"The Buffet Rule" Should be Implemented by the Federal Government

This has certainly been an interesting experiance for me. Debating in a formal format was certainly a fun challenge and I appreciate HD's time and patience with me through the debate. While I will concede HD’s point that Story leans toward his interpretation more than mine, however I do not at all concede that this is what the founders intended, as HD has pointed out, this is a much debated topic and the debate still rages on. The point that HD did not address that his interpretation got us into this mess, while my interpretation did not. Since the Federalists have had the edge, they also take shoulder the responsibility for a country saddled with a $15 Trillion national debt and a $1 Trillion budget deficit. My primary argument in my opening remarks was that the Buffett Rule does not achieve its intended goal, and if what it achieves instead is unconstitutional then it should not be passed. Through HD’s argument he has not shown that it is constitutional to use the money for his “suggestions”, rather he has shown that Story’s commentaries lean in his favor, however what he has not done successfully is show that outside of my interpretation, Gov’t has any real limits on its power. The closest he comes is to point out that the word “provide” does not give gov’t license to tell people how to live their lives. Unfortunately Obama care stands poised to change all of that, by forcing people to purchase health insurance, and since our legal system, as HD points out, works off precedent, if it is passed we may soon look forward to a gov’t mandated diet as well.Which leaves us with fairness; something I did not defend in my last two rebuttals. HD argues “Percy is only paying 0.4% more than his companion on taxes, but is making a considerable amount more than that. My opponent has agreed that a progressive tax structure is fair and reasonable, and yet this is far from a truly progressive tax structure.” Which begs the question…what is a “truly” progressive tax structure? Currently the income tax rate caps at 35% for families making ~$380,000 or more. I would say that the current tax system is progressive though I would say it’s unfair, because ~5% of Americans pay for over 50% of the total tax’s. (http://ntu.org...). In fact if HD wants a “truly” progressive tax structure, the Buffett Rule should be asking for much more to make it “truly” progressive for millionaires and billionares. You see by quoting me and implying that I agree, HD assumes that my definition of “progressive” is the same as his, thus straw manning my position. Though I don’t believe he is doing so intentionally. When I say “progressive” I simply mean that those who are richer should pay more, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the percentage of their income should progress as they make more money. This already happens today, though not in a way I support.The way it stands the bottom 50% of Americans only pay ~3% of America’s total taxes…this is simply unfair. The Buffett Rule only increases the disparity between the tax payers and the non tax payers. Lastly, HD again tries to use a quote of mine to strengthen his position, and again he misuses my comment and straw man’s my position. HD quotes me as saying I agree that every little bit counts, but fails to cite my qualification for that statement given in the prior paragraph.“The proponents of the Buffett Rule would have you believe that every little bit counts, and if we just keep chipping away at it, we can make a real impact. However 47 billion doesn't even pretend to make a dent in this amount. This is simply not trivial, and it assumes that the money will actually be used to pay down the debt…not even HD proposes paying down the debt with it.”The point being though figuratively every little bit does in fact count…what we’re talking about here is SUCH a little bit that saying that it counts is to fail to see the gravity of the problem. I pointed out in previous arguments that the budget (if it stays exactly where it is) is poised to add another 13 TRILLION dollars to the debt, ON TOP of the 15 TRILLION we already have. That’s near 30 TRILLION DOLLARS of national debt that we will be settled with and we are supposed to believe that 47 billion dollars in tax increase is supposed to help us somehow? This is the real problem…the Rich simply don’t have enough money to fix this problem, we could literally take every cent and liquidate all their assets and we STILL wouldn’t have enough to pay for even a single year of our spending. The Forbes 400 top wealthiest people in America are only worth about 1.4 Trillion dollars. (http://en.wikipedia.org...) The current budget according to (http://en.wikipedia.org...) is 3.721 trillion. This is what I have yet to hear from any one…exactly how much do we have to tax the rich to pay for this ridiculous amount of spending? The answer is it’s impossible. I ask that you vote “con” because I have shown that the Buffett rule is unfair due to the rich already being overtaxed, I have proven that the bill Cannot achieve its intended goal, and I have shown that any other use for the funds would be unconstitutional and there should be a constitutional amendment prior to using the monies for HD’s “suggestions”.I thank HD for his time and his respect during this debate, it has been fun and he is a formidable opponent. I look forward to the feedback from the peanut gallery :o)