Guaranteed Minimum Income

This debate is a clear Pro win as most of my case stands unrefuted. I. Policy Con is hinging his hopes of winning the debate on the libertarianism argument because never responds to most of my damning indictments of the welfare system. Unfortunately, this is a policy debate, not an ethical one; we have to look to whichever plan best solves human problems--the purpose of state policy is to benefit its citizens. His "reforms" are vague and dubious, at best. Con says we can just combine similar programs and slim the system down in other ways, but if it were that easy, we would already be doing it. The vast amounts of regulations and precedent make working within the system incredibly hard, it's better to just work outside the system by abolishing it and implementing a system of cash payments. You can vote Pro off of the overhead costs alone. Again, 25% of the systems cost are administrative. Abolish the system and just send people checks and you have 25% more money to work with, right off the bat. Con totally misunderstands the purpose of objecting to the work requirement--it required so much paperwork that overhead costs *skyrocketed* and since the government is so incompetent at enforcing rules, less than a third of people even met the requirement according to the nonpartisan GAO. Obama reformed the system by maintaining the work requirement but letting states opt out *if* they met certain stringent requirements. This is exactly what Con wants, and yet he's arguing that reforms like this don't work. Even if you think Obama made the wrong choice, to pin the failure of the system on this tiny reform as Con does is beyond absurd. Again, Con pretends that he can wave a magic wand and do away with the nonsense of the bureaucrats, but he doesn't have this ability. My plan destroys red tape and minimizes administrative costs.Con says that it's not fair to expect him to come up with a comprehensive plan, but all I really asked for was something to rival my own plan where I gave an analysis on what we should do and how to do it. Cons entire "plan" basically boils down to "make the welfare system better". In addition, Con never even shows these reforms to be possible. They seem like no brainers, if they were possible they would've already happened. The bureaucracy in the United States has made such a mess that something as simple as a work requirement almost doubled overhead costs and wasn't even enforced. It's time to take power out of the hands of such people. Once more, Con argues that the government has an "obligation to make sure tax money is being used properly"--if this is true, then his entire case falls because the government is simply incapable of doing this under the current system. 25% of the system goes into the pockets of administrators. $98 billion was paid to people who were ineligible for benefits. People sell their food stamps, anyway. It's dubious to say the least that the common man is so ignorant that his mismanagement of funds allocated to him would come even close to outweighing these costs.Con tries to argue about cost, but you need to reject this argument for three reasons: First, I said in my opening that if we couldn't find the money for a $15,000 GMI we could just scale it down to, say, $13,000 and we would have enough--$15,000 was just a general ballpark number. The point is, converting all of the money in the current system into cash and just sending people checks would be far more beneficial. Maybe Quebec's proposed system would cost more. I've explained mine, Con should've attacked it, not Quebec's. Second, Cons reforms are going to cost, too. He wants to pretend that he's saving money but he won't even say by how much, not even a general ballpark estimate. The welfare system in the US is so broken that fixing it is probably not even be possible or, if it was, would cost so much in administrative costs to make the venture not worthwhile. Third, I'm not even touching Social Security. Social Security is a cash payment to elderly individuals. It doesn't take an Economics Ph.D. to understand how easy it would be to reform this to join a GMI. At the end of the day, what we're looking at is a system so broken that it's better to do away with it entirely and pay the poor in cash. It really is that simple. Since this is a policy debate, you can affirm right here. II. PrincipleI'm grouping libertarianism and the economy of the future here. a) EthicsCons libertarian argument is unpersuasive. He claims that he doesn't have to explain how it's possible to turn the US into a Randian paradise because his argument is about ethical truth value, but this is a policy debate. I think it would be nice if we abolished rape, but unless I can explain how it's possible to do so I gain no impact. Con says I don't establish an ethical framework, but I really don't have to. Not only am I showing that the resolution should be affirmed because it provides more benefits than the status quo, but I've shown that my way is the best way to maintain a libertarian society, so if you want to go with Cons ethical framework in the real world, you affirm.Con agrees that medieval feudalism is as close to a libertarian society as humanity has ever gotten. Thus, we can see why exactly Cons ideas don't work--the Church (which at the time was closely linked with the State, not a private entity like Con characterizes) demanded a tithe, and enough people were willing to pay it because they knew that if they didn't, the poor would rise up and kill them. Starving people don't just say "Oh, well, I respect the nonaggression principle so my family and I can just die because those aristocrats are paying for their 15 course meals with private money". They go straight to the nearest farmhouse or manor and take what they need. People don't just quietly die, they go down trying to do what hundreds of millions of years of evolution have taught us to do--survive at all costs. Even from a purely cold hearted, capitalist, non altruistic viewpoint we have no choice but to ensure that people have the means to survive, lest they rise up. The historical landscape is littered with the bodies of hundreds of rulers who failed to understand this concept. As policymakers, we do. Even if you buy that we should be libertarian, the only way to maintain libertarianism is to support the poor and the most libertarian way to support the poor is a cash payment rather than a labyrinth system supporting thousands of government workers in over 100 different agencies. There's a reason that a GMI is mostly advocated for by real world libertarians trying to craft policy.Con thinks that the fact that there were still poor people in the Middle Ages supports his case. It doesn't. The government of today has a quite a bit more coordination power than feudal kings did, and the tithe was *certainly* better for the poor than *nothing*. Con says that we could just have welfare through private organizations, but we know this isn't true because if it was, the state would never have needed to help the poor to begin with. Nothing is stopping private organizations from helping people, but you can't rely on altruism.Moreover, Con never really disputed that modernity has destroyed the possibility of many people to live meaningful lives for the benefit of everyone else. Those people are owed compensation for what was taken from them, just as the farmer is owed compensation when we pave over his land to make a road. b) The economy of the futureCon continually misunderstands this point. As technology increases, the jobs humans can compete with technology in steadily diminish. Remember, in a mere two decades, about half of the jobs that currently exist are likely to be obsolete. Con argues that since fast food restaurants haven't immediately automized, they aren't going to, as if it isn't a gradual process. Frey and Osborne of the University of Oxford predict a 92% chance that fast food labor will become automized in the coming decades[1], along with a myriad of other jobs. Remember, nearly half of jobs are about to become obsolete. It's pretty indisputable that advances in technology are going to push people out of work like it has innumerable times in the past. The reason this time is different and more jobs won't be created is due to what Harari tells us: computers are simply becoming *better* than humans at the tasks the market needs us to perform. The age of the masses is over. Even if I'm wrong about this (and Con hasn't proven so), history still shows that it takes a long time for society to adjust, and we should give people a helping hand. Remember that even if you buy Cons ethical arguments you still have to help the poor. Thus, it's obvious that we need to establish a GMI because it's the best welfare policy. It's in the self interest of pretty much everyone reading this to affirm, because there is a significant chance that our skills too will be overtaken by the machine. Con calls the argument that we're done for anyway his most "fatal" objection, but it relies on a very simplistic viewpoint where the existing tax structure doesn't change at all even when most of the population isn't working. Like I said, let the companies innovate and redistribute a part of the profits. Jobs aren't going to disappear overnight, but we should begin facing the problem as soon as we can by creating a more efficient and fair welfare system, tax changes can occur as necessary. In conclusion, throughout this debate I've proven that a simpler system is preferable, ethical, and necessary. My case stands almost entirely unrefuted and all of Cons arguments demonstrate the necessity of establishing a minimum income as welfare reform is entirely unfeasible and a libertarian society demands a guaranteed minimum income. It's in the best interest of us all to ensure a simple and effective welfare system, lest we come to rely on it. Vote Pro. Source:1. http://goo.gl...