads out of areas where more “established” railroads had staked claim to. I think the point here is clear; who the hell is the government to determine what is fair and equal, and why should we punish people for being good at what they do? Conclusion I would like to remind the voters that the burden of proof rests on my opponent, and that my duty in this debate is to refute his arguments. I believe I have adequately refuted my opponent’s arguments and that because of this, you should vote Con. I thank my opponent for a spirited debate; I had fun and have come out of this debate more knowledgeable. [1] http://economics.about.com...[2] http://www.macroresilience.com...