Question: Should everyone get a universal basic income?

Universal Basic Income is a good thing Let's debate the merit, feasibility, And necessity of a Universal Basic Income. Heads up - this first post is quite long. My future arguments will be more succinct. It's a big topic so I'm looking for an opponent who's willing to put some time into this debate. ---A Universal Basic Income: is a periodic, Unconditional, Automatic, Guaranteed payment given to all citizens; regardless of their income. Universal basic income is one of the most ambitious social policies of our time. Over 15 countries are currently running UBI feasibility trials [1]. Why is it that so many scientists, Politicians, And economists are spending their time researching this wacky-sounding idea? The key benefits of a Universal Basic Income are as follows: A UBI would completely eliminate poverty A UBI might pay for itself by creating a massive economic boost A UBI encourages people to work, Unlike welfare A UBI reduces bureaucracy A UBI makes the population smarter and healthier A UBI reduces crime rates --- It's not all altruism though. A UBI also addresses a dangerous threat to our world: The job insecurity created by automation. Job creation can't keep up with automation. While it's true that innovation creates new jobs, These don't compare with the number of jobs being eliminated by the same technological advancements. Automation has been blamed as the key reason why factory workers and miners are losing jobs. Job growth is tied down by corporate structures and politics. Technology doesn't care. As technology advances it makes things more efficient. This efficiency means employers can produce more stuff with less workforce. In a world where artificial intelligence can diagnose better than doctors, Compose classical music, Beat professional players at starcraft, Poker and go, People are worried that the pace of job growth will not be able to keep up with the advancement of technology. Take the self-driving car for example; Transportation is one of the largest industries in the world. Imagine the jobs lost and economic catastrophe if this industry became fully automated. This might not be long off; self-driving cars have already shown to be at least as good, If not better drivers than humans. ---A UBI would completely eliminate povertyBy providing all citizens with a basic living income we could end homelessness, Hunger and poverty overnight. A UBI could pay for itself by creating a massive economic boost In a recent study, A UBI of $1000/month in the USA was estimated to grow the GDP by over 12. 5% in 8 years [2]. Allowing poor people to spend more will increase overall economic demand. More people buying things means more tax revenue is generated and a stronger economy. This would offset the long-term cost of the program. A UBI encourages people to workThe modern welfare disincentives people from getting jobs, Unemployment insurance and welfare cheques disappear when you get a job. UBI doesn't discourage jobs, Because people get to keep the money either way. Studies show that while some people initially quit their jobs, They often use the freedom UBI provides to find jobs that they are better suited for (increasing productivity), Going back to school, Or taking care of their family. A UBI reduces bureaucracy and paperworkModern welfare systems are immensely complex. The UBI is simple. It doesn't require income verification, Tax departments, Eligibility checks, Identity checks, Or any other bureaucratic labor. A UBI makes the population healthierBy providing everyone with the means for basic shelter and nutrition, We can reduce (the currently overwhelming) strain on most health care systems. With increased economic security, People are less prone to stresses, Disease, And self-destructive behavior. A UBI experiment in Canada saw hospitalization rates go down 8. 5%[3]A UBI makes the population smarterStudies have shown that the stress of poverty makes people much worse decision makers. The effect is not subtle, This study showed it was equal in a 13 point drop in IQ[4]. By eliminating the distress of millions we can create a smarter more rational society. A UBI reduces crime ratesThe root cause of crime is desperation. Desperate people take desperate measures and are more likely to break laws. By lifting society out of poverty we would greatly reduce desperation thus removing one of crimes biggest motivators. This has the potential to greatly reduce crime rates everywhere. ---A universal basic income is not only good for society and the economy; it may also be the only realistic solution to the near-term threat of automation.

Universal Basic Income A Universal Basic Income: is a periodic, Unconditional, Automatic, Guaranteed payment given to all citizens; regardless of their income. Universal basic income is one of the most ambitious social policies of our time. Over 15 countries are currently running UBI feasibility trials [1]. Why is it that so many scientists, Politicians, And economists are spending their time researching this wacky sounding idea? The key benefits of a Universal Basic Income are as follows: A UBI would completely eliminate poverty A UBI might pay for itself by creating a massive economic boost A UBI encourages people to work A UBI reduces bureaucracy A UBI makes the population smarter and healthier A UBI reduces crime rates --- It's not all altruism though. A UBI also addresses a dangerous threat to our world: The job insecurity created by automation. Job creation can't keep up with automation. While it's true that innovation creates new jobs, These don't compare with the number of jobs being eliminated by the same technological advancements. Automation has been blamed as the key reason why factory workers and miners are losing jobs. Job growth is tied down by corporate structures and politics. Technology doesn't care. As technology advances it makes things more efficient. This efficiency means employers can produce more stuff with less workforce. In a world where artificial intelligence can diagnose better than doctors, Compose classical music, Beat professional players at starcraft, Poker and go, People are worried that the pace of job growth will not be able to keep up with the advancement of technology. Take the self-driving car for example; Transportation is one of the largest industries in the world. Imagine the jobs lost and economic catastrophe if this industry became fully automated. This might not be long off - self driving cars have already shown to be at least as good, If not better drivers than humans. --- A UBI would completely eliminate poverty By providing all citizens with a basic living income we could end homelessness, Hunger and poverty overnight. A UBI could pay for itself by creating a massive economic boost In a recent study, A UBI of $1000/month in the USA was estimated to grow the GDP by over 12. 5% in 8 years [2]. Allowing poor people to spend more will increase overall economic demand. More people buying things means more tax revenue is generated and a stronger economy. This would offset the long-term cost of the program. A UBI encourages people to work The modern welfare disincentives people from getting jobs, Unemployment insurance and welfare cheques disappear when you get a job. UBI doesn't discourage jobs, Because people get to keep the money either way. Studies show that while some people initially quit their jobs, They often use the freedom UBI provides to find jobs that they are better suited for (increasing productivity), Going back to school, Or taking care of their family. A UBI reduces bureaucracy and paperwork Modern welfare systems are immensely complex. The UBI is simple. It doesn't require income verification, Tax departments, Eligibility checks, Identity checks, Or any other bureaucratic labor. A UBI makes the population healthier By providing everyone with the means for basic shelter and nutrition, We can reduce (the currently overwhelming) strain on most health care systems. With increased economic security, People are less prone to stresses, Disease, And self-destructive behavior. A UBI experiment in Canada saw hospitalization rates go down 8. 5%[3] A UBI makes the population smarter Studies has shown that the stress of poverty makes people much worse decision makers. The effect is not subtle, This study showed it was equal in a 13 point drop in IQ[4]. By eliminating the distress of millions we can create a smarter more rational society. A UBI reduces crime rates What is the root cause of crime? It is not ethnicity, Or culture, Or status. Crime is born out of desperation. Desperate people take desperate measures, And are much more likely to commit a crime. By lifting society out of poverty we would greatly reduce desperation, Removing one of the worlds biggest incentives for committing crime. This has the potential to greatly reduce crime rates everywhere. A universal basic income is not only good for society and the economy, It may be the only realistic solution to the near-term threat of automation.

