Welfare

"My opponent has stated in the first round that I am open to advocate for welfare in the United States in any way he (Pro) chooses. That Con is to be against any welfare. This is not a debate whether welfare should be reformed or not. It is if welfare should be implemented at all." This is a shared BOP debate. My opponent is obligated to defend his pro welfare stance, as much as I'm obligated to defend my anti-welfare stance. Since Pro hasn't specified what type of welfare system he is advocating for it can only be assumed he's referring to the current welfare system. Pro has yet to mention a single reform he is advocating for and is stuck with the welfare system intact as it is in the United States. It's not enough to dismiss every one of my contentions as being evidence we need reform. He must show why it is better to have the current system than not. Welfare Makes People Dependent on the Government. "He cites states where welfare pays more than minimum wage. I think this is an argument for reform not that welfare should be abolished. " By choosing not to mention any reform you'd want implemented you are stuck defending the status quo. The rest of my opponent's rebuttals here, involve justifying Hawaii's high welfare payout. None of those arguments do anything to destroy my argument that welfare forces people into a state of dependency. These higher than minimum wage payouts aren't good for getting people on their feet. It's only good at keeping the needy, needy. Let's imagine for a minute that my opponent's reform argument works here. He gives several reasons why Hawaii has such high payouts. I can only assume the reform he is advocating for would be to lower the welfare payouts to minimum wage. However, based on my opponent's own arguments. Minimum wage welfare payouts would put people below a living wage. The only reform he should be advocating for given the information in his argument is an increase in the minimum wage. This debate isn't about minimum wage, though. Welfare Discourages 2 Parent Households. "Honestly. I see no chain of logic to support this. I assert that welfare plans like Child Support are in reaction to the declining 2 parent households. Not a cause." There is a chain of logic. This chain of logic is being glossed over and ignored by my opponent. Before I get into that chain of logic I'd like to point out that Child Support isn't a welfare program as my opponent asserts. I believe Pro is attempting to make his case stronger by including programs into his argument that simply aren't considered welfare. Just to help my opponent understand what is and isn't welfare let me quote a reputable site on welfare info, ironically named welfareinfo.org. "Welfare programs are state regulated programs for those who live under the minimum accepted level means as determined by each state government. Welfare benefits can fall under multiple different program umbrellas, all of which require certain elements of eligibility to acquire and maintain payments. These programs are cash assistance (TANF), the child support program, child care, energy or utility assistance, food assistance, medical assistance, and vocational rehabilitation services." Here is another quote, so everybody can know what the mean when they say "child support program". "The child support program will provide families with state regulated child care placement assistance that will enable parents/caretakers the time available for working and job training opportunities. The child support program can supplement partial child care fees or provide 100% fee assistance." Now that that's out of the way. Here is the chain of logic on the decline of 2 parent households. Quotes from the Cato institute. " There have been 13 major studies of the relationship between the availability of welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock birth. Of these, 11 found a statistically significant correlation. " "Likewise, research by Shelley Lundberg and Robert Plotnick of the University of Washington showed that an increase in welfare benefits of $200 per month per family increased the rate of out-of-wedlock births among teenagers by 150 percent." "The same results can be seen from welfare systems in other countries. For example, a recent study of the impact of Canada"s social-welfare system on family structure concluded that "providing additional benefits to single parents encourages births of children to unwed women."" "by removing the economic consequences of a out-of-wedlock birth, welfare has removed a major incentive to avoid such pregnancies. A teenager looking around at her friends and neighbors is liable to see several who have given birth out of wedlock. When she sees that they have suffered few visible immediate consequences (the very real consequences of such behavior are often not immediately apparent), she is less inclined to modify her own behavior to prevent pregnancy." http://www.cato.org... I'd appreciate if the judges and my opponent would read the article that I've cited for those quotes. It violates the Role of Government. "Most of this was addressed before. The role of government for the well being of the nation includes: guarding against the health, economic, and crime arising from poverty. And to aid the next generation (children) into becoming contributing members. " This was unaddressed at all. Again, my opponent attempts to counter a few points I make in this section, but fails to recognize or address the overarching theme of what my argument is. I directly stated what the role of government is and why. He never addresses those things. "The role of the American government as stipulated by it's founding fore fathers and framers of it's constitution is to protect the freedoms of and secure the rights and property of individuals accordingly with natural law. The government's only purpose is just to be a collective force to secure these individual rights."(my words) My opponent completely ignores my argument about the proper role of government and why it's the proper role. He could have provided arguments about the proper role of government, but instead he completely ignores mine and doesn't bring forth his own theory on the proper role, and why it's the proper role. It Helps Perpetuate a Failing Economic System. "I have shown evidence to the contrary." This is a baseless claim. Evidence to the contrary has not been shown. My argument is that the current economic system sux, because it needs to be compensated for by a welfare program. If we had a great economic system, welfare would be unneccesary. My opponent does nothing to counter this argument, and it should be counted as a dropped argument by him. 1. Poverty decreases ability of nation to respond to market drops "My opponent makes assertions but offers nothing in the way of evidence or studies. I have shown 2 references. There are more. My opponent is summing his argument up as welfare is a way of hiding economic failings." Let me address those 2 sources. The first one is a document from 1953 that pro cites as a source for when welfare began. http://www.ssa.gov... It wasn't even necessary to cite any source for the "year welfare began". It's not even pertinent to the debate. The 2nd source for this section shows the spending rate of the United States is less than that of other countries on welfare during recessions. That citation is a huge amount of reading to do, but I did. The studies only show a short term benefit of welfare spending, it does nothing to show any longterm gains or losses. I've shown a lot of the negative longterm harms from haing a welfare program and my opponent has done nothing to refute my arguments about how the welfare program actually perpetuates the root causes of poverty. 2. Poverty is a hindrance to economic growth My opponent does nothing to counter my arguments, that welfare contributes to the factors that cause poverty. He pretty much completely ignores my argument he does make a few points which I'll get to. "My opponent says to fix poverty we should focus on other things like education, certainly but that is not what this debate is about." If I come up with a better way to address poverty than welfare, than it is certainly a valid argument. It's unfair to dismiss my alternative ways of addressing the problems welfare intends to as "not what this debate is about". The sentence my opponent provides actually concedes that my recommendations are a good alternative, with the word "certainly". "Plus it has been shown that increasing IQ does not eliminate poverty" I'll provide a quote from my opponent's source on this info, but please read the section entitled controversy for more criticism of this study. "Arthur Jensen has suggested that the Milwaukee Project did not produce permanent intelligence gains, but that the IQ gains it showed were due to an indirect form of "teaching to the test" http://en.m.wikipedia.org... 3. Poverty is an Increase in Crime and Disease I'm running out of space, so I'll keep the rest short. My opponents doesn't address my argument here. He merely resorts to using a genetic fallacy.https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com... Now here is the source he was criticizing about my argument leaving out. http://www.cato.org... 4. Child Support I've already addressed his points here 5. Welfare aids economic growth. My opponent in this section ignores my rebuttals and uses the logical fallacy argument from emotion. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com...