US Reparations to African Americans.

I will start by refuting my opponents points, and then I will go on to state my own. My opponent's plan is irrelevant under his own definitions. Tax credits are not money. They are a tax break. Although similar, they are definitely different in some important ways. Namely, with tax credits, the government is not giving you actually money to keep. Therefore, my opponents plan is non-resolutional. My opponent's first contention was that we have a moral obligation. However, both of my contentions explain how reparations would actually hurt African-Americans. If the idea to repay the obligation will backfire, we really shouldn't do it. My opponent's second and third contentions will be refuted by my first contention. Opp Resolved: The United States federal government should pay reparations to African Americans. Contentions 1. Reparations for slavery would increase poverty 2. The backlash from reparations will hurt African Americans Elaboration 1. Reparations for slavery would increase poverty a. Forbes" Kyle Smith notes, "The reparations plans that have been suggested, however, would work a lot like lotteries. The Atlantic's Ta-Nehesi Coates suggests a large lump sum distributed to a single generation over a period of "a decade or two." These ideas sound like lotteries." In other words, a lump sum of money being given to a person. http://goo.gl... b. The Wall Street Journal notes, "The take-away is that sudden wealth only exaggerates your current situation. If you"re unhappy, bad with money and surrounded by people you don"t trust, money will make those problems worse." The people who need this, the 27% of African Americans in poverty, will be the ones hurt the most by reparations. http://on.wsj.com... c. Economists Hoyt Bleakley and Joseph Ferrie noted about the 1832 Georgia Land lottery, in which huge, extremely valuable land was randomly handed out to winners, "one generation after the distribution of the Georgia land, sons of winners have no better adult outcomes (wealth, income, literacy) than the sons of non-winners, and winners" grandchildren do not have higher literacy or school attendance than non-winners" grandchildren." In other words, being granted huge amounts of land with extremely large monetary value didn"t actually increase the wealth of later generations and had no long term benefits. http://goo.gl... d. Yusuf Nurrudin of New School University notes,"If reparations checks arrived on a Friday, half of the recipients would be broke by Monday morning." http://goo.gl... e. According to a 2012 Vanderbilt University study, 70 percent of lottery winners end up bankrupt. http://goo.gl... IMPACT: People who gain sudden financial windfall such as from a lottery are not placed on some sort of higher economic platform. Reparations will only increase poverty, not reduce it. 2. The backlash from reparations will hurt African Americans a. According to the Chicago Tribune, " Rather than advance the cause of equal opportunity for African-Americans, the spreading demand for cash compensation is more likely to tip public opinion against the long-term interests of most American blacks." http://goo.gl... b. The Heartland Institute"s Joseph Bast notes, "Governments do not create wealth, they redistribute it. Asking today"s governments to make up for mistakes made more than 150 years ago is just another way of saying today"s largely white taxpayers owe a debt to black Americans, a burden they apparently bear simply by virtue of being white." https://goo.gl... c. The University of Dayton elaborates, "Reparations may actually hurt African-Americans by engendering a victim-status and inducing a backlash from whites. Much of the public opinion problems results from the perception among whites that reparative remedies are reverse discrimination; i.e., that these type of remedies reward African-Americans (and, in most cases, other minorities) at the expense of whites who feel they have played no role in oppressing African- Americans." It is important to note that it is irrelevant if this is actually true, it only matters that many whites feel it is true. https://goo.gl... IMPACT: Noah Millman, senior editor at The American Conservative magazine, notes, "The push for reparations might well stiffen opposition to other programs designed to address those disparities. Reparations may not lead to reconciliation, but become the basis for further conflict between aggrieved groups of citizens. " Reparations will only increase racial tension. Reparations will make furthering other racial justice programs harder and isn"t worth the backlash that will inevitable follow. http://goo.gl... CASE IMPACT: Reparations will accomplish two things, a) increasing the African American poverty rate and b) increasing racial tension. The absolute best case scenario for reparations and everyone they affect, taxpayers and beneficiaries, is one in which all of their effects are erased 10 years from now.