The US ought to provide an universal basic income. For clarity I will be presenting my arguments on why we should not implement a UBI and then moving on to addressing my opponents point. With that out of the way I will move onto my arguments Contention 1: A universal basic income will not work. The New York Times(1) says that $1,000 a month to every American would cost around 3 trillion dollars a year. And $1,000 is a month is below the poverty line. 3 trillion dollars a year is almost the entire US budget and more than twice our discretionary funding. So we can see that A UBI is not feasible at all. Contention 2: A UBI would bring about a dystopian future. Imagine if you will a world where jobs are few and far between, those with jobs are locked in a competitive industry with few workers rights. The government is a tyrranical mess where the rights of the people are nothing.What I am saying is not some impossible nightmare, and as I will show you it is very possible. Subpoint A - Loss of jobs. Fox Business(2) says that because of increased automation, 22.7 million jobs will disappear by 2025. And CNBC(3) says that only with proper adaptability and commitment will the workforce ascend to the next level of work. Now what that means is that only with proper commitment by workers can we at least help to avoid rampant unemployment. And this is where UBIs comes in. According to the Foundation for Economic Education(4) giving handouts to every American would de-incentivize them to try and find a job. So as we can see a UBI will aid in a drastic rise in unemployment. In addition it will take away money and focus from useful systems such as a jobs guarantee which would solve the imminent unemployment at a much lower cost. According to The Atlantic(5) it would only cost 158 billion dollars a year, less than a 15th of the cost of a UBI program. So as we can see a UBI will exacerbate job loss and harm us greatly. Subpoint B - Loss of rights. According to Sapira(6) political rights are directly correlated with economic participation. She says "And this is the real danger of a universal basic income it makes the citizens unnecessary to the government" She also says that in societies where the state economy comes from sources that require only a small, fixed number of people to defend or maintain them, tend to develop autocratic regimes with little concern for the welfare of their citizens. To summarize, a universal basic income is a frivolous, expensive system that will cause a loss of our jobs and our political rights. Now I will respond to my opponents arguments. Entrepreneurship: In this argument my opponent presents that entrepreneurship will increase because people will have financial security. Now I have three responses to this. First, there seems to be a lot of different evidence tied together here. My opponent talks about the effects of entrepreneurship in India and Namibia, and talks about the danger of low economic security. But I would like to see the evidence that states that a UBI will fix this, and why. Secondly, There are more effective ways to do this. For instance a negative income tax, which I will talk more about later as my opponent mentions it, could remove financial insecurity. Which would in turn raise entrepreneurial spirit. Finally, this won't matter because we cannot pay for a UBI. Education/ College(I am combining my opponents second and third points because they deal with the same thing.): For these arguments my opponent presents that a UBI will decrease highschool dropouts and increase college and thus innovation. My responses to my opponents previous arguments apply here as well. I would like to see evidence specifically stating this and a negative income tax could do these things as well. And of course we just can't pay for it. Lower Work Hours: My opponent begins this argument by talking about benefits of lower work hours and then continues on to say that A UBI will lower work hours. But the crux here is that their evidence is about negative income tax not universal basic income. A negative income tax is very different from a universal basic income. Samuel Hammond and the Niskanen Center(7) published an article titled "Universal Basic Income is just Negative Income tax with a Leaky Bucket." And in this article they explain what negative income tax is "The NIT, popularized by Milton Friedman, is an extension of the progressive tax system into negative territory. Just as someone making lots of money pays a higher tax rate, those below the poverty line would pay an increasingly negative tax rate"which is to say, the IRS would pay them." Now this is obviously not universal, and is not an income. So really my opponent has no evidence that supports their claim that a UBI will reduce global warming. Economic Inequality: So here my opponent talks about how a UBI will reduce income inequality. But their evidence talks about raising people out of poverty. Now this is different because the rich will also get payed more, meaning the gap will stay the same. Systems that would go towards reducing income inequality do exists though. Systems like a jobs guarantee or negative income tax would do this, however these are not we are debating the merits of. So it's clear, A UBI will, cost too much, take away our jobs, take away our freedom, and it's benefits can be better accomplished with other systems. This means that it is flawed and unnecessary. For these reasons I strongly urge a con vote. Sources: 1 - NY Times - Porter, Eduardo. "A Universal Basic Income Is a Poor Tool to Fight Poverty." The New York Times, The New York Times, 31 May 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/business/economy/universal-basic-income-poverty.html? module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Economy&action=keypress"ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=article. 2 - Fox Business - Lee, Laura. "Automation Is Killing These Jobs." Fox Business, Fox Business, 30 Mar. 2016, www.foxbusiness.com/features/automation-is-killing-these-jobs. 3 - CNBC - Jr., Stephen Spinelli, and Jiffy Lube co-founder. "1 Million US Jobs Will Vanish by 2026. Here's How to Prepare Workers for an Automated Future." CNBC, CNBC, 2 Feb. 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/02/02/automation-will-kill-1-million-jobs-by-2026-what-we-need-to-do-commentary.html. 4 - Foundation for Economic Education(FEE) - Hunter, Britteny. "The Top Three Arguments against a Universal Basic Income." FEE, Foundation for Economic Education, 8 Sept. 2017, fee.org/articles/the-top-three-arguments-against-a-universal-basic-income/. 5 - The Atlantic - Lowrey, Annie. "Should the Government Guarantee Everyone a Job?" The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 18 May 2017, www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/should-the-government-guarantee-everyone-a-job/527208/. 6 - Sapira - Sapira, Shai. "Universal Basic Income and the Threat of Tyranny." Quillette, Quillette, 15 Oct. 2017, quillette.com/2017/10/09/universal-basic-income-threat-tyranny/. 7 - Niskanen Center - Hammond, Samuel. ""Universal Basic Income" Is Just a Negative Income Tax with a Leaky Bucket." Niskanen Center, Niskanen Center, 13 July 2016, niskanencenter.org/blog/universal-basic-income-is-just-a-negative-income-tax-with-a-leaky-bucket/.

Universal Basic Income IntroductionAn unconditional, individual, and universal basic income would indisputably boost the economy and allow many low-income Americans to climb the ladder of social mobility. It would not only lift people above the poverty line and reduce income inequality, but create jobs, lower school dropout rates, improve health, and raise overall economic output. A UBI would enable, rather than trap, those with unfortunate financial situations as it would provide *everyone* money to work with; all would have the fiscal leverage to progress forward when they otherwise wouldn’t.Our current welfare programs, in contrast, do the opposite of what they’re intended for. They encourage passive behavior and inhibit productivity. The means-tested programs withdraw benefits as soon as a certain income is reached, and are burdened with high marginal tax rates so long as their income is below a certain level. Others require people to exhaust nearly all their assets until they become eligible for aid. With so many strings attached, and the overall counter-productive nature, welfare programs simply are inferior to a UBI, and have too many downfalls.Economic/Societal ImpactsThere are several instances of cash transfers, or UBI trials, working. The following examples turn up multiple benefits:Namibia tried out a UBI program, the Basic Income Grant, in 2007-2012. After just one year into the program, household poverty rates dropped from 76% to 37%. Other effects were noted too: income-generating activities rose from 44% to 55% over the time period. Parents were enabled to purchase school uniforms, afford school fees, and encourage attendance because of this problem, and as a result, school dropout rates dropped from 40% to nearly 0% in a year [2].India tried a cash transfer project from 2013-2014 too. The result was that sanitation improved, medicine could be afforded, clean water became more accessible, and participants could eat more regularly [3].Uganda’s UBI trial enabled participants to invest in skill training. The findings were that “relative to the control group, the program increases business assets by 57%, work hours by 17%, and earnings by 38%” [4]. Kenya has an ongoing trial, and it has so far reportedly let to increased happiness and life satisfaction, and reduced depression and stress [5].If we are to quantify the effect this would have in the US, we should look at the current poverty levels. Currently, the poverty level is a $12,140 income for individuals [1]. With my proposed UBI of $10,000, this would pull everyone with an income of a few thousand or more above the line. That’s potentially *millions* of people. The Failure of Welfare ProgramsThe current welfare programs do *not* provide overall work incentives. Most are means-tested, meaning that if you demonstrate that your income and capital are below specified limits, you’re eligible. This can lead to what some call the “cliff effect”: once someone passes an income threshold, that aid is withdrawn, and climbing further up the income ladder becomes more difficult. This issue is maximized when we understand how disadvantaged the poor are tax-wise under welfare. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office, “[found] that the marginal tax rate climbs to 40 percent when a worker earns slightly more than about $12,000, and then to nearly 50 percent in the mid-$20,000 range.” [6] These programs impose high marginal tax rates, essentially trapping these recipients into a large income hole that they can’t climb out of. To put this into better perspective, here’s a graph [7] that shows tax-less income in respect to income earned: These welfare programs are creating a clear poverty trap. Under a universal basic income, this wouldn’t happen. A UBI would extend to *every* person, regardless of what their incomes are, enabling them to have more social mobility than they would under the incredibly flawed welfare programs that are burdening so many lower-income people.But that’s not all. Many welfare programs also have asset limits, meaning that one must have almost no assets to be eligible for benefits. Programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) have asset limit ranges from $1,000 in states like Georgia and Texas to $10,000 in Delaware [8]. This is problematic because it discourages the importance of saving and self-reliance; only those who exhaust just about all of their assets become eligible for aid. Savings are very important because they provide cushion against anything that goes wrong. Just having under $2,000, for instance, is enough to protect against eviction, missed meals, or the loss of utilities during a financial setback. To force such recipients to go to the point of being broke to receive benefits in no way incentivizes them to increase their income.To sum, a UBI would (1) significantly reduce poverty and boost economic output, and (2) incentivize people to work in ways our current welfare programs cannot. Thus, I affirm.=Sources=[1] https://www.healthcare.gov...[2] http://www.bignam.org...[3] http://sewabharat.org...[4] https://www.povertyactionlab.org...[5] https://www.princeton.edu...[6] https://www.urban.org...[7] https://www.economist.com...[8] https://www.americanprogress.org...

Universal Basic Income is a good thing So we both agree that a UBI would be a good thing if automation takes over the job market. Good, Then let's discuss the pros/cons of a UBI on modern society. The average wage has remained stagnant worldwide while the cost of living has skyrocketed. We are already feeling the effects of automation. Modern welfare in most countries doesn't even cover the basic cost of living. This is why it's imperative to explore massive changes to our social nets with ideas like UBI. I think one of the best effects of UBI is that directly addresses wealth inequality. We all know that rich corporations are only getting richer, While the poor seem to be getting poorer. A UBI empowers poor employees to demand better working conditions and higher wages. Lower income employees enter the middle class at the expense of large corporations, Effectively bridging the wealth divide. Rebuttals"If the UBI exists does the welfare end? If yes, Are people who are just lazy living well to the detriment of those with disabilities that require more funds to control or cure? "Yes, UBI replaces welfare. The problem with welfare is that it discourages work - welfare payments stop after someone gets a job. UBI payments do not. For this reason, A large portion of these "welfare bums" actually reenter the job market. ---"I understand that a salary is still due to the ones who choose to work under a UBI but it would cease to be a good enough motivation since you are allowed to be lazy and still live fairly well. "Do people quit their jobs after given a UBI? Well we've tested it. It turns out that most people would rather be wealthy the lazy. A portion of the population does initially quit, But most of them go further their education or find better jobs that are actually in their field. The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend program has been in place for the past 25 years, With money distributed from the oil reserve royalties earned in the state. The unconditional cash payments amount to $2, 000 per Alaskan resident. "The researchers found that the unconditional payments to residents had no real impact upon full-time employment levels (whether positive or negative), Although they did find that part-time work increased by about 17%. " [4]----"A UBI would be a good idea only when and if a TRUE job crisis arises, Where something like 50% or so of the population is in fact unemployed due to the advancement in technology"The problem here is that technology advances exponentially, while politics and the job market advance slowly and linearly. I would argue that something THIS DESTRUCTIVE, Cannot be dealt with reactively, It must be dealt with proactively. If we wait until half the population is unemployed we've waited far too long. That's why we're running early trials now.

