On the Following Fair Taxation System(s).

Pro clarifies his definition his definition of fairness to mean "characterized by EQUALITY or fairness." Defining fairness as fairness is not a clarification. "Equality" means "The state or quality of being equal." or "the quality of being the same in quantity or measure or value or status." http://www.thefreedictionary.com... Thus fairness achieved through equality could only be achieved by having each citizen pay equal taxes, for example, everyone pays exactly $19,000 in taxes. That is not what Pro has proposed in either system. Pro implies that equality could be achieved by imposing the same system on everyone. A system of regressive taxation could be imposed equally on everyone, so that the poor pay a higher percentage than the rich. That would meet the definition of a system being equally imposed, but it would be unfair. We are left with the circular definition of a fair system being one that is fair. If Pro intended that only a system that takes equal percentages is fair, and that therefore he proposed to win by definition, that should have been made clear at the outset. In that way the debate could have been entirely avoided. Pro states "opponent mischaracterizes my proposals as an argument against the status quo, even though the opening argument specifically states: 'The proposition on offer is that the following taxation system(s) are fair. The proposition is NOT that they should be adopted by the United States.' " I did not use Pro's argument to claim that the status quo should be overthrown. I used Pro's statement "The main component of this taxation system would be the abolishment of the income tax. Historically, when you want less of something (pollution, imports) you tax them at a high rate. Why tax one's legal work? Do we want less people to work?" to make the point that a system that unnecessarily diminished the total wealth of the nation was unfair. By Pro's stated assertion, he acknowledges that a system that does that is unfair. Therefore, Pro's system of import tariffs, which unnecessarily diminishes wealth, is unfair. a)"Con asserts that I did not answer the argument that protected industries become non-competitive even though I explicitly demonstrated a model by which the automobile industry would remain competitive even if protected." Pro offered a model that might work in theory, but which has been clearly shown never to work in practice. Did in fact Hindustani Motors or any of the other protected car companies ever become internationally competitive? They did not. Nor could Pro cite a single example anywhere of a protected industry becoming competitive. An answer that there is a method that has been tested and found to fail is not an answer. It is akin to arguing that socialism is a viable system because if the State allocates resources wisely it could succeed, but in practice it never does. b) "Thus, an import tariff on sugar to boost the domestic benefit of IMPORTED SUGAR to 3 cents per pound makes economic sense if the nation is trying to boost domestic economy..." If the international price of sugar is four cents, but a tariff is applied to raise it to, say five cents, then consumers will be paying five cents a pound for sugar. this helps domestic sugar producers at the expense of every other consumer who is forced to provide the subsidy. That is a net loss to the economy, not a net gain. Moreover, it is completely unrealistic to suppose that protective tariffs only will protect industries that would otherwise be competitive. The whole point is to protect jobs in uncompetitive industries. competitive industries don't need protection. Tariff protection transfers wealth to non-competitive industries and damages the economy as a whole. c) "However, in the long term, this would give motivation for innovation in the domestic market." Protection from competition never provides motivation for innovation, except insofar as it motivates industry to automate and eliminate the jobs that the tariffs were supposed to protect. "Items of this nature that cannot be produced competitively locally (soap is a good example) may be taxed at a lower rate or not at all, according to the first tax model in the opening argument." Since Pro references the first model, I assume the tax that would be waved would be the consumption tax, not the import tax. Thus, Pro would raise the price of soap by by putting tariffs on imports, then subsidize the inefficient production of soap by taxing goods other than soap at a higher rate so as to subsidize soap. A government bureaucracy would necessarily be created to decide what products would be subsidized and which would be taxed extra to provide those subsidies. This is exactly the mechanism of gross inefficiency that characterizes protected economies. The net result is well known. the economy as a whole deteriorates significantly as a consequence. The fewer products that are protected, the greater the less the deterioration, but the practice guarantees that resources will be kept in inefficient industries rather than redeployed to efficient ones. I relied upon Pro's statement that "Exporting raw materials and importing finished goods makes no economic sense." Apparently, Pro did mean for that statement to be taken literally as stated. Pro gives the example "South Africa exports 76.19 billion, yet imports 81.89 billion." So is Pro arguing that trade deficits should be prevented by raising tariffs until the trade balance is positive? That would be a disaster for the reasons cited. Then Pro adds confusion by citing sources that in general Africa is an economic mess. Of course, it is true that Africa is an economic mess, although South Africa, the country Pro cites as an example, has one of the best economies in Africa. There is no evidence that a lack of protectionism is the cause of economic woes in Africa. Africa has been hurt by socialism and dictators that mismanage their economies and prevent the prosperity that comes from free markets, and by protectionism in America and Europe that keeps out the agricultural products that Africa would like to export. ----------------------------- Protectionism has been well-tested. The Smoot-Hawley Act was passed by the U.S. Congress to raise tariffs in hopes of warding off the Great Depression. It failed miserably. According to the U.S. State Department, "Smoot-Hawley marked the end of the line for high tariffs in 20th century American trade policy. Thereafter, beginning with the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, the United States generally sought trade liberalization through bilateral or multilateral tariff reductions. To this day, the phrase "Smoot-Hawley" remains a watchword for the perils of protectionism." http://www.state.gov... It is fundamentally unfair to adopt a tax policy that hurts taxpayers by unnecessarily damaging the economy. Pro gave a theoretical argument as to why he thought it shouldn't damage the economy, but never cited a single example of a nation or industry that benefited from protectionism. I cited numerous examples of the harm that resulted to industries by preserving inefficiency and preventing the reallocation of resources from non-competitive to competitive industries, and I gave the reasons why it was so. A fair tax system should above all else preserve the goose that lays the golden eggs. Pro's tax system does not do that. Therefore the resolution should not be affirmed.