Resolved: The USFG should replace its welfare program with a Negative Income Tax

I will quote what my opponent wrote and then I will respond to what they said underneath of it. "With his own source saying differently, we cannot take his argument to be completely true especially when it states it's not eliminated entirely as there will still be incentive." I never said that it takes away the incentives completely. I just said that it takes away incentives and Friedman agreed with me. So this argument is pretty solid. "My opponent brings up how NIT will detter incentive to work, but how would that not occur in the status quo? Under NIT people can still work and recieve benefits and in doing so, the more they work, to a certain utility, will increase their own income and as their work more, their income will increase. Under the status quo, if you start working, you lose your benefits, so that would more likely deter work incentive than NIT would. " I acknowledge that the current system also provides reasons for people not to work. But that is my point, the negative income tax doesn't do any better. Therefore there is no reason to replace the welfare system with the negative income tax. You loose your benefits with both systems as soon as you start making a certain amount at work. "My opponent is minconstrewing the graph I had posted. Sure at some point benefits cut off and you start having to pay taxes, but isn't this done in the status quo with welfare?" My opponent seems to think that I misinterpreted their graph. But they never explain how I did this. So I will leave that up to the voters to decide. And yes, the same thing is done with welfare. But that again is my whole point. The negative income tax isn't any better than our current system. My opponent's job here is to convince people that the negative income tax is better than welfare. But as we an clearly see, it isn't. "With NIT, they wouldn't lose their income, but instead they would gain $5,000 from the government, while under the status quo, you wouldn't recieve anything." This is not true is all cases. States have the ability to set all of their welfare rules. The main issue with welfare is that people abuse the system and get benefits that they shouldn't be getting. But again, the negative income tax would not do any better. "My opponent's article excludes a huge sample size of people who are poverty stricken. Such an article is moot as it excludes people who are really on the base of welfare/NIT and excluding them will reach changed results." Again, my opponent has not addressed my argument at all. I repeat, The whole point was that while the current system does exclude people, a negative income tax could not provide "an income guarantee as generous as the cash and in-kind benefits already available to many welfare recipients in the United States"(http://www.econlib.org...). Yes, the current system excludes people but replacing the system with a negative income tax would not do any better. That was the whole point of the article. "Granted people may make rash decissions, but we do have to realize that due to the Rational Choice theory, that each and every person, under extreme circumstances and/or measures, will make the decission that maximizes the greatest possible benefit for them." Okay look, if people were rational then we wouldn't need any kind of benefit system in the first place. Poverty is a result of bad decisions made by people (not always be those in poverty though). So if all people were rational, then we wouldn't need a negative income tax or a welfare system. "Even if we cannot find anything evidence on it, we can still see that it works a lot better than welfare and in this debate, that's what matter's most." If anything, I think my opponent has not showed that the negative income tax is better than the current system. But I will leave that up to the voters to decide. "Even if what you are saying is true, I could simply come in and argue for 100% taxation of the rich to resdistribute to the lower class. This would solve the issue, but has nothing to do with this debate." My opponent was originally saying that the issue could be solved by giving benefits to people. My point was that the negative income tax wouldn't solve this issue like my opponent indicated. I rest my case. I thank my opponent for a good round. I thank him for being patient as well since we were both probably busy these past few days.