The US ought to provide an universal basic income. I'll deal with my opponent's arguments first and proceed to defending my own case.He says that a UBI is enormously expensive and as of now we can not afford such a program. Four responses to this. First, according to Matthew Ygleias of Vox in an exact rebuttal towards said New York Times article, UBI would put US spending to about where France and the Scandinavian social democracies are. Foreign nations easily do similar levels of welfare as the projected costs of a UBI. Additionally, the article my opponent cites is off on the projected cost by 600 billion dollars or so. Second, according to David Morris of Fortune, studies by the Roosevelt Institute indicate that a basic income would grow the economy by 12.5 % and shrink the federal deficit, meaning that a UBI would help the overall economy and goverment, not hurt it. Third, consider the cost of poverty on society, as children struggle through school as they work, as homeless people live on the streets, and many struggle to meet ends meet. Are they truly doing the best for our country impoverished. Millions who could be potential engineers, doctors, and scientists are currently wasting their potential, through no fault of their own, merely by the virtue of their social class. Forth, social programs in the status quo have spent billions of dollars with little to nil result. We could simply cut money from those programs in order to help fund a UBI. He says that people will become lazy and won't want to work. However, this is key to help mitigate the problems of climate change as proven by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, will nil adverse effects as countries throughout Western Europe have had similar levels of work for decades on end. Additionally, this isn't unique to UBI, as the status quo already does exactly that. He says that a job gurantee would solve the problem of unemployement, but I must ask; Where are these jobs? Where is the US going to magically sploof up several million jobs. How exactly is this a permanent solution, as at some point AI and automation will simply be better. It is incredibly unlikely that every single American will somehow find the time and money in order to better educated themselves in the new age of technology, meaning that we would likely have these problems regardless.He says that the dollar is key to political rights, however, it only takes one part in the overall goverment. There's democratic activities such as voting, running for office, protesting, civil disobidience and such which all allow nationals to take part in their goverment. I'll now deal with my opponents rebuttal.UBI gurantees that regardless of the circumstance, there will always be a net underneath you. If a business fails, the entrapener won't be sleeping on the streets. Same too applies for financial insecurity. If one wishes to quit their job, they have the ability to do so, as they have a source of income independent of their job. If my opponent needs to see the evidence where exactly this will occur, I simply suggest clicking on the article cited beforehand. If he needs further, may I suggest Scott Santeens' Medium article entitled Inequality and the Basic Income Guarantee. It goes both into entrepreneurship and education.On lower work hours, simply refer to what my opponent himself said in how he argued that a UBI would lower overall work hours. He's contradicting himself in saying there's no evidence to say UBI would lower work hours while only a few paragraphs above saying the exact opposite. Welfare programs lower the need to work, it's as simple as that. An UBI or NIT would bring forth the same basic effect, however, it would be greater under a UBI as it is provided to everyone, not simply those below the poverty line (or whatever thresehold one wishes to set it at). It wouldn't just be the poorest of the poor not working, many of the near and middle class would join in, guaranting that the intended effects would be brought forth.On inequality, I'll simply offer an anology. Envision a room full of 100 children (hopefully not locked up by ICE) where 1 has 101 candies and 99 have 1. If the 1 child had to give everyone else 1 candy, then everyone would have at 2 candies, and be a much more equal society. By the sheer virtue of the population size of the lower and middle class compared to the upper class, they will get a great deal more. Effectly, UBI is a great equallizer for a society, lowering overall inequallity.For these reasons I strongly urge voting for the motion.

Universal Basic Income This debate is for 1harder's Spring Regular Tournament. All the settings of this debate are in accordance with the tournament's rules. Resolution: The U. S. should replace existing welfare programs with a universal basic income (UBI). I propose that every adult receive an annual, basic income of $10,000. This income would be unconditional, earned whether one is employed or not. Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare would be exempt as they aren't really considered welfare.

Resolved: The US ought to provide a UBI Ok, I understand that I will not do my last speech then, for round 4, correct? Well, I will just assume so. Anyways, moving on...(and all sources will be in round 4 speech) I stand in firm affirmation of the Resolved: The United States Ought to Provide a Universal Basic Income Observation 1: Definition Basic income has 5 characteristics... A basic income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement. That is, basic income has the following five characteristics: Periodic: it is paid at regular intervals (for example every month), not as a one-off grant. Cash payment: it is paid in an appropriate medium of exchange, allowing those who receive it to decide what they spend it on. It is not, therefore, paid either in kind (such as food or services) or in vouchers dedicated to a specific use, as well as any form of benefit (such as disability or food stamp). Individual: it is paid on an individual basis"and not, for instance, to households. Universal: it is paid to all, without means test. Unconditional: it is paid without a requirement to work or to demonstrate willingness-to-work Observation 2: Grounds The negative must prove that Basic Income does NOT benefit the citizens of the US, as well as prove that the US ought not to provide a basic income, instead of the countries ability to do so, as the resolution states ought. Framework: My Standard for evaluating morality for this round is upholding the Kantian Social Contract due to the principle of generic consistency. We can"t know what others want [Kant, 1] Since people differ in their thinking about happiness and how each would have it constituted, their wills with respect to it cannot be brought under any common principle and so under any external law harmonizing with everyone's freedom. [Kant, 2]No one can coerce me to be happy in his way. Instead, each may seek his happiness in the way that seems good to him, provided he does not infringe upon this right of another.We, as humans, don"t know what other people want in their pursuit of life. Therefore, laws that promote a certain type of happiness violate the individual"s individuality. Since all people are inherently rational beings, this violates their rights as beings and is against a-priori reasoning. Society in decisions [Kant, 3] For what is under discussion here is not the happiness that a subject may expect from the institution or administration of a commonwealth but above all merely the right that is to be secured for each by means of it, which is the supreme principle for which all maxims having to do with a commonwealth must proceed and which is limited by no other principle. The "public well-being' that must be taken into account is lawful constitution which secures everyone his freedom by laws, whereby each remains at liberty to seek his happiness in whatever way seems best to him. What Kant is saying is that societies govern to secure each person the right to achieve happiness and self-fulfillment. Therefore, to infringe upon someone"s rights is to deny that person their right to happiness. Since this is only violating the rights of one person, it is a violation of the goals of a state " and by extension of society. Contention 1: UBI Promotes Freedom 1. UBI Means Freedom to Pursue What One Wants (1) The objective of basic income is to transform the deprivations linked to non-employment and poorly remunerated employment into "real freedom" (1995). Real freedom requires not just the abstract right but financial resources to make freedom a lived reality. Furthermore, by securing individuals" "power to say no", basic income reduces the vulnerability of poor and working people to exploitative relations in labor markets. And, According to Rutger Bregman, (2) UBI would allow both our employment and leisure time to become more fulfilling. Currently, millions of people are employed in work that serves no real purpose, and is simply a way to fill time and provide salaries. Under UBI, Bregman believes we would have the financial freedom to pursue useful and worthwhile work. 2. UBI Creates Economic Freedom Among Citizens Jason Murphy states that" There has also been a growing focus on how basic income could be implemented to address gender inequality. He points to a rape shelter in Vancouver that has voiced support for UBI, in part because it would give women the economic freedom to escape abusive relationships. Murphy also stated that" A monthly stipend and reduced working hours would give both parents the freedom to commit to domestic chores, while still being able to invest in professional careers. Women carry the burden of emotional labor"the childcare, support, and household work, which largely goes uncompensated. According to Bregman, "This unpaid work is valuable and"UBI is recognition of that." Contention 2: Poverty Internal Link Basic Income Eliminates Poverty (3) The human rights case for a basic income: Poverty is not a natural tragedy like cancer or earthquakes. Poverty is a human caused tragedy like slavery or government oppression. These types of tragedies can be ended by recognizing that humans have the right not to be subjected to tortuous conditions imposed by other. And humans have a right not to live in poverty. A basic income is not a strategy for dealing with poverty; it it the elimination of poverty. The campaign for a basic income is a campaign for the abolition of poverty. 1. Drug Abuse (4) It seems sort of obvious that bad times might result in more drug abuse, as people suffering from economic despair self-medicate. Researchers from Vanderbilt University and the University of Colorado Denver published a paper showing an undeniable inverse relationship between drug abuse and the economy overall. According the data, when one sinks, the other rises. "There is strong evidence that economic downturns lead to increases in substance use disorders involving hallucinogens and prescription pain relievers"" Drug treatment policies get significantly cut during economic downturns, which seems like precisely the wrong move at the wrong time. In short, increased rates of income leads to a decrease in drug use, and moreover abuse. More deaths, illnesses and disabilities stem from substance abuse than from any other preventable health condition. Any chance to decrease drug abuse should be taken to value the lives and welfare of humanity. 2. Healthcare (5) For most people, a single doctor"s visit can be a financial obstacle course. Many patients throughout the year pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in premiums. Then, at the doctor"s office, they are faced with a deductible, and they may need to pay coinsurance or make a copayment. If they have prescriptions, they"ll likely fork over cash for those, too. And that"s just for basic primary care for one person. Repeat that process for an entire family; add in any labs, referrals, specialists, emergency-room visits, and surgeries; and the result for even healthy families is dozens and dozens of payments, and often thousands of dollars. If the UBI were to be implemented in the U.S., people would have to worry less about the expensive payments that must be made because of illness or injury. If people"s income increased, they could purchase more healthcare. Less disease and injuries leads to less widespread death and harm. 3. Education (6) UBI keeps kids enrolled in schools. By providing an income cushion, it would increase workers" bargaining power, potentially driving up wages. It would make it easier for people to take risks with their job choices, and to invest in education. In the U.S. in the seventies, there were small-scale experiments with basic-income guarantees, and they showed that young people with a basic income were more likely to stay in school; in New Jersey, kids" chances of graduating from high school increased by twenty-five per cent I stand in firm affirmation.

