Resolved: The USFG should eliminate immigration quotas.

***Pro Arguments*** Framework It doesn't matter if I don't present a moral framework. Condemning people to live in perpetual poverty is wrong according to any moral viewpoint I've ever heard of. Con says I have "the burden". We both have burdens. Since the resolution is explicitly moral/pragmatic, he has to demonstrate absolute advantage - that immigration quotas are the best policy. Con thinks the resolution is pragmatic, not moral. But pragmatism presupposes morality, or else what ends is Con trying to practically meet? But don't buy Con on pragmatism. He defined "should" as "give acceptable reason for". I ask the audience to interpret it literally and vote according to what they think is acceptable. Don't condemn people to poverty. Presumption in Favor of Immigration Con concedes that my analysis is true but complicated by logistical factors. Even if people have a difficult time entering the US due to their own misfortune, there's still no reason to shut them out wholesale. American Benefit A) Debt Spreading Con says that immigrants disproportionately use social services and don't pay taxes. His source only says immigrants are more impoverished. Julian Simon finds that immigrant families actually pay more in taxes than natives, and receive fewer benefits during their first 15 years here [1]. Francine Blau finds that when holding age and other factors constant, immigrant families are less likely to rely on welfare than native families [2]. So this will have a positive impact on the debt. That aside, Con also never considers that a large portion of government spending is non-rivalrous. The war in Iraq does not use more resources just because we have more people. Its cost get spread, and therefore reduced. I don't need a source on this because its basic mathematics. Con doesn't think the tax impact will be beneficial because these immigrants are so poor. But this is another short term consideration. Second generation hispanics have significantly lower poverty rates than hispanic immigrants [3]. B) Infrastructure Con says that because immigrants can't vote, the impact on infrastructure is likely to be negligible. This completely ignores all the private infrastructure I mentioned. And even if immigrants can't vote, they still put up more raw taxes. Whatever infrastructure the voters decide to implement, it gets done on a larger scale. I don't assume a disproportionate placement of immigrants. Wherever they go, the concentration increases from what it was before. Con doesn't get as many benefits from birth alone as from immigration+birth. Immigration is the largest reason for population growth in the US [4]. The logic associated with population density and roads applies back on all other jointly used goods. C) Scientific Growth Con doesn't see any impact from better technology? Technology is heavily linked with productivity growth [5]. I don't know how that picture replaced my source saying that Mexican education isn't as good as ours. Here [6]. I didn't think I really needed a source anyway. ***Con Arguments*** 1) Wage Deflation DA A) Wage Deflation i) Democrat politicians serve american voters, not general human welfare. The economic logic presented here is unbelievably amateurish. Yes an increase in the supply will reduce real wages, ceteris parabis. But more people also raises demand for products and increases division of labor and economies of scale. So the net effect isn't clear. ii) The Camerota card writes that "An important study" confirms Con's arguments. Which study? But the study doesn't even conflict with Borjas, who calculates that immigration has small short term impacts, and small long term benefits. iii) The point is that Con's logic is immoral. If an influx of American workers to a city depressed wages, Con's reasoning requires us to quarantine them. iv) I'm not arguing causality. If Con had read the article, there was no deflation of the total monetary base, which actually grew at 2.7% per year. The deflation was experienced by wage earners with positive economic effect. B) Economic Growth i) The GLU card is bad because the organization is politically partisan, and nothing else. The source doesn't even apply to the case of wage deflation because of immigration, (at worst), redistributes wealth from natives to immigrants. If anything this is a boost to consumption. ii) Con tries to save the GLU card by interjecting his own economic logic on investment. The card NOWHERE says "investment". The card is economically illiterate because it considers falling wages in a vacuum. In real life, the price of labor is inextricably tied to the price of everything else. So if the price of labor falls, investment gets easier, consumer goods get cheaper, etc. iii) Con worries that people might not be able to consume. But the price of consumption falls with the price of labor since they are interdependent. Con also worries about inflation, but it also makes nominal wages go up too, so there's no automatic problem. iv) Con says I provide only one study. I have two - Borjas and Peri. Con cites Borjas saying that immigrants reduce native wages by 8%. Prefer my statistics because I use Borjas' long term estimate, which is slightly positive. Also prefer to cut native wages by 8% so foreigners can grow their wages by more than %400 (mexican-american wage difference). Con completely drops the Peri study, which shows that wage deflation is experienced almost exclusively by other immigrants. Extend this to nullify every Con argument complaining about wage deflation. Con says there's visa fraud but doesn't explain why this matters. v) Con drops this argument too. Even if immigrants have a negative economic effect, charging them immigration fees or higher taxes is a more humane/practical solution than telling them they can't come at all. 2) Brain Drain A) Stable migration Con drops this cold. No quotas is more stable than political quotas. B) Brain drain i) The Ford institute just has money, not academic or intellectual weight. ii) Con basically just says he disagrees. Prefer to maximize human welfare universally rather than locally. iii) There are currently no absolute requirements for a minimum income. iv) No matter what country you talk about, Brains have an advantage in the status quo competing for the limited number of spots. Removing quotas makes it easier for disadvantaged to immigrate. v) Con defines a quota as a "prescribed number" - a ratio is not a number. So a ratio is a more humane alternative to quotas. C) Mexican Unrest i) Don't let Con make appeals to authority, especially from political action groups. ii) Con just says my plan is worse (?) I support free immigration... if you take Con through his own logic, you shouldn't let people leave their own country. iii) Con says Mexico is more economically constrained than the EU. This has no bearing whatsoever on the theory or jurisdictional competition. Extend it in my favor. D) Mexican Collapse i) Con says that "authority makes sense". This is an abusive argument because his ex-marine is just giving his opinion, which I can't argue with. ii) It's unclear why a collapse of the mexican government would warrant military intervention. I mean, I can see why a marine would think so, but there have been zounds of contemporary revolutions that the US didn't get involved in [7] If Mexico collapses they can all come live here. No long term repercussions. iii) Prefer my long term benefits mentioned in AC and the Borjas/Peri sources. E) Mexican-American Interdependence Dropped. Don't let Con extend any economic harm back on America. [1] http://www.cato.org... [2] http://www.jstor.org... [3] http://www.msnbc.msn.com... [4] http://www.susps.org... [5] http://www.nber.org... [6] http://www.infoplease.com... [7] http://en.wikipedia.org...