Taxes should be raised on the rich

We have a problem. I ask that the audience consider giving me a conduct point. My opponent actually plagiarized himself, by simply copying and pasting half of his argument from a previous one he made. Thank you.http://www.debate.org... Rebuttals: My opponent submits the Laffer Curve as proof of an “optimizing” tax rate. However, it is far too simplistic, to the point that any economists, much less anyone with a little understanding of the economy would reject this, and because of it's simplicity it cannot account for complex variables in the economy and their impacts. Under the Laffer Curve, my opponent shows that under 0% tax rates, and 100% tax rates government would make no money, either because taxes are too high or too low. This cannot be true, because if we tax at 100% we take away the so-called “profit motive” from the economy. Thus, logically in the economy today, we would find only businesses that seek to make a profit if this were true, but it isn't. Non-profit organizations/volunteers have absolutely NO profit motive, that is, they make 0 dollars, and they have no income taxes to pay as a result. Not only do they do this work essentially for free, but interestingly enough, they help grow the economy! In 2007, Laffer himself said that the curve should not be the sole basis for raising or lowering taxes. My opponent begins to cherry-pick select cases in history for tax cuts, but never seems to tell the whole story. They kept spending the same, paid off debt, implemented heavy farm subsidies to further agriculture production, and furthered free-trade dramatically. Generally speaking economists agree that spending money to reduce debt, and free-trade is desirable, no question about it, but my opponent cannot show that the correlation he espouses is causation in this situation. Also, agriculture employed about 40% of the workforce at the time, and when they subsidize that, it would appear as growth, NOT the tax cuts. Harding also heavily invested in technology, which would be good economically, not tax cuts as well. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] He notes the JFK tax cuts, but the increase in unions (U.S Steel) and the abolishment of the death penalty in the federal government were more likely. The federal government under JFK reallocated all capital punishment sentences to life without parole. This sounds economically insignificant, until you consider the fact that states with CP have the most appeals for their cases than every other state, which on judges payments alone would have saved the feds a huge sum of money, never mind the jury payments, lawyers, etc... And for that matter what about technology? Under JFK we had huge investments in tech, which caused us to launch several projects for space exploration. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] Finally, he cites the worst possible example he could cite: the Reagan tax cuts. The Great Communicator increased taxes throughout the 1980's. He actually proved my own point rather than proving his own. In fact, he created several taxes in TEFRA,Social Security, and DEFRA, and TEFRA is the biggest tax hike ever in American history alone, not withstanding the other hikes he made. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] Finally, my opponent claims it's necessary for income mobility. But this fundamentally ignores how taxes work (reallocation of resources as generally agreed upon, things like social security for instance) which are designed for income mobility. While Reagan might have had more millionaires in the US at the time, it was because other countries agreed with the US on free-trade agreements. Yet to make up for the lost income at the time, slap on sales and duty taxes to make up for the revenue loss. None-the-less, the Reagan years were not given income mobility due to tax cuts, they were off-set by other countries millionaires coming in, and the income gaps furthered under Reagan dramatically, not the other way around. [http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org...] The same follows for the Harding-Coolidge tax cuts. Income mobility was caused by the farm subsidies they implemented, not by tax cuts. As agriculture was a major industry at the time. In short, I can rebuttal my opponent simply with correlation is not causation. He cannot tell if tax cuts were what caused economic activities, or the programs that interfered with the market were what lead to this. He claims that FDR's policies only worked that way due to WW2, but the problem with this, is simply that war is an economic drain on the economy, thus showing the new deal's success still. Leading up to the war, he ignores the fact that unemployment under FDR's new deal plummeted, while taxes were incredibly high, and production was up along with higher GNP's and GDP's than Hoover's terms. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] My opponent completely dropped the argument about the role in the state in the economy, and why it is justified to interfere in the market place. Meaning now for me to meet my BOP if I find any tax that benefits anyone, I have now filled my BOP. I have; name any social security program you'd like, it's funded by tax dollars and it is beneficial for the fundamental “social floor” below which no one shall fall below. My opponent completely dropped my argument that it is indeed unfair that Warren Buffet pays less taxes than his secretary based on our system today. Finally, my opponent cites Shlaes, which is advocating the exact same thing I am advocating as noted earlier; that Warren Buffet pays less tax as his secretary, and that ought to change. As his own source notes “Sinai says he favours raising taxes on one kind of capital gain, carried interest, to treat it as ordinary income“. - http://www.bloomberg.com... I had noted this in round two at the beginning! C4: Taxes Stimulate the Economy, By Moving Money to the Economically Alienated As economist Robert Reich notes, Clinton had higher tax rates than Reagan, and also had higher rates of economical growth. In fact, Clinton has the record for keeping us in one of the longest economic booms of all time. This is proof that taxes are wonderful for the economy. [http://www.marketplace.org...] C5: If Lower Taxation Rates Actually Worked the US Would Rank Far Higher on the Gini Coefficient. The US holds a rating in the mid 2000's of about 0.48 before taxes and transfers on the Gini Coefficient (which measures income inequality, and economic inequality by countries), after taxes it is 0.37, a decrease meaning the money is far more equitable, and blows a huge hole in my opponents case about income mobility. If you want income mobility, you need to tax. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] The Gini is used to measure income inequality, and in the developed world, the US is one of the worst offenders, while only bringing in a tax rate of about 21% of GDP, the lowest in the developed world. Indeed, tax cuts actually result in poor quality of life, and if they worked like my opponent maintains, they would have the opposite effect, the US would be number 1. But they're not, and by deduction the opposite has to be true. http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... Clearly, we need higher taxation rates in the US, and the Rich ought to pay for it. It increases economic activity, prevents inequality, and my opponent's case for the Laffer curve coupled with his examples (which again correlation is not causation), my opponents case is weak, and I have met my BOP, and refuted all his examples. Thank you!