Universal Basic Income is a good thing I would like to start by saying that I agree with the motivations of this idea, They are noble ones. Technological unemployment => Less jobs => Less pay => Freezing cold economy => Scarcity + Inequality => Crime. But. . . At this very moment a UBI would prove to be more than prejudicial to our economy and society. To not distinguish between the working and the criminal in a world where work is the main source of value IS DANGEROUS. I understand that a salary is still due to the ones who choose to work under a UBI but it would cease to be a good enough motivation since you are allowed to be lazy and still live fairly well. More, If the UBI exists does the welfare end? If yes, Are people who are just lazy living well to the detriment of those with disabilities that require more funds to control or cure? We are not at the point where we should be handing over our hard-earned money to the state to feed possibly unmotivated and disconnected people who might not be contributing to our development as a society or to our eventual future of abundance yet, This is precisely why welfare exists. Markets are marvelous engines for figuring out how to do things and transfer value really well and they will continue to be until the ones on the rich side reach "climax" abundance and turn tyrannical against the non-producing counterpart. A UBI would be a good idea only when and if a TRUE job crisis arises, Where something like 50% or so of the population is in fact unemployed due to the advancement in technology and welfare is not enough to provide a good and dignified standard of living to this half. It is in fact a good idea for when the paradigm shifts, The fact is the paradigm has not shifted and doesn't seem to be in crisis yet. As we stand, We still need much more technological advancement and abundance inequality for this to be a remotely plausible idea making it a "bad thing" for the moment.

That UBI should be implemented in the western world UBI is an undeniably good choice for the western world, as it eliminates extreme poverty and allows more economic freedom. For those who don't know UBI, or Universal Basic Income, it is where the government gives every citizen a base income of around $10,000 that you can spend on anything. The difference between this and normal welfare is that most public welfare goes by the system that you earn the amount of money from the welfare but any amount above and you lose said welfare, acting as a box as opposed to UBI which is a pedestal. This is because it acts as a base income that you can build off. This will be accomplished by abolishing most welfare projects. We must have UBI to ensure the ability of anyone to have a, although low, stable income.

Universal Basic Income I. IntroThis debate is not merely about the degree to which we help others, but also how we help others. The resolution is calling on Pro to advocate for a specific policy, namely UBI, as the means through which he will, in his own words, "ensure the worst off in our countries do not starve. " By using this as his metric to weigh policies, Pro has established a consequentialist moral framework for the round. I would like to note now, however, that Pro's first round lacks substance. He provides no data to demonstrate that UBI is effective at achieving its aim of reducing poverty. Merely stating that reducing poverty is UBI's intent is insufficient to justify UBI as a poverty. One could argue that Hitler's intent through the Holocaust was to better humankind, but that does not justify his actions in the slightest. Therefore, it is dubious as to whether Pro has or will meet his burden in this debate. He must use his additional rounds to put forward arguments sufficient to affirm, or he will be unable to meet his burden. II. The Flaws of UBIA. The Cost of UBIEstimates suggest that UBI would cost $3 to 4 trillion per year, totaling $30 to 40 trillion over a decade. That sum "amounts to nearly all the tax revenue collected by the federal government. " [1] Projections show that US federal tax revenue for 2019 is estimated to be $3.422 trillion, potentially less than this single policy alone [2]. It is not plausible that the US could sustain a policy of UBI while also maintaining the various other services and projects it administers. Even if UBI were to replace other welfare programs, the savings from eliminating these programs would not offset the costs of UBI. Currently, welfare not including Social Security and Medicare costs about $1 trillion; Social Security and Medicare similarly cost about $1 trillion [3, 4]. That makes $2 trillion in total current welfare spending. If all of these welfare programs were to be eliminated and replaced with UBI, UBI would still add $1 to 2 trillion dollars to the federal budget (increasing the budget by 67%). However, it would be naive to think that UBI could replace all existing welfare programs--programs to help parents with childcare costs or to cover medical bills would need to be retained in some form in order to ensure the wellbeing of children and those without insurance, with poor insurance, or with sky-high medical bills. Thus, the actual amount that UBI adds to the budget is likely to be larger than the $1 to 2 trillion just calculated. And not only does it balloon the budget, but UBI is ultimately self-defeating. To afford UBI, individuals would need to be taxed at rates of 35 to 40 percent. This means that UBI would cost a taxpayer more in taxes than that taxpayer would receive in benefits, rendering the policy net-harmful. [5]B. Workforce ParticipationUBI is likely to reduce workforce participation. It stands to reason that if everyone receives a salary irrespective of whether or not they have worked for or earned that salary, that people will be less eager to work. This logic is borne out empirically. "In four controlled random assignment experiments across six states between 1968 and 1980, the comparable policy was shown to reduce yearly hours worked among recipients significantly. For each $1,000 in added benefits, there was an average $660 reduction in earnings, meaning that $3,000 in government benefits was required for a net increase of $1,000 in family income. " [6] This has several impacts. Firstly, for UBI to have its intended benefits, payouts will need to be unreasonably large. The goal of UBI is to bring people up to a subsistence threshold. Suppose that threshold is $10,000. To meet this goal, UBI cannot simply payout $10,000, because that will only functionally provide benefits of $3,300. Instead, to functionally provide $10,000, UBI payouts will need to be $30,000. This places Pro in a double-bind. Either he can't achieve a subsistence minimum or he triples the overall cost of UBI, adding to our national debt and magnifying its self-defeating nature. Secondly, UBI leads to the pernicious and repressive effects of dependency. When people become dependent on welfare, they don't take the steps (steps which are often burdensome in the short term) to better themselves in the long-term. This traps recipients in a kind of near-poverty, which is not only degrading to them but also keeps their quality of life low. Thirdly, UBI is socially destructive. "Individuals gain not only income, but meaning, status, skills, networks and friendships through work. Delinking income and work, while rewarding people for staying at home, is what lies behind social decay. " [7] This could be phrased similarly in the statement that by cutting down participation in one of our primary social contexts, we also cut down the social bonds and experience which are integral to a well-functioning cooperative society. Fourthly, UBI is individually destructive. "Work is at the root of a meaningful life, the path to individual. .. flourishing. It is also the distinctive means by which men concretize their identity as rational, goal-directed beings. " [8] "Self-esteem, in the sense of having a perception of the worth of one's own existence, is bound up with the recognition one receives from others of one's competences, achievements and contributions. " [9] Work, by being a central mechanism through which people contribute to society, is crucial to our own self-esteem, self-image and self-respect. Thus, I negate. III. Sources1 - . https://www.cbpp.org...2 - . https://www.thebalance.com...3 - . https://www.budget.senate.gov...4 - . https://en.wikipedia.org...5 - . https://fee.org...6 - . https://www.heritage.org...7 - . https://www.irishtimes.com...8 - Younkins, Edward W. "Capitalism and Commerce: Conceptual Foundations of Free Enterprise. " Lexington Books, 2002.9 - . https://theconversation.com...

