Churches, mosques, synagogues, etc. ought not be exempt from federal taxation.

Preface: Pro has agreed to make this the final round. Thus, no further Cases or Counter-Cases will be made (except in regard to new information he releases), instead currently standing Cases and Counter-Cases will be defended. In turn, both Debaters will merely Sign further Rounds, not Post Cases/Counter-Cases. Proposition: Nature of Taxation Pro admits straight out that he perceives all our money to be Government property. This is against the very nature of US governance philosophy. The Government does not own us or our property, we own the government. No, our property is our own, not leased to us by government. This includes our money. My hard work doesn’t give me revenue leased to me. It gives wealth which belongs to me, and me alone {1}. He suggests a defense is government minting. No, this is a service of government, owed to us, as we own the government. The government is not a this-for-that organization. It is here purely to protect, and provide certain things. We pay taxes out of necessity, not because the government is entitled to our wealth. Beyond this, no other substantiation is given to support this radical change is economic philosophy. It is for the Voter to decide from here if they buy my opponents view, and how it further affects their views. I will point out that highly Pro’s cases are dependent on his views of Money of property of Government. Sources: 1} FEE: http://bit.ly... Counter-Case I: Corporate Tax Summarization: Pro continues his claim that Churches are corporations, simply by saying that pay workers. Counter: Pro claims that Churches are corporations because they pay their workers. As I’ve said before, all charities pay their workers too {2}. He claims churches aren’t always charitable. As I’ve earlier said, Churches can lose their tax exemption, such as Scientology. I will further comment that these church workers do pay income tax. Pro sources that Tithes are sometimes required, however nowhere in his sources is this shown to be required. In fact, his Source 2 deals entirely with “Exit Costs”, and admits there are no financial exit costs. There are “social costs” as Mormonism is a sub-culture, and leaving the sub-culture means losing a lot of the friends and family in that culture. This tends to be the same in all cultures/sub-cultures. Pro’s sources don’t show that the actual religion forces any tithing. The Source makes this clear. Voters should go through those sources to confirm. Sources: 2} http://bit.ly... Counter-Case II: “Counter-Case” / “Cases” Summarization: Pro has made several claims, which I shall debunk here. Counter: Pro admits that economic stimulus is endorsement, and therefore is unconstitutional. He further moves to claim that SBTCs could be used. Is that not also endorsement, since they are being given advantage? To say a charity going under is as bad as a business going under in the name of increased revenue is a flawed notion. I will allow Voters to decide how their view these statements. Pro continues claiming that Scotus is right because they said so. Again, Appeal to Authority, as them merely saying something is so doesn’t make it so. If they say our money is government property and taxation is natural, but my statements show the flaws in their views, then that means SCOTUS is wrong, until proven correct subsequently by Pro. Pro failed to show them to be correct, because merely sighting their “authority”. Ergo, he is using an Appeal to Authority.Pro actually claims SS is working fine. By this reasoning, there is no need to further fund them. He says Education is unevenly funded. So instead of evening the funding, he will prefer to increase the budget unnecessarily. This is the very same inefficiency creating the fiscal issue of government. Pro ends his counter-case by saying that the DODs waste could be spent elsewhere. This is largely the point of my statements. Streamline, Restructure, and Show respect for the money the government takes from us. Don’t increase taxes.No, increasing taxation to pay for the debt, rather than simply decreasing expense, is a flawed and philosophically bankrupt notion. Additionally, the debt is not serviced in the way Pro seems to think. We pay interest for a set amount of time until a bond is repaid. Effectively, we need not increase the money going to this interest (in fact, doing so would hurt our credit rating, as people buy debt in order to make a profit. Paying too fast lowers the profit by lowering yearly interests, hurting incentive to purchase bonds). Yes, my source mentions that the deficit increase can hurt the economy. Not the Tax Cut. The Increased deficit. We need merely reduce the expenditure, as I’ve said several times, through increased efficiency and smaller government. Done right, this will lead to decreased or only slightly altered deficits. Thus the cause of economic slowdown will not be