The united states should prioritize tax increases over spending cuts

I accept. Good luck to my opponent. This will be my first online debate, so please bare with me if I make any syntax errors. -- My partner and I affirm the resolution resolved: The US should prioritize tax increases over spending cuts. Proposal: We would like to propose to increase to 33.1% for the top 1% of Americans. According to Bruce Bartlett, "in 2008, those in the top 1 percent of the income distribution, with incomes over $380,000, had an effective tax rate of 23.3 percent. In 1986, a year when the real gross domestic product grew a healthy 3.5 percent, their effective tax rate was 33.1 percent. Bartlett, who culled Internal Revenue Service data for his analysis, which appears in his New York Times column, goes on to say: "If this group were still paying 33.1 percent, federal revenue would have been more than $166 billion higher in 2008 alone. That would be enough to reduce the budget deficit by about 10 percent this year. If the top 1 percent of taxpayers had continued to pay the same effective tax rate they paid in 1986 every year from 1987 to 2008, the federal debt today would be $1.7 trillion lower." Contention 1: Improves Social Needs and Public Welfare Tax increases will enable the government to ensure that services to citizens are available, and necessary expenditures on infrastructure are met without the need for excessive bond issuances. According to the New York Times, there is a direct correlation between the amount of money provided to Congress for the national budget and the quality of living in the US. In a study conducted by the Bureau of Economic Statistics, in the past 7 years, the average standard of living has been determined through looking at adjusted income per person and the poverty rate. In the years with a higher annual budget, the standard of living has risen higher than in years with a lower annual budget. The Board of Economic Advisors concluded from this study that the national budget reflects directly upon the standard of living in our country. The government on us imposes taxes so that they can benefit us. Taxes are imposed so that roads get fixed. They are imposed so that we get an education. They are imposed so that people don"t invade our country. They are imposed to protect our rights. What right do we have to say that the government shouldn"t impose taxes on us? If we don"t pay for government programs, that money comes from excessive bond issuances. According to the Department of Labor and Infrastructure, the lack of funding in their departments have caused the pushing back of almost a decade"s worth of renovation and projects to the point where many projects may never be finished. By raising taxes, we will be able to ensure that our nation is up to date and has all the necessary expenditures to develop, and we can lower the poverty rate and invest more heavily in programs that will help improve the living conditions and living quality of Americans today. Increasing tax rates also mean new jobs. The tax rates were increased in 1990 and 1993. Capital gain rates were cut slightly in 1996. And, 21 million new jobs were created in the 90s. That is about a 20% increase in the number of jobs available in the United States. The infamous Bush tax cuts passed in 2001, and even before the Bush recession began, job growth lagged behind GDP growth. After the Bush recession, we had a net job growth of 0%. And, thanks to population growth, no new jobs means record high unemployment, according to the Tax Policy Center. Contention 2: Can reduce debt We are currently in a 16 trillion dollar debt that is rising at the rate of 6 billion dollars every single day, according to the Department of Treasury. That"s almost 4 million dollars every minute. To put our current situation into perspective, judge, our national debt at present is greater than the combined economies of China, the United Kingdom, and Australia combined. Should the burden of this debt be spread to all Americans, each American family in the US would owe about 50,113.78 dollars to various countries in the world. The biggest problem right now is that we don"t have enough money to pay for some of our major programs and we are getting sucked into a death trap. For example, 41% of our taxes are spent on Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare benefits according to whitehouse.gov. However, when we pay our taxes for social security, it does not go to a private bank account where it is set-aside just for us. It goes to paying for the current recipients of these benefits. But the problem is that over our lifetime, Americans still deposit less than the average American will take out of this funding. Every single year, for every dollar put into Social Security, more and more is being taken out. The Bureau of Economic Statistics released a report in 2009 stating that at the current tax rate, by the time our generation gets to retiring age, there may not be enough money to pay for our social security benefits, and this is just one program of many.