In terms of quality of life, a flat tax places an unfair, substantially heavier burden on the poor.

. . must show that the flat tax does not! " My opponent attempts to attack the relevancy of my premise regarding the actual poor. This case lacks cogency. PRO should not be allowed to establish new parameters after the first round of the debate, and definitely not the last round. I believe the readers will agree that using the people who live with below-sufficient income are, by definition (obviously), poor. This looks more like an attempt to weasel out of a very plausible contention established by CON and is an implied concession. PRO only considers people with at least 0 luxury, but PRO's parameters do not place such a limit. In fact, PRO has, by limiting himself to using examples limited to those above poverty, has skewed his entire wall of premises into the area of irrelevancy since the resolution hinges on the degree of burden flat taxes have on the quality of life of the poor, not the lower middle class. PRO says: "CON should not win if they show that a progressive tax also unfairly burdens the poor. They must show that the flat tax does not. " CON must disagree. As I've mentioned before in round 2's opening, my opponent failed to specify the parameters. What was CON supposed use as a standard for comparison to flat taxes and subsequent 'unfairness'? Again, by proposing the progressive tax system and its subsequent wall of mathematical calculations toward equalizing tax/luxury-spending, PRO has indirectly defined CON's subject matter and cannot therefore apply any new terms. The rich & the poor are only small factors within the larger context of the long wall of mathematical calculations. If what my opponent says is true, then my opponent also concedes everything he has proposed in round 1 while shirking debate parameters. "let's look at someone who is well above what you would consider poor and show they face a substantially larger burden--then so too must the true poor. " This is an unfair, biased standard of comparison that is simultaneously irrelevant in light of the resolution. Those well above poor are obviously not the poor. It is essentially comparing those who are not poor to those who are poor. It's like testing an ape's language abilities and applying the collected data to the human race. It's also nice to note that if this system of comparison were plausible, then PRO should have no qualms with CON using the super wealthy, who PRO concedes to be largely unaffected by taxes, to represent the poor. "There is no doubt that taking $2,000 from someone making a measly $10,000 places a higher burden on them than the more wealthy. " Again, the poor is already poor, taking more from the poor would leave them in the same condition: poor. It is then the income that really matters, not the flat tax. The conclusion derived from my opponent's refutation about the poor's spent money arriving in the pocket's of the wealthy is erroneous. The government gives the poor the money in exchange for nothing while the wealthy provide goods & service for the money taken. There is a difference between purchasing goods and charity. "it's unfair to assume that 100% of taxes go to the poor and needy. " True. This is the reason I did not make this assumption. My opponent says: "Spending on welfare (at least in the US) is 3rd (or 4th) at best in terms of amount of spending (behind military, social security and Medicare)" The OMB has no category of spending called welfare. It is therefore subjective and undefined. Social security is in fact a form of welfare, meaning a substantial amount is given to the poor, bringing me back to the assertion that the poor has access to a net gain in numerical quantity of cash as a direct result of taxation. My opponent's attempt to name my progressive tax premises irrelevant fails to negate the case I've established. The reasons for this (debate parameters, round 1 and whatnot) are written above. "This line of argument suggests that debt has no ramifications. " This line of argument suggests that debt has ramifications that do not affect the quality of life. Flat taxes cannot therefore place a substantially heavier burden on the poor in terms of life quality simply because it places no burden. Living conditions remain the same. You cannot physically have less than nothing (a void of anti-matter? ). "Con R2: "Taxes will increase the numerical burden of their already unsupportable income, but they will still be poor. " I agree, taxes, specifically a flat tax (which would tax everyone the "same") places a burden on the poor and it's substantially worse than the burden it places on the rich. " This is really no refutation at all. The R2 statement is set to prove that the quality of life is unaffected by taxes. The burden is numerical, but unrelated to the resolution at hand. Since my opponent agrees with the numerical burden, then CON can assume PRO has dropped the contention of tax/luxury-spending proportionality and its relevancy. In reply to CON's statement about skewing the flat tax rate into extreme lows, PRO says: "The problem is that people living much closer to this minimum income face a substantially larger burden when you take away their money as opposed to people living much further away from this minimum income. " Let's look at it this way: We set the flat tax rate to 1x10^-100,000,000. I think my opponent will agree that upon using his round 1 equations, the proportional difference is nonexistent and therefore insubstantial. My opponent's greatest refutation against the statement against using money as a standard for quality of life: "First, yes obviously your income should decide your quality of life (or at least strongly influence it). There is no doubt that gross income should correlate to quality of life. " These are unsubstantiated and cannot therefore be considered appropriate refutation. 'It obviously should' doesn't further your cause. PRO concedes the following: 1. Money cannot be used as an absolute standard for quality of life if it does, then: 2. The progressive tax system which my opponent sets as the solution to the flat tax system, is no different to the flat tax system in terms of quality of life 3. The poor are unburdened since all tax systems (including the flat tax system) provides a net monetary gain; it is essentially an anti-burden. The most PRO did to refute these points were to: a. say: "it obviously should. .. " b. attempt to prove them irrelevant CON has successfully negated the resolution. *P. S. Thank you for a very harrowing debate. I thoroughly enjoyed making arguments each night at 12:00 - 1:00 in the morning before going to bed. Good night!