present, and lowered taxation will be able to increase GDP growth. As the economy grows, our revenue will ultimately grow, even with lowered taxation. Increased long-term revenue, with decreased expenditure, will eventually diminish the deficit to such as a point that the debt will shrink, perhaps not in absolute numbers, but as a percent of GDP (the current measurement for judging debt). Best Case Scenario, the deficit eventually vanishes as tax revenue increases (from economic growth, not tax rate increase) and expenditure decreases. Obama’s economy, according to Pro, was a success. In reality, his unsourced statement is wrong. Economic growth was less than exciting. Their GDP growth was 2.1% average, much less than the 2.8% average from the preceding 28 years. This is highlighted by the fact that the average for the 28 years included 2 major recessions, and some smaller recessions {3}. Additionally, workforce participation (better than simple “unemployment” charts, which include people who have stopped looking {4}) has decreased under Obama. {5 / 6} Relatively poor economic growth is a sign of issues with Obama’s economic policy. As Pro has failed to list charts or sources, I have nothing further to debunk on this count.As for Clinton, a lot of his success came from reduced expenditure growth, leading to a lower expenditure/gdp ratio {7}. Many point out that he also increased taxes, however as Forbes and Heritage points out, the economic growth actually increased after turning around and cutting taxes a few years in {8 / 9}. It was the growth after this point which was substantial enough to give Clinton his above-average growth. So while Pro says we saw economic growth under Clinton, the reality is that this growth came from decreased relative spending, and in the end, decreased taxes. As Pro failed to present either charts or sources, there is nothing further to say. Basically, as I’ve been saying, the answer is increased efficiency and smaller government, combined with lower taxes, not larger. His comment in the conclusion basically says we should designate Churches as something other than what they are for the Tax Revenue, actually saying it protects Separation of Church and State, when it actually compromises it by giving Government power over Church money, and creating “excessive entanglements” (to quote Pro). He says these entanglements can be avoided by requiring “secular” use of the money. The government created Secularization of Churches is a sign of compromising Separation of Church and State. No, Separation of Church and State is created by not taxing at all. He says it will give the Government more money to use, I say it gives them more money to waste. And eventually they will decide they need even more money to waste. What Charity will they reclassify next? Sources: 3} Realclear Markets: http://bit.ly... 4} Forbes: http://bit.ly... 5} BLS: http://bit.ly... 6} Politifact: http://bit.ly... 7} Tax Foundation: http://bit.ly... 8} Forbes: http://bit.ly... 9} Heritage: http://bit.ly... Closing Statement: Pro has failed to substantiate that Churches are corporations, or to defy my Cases that Churches are Charities. In fact, the subject of the Church makes up only a small part of his Round. Nothing else he mentions matters unless he can prove that Churches can be taxed. He hasn’t. He has failed to show that Churches could lose 501C3 status, or that there is any grounds to remove Religious Tax Exemption. In light of this failure, nothing further about the use of the money matters, and actually suggests a desire to compromise Separation of Church and State and a gross breach of government/taxpayer faith by fraudulently miscategorizing Organizations, for nothing other than increased revenue.The fact is, Pro’s views are founded in his Extreme Authoritarian notion that our Financial Property belong to the Government, which ultimately means our very lives are Government Property (without money, we have nothing). This is flawed and dangerous. It is against the very nature of a free nation, and is not compatible with any Western World. This is made worse if we support his idea that we can give false categorization to increase taxes, which gives further power to government to own us, as they need not even follow their own rules. If his views of our money are not adopted, his arguments entirely fall through. His cases rely on this Economic/Political Philosophy, and cannot survive without it (and barely survives with it).I remind Pro at this point that, per our agreement, he must not post any further arguments from here on. He can only sign the next two Rounds, as this is the final debate round. I have refrained from posting new Cases, and merely defended my already stated Cases/Counters, adding new Counters only in regard to his new statements. Any Cases/Counters/Defenses Pro attempts to post will be disregarded, per this agreement. Taxation is Theft. Vote Con. ==Unitomic==