Universal Basic Income I. IntroThis debate is not merely about the degree to which we help others, but also how we help others. The resolution is calling on Pro to advocate for a specific policy, namely UBI, as the means through which he will, in his own words, "ensure the worst off in our countries do not starve. " By using this as his metric to weigh policies, Pro has established a consequentialist moral framework for the round. I would like to note now, however, that Pro's first round lacks substance. He provides no data to demonstrate that UBI is effective at achieving its aim of reducing poverty. Merely stating that reducing poverty is UBI's intent is insufficient to justify UBI as a poverty. One could argue that Hitler's intent through the Holocaust was to better humankind, but that does not justify his actions in the slightest. Therefore, it is dubious as to whether Pro has or will meet his burden in this debate. He must use his additional rounds to put forward arguments sufficient to affirm, or he will be unable to meet his burden. II. The Flaws of UBIA. The Cost of UBIEstimates suggest that UBI would cost $3 to 4 trillion per year, totaling $30 to 40 trillion over a decade. That sum "amounts to nearly all the tax revenue collected by the federal government. " [1] Projections show that US federal tax revenue for 2019 is estimated to be $3.422 trillion, potentially less than this single policy alone [2]. It is not plausible that the US could sustain a policy of UBI while also maintaining the various other services and projects it administers. Even if UBI were to replace other welfare programs, the savings from eliminating these programs would not offset the costs of UBI. Currently, welfare not including Social Security and Medicare costs about $1 trillion; Social Security and Medicare similarly cost about $1 trillion [3, 4]. That makes $2 trillion in total current welfare spending. If all of these welfare programs were to be eliminated and replaced with UBI, UBI would still add $1 to 2 trillion dollars to the federal budget (increasing the budget by 67%). However, it would be naive to think that UBI could replace all existing welfare programs--programs to help parents with childcare costs or to cover medical bills would need to be retained in some form in order to ensure the wellbeing of children and those without insurance, with poor insurance, or with sky-high medical bills. Thus, the actual amount that UBI adds to the budget is likely to be larger than the $1 to 2 trillion just calculated. And not only does it balloon the budget, but UBI is ultimately self-defeating. To afford UBI, individuals would need to be taxed at rates of 35 to 40 percent. This means that UBI would cost a taxpayer more in taxes than that taxpayer would receive in benefits, rendering the policy net-harmful. [5]B. Workforce ParticipationUBI is likely to reduce workforce participation. It stands to reason that if everyone receives a salary irrespective of whether or not they have worked for or earned that salary, that people will be less eager to work. This logic is borne out empirically. "In four controlled random assignment experiments across six states between 1968 and 1980, the comparable policy was shown to reduce yearly hours worked among recipients significantly. For each $1,000 in added benefits, there was an average $660 reduction in earnings, meaning that $3,000 in government benefits was required for a net increase of $1,000 in family income. " [6] This has several impacts. Firstly, for UBI to have its intended benefits, payouts will need to be unreasonably large. The goal of UBI is to bring people up to a subsistence threshold. Suppose that threshold is $10,000. To meet this goal, UBI cannot simply payout $10,000, because that will only functionally provide benefits of $3,300. Instead, to functionally provide $10,000, UBI payouts will need to be $30,000. This places Pro in a double-bind. Either he can't achieve a subsistence minimum or he triples the overall cost of UBI, adding to our national debt and magnifying its self-defeating nature. Secondly, UBI leads to the pernicious and repressive effects of dependency. When people become dependent on welfare, they don't take the steps (steps which are often burdensome in the short term) to better themselves in the long-term. This traps recipients in a kind of near-poverty, which is not only degrading to them but also keeps their quality of life low. Thirdly, UBI is socially destructive. "Individuals gain not only income, but meaning, status, skills, networks and friendships through work. Delinking income and work, while rewarding people for staying at home, is what lies behind social decay. " [7] This could be phrased similarly in the statement that by cutting down participation in one of our primary social contexts, we also cut down the social bonds and experience which are integral to a well-functioning cooperative society. Fourthly, UBI is individually destructive. "Work is at the root of a meaningful life, the path to individual. .. flourishing. It is also the distinctive means by which men concretize their identity as rational, goal-directed beings. " [8] "Self-esteem, in the sense of having a perception of the worth of one's own existence, is bound up with the recognition one receives from others of one's competences, achievements and contributions. " [9] Work, by being a central mechanism through which people contribute to society, is crucial to our own self-esteem, self-image and self-respect. Thus, I negate. III. Sources1 - . https://www.cbpp.org...2 - . https://www.thebalance.com...3 - . https://www.budget.senate.gov...4 - . https://en.wikipedia.org...5 - . https://fee.org...6 - . https://www.heritage.org...7 - . https://www.irishtimes.com...8 - Younkins, Edward W. "Capitalism and Commerce: Conceptual Foundations of Free Enterprise. " Lexington Books, 2002.9 - . https://theconversation.com...

That UBI should be implemented in the western world Before I proceed to point out the multitude of flaws in your argument I would like to point out the fact that 'broad and illogical' is not how you should describe it, as an opener to a debate it is meant to be broad, and illogical will be disproved later in the argument. Now onto the rebuttal. Rebuttal Not Enough money in the US Not enough money for the people The argument that there would be not enough money in the US governments pocket to pay for everyone is true, to an extent. The US federal budget adds up to $3.8 trillion, this makes up 21% of the US economy. The government should merely Raise tax on private industry. I choose private industry because the money from UBI is not taxed which means that it will end up in private areas of the economy anyway. Additionally, private industry is not taxed enough now. This mixed with the majority of the welfare budget would come to enough money that will circulate in the economy. The idea that $10,000 is not enough money, may seem correct from a rudimentary point of view. However, with further research you can find that trials done in Finland, show that even for poorest when you give them $10,000 it helps encourage them seek out further funds and decreased poverty rates substantially. The idea that the homeless just spend their money on drugs and alcohol is actually false, and what the real result is that the richest one percent spend the most money on drugs and alcohol. So in conclusion the arguments you have presented as rebuttal are either misinformed or false, and my point still stands.

That UBI should be implemented in the western world Hello ISDA, Before I proceed to point out the multitude of flaws regarding a USI system, I would like to point out that your opening argument is very broad and illogical. You define a Universal Basic Income system as '...the government [giving] EVERY citizen a base income of around $10 000.' Do you understand that for a country like America with a population count of over 323 million, the annual tax revenue, even if solely dedicated to provisioning a UBI system, would not be sufficient to provide every one of its citizens with that amount? Additionally, $10 000 a year is a completely insufficient amount for disadvantaged members of society. Even for the most basic living conditions (cheapest rent, cheapest food, etc.), it requires at least $30 000 annually to provide enough money for a non-working person to provide humane living conditions for themselves (providing they are mentally and physically healthy).

Universal Basic Income Let's debate the merit, feasibility, And necessity of a Universal Basic Income. I believe that the advancement of technology will decrease the workforce demand, Which will increase unemployment, Necessitating the need for a UBI in the near future.

Universal Basic Income I. Intro Thank you to Varrack for what promises to be a stimulating discussion, and 1harder for the tournament. II. Cost As of 2012, means-tested welfare in the United States was comprised of 79 programs which cost $927 billion. [1] We can assume it has increased since then, so as a generous figure, we can suppose it currently costs roughly $1.1 trillion. Under Varrack"s plan, each adult in the United States would receive $10,000. Kids Count Data Center estimates that as of 2016, there were approximately 249.5 million adults in the United States. [2] Providing each of these adults with a UBI would cost approximately $2.5 trillion annually, and this excludes all bureaucratic costs. It"s clear to see that the cost is well over double the cost of the current welfare system. Not only does Varrack have to prove that his plan is superior to the current welfare system, he also must prove that it is worth the astronomical increase in the cost of welfare. There is also the negligible harm that it provides an extra $10,000 to individuals who do not need it. Images of Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates receiving this guaranteed income is ridiculous, but the same principle can be applied to individuals making a fraction of what the super-rich make. A family with a combined income of $500,000 may find that an extra $20,000 is nice to have, but hardly necessary. I"m the first to admit that this isn"t a significant harm to the plan, but a harm nevertheless. III. Capitalism is not compatible with UBI Proponents of UBI often argue that UBI is the first step on the path toward de-commodifying labor and allowing citizens the freedom from work that a utopian society promises. However, in order to do this, citizens must be paid a sum high enough to allow them freedom from work. If not, they will be forced to continue working to reach a living wage. According to Professor Daniel Zamora of Cambride, employers know this and will be able to drive down wages, effectively turning this plan into a subsidy for businesses. [3] According to David Graeber, Professor at the London School of Economics, implementation of the UBI without first transitioning away from capitalism would only exacerbate many of the issues capitalism presents, and increase in the number of "buIIshit jobs." [3] Rather than working in the intended manner, UBI would cause businesses to pay less, and end up causing Americans to work less fulfilling jobs just to maintain the same level of comfort that they had before the UBI was implemented. IV. UBI is ineffective Let"s say we implement UBI in the United States. Though Varrack has provided examples of UBI being implemented in other nations, none are comparable to the market tendencies of the United States. Instead, we should look to the micro-implementation case study done by the think tank "Compass" in the UK. By implementing a smaller version of Varrack"s plan, the impact was devastating. Child poverty actually increased by 10%, poverty among pensioners by 4%, and among working class families by 3%. For Varrack"s more comprehensive plan, the analysis points to slight reductions of poverty (7% for children, 1.9% for working age people, and 0.8% for pensioners.) [3] In order to do this, as stated earlier, the United States would have to pay approximately $2.5 trillion, which is over 12.5% of US GDP. [4] 2012 estimates on the price of eradicating poverty put the cost at around 1% of GDP. [5] If we can do so much more for so much less, why don"t we? V. The American System and The American Dream Though individuals on both sides of the aisle attack the current state of welfare (albeit for entirely different reasons) by pointing to poverty rates, what isn"t often taken into account is that this statistic ignores reception of in-kind welfare. It doesn"t consider food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers, and the like, when these really put people in a much better situation than what the "poverty rate" implies. Impoverished Americans are, on average, far better off than their European counterparts. [6] Furthermore, the negative incentives "discouraging impoverished Americans from working" simply does not exist. Americans that earn less actually have a greater incentive to work than those in higher tax brackets. Their "marginal tax rates" or losses of benefits due to increased income, are actually significantly lower than the rest of the workforce. An individual below half the poverty line faces a marginal tax rate of approximately 14%. A person from 50-100% of the poverty line has a marginal tax rate of about 24%. Individuals with higher incomes faced a marginal tax rate of about 34%. [6] This phenomenon that Varrack and many pundits tout is actually nonexistent. VI. Conclusion To summarize, our current system works. Critics use inaccurate statistics to discredit a system that is doing wonders. In contrast, the idea of UBI has never been tried in a developed country with a largely market economy, and without first dismantling capitalism, UBI would serve only to subsidize corporations to lower wages. Varrack must prove that 1. UBI is worth the massive increase in welfare costs 2. UBI could be implemented successfully within a capitalist economy and 3. That the limited testing in developing nations would be able to translate into the developed world. VII. Sources [1] http://budget.house.gov... [2] http://datacenter.kidscount.org... [3] https://www.jacobinmag.com... [4] https://data.worldbank.org... [5] http://prospect.org... [6] https://www.forbes.com...

