Resolved: The USFG ought to tax the rich more

Introduction Thank you Lanann13 and Balacafa for agreeing to do this debate with us. This is a team debate that I’m sure that we’ll all learn something new from. This topic is a largely controversial one, and has been an increasingly debatable issue in both the UK and US for a while. I (famousdebater) would also like to thank TheProphett for agreeing to do this team debate with me. I’m sure that this will prove to be as successful as all of the other team debates that I’ve done so far. Framework Our framework will be centered around the ideology of socialism. Socialism promotes equality for the poor. Socialist goals include making sure the poor aren’t too burdened (basic needs are met) and making sure that they are given equal opportunities and sufficient living and working conditions [2]. We will demonstrate that socialism is the morally superior and preferable ideology and I will explain the position that a socialist would take in this debate and why. Morality is defined as the degree to which something is right and wrong [1]. Socialists care about all members of society. Socialism’s rival economic system, capitalism [3], violates the universal system of morality [4]. In order for capitalism to work it needs poor people. Without poverty the whole concept of capitalism crumbles because society would be equal and would therefore be socialist [5]. Poverty kills people, and it kills them inhumanely in a slow and painful manner [6]. Since poverty violates our universal concept of morality then we ought to consider socialism as the more moral option and as a result, the option that we ought to incline towards. This issue is simple and will become even simpler when our counterplan is taken into consideration. By taxing the rich more the burden put on the poor can be taken off due to the amount needed for tax collection being fulfilled by the rich alone. The burden put off of the poor is immense, and we will prove this in the following arguments. If the poor have to pay less, then this effectively means that the poor are put into a more financially stable position which fulfills the goal of socialism. Morality plays a big part in this debate. Our framework lays the foundation for the creation of arguments based on morality and the betterment of society. If our framework is not adequately rebutted, I would like the judges to look through a lense of morality at the cases, and determining what team justified the rights and wrongs of their arguments. Taxing the Rich Those who would wish to negate this resolution see the taxation of the wealthy as detrimental. This team will prove that this statement is false and that society as a whole would benefit from increased taxation of the wealthy (as defined in the opening round). [7] Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, a nobel prize laureate in economics, stated the following, “It is “absurd” to argue that most wealth at the top is already highly taxed or that there isn’t much more revenue to be had by raising taxes on the 1 percent. The only upside of the concentration of the wealth at the top is that they have more money to pay in taxes.” This statement carries an immense amount of weight with regard to the resolution. The wealth of America is concentrated at the top of the economic totem pole while those who are less fortunate endure an unreasonable tax burden [7]. The taxes paid by the less fortunate could be used to pay for education or increase the quality of the lives of their children. The idea that taxing the rich is in some sense wrong or detrimental to any component of society or our economy is absurd, and if taxes are not increased at the top so as to benefit the less fortunate, then the bottom will continue to sink lower. (a) Concentrating an increase in taxation on the wealthy and lessening the burden on the lower fifths [7] would lift the bottom up. There are many reasons to allow the poor “breathing room,” such as better care for our future generations and increased quality of life for the lower class (which has many net benefits for society). Other problems the poor face include [8] holding the lowest paying and most unstable jobs, having part-time rather than full-time employment, lacking access to higher education, and less access to healthcare. It is not wrong or questionable to concentrate taxation on the wealthiest earners in the nation, but rather it is a reasonable approach to solve simple problems within our economy and society. (b) Taxing the rich will increase the ease of access to top tier education in our nation, and we have tangible evidence to prove this claim. According to the New York Times [7], “If the tax increases were limited to just the 115,000 households in the top 0.1 percent, with an average income of $9.4 million, a 40 percent tax rate would produce $55 billion in extra revenue in its first year. That would more than cover, for example, the estimated $47 billion cost of eliminating undergraduate tuition at all the country’s four-year public colleges and universities, as Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed, or Mrs. Clinton’s cheaper plan for a debt-free college degree, with money left over to help fund universal prekindergarten.” We can do a lot more for our economy and society than just improving the quality of lives for our citizens; we can give them an education that will serve them throughout their lives. What could be of greater value than increasing taxes by about five percent on the rich and in return allowing for the broader education of the nation’s citizens? Counter Plan As briefly mentioned earlier, we will be proposing a counterplan. The counterplan will be the new system that we believe should be enforced. The counterplan is as follows: Proposal 1: Bracketed tax system, with the “rich” as specified in the debate receiving a percentage less than 50% but at least 5% more than the middle class. Proposal 2: The lowest earners receive no taxes and instead are allowed to focus on employment, raising children, education, etc. Our first proposal fits the resolution as the rich are being taxed more. Therefore it stands. Our second proposal is fits in with the resolution since there is no debate format prohibiting us from making additional proposals that ultimately lead us to affirming. This also coincides with our socialism based framework since we are creating equality since the rich are making $1,000,000+ per year (as the definitions state) and therefore, additional taxation (especially since we do not believe that it should be increased to an unrealistic or an overly high amount), is not an unrealistic claim. Since the poorest members of societies often have families and children it violates socialism (and our socialist framework) when you make the claim that they should have to continue to pay tax. National Debt This is relates back to the counterplan. If the minimum amount of money required to be considered rich is $1million then let’s look at what 1% of that is. 1% of $1 million is $10,000. So adding on 1% to the poorest of the richest will get $10,000. In the US there are 536 billionaires [9]. Logically the lowest amount of money that these people have is $1 billion. So let’s see the taxation of an additional 1% and see how much we can make from it. 1% of $1 billion is $10,000,000 ($10 million). The members of society grouped into the lowest fifth make slightly under $13,000 [7],with an additional 1% of their tax (similarly to the the proposed taxation on the rich),then their contribution would make no impact in the grand scheme of things considering that $130 (1% of 13,000) is 0.0013% of 10,000,000. Now let’s put this into the context of the national debt, the national debt is currently at $19,000,000,000,000 ($19 trillion). To expect people paying $130 in taxation to pay this off is ridiculous. With the money and wealth of the billionaires in the US not only could we wipe out the national debt significantly quicker but we could also use the increase in taxation to prevent further accumulation of our national debt before paying it off. This will ultimately be done because with the increase in taxation on the rich government borrowing will be reduced because they will not have as much of a demand for the money. This could easily go a long way towards wiping out this year’s estimated federal deficit of $426 billion [7].After this we can work towards paying off the national debt which will take 29 years with the accumulated taxation of the richest 1%, however since the definition of rich includes all of those that make over $1,000,000 yearly this means that it will be quicker than 29 years to pay it off. That means the debt could be payed off in less than 1 generation [10]! Therefore we stand with our claim that taxing the rich more would result in beneficial actions towards the national debt and our deficit. Conclusion To conclude, we believe that the resolution is affirmed due to the fact that we have provided tangible and reliable evidence to prove our contentions and arguments to be true. We thank our opponents once again for their acceptance. Vote Pro! Sources [1] https://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://bit.ly...; [3] http://www.diffen.com... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org... [5] https://peterbrietbart.wordpress.com... [6] http://www.johnshopkinshealthreview.com... [7] http://www.nytimes.com... [8] http://www.dol.gov... [9] https://en.wikipedia.org... [10] http://www.ancestry.co.uk...