Rich people should be required to donate to the poor.

Rebuttal:" I will not deny that, but taxes don't exactly go directly to the poor. They are used to build roads, sometimes restaurants, and hospitals, but mainly all goes to the military."-There are many public services funded by tax, and I will mention them in my rebuttal."Poor people need food and water, which public services cannot provide."-Yes they do. The Food Stamp program (funded by tax) has been around in the United States since the Great Depression. It provides those who are poor and unemployed with sufficient food. As of 2009, over 40 million people have been enrolled in the program, and currently they are still accepting applicants. Therefore there is no reason why a poor person in the United States does not have food because they can simply apply for Food Stamps. [1] If they don't have sufficient food, it's because they are not aware of the Food Stamp service or for some reason just don't want to be part of it, in which case it is their own choice. Furthermore, there are homeless shelters funded by tax to provide homeless people with a place to sleep at night. [2][3] If you see people sleeping in the streets, it's also because they choose not to be in a homeless shelter. [4] "They are the ones who live luxurious lives who are able to give their children a good education, eat sufficient and maybe even more, and the ones who can buy expensive real estate."-Education is provided to children whether they are poor or not. There are public schools which are free because they are funded by tax. It has been established also that poor people have access to food in a program funded by tax. The expensive real estate that rich people buy are earned through their own money. While poor people do not have access to expensive real estates, they have the option to be in homeless shelters, which essentially gives them a temporary home. And it is funded by tax. "It should be up to the person's choice, and when they donate to the poor (via Charity) there should be some record of the person donating the money."-Pro has committed a huge contradiction to his resolution. His resolution states that rich people should be required to donate to the poor, and now he is saying that it should be up to their choice."About your point about people having less incentive to be rich, I don't think anyone would want to become a middle class person as they are donating a bit of their income and donating once a year."-The study of incentives is one of the first things I learned in my Business and Economics class. I'll give an example: Let's say you want to climb a tree to pick as many apples as you can. You have a basket that can carry a maximum of 13 apples, however you know that after ever 10 consecutive apples you pick from the tree, 3 of them rot and become unedible. Therefore, instead of picking 13 apples everytime you go up, you will pick 10 apples everytime you go up, because you know that after you pick 10 apples, the next 3 will be rotten. Therefore, you lose incentive to use the maximum potential of your basket, which can carry 13 apples. This example corresponds to the one I gave in the previous round.-Furthermore, this would discourage middle class people to become rich. Let's say you earn $142,500 per year, but you know that if you work as hard as you can, you can earn $150,000 annually. However, you also know that if you earn $150,000 annually, you will be considered rich and must give 5% of it to the poor ($7,500). Therefore you must minus the $7,500 from your income, leaving you back with $142,500. That means, that even if you work as hard as you can, you will earn the same amount of money as if you worked lazily. You lose incentive to work to your full potential.-On a large scale, this would greatly damage the economy, because the economy would not be running at it's full potential. If the economy is damaged, this would maybe even result in even more poverty, which worsens the situation."Everyone would want the world to be a better place."-And the world would not be a better place if the economy is damaged and there is more poverty.Sources:[1] http://money.howstuffworks.com...[2] http://www.homelesssheltersusa.org...[3] http://en.wikipedia.org...[4] http://www.divinecaroline.com...