Infidel tournament: Resolved, welfare should be abolished

Negative Case My sole contention is that welfare reduces "unfreedoms" and promotes the advancement of society. In his award-winning work, Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics expands the concept of liberty to include five types of basic freedoms: political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security. [1] Sen furthers that each of these five freedoms is inextricably linked, meaning that poverty is not merely a lack of wealth, but is also "a deprivation of basic capabilities" [1]. Thus, as Sen notes, reducing poverty is instrumental to ensuring the development of a free society that promotes all five freedoms.SA: Welfare reduces poverty and thus improves economic facilities. By providing income to individuals who lack basic necessities to survive, welfare ensures that the poverty levels in any given nation are reduced significantly. The fact that welfare reduces poverty has been proven to empirically true. By studying the adoption of major welfare states in 1960-1991, Kentyworth and Bradley concluded in separate studies that both the aboslute poverty rate and the relative poverty rate decreased in nations that adopted the welfare state model. [2] Country Absolute poverty rate (1960–1991)(threshold set at 40% of U.S. median household income)[3] Relative poverty rate (1970–1997)[4] Pre-welfare Post-welfare Pre-welfare Post-welfare Australia 23.3 11.9 16.2 9.2 Belgium 26.8 6.0 19.5 4.1 Canada 22.5 6.5 17.1 11.9 Denmark 26.4 5.9 17.4 4.8 Finland 11.9 3.7 12.4 3.1 France 36.1 9.8 21.8 6.1 Germany 15.2 4.3 9.7 5.1 Italy 30.7 14.3 19.7 9.1 Netherlands 22.1 7.3 18.5 11.5 Norway 9.2 1.7 12.4 4.0 Sweden 23.7 5.8 14.8 4.8 Switzerland 12.5 3.8 10.9 9.1 United Kingdom 16.8 8.7 16.4 8.2 United States 21.0 11.7 17.2 15.1 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org...; Thus, the adoption of welfare reduces poverty in both the relative and absolute sense. This, in turn, advances the development of a nation by reducing the amount of unfreedoms that plague it.SB: Welfare reduces crime and thus increases protective security. One of the major impetuses for committing crime is financial insecurity. According to Joseph Williams of the Christian Association for Prison Aftercare, 53% of the incarcerated individuals in the United States earned less than $10,000 per year prior to their incarceration. [3] Because welfare reduces the amount of poverty, it can reduce the amount of crime in a nation and thus increase security. A study conducted by C. Fritz Foley of Harvard University proves this to be true. According to Foley's study, crime rates in poverty-stricken areas followed cyclical patterns. At the beginning of the month, when welfare checks were distributed, they would be relatively low, and they would increase steadily throughout the course of the month. [4] Moreover, areas that provided welfare in a staggered form experienced significantly lower crime rates than areas that offered a single check at the beginning of the month, indicating that the prime reason that these individuals were committing crimes like burglary and larceny was to ease financial insecurity. [4] Thus, by reducing crime rates, welfare increases protective security and reduces unfreedom.Affirmative Case CostAs a side note, my opponent's estimates as to the cost of welfare is excessively high. Welfare cost about $496 billion, not the 0.75 trillion that he attempts to claim. [5] However, welfare was actually beneficial even though it cost $496 billion. In 2005, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, welfare kept "15 million Americans out of poverty in 2005 and reduced the depth of poverty for another 29 million people." [5] Even if it does cost a great deal and we can cut the deficit by abolishing welfare, note that this is not the only beneficial solution. Defense spending currently amounts to 20% of the budget, and there are many wasteful wars (such as the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan) as well as bases in areas such as Germany and Japan that could potentially be cut in order to reduce the deficit and government spending. There is no reason to cut welfare, especially because it provides a plethora of positive effects while there are plenty of examples of wasteful spending in other areas of the government.ConstitutionalityA common misconception about welfare is that it is unconstitutional. However, the Tenth Amendment notes, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Welfare (known as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or TANF) is not run by the federal government; instead, it is administered by the states. The federal government provides block grants to the state governments to ensure that needy individuals are not kept in poverty [6]. Thus, welfare is constitutional because it is administered by the states. ImmoralityFirst, my opponent's claim about how 47% of Americans pay no taxes is a false myth that was created by Donald Trump in his attempt to win the presidency. In reality, 86% of Americans pay taxes, meaning that 14% do not. [7] Moreover, this number is artificially low because it was preceded by a massive tax cut in 2009 [7]. In fact, a large percentage of this group includes corporations, and not individuals below the poverty line. In the last three years, 30 major corporations have paid no taxes, meaning tha the United States has lost $160 billion in potential revenue. [8] This figure discounts the fact that the average corporation pays 18.5% or less in taxes even though the corporate tax rate is 35%, meaning that the government has lost even more money due to unfair tax cuts. [9] In addition, since its inauguration, TANF has cut the number of welfare recipients who by 53%, meaning that it has not gone towards paying for immoral activities; rather, it has gone towards improving the lives of millions [6]. This a morally righteous end for the state. AlternativesEven opponents of welfare acknowledge that alternatives are not adequate to reducing the poverty rate. Sheldon Richman notes, "Second, abolition of welfare may indeed leave some people abandoned. In any society some people will be so lacking in ability, energy, and ambition that they will languish. Private charitable acts will help some but not all of such people."[10] In addition, empirical evidence has proven that private charities cannot reduce the poverty rate; only the welfare state can, as evidenced by the table in the first subpoint of the negative case.CorruptionAlthough some people may be corrupt, the majority are not, as indicated by the fact that TANF has reduced the number of recipients by 53% and by the fact that it has legitimately reduced the poverty rate in every nation that has adopted the welfare state. So, addition, this corruption is not a reason to abolish welfare because it is vastly outweighed by the positive benefits on the lives of the truly destitute. In addition, if there is corruption, the solution is to create a stronger enforcement mechanism to prevent it, and not to abolish welfare and thus harm those who honestly need aid. DependenceFirst, turn his dependence statistic, because if 3.6% of people are dependent, then over 94% of people are not. Second, his math is incorrect. He should have multiplied by 3.6% (not divided by 3.6); he literally used fake, convoluted math to make up a number. Sources[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...;[2] http://en.wikipedia.org...;[3] http://capaassociation.org...[4] http://www.people.hbs.edu...;[5] http://www.cbpp.org...[6] http://en.wikipedia.org...; [7] http://www.politicususa.com...;[8] http://thinkprogress.org...;[9] http://money.cnn.com...[10] http://www.fff.org...