Infidel tournament: Resolved, welfare should be abolished

Since 1996, roughly 2.5 million families have left the program, a 57 percent decline. Critics predicted that welfare reform would throw millions into greater poverty. Instead, it led to modest reductions in poverty, particularly for children, black children, and single-mother households. Most of those who left welfare found work, and of them, the vast majority work full-time. As you would expect, studies show that as former welfare recipients gain work experience, their earnings and benefits increase. UnfreedomsOk, so my opponent continues to misrepresent Amartya Sen's analysis and claim that nobody has a right to money. First, this is not response to the concept of unfreedoms. Unfreedoms are a measure of society's development, and not of individual rights. Insofar as this is true, you can extend the entirety of the Sen analysis because he has not even attempted to refute it. Even if you do not buy that, however, extend the argument that explains that just because a right is not listed in the Constitution does not mean that it is not a right. He offers no reponse to this, and it directly counters his "welfare is not a right" argument. In addition, he dropped the analysis about how it is not theft because welfare is not done for the individual; rather, it is done for society as a whole, and because the rich have prospered the most from society, they have the greatest stake in its advancement. These both demolish his assertion about how money is a right; he completely dropped them, so please extend them. PovertyHe still has offered no response to the Kentyworth and Bradley data, which show that in a forty year span, nations that adopted the welfare-state model had massive reductions in poverty. In response to my argument about how his data only covers one year, he gives three new sources that he claims show increases in poverty. However, when we examine his sources, we can see that they contribute to my side anyways. From his Cato source: " Since 1996, roughly 2.5 million families have left the program, a 57 percent decline. Critics predicted that welfare reform would throw millions into greater poverty. Instead, it led to modest reductions in poverty, particularly for children, black children, and single-mother households. Most of those who left welfare found work, and of them, the vast majority work full-time. As you would expect, studies show that as former welfare recipients gain work experience, their earnings and benefits increase. "From his Heritage Source: "New York City recently adopted a similar poverty measure to the one being developed by the Obama Administration. Under the current federal measure of poverty, the city’s poverty rate fell from 19.1 percent in 2005 to 17.76 percent in 2008. However, under the new poverty measure the 2008 rate rose to 22 percent. [5] " Note that his Heritage source explicitly states that the non-Obama federal poverty program reduced poverty in NYC, but that Obama's plan increased it. That means that Obama's plan was a failure, but that welfare as a whole was successful. In addition, notice the blip in the year 2008: that was during a period of recession. From his Free Man Online source: "Since 1950, the number of (official) poor as a percentage of population was approximately 30%. From then until 1968, the figure dropped steadily, to about 13%. But then, right in the heart of the Great Society years, when more money than ever was being spent to decrease poverty even faster, the trend line flattened. After ten more years marked by ever-increasing outlays, the percentage of poor in our population had dropped only to 11%. Two years later, in 1980, it was back up to 13% again. The more we spent, the less progress we made. " Note: 1980 was also a period of recession. So, his own sources agree with the Kentyworth and Bradley analysis: overall, welfare has caused a reduction in poverty rates. CrimeHe basically ignores the argument that there is a confounding factor with all of these other factors (single mother, etc. ): poverty. Note that since I win that poverty decreases under welfare, welfare reduces crime. In addition to this, you can extend the completely dropped the Foley study which proves that when welfare is applied in a consistent, spread-out manner, it reduces the amount of crime that poor citizens commit. Cost Ok, so he just conceded to that 400 Billion number that I gave you, and not to the 1 trillion that he was claiming. Extend the dropped arguments about how even if it is costly, the reduction of poverty and unfreedoms far outweigh the cost because they lead to the advancement of society. Constitutionality My opponent is missing the point: the federal government does not administer welfare. In the United States, TANF (welfare) is administered by the states. Insofar as the 10th Amendment gives states the right to do anything that the federal government cannot do, TANF is absolutely constitutional. He dropped this, so extend it and vote Con. ImmoralityAgain, my opponent misinterpreted his own source. Here is the analysis from his own source: "All the attention being showered on “47 percent” is ultimately a distraction from that reality. . . Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47. " [2] (Note: This was Source 16 from the opponent's Round 3 speech). The only people who dodge paying income taxes are the rich, and only 10 percent of people do not pay taxes, so his argument about payments is false. AlternativesOk, so he still continues to drop the Richman analysis, which explains that charity cannot work because it is subjectively applied and is not enough to protect the poor. In addition, the Kentyworth and Bradley analysis shows that the welfare state is the only way to reduced poverty significantly; during the "charity era", poverty was much higher than it was during the "welfare state era". Extend those dropped arguments and vote Con. CorruptionHe continues to drop the weighing analysis: even if some people are corrupt, welfare benefits the vast majority of the people (according to his new estimate, 75% of applicants are not corrupt), so the negative corruption effect is outweighed by the positive effect. He then concedes that MEdicare should not be shut down even though there is a greater spending on corruption in Medicare than there is in welfare. This simply means that just because some people in the program might be corrupt, that does not mean that we should abolish the program as a whole. DependencyOk, so after dropping the facts that TANF has caused a 53% reduction in welfare and that TANF only has a five-year limit, meaning that it is impossible for people to be dependent on it, he brings up a new 1/6 statistic. First, how do we know which statistic of his to use? His first statistic was 3.6%,which is completely different from 1/6. His statistics contradict each other, so we should accept neither. Second, in both cases, the vast majority of people are not dependent, which corroborates the evidence that I gave that TANF caused a 53% reduction of people on welfare. Voting IssuesArgumentsI clearly won the poverty analysis as well as most of the other arguments on the flow. ConductMy opponent deliberately miscut his evidence, which is a conduct violation. SourcesMy sources actually say what I claim they say, and some of his sources actually benefit me, so I should win this as well.