Universal Basic Income Con appears to be interlacing his case with rebuttals of my case; hence, I’ll address them jointly.R1) CostCon states that a UBI would cost $2.5 trillion annually, but none of his sources say this. He references a paper showing the cost of current welfare programs, but there’s absolutely nothing on the cost of a UBI.Estimates that do put the cost of a UBI as high as in the trillions tend to be about the gross cost as opposed to the net cost. The net cost is the one that matters because it subtracts what the receivers of a UBI would pay for it (taxes) from what they would receive. When we subtract government revenue from the overall cost of a potential program, we find (according to Forbes) that it would be $200 billion less than the current system. Another study found that a poverty-level UBI ($12k per year) would have a net cost of $539 billion [10][11]. That’s less than 3% of the total GDP [10], far lower than Con’s estimate.R2) Goal of a UBICon creates a straw man of what he believes my UBI’s purpose is, but I never stated its purpose was to de-commodify labor. My proposal’s end goal would be to (1) prevent or reduce poverty and (2) increase equality among citizens. There is no need to move away from labor at all to improve peoples’ financial conditions; a UBI would only compliment the market. The rest of Con’s point, that employers would drive down wages, lies on the same faulty assumption that a UBI’s end goal would be to control the market. Moreover, this is a slippery slope fallacy in that it assumes a UBI would lead to such; there’s no reason to say a UBI is a step in the direction of a tightly controlled economy.R3) Trialsa) The trials I cited are dismissed because “none are comparable to the market tendencies of the United States”, but no explanation is given as to how those countries’ markets differ in meaningful enough ways to suggest that they are not comparable. Why doesn’t the basic principle I’ve highlighted of increasing fiscal ability via a constant, minimum income not apply to these cases as well. I extend these examples.b) Con’s UK examples would have only given participants a monthly income of $392 and $380, respectively [his 3rd source]. My proposal of $10,000 a year would equate to $833 a month, more than double the incomes his examples used. In that case, it’s not surprising that the first model, which replaced all means-tested welfare programs with that basic income, would result in negative outcomes. The second model, which had existing welfare programs side-by-side with the UBI, did see an improvement in those outcomes, albeit not as strong as they would have been had an income closer to my proposal been implemented.R4) Current welfare systemThis point is just a loose string of bare assertions. Con states that in-kind welfare programs are of a greater benefit than they’re given credit for, but gives no detail as to why this is true. He asserts that Americans are better off than their European counterparts, but his source merely states that we have lower taxes and lower redistribution systems. Neither of those how our welfare systems are “better”, it just means ours are less socialized. Additionally, the U.S. having a better welfare system doesn’t imply that it isn’t in need of reform, or that it doesn’t trap people below the poverty line. Con states that the poor are in a lower tax bracket, and thus pay less taxes. This isn’t the case because welfare programs tack on more taxes, which cause their effective tax rates to soar. I’ve already demonstrated that the CBO has confirmed that their tax rates are as high as 50% [6], which Con ignored. Sources9. https://www.forbes.com...10. https://works.bepress.com...11. https://www.progress.org...

Universal Basic Income IntroMurdoc kindly responded to my public plea for a debate, and I am grateful to him for making this round possible. This topic is also of great personal interest to me, and so I am happy that this was one of the two Murdoc identified as ones he was willing to debate. In order to ensure quality judging, I have set a voting ELO threshold at 3,000. Comments are required and the select winner system is in force. The voting period lasts 14 days. This is a re-do of the original debate: http://www.debate.org...TopicThe United States ought to provide a universal basic incomeDefinitions- Universal Basic Income: an unconditional cash payment which the government pays monthly and universally to all adults throughout their lives. The monthly payments must be sufficient to meet the socio-cultural subsistence minimum of the community in which the recipient resides [source: adapted from a definition by Prof. Matt Zwolinski]- Ought: moral desirabilityRules1. No forfeits2. Citations must be provided in the text of the debate3. No new arguments in the final speeches4. Observe good sportsmanship and maintain a civil and decorous atmosphere5. No trolling6. No "kritiks" of the topic (challenging assumptions in the resolution)7. For all resolutional terms, individuals should use commonplace understandings that fit within the logical context of the resolution and this debate8. The BOP is evenly shared9. Pro must post his case in R1 and waive in R510. Rebuttals of new points raised in an adversary's immediately preceding speech may be permissible at the judges' discretion even in the final round (debaters may debate their appropriateness)11. In each round, both debaters will wait until at least 48 hours have elapsed on the argument clock before posting their arguments (the only exception being the first two speeches, which should be posted as soon as possible)12. Both debaters' first speeches will be identical to the ones they posted in their original debate (linked above)13. Violation of any of these rules, or of any of the R1 set-up, merits a lossStructureR1. Pro's CaseR2. Con's Case; Pro generic RebuttalR3. Con generic Rebuttal; Pro generic RebuttalR4. Con generic Rebuttal; Pro generic Rebuttal and SummaryR5. Con generic Rebuttal and Summary; Pro WaivesThanks......to Murdoc for the debate. Looking forward to a discussion on a wonderful and fascinating topic!

It would increase tax fraud Fraud is already quite prevalent in the tax system. Unemployment and incapacity benefit fraud is a major problem for the government. A system where it is not necessary to meet any conditions to receive the subsidy would mean that there is less incentive for fraud, since low income people will receive the money anyway.

Resolved: The US ought to provide a UBI I negate resolved: The United States ought to provide a universal basic income. CP Counterplan: The US will provide a basic income, excluding felons, violent criminals, FBI watchlist members and legal immigrants who have lived in the US for less than 10 years. Through the CP, the neg solves for all the aff impacts of economic equality, gender equality, drug abuse, health care, and education. However the CP isn't advocating for universal basic income, as according to my opponent and common definitions of the term, UBI is both universal and unconditional. UBI shouldn't have any restrictions or bounds on who receives a basic income; otherwise it wouldn't be universal and cease to be a UBI. Framework I agree with my opponent's standard of the Kantian Social Contract, however, this is better upheld under the negation as I'm aren't supporting mass immigration nor crime. Instead of the principle of generic consistency, rather we should determine ethical actions through the basis of consequentialism. Overall, I solve all the aff impacts, and I better support his framework. Observations I fulfill my opponent's observations as he says I must prove a basic income wouldn't help the common american, while the resolution is based on universal basic income. Instead he must prove how UBI would better support the average american compared to merely a basic income. Contention 1: Crime and Terror Under the CP, basic income isn't supplied towards violent criminals and felons. Imagine a world where criminals such as those in the Crips, Bloods, MS-13, Latin Kings, Mexican Mafia, Sinaloa Drug Cartel, Barrio Azteca, or the Surenos, had, just for the sake of argument, $10,000 for every member annually. Just for a smaller group like Tango Blast, which boasts 19,000 members, the US money would indirectly give the organization through its members $190,000,000 dollars annually, for whatever means they so wish. The impact is an increase in overall crime, especially in the case of transnational organized crime groups. What could occur if say a known terrorist organization It could very well be said that if criminals have funds given to them? In the case of domestic shootings, terrorists could buy larger and larger weaponry, with the potential of gaining military hardware through the black market. Imagine the outcome of say, the Orlando Massacre if Mateen had say an M-16, grenades, or such. Contention 2: Welfare Magnets As aforementioned, UBI has to provided towards everyone regardlessly. If such a welfare state was created, where just by existing people can get a basic income, it would decisively be regarded as utopian in nature. Anyone and everyone would wish to go there. Mass immigration would soon occur, as everyone attempts to join the welfare state. Much like how many immigrants in the status quo receive food stamps through their naturalized children, a similar phenomenon would occur with UBI. I negate resolved.

