High Tax Rates Hurt the Economy

Pro 1. Reduced reward means less productivityFirst, pro will do well to note that my source for the first paragraph includes that quote nearly word for word. Second, the education system would not be the same whether or not people worked 40 hours. As I've said time and time again, the money for education needs to come from somewhere. People are not generally as silly as my opponent, and relise that their work efforts translate into benefits. Even if others, down on their luck, do not have work and become free riders, it is not at the expense of anybody else - but if people stop working, it is at the expense of everybody else. It is not unrealistic of me to say that people are often happy to fund the construction of roads, and they don't care about free riders. They still make a gain to their standard of living, and the free riders don't cause a loss. My opponent also never responds to my analysis that most of your tax dollars are spent on excludable goods - including transfer-types, the thing he said I "ignored". Third, I do only link to one study, but he will note that this study cites about a half dozen which reached the same conclusion. My opponent did this same thing to save space on sources in round 1. While CUPE has ties to the left wing, my opponent's sources (largely funded by CATO and Fraser) have ties to the right wing. This does not make the findings untrue. My opponent next assumes marginal hours are the least productive, and that taxes reduce the hours you work. No source, no analysis, nothing. I deny both premises of his refutation. At best, taxes don't reduce hours but wages. You'd think then taxes increase the number of hours worked for extra income, but people recognise that they don't need as much income to meet the needs the government now provides. For this reason my article's argument stands. Next he says that an explosion of debt does not prove the growth is based on debt. This is true, just as super-low taxes does not mean growth is based on super-low taxes. If he disputes my conclusion, he must discard every piece of evidence he has given you so far. Sixth he disputes that the Rogoff and Reinhart study had a small data set. What he in fact shows is that they had a large sample size. There is a difference between sample size and size of data set, as the data set is that data you use to reach your conclusion. Their "over 90%" conclusion is based on six consecutive years where it was over 90%. The reason for the data is because the US was just going out of world war 2, as my opponent would have seen had he read my source. He also does not respond to any of my other criticisms. The IMF study was published by the IMF, but does not represent its views (as it states on the front page). This is probably because it is a working paper, and therefore as yet unpublished. It would be wise to wait for that paper to be peer-reviewed before passing our judgement. Seventh, "reacting highly to tax rates" does not mean "labor supply does go down when taxes go up" in the context of Prof. Chetty's study. Sure the markets may be more reactive, but his investigation focused on the effects of changing tax bracket treshholds, not tax rates. Finally, that government programmes crowd out investment is only true if the government needs to borrow to finance those programmes [1] because it affects interest rates. Just because the government builds one road doesn't stop a firm from building another. The government only needs to borrow if it doesn't get enough money from tax. The answer, therefore, is higher taxation. Pro 2. Incentive for tax evasion*cue wind noise and tumbleweed*Pro 3. EmigrationIt's not a straw man to say that increasing taxes will not be enough to produce widespread emigration. I'm not denying it isn't a factor, but I argue that the factor isn't enough to warrent scaremongering about everyone heading off the moment taxes are raised. As to what the money is spent on, that is a matter for another debate. Needless to say, the fact some taxes are unwisely spent is not an argument against high taxes, because taxes can be unwisely spent when taxes are low, too. Con 1. Govt makes better decisionsI apologise, I seem to have had a mistaken idea of what you meant by demand. You seem to mean demand for goods or services, I mean demand by businesses for investment. I want to be very clear on something - I'm not saying the government should run industries. I'm saying the government has a better idea of what to invest in and what not to. It has the analysts, the economists and the advisors that most ordinary investors wouldn't have in their dreams. The market provides what people want, but what people want isn't always what's best for the economy in the long run in terms of where investment should be placed. The state is better placed to make that kind of judgement than the masses. Con 2. EquityYour beliefs are not enough to win you the point. No evidence (other than the thing about Regan, which actually did nothing to show the link between increased inequality and reduced crime), no analysis, therefore your counter-argument fails (and isn't even a counter-argument, but a dogmatic didactic assertion). I gave you clear examples as to why your belief is false - Brazil and China. There are others, but I've heard no response to these first two, and it's too late now. That's why I win this point. Con 3. Govt more efficient"Government programs that are politically popular, but inefficient and financially unstable, are impossible to change for politicians. This is an example of consensus not being a good way to run the economy. " I disagree with how you use "run" here. By implementing a single bad programme the government does not hijack control over the whole economy. If politicians really are dogmatic and unresponsive as you assert in Con 1, they're not going to change their beliefs for votes as you assert here. And even if they did, the project is going to be far less inefficient and financially unstable than in the hands of private firms, as I proved back in the first substantive round. Of course some politicians get crazy ideas sometimes - but then again, so do business leaders. Con 4. Govt investments more likely to bolster external sources of standard of livingNope, actually my response was an expanded version of "cf con 1" because my response is the same. I'm not going to bother writing the same thing out twice. I'd like to thank my opponent for having this very entertaining and engaging debate with me. I urge voters toVote CON for the eCONomySources1 - . http://en.wikipedia.org...(economics)