Universal Basic Income IntroMurdoc kindly responded to my public plea for a debate, and I am grateful to him for making this round possible. This topic is also of great personal interest to me, and so I am happy that this was one of the two Murdoc identified as ones he was willing to debate. In order to ensure quality judging, I have set a voting ELO threshold at 3,000. Comments are required and the select winner system is in force. The voting period lasts 14 days. TopicThe United States ought to provide a universal basic incomeDefinitions- Universal Basic Income: an unconditional cash payment which the government pays monthly and universally to all adults throughout their lives. The monthly payments must be sufficient to meet the socio-cultural subsistence minimum of the community in which the recipient resides [source: adapted from a definition by Prof. Matt Zwolinski]- Ought: moral desirabilityRules1. No forfeits2. Citations must be provided in the text of the debate3. No new arguments in the final speeches4. Observe good sportsmanship and maintain a civil and decorous atmosphere5. No trolling6. No "kritiks" of the topic (challenging assumptions in the resolution)7. For all resolutional terms, individuals should use commonplace understandings that fit within the logical context of the resolution and this debate8. The BOP is evenly shared9. Pro must post his case in R1 and waive in R510. Rebuttals of new points raised in an adversary's immediately preceding speech may be permissible at the judges' discretion even in the final round (debaters may debate their appropriateness)11. Violation of any of these rules, or of any of the R1 set-up, merits a lossStructureR1. Pro's CaseR2. Con's Case; Pro generic RebuttalR3. Con generic Rebuttal; Pro generic RebuttalR4. Con generic Rebuttal; Pro generic Rebuttal and SummaryR5. Con generic Rebuttal and Summary; Pro WaivesThanks......to Murdoc for the debate. Looking forward to a discussion on a wonderful and fascinating topic!

Resolved: The United States ought to provide a universal basic income. Good luck! !! The basis of my opponents proposal stems from the idea that what makes him/her happy is what should make us all happy, as if to say happiness is a "one size fits all" kinda thing. An idea that mediocrity should be good enough for everyone. I challenge my opponent to explain why someone whose idea of happiness is financial success or even endless wealth, is somehow immoral. What pedestal does my opponent get to stand on to claim that wealth is not a valid form of happiness, or ones pursuit of wealth somehow adversely affects everyone else? As long as those endeavors are done by legal means, then those pursuits do not affect others! It seems to me the United States has been trying to provide a universal basic income since the great depression, mostly by means of a minimum wage. Not to suggest that the minimum wage is the only factor that causes prices to rise, but it is the most effective factor to cause prices to rise. When the minimum wage goes up, then the cost of production goes up which then is past on to the consumer. I challenge my opponent to explain how causing prices to go up is an effective tool for helping those with lesser incomes. Furthermore, minimum wages can cause employers to have to forego hiring new employees. When the cost of production goes up, it causes business owners to go elsewhere for production. In the end, raising minimum wages only proves to make American workers less competitive on a global scale which causes jobs to disappear. I fail to see how stifling job growth is good for anybody. Many point to the industrial revolution as if it was a sad period for the American worker and point out the disproportionate nature of wealth distribution, yet they conveniently forget that it was an unprecedented achievement that took place. At no other point in written history has so many people been brought out of poverty so quickly. There were no minimum wages, so prices were low and so was the cost of living. Right now, China is on an industrious endeavor that could prove to dwarf the achievements of the industrial revolution. When production is left alone, it can prove to be very effective in bringing wealth to the masses. I noticed this is my opponents first debate on this site. I welcome you to the DDO community and good luck! !

The Negative Income Tax " If Mr. Mario knows that he could get 1000$/month anyway, he would have the power to negotiate his salary in a fair way with his employer. Mr. Mario would probably say "Listen boss, if you don't pay me more than a 1000$/month, I simply quit, I will get mincome anyway"So you see, employers will have to offer wages higher than mincome if they want to attract any employees."Ok, fair point. And how much will he ask his employers ? Perhaps 300$ more seems fair to you ? It is not enough ! Who would work over a hundred hours a month to earn extra $300 knowing they have already 1000 in the pocket ?I wouldn't, most people wouldn't : It would be working for like 2$ dollars a hour (150 hpm, 300$)So the employer would have to give much more ! It would push salaries to double and the burden would be for the employer only.That's because the state does not give a dime to people already earning over $1000.The state would be just left giving $1000 only to every single unemployed person. In Switzerland this represents 3%. Of course it will be cheaper than other initiatives. http://www.tradingeconomics.com...So... Employers would take the burden for the remaining people. Employers are not just large multinationals making astronomic profits. Employers are mainly small businesses and liberal professions. The latter category has everything to loose and this could cause severe damage to our whole economy.****************************************************************************************"Consider this: Why do most western countries have Universal Health care and free education? Easy! Because most people realize that if you want to work, you must be healthy and educated. So the state ensures that everyone is healthy and educated enough to enter the labour market."I see it this more like an opinion (role of the state) than an actual argument. Also I will assume that by free you mean paid by taxes (But let's not play on semantics.).*****************************************************************************************Finally let's talk about your "Star Trek style." "vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labor, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery." Quote from Cicero "De Officiis" According to this kind of claim, employed labor has no intrinsic value beyond its fruits. It's quite self-explanatory : people do not work hard because they like it.... but because of the value of the fruit of their labor. (That leads to Marxist theories that the capitalists are stealing the fruits of the proletarian labor efforts and blablablabla but this is also off topic).Let's come back to the topic. My point is that even if we had robots doing every thing for us, robots themselves would be the fruit of some people's hard work !Technological progress is the fruit of a society based on industriousness. What makes you think that encouraging laziness wouldn't begin its to decline ?"You can't have your cake and eat it too" if you know what I mean....****************************************************************************************My conclusion is that there are enough indicators to show that in the long run, permanently implementing a Negative Income tax would be harmful to our economy. Of course, some may benefit from it in the short term , but in the long term we would be, on average, worse off.

Universal Basic Income I. Intro Thank you Varrack for the rebuttal. I"d also like to apologize for my constructive having issues with use of apostrophes. I"m not sure why it"s replacing apostrophes with quotation marks. I"ve encountered this issue on mobile but never on my laptop, so I"m not sure how to fix it. Hopefully it won"t continue this round. Regardless, I apologize to Varrack and the readers, since it likely causes at least some minor irritation. II. Re: Economic/Societal Impacts As briefly mentioned in my constructive, the examples used in Pro"s case are not indicative of what would occur in the United States, due to the differences between the US and each of the countries. These nations are significantly poorer than the United States. According to the CIA Factbook, the United States poverty rate is 15.1%. The nearest of the three countries Varrack mentioned was Uganda, at 19.7%. [7] This means that each of these nations have significantly more room for improvement than the United States does, so the effects will be amplified. They are all significantly more corrupt than the United States, based on Transparency International"s research. The United States is 16th in the world with a score of 75. Namibia is 53rd with a score of 51, India is 81st with a score of 40, Kenya is ranked 143 with 28 points, and Uganda is 151st with a score of 26. [8] They are also all in more unstable regions and have less developed economies. They"re still developing. Best case scenario, it"s as if you"re looking through a kaleidoscope at the effects of UBI. Worst case scenario, they aren"t comparable at all. These countries also have very limited trials. We"d have a very difficult time applying the micro tests to a country that is very different, be it in poverty rates (and what the poverty level actually is), corruption, economic development levels, or national sovereignty and security. Prefer my tests from the UK, which is much more similar to the US on every count. III. Re: Failure of Welfare Programs Cross-apply Section V. of my case. Though means-based welfare programs have "negative incentives" for earnings, they are at a much lower rate than the rates for individuals who are making more money. I discussed in my case how individuals who make below half the poverty rate (approximately $6,000) have a marginal tax rate of 14%. Individuals who make 50%-100% of the poverty rate (roughly $6,000-$12,000) have a marginal tax rate of 24%. People who make more than that faced a rate of 34%. This means that people that receive means-tested welfare are actually facing far fewer "negative incentives" than those who are making, say, $70,000 a year. To say that they are decentivized due to these marginal tax rates is ludicrous, else we would see the same issues at higher rates among those with greater incomes. We simply do not. Furthermore, an asset cap isn"t necessarily an issue. If there is no asset cap, we face the issue posed in my case: individuals who don"t need aid will receive it anyway, wasting funds. Again, a person who makes a comfortable wage may find an extra $10,000 nice, it is far from necessary. Even an individual making $30,000 (assuming no dependents) may be fine without an extra $10,000. If Pro wants to argue for a higher asset cap, there is definitely an argument to be made. However, an asset cap is not a bad idea, as it avoids allocation of resources to those who do not need it. Finally, as stated in case, the issue with considering the "poverty rate" in the United States is that it doesn"t account for in-kind reception of welfare. As an incredibly simplified example, let"s assume I make $11,000 per year and the poverty line is at $12,000. If I receive $1,001 worth of food stamps, my income is effectively $12,001 per year, above the poverty line, but I would still be counted as below the poverty line. Measuring the effectiveness of the current welfare programs by analyzing the poverty rate is absolutely pointless, because most of the welfare programs aren"t accounted for in the measure of the poverty rate. IV. Conclusion UBI is a pipe dream in the United States. Without first eradicating capitalism, it will do nothing but drive down wages and act a subsidiary to businesses. There have been no tests of UBI that can be applied to the United States which point toward a success. Each of the studies offers a myriad of issues that separate it from America. Meanwhile, the current welfare system is working, contrary to what analysis of the incomplete poverty rate would indicate. It is putting Americans well above their European counterparts. UBI is neither plausible, needed, or likely to be effective. V. Sources [7] https://www.cia.gov... [8] https://www.transparency.org...

All people should receive the same income FF and failure to provide additional arguments/rebuttals~~Vote CON.

The Negative Income Tax REBUTTALSI find this Canadian study very interesting. However while looking at the results of these studies we have to consider some facts :- People knew the study was temporary, therefore their condition was precarious and left unchanged financial motivation to work harder in the long term. Dr. Evelyn Forget forgot basic economics, if a situation is precarious (4 years in a lifetime) people will not adapt to it.Milton Friedman permanent income hypothesis tell us that "changes in permanent income, rather than changes in temporary income, are what drive the changes in a consumer's consumption patterns." This model can also be applied to the relation between working hours and free time : People won't work less unless they perceive their income change is permanent (which it definitely wasn't)http://en.wikipedia.org...http://www.nber.org...- It was in people best interest to make the study obtain good results. Behaviour : Workings habits unchanged / Reward : more chances to pass the law and make Mincome permanent.Psychological term is positive reinforcement.http://en.wikipedia.org...http://www.simplypsychology.org...- Analogy drug testing to minimize psychological effects affecting study's results placebo are given to some of the patient. The aim is si mple : if nobody really knows if they have the drug in their system its effects can be isolated from the rest. In this study there was no placebo, people were aware to be lab rats- Small villages are in fact not representative of the whole population of a country.So while this study seems to be very precise (thorough scientific methods) it also appears not very accurate (initial bias was too large). Low accuracy High Precision situation (see image below) "Contrary to most basic income models, the negative income tax, would only give the amounted of money needed to the people who need it. That's why it would be a cheap way to de facto implement a basic income." Objection : What does prevent the employers from adjusting wage rates in order to discharge costs on the state.Ex : Mincome is set at 1000$ per month. Mr. Mario who works as an apprentice plumber earns 1000$ per month and therefore nothing is added to his incomeMr. Luigi who works as a pizzaiolo earns 700$ per month. Mincome will provide him with the extra 300$What would happen if Mr. Mario employer decided to cut his salary to 700$ (or hire new personnel at 700$) ? The state would have to set minimum wages for every single job type to prevent this situation. This would make mincome pointless ! In addition, Labour market flexibility would substantially drop and we could expect involuntary unemployment to rise (since demand-offer courbe is no longer followed).http://economics.about.com...Besides we would have to make sure that this kind of employment subsidizing is not in violation of transnational trade agreements by artificially reducing production costs. Retaliation from others countries have to be expected. (As Free trade is not the subject of the debate, I will not develop this more).************************************************Now let's take you Namibian example. Results are really astonishing indeed ! Let's look at this quote from one of the articles you provided.http://www.spiegel.de..."The idea is simple: The payment of a basic monthly income, funded with tax revenues, of 100 Namibia dollars, or about €9 ($13), for each citizen. There are no conditions, and nothing is expected in return. The money comes from various organizations, including AIDS foundations, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and Protestant churches in Germany's Rhineland and Westphalia regions."Objection 1 : "if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn". Ok so this is about giving everyone free fish forever hoping that they will learn fishing.Objection 2 : If the money comes from outside, it just makes more aid to Africa. The purpose of humanitarian aid is to increase people's quality of life. But it also sustains artificially an unsustainable situation.However I see that the final idea is to take that money from taxes. Very well ! How can Namibia find this money considering they already have a 5,5% of gdp public deficit ?- Borrowing from financial markets (Not sure it's a wise choice)- Creating a special tax aiming richer people in order to redistribute wealthhttp://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org...About Redistribution of wealth. Namibia has a very poor Gini index 0.59 (US is 0.45 and average European country is around 0.3X). Some would just argue about how unfair this is and urge to redistribute income in a more just way.http://www.worldbank.org...What's the difference between Namibia and Western countries ? Namibia is still a developing country !Salary is unequal in Namibia because you have a huge pool of low skilled labour and a lack of medium/high skilled labour (it just widens the gap even more).Countries like the US already reached a stable equilibrium between low skilled/medium skilled/high skilled labor. Gini coefficient remained quite stable during the past decades.So yes, many poor Africans need financial help so they can go to school or university in order to create a balanced and sustainable society where in the long term people success is determined by meritocratic standards. But this intervention should be temporary and not permanent !(By the way, most African governments received international aid for decades and wasted it ! That's a pity... but this is off topic)Redistributing in Africa is pretty much like rationing in War time Europe. You can't compare true poverty (famine, malnourishment etc.. with our Western "poverty)http://en.wikipedia.org...Objection 3 : If we assume that the state intervention is the only possible solution to prevent poverty why should the state just give money to people for nothing ? The state could employ people or orient them towards a sector needing workforce (perhaps by sponsoring studies)SOME ARGUMENTS1) If there is a sum of money guaranteed for everyone regardless of what they do, there will always be some people taking advantage of the system.In Belgium for example the state gives about 700€ per month to every isolated person without any income and 400€ if cohabiting. The state also tops up your income if it is inferior to the amount (this doesn't happen very often because full time minimum wage is above 1000€)Conditions for obtaining this aid are very general. The state only checks out you have no other income and of course you must be a legal permanent resident and of course earning less than the amount.There is no time limit to this aid. Therefore there are many cases of chronically assisted people. Some of them even top up working part time under the table. (That is fraud, and punished by jail time).Source is in French so I also declare on my honour this is true.http://www.belgium.be...2) More tax pressure on people not receiving Negative income tax. And this represents the largest part of the population (most of them would probably be unhappy, others do not). Coercion is not the answer.3) We can expect higher inflation rates on basic commodities. This would mean a substantial drop in purchase power for middle classes not benefiting from the aid. The mechanics are simple : If you induce demand artificially (by permanently giving money to people, in this case poor people) prices of basic commodities will rise.4) Meritocracy, Meritocracy, Meritocracy ! In order to reduce poverty, the state should focus on making possible for the deserving poor to advance in society. I do agree there are some people forced in to poverty by the force of events even if they are competent and probably deserve better. I mean instead of guaranteeing minimum income for all, why not just increase education funding ?For undeserving poor the answer is not giving them taxpayer money. We have private charity for that and some other aid initiatives (e.g In EU , agricultural surplus is distributed freely to poor people )To summarize my conclusion is that the role of the state should not be to provide unconditioned and unlimited in time welfare to everyone. The role of the state should be to provide a safe and just environment in which people can advance according to basic principles of meritocracy. But If for some reason the state must take urgent action (severe crisis etc...) it should be more about helping people learning to catch fishes than giving free fish.

The US ought to provide an universal basic income. Ignore bsh1's stuff, standard rules apply for this debate. Please forgive heavy formating issues, as files are having troubles on my computer. This is written near verbatim from original sources which will be listed below. Contention 1 is Innovation As according to the US Department of Energy, clean energy innovation is the solution to climate change, being key to unlocking new technologies and low-cost clean energy breakthroughs needed to rapidly bend the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. innovation drives the cost reduction necessary to transform global energy markets. However we don"t have the luxury of waiting for new technologies to emerge. We need to rapidly accelerate the pace of innovation to meet the challenge of limiting global temperature. UBI is linked to increased innovation in three ways. 1. Entrepreneurship According to Scott Santeens of the Medium, entrepreneurship is currently on a downward trend and businesses are also closing their doors faster than new businesses are opening them. This is because of risk aversion due to rising economic insecurity. When people are financially insecure, they worry more about going from paycheck to paycheck rather than innovation and startups. Incomes adjusted for inflation have not budged for decades, and the jobs providing those incomes have gone from secure careers to insecure jobs, part-time and contract work, and gig labor, decreasing economic security. Decreasing economic security means a population decreasingly likely to take risks. Because of UBI, the fear of impoverishment hunger and homelessness is eliminated. And with it, the risks of failure considered too steep to take a chance on something. Additionally, a basic income is also a basic capital, enabling people to create a new product or service. Such effects have been observed in Nambia and India where markets have flourished thanks to the tripling of entrepreneurs. 2. Education According to Dannielle Douglas Gabriel of the Washington Post, researchers at the Urban Institute found that nearly a third of the 563,000 teenage dropouts left school to work. On average, these teenagers earned almost a quarter of the money their families needed to live, keeping 42 percent of households from falling below the poverty line. UBI helps lower the overall dropout rate by ensuring teens" families are guaranteed a basic income, building up a base for a future generation of innovators who otherwise wouldn"t have the skills go into STEM fields. 3. College UBI provides funds for higher education, increasing innovation as more students become college educated. Contention 2 is Lower Work Hours According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, western European countries have significantly reduced work hours while the US has not. Western Europe had about the same hours worked per person as the U.S. in the early 1970s, but by 2005 they were about 50 percent less. This choice between fewer work hours versus increased consumption has significant implications for the rate of climate change. Studies indicate shorter work hours are associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions and therefore less overall global climate change via lowering levels of consumption, the impactof reducing work hours by an annual average of 0.5 percent in the US would eliminate about one-quarter to one-half of global warming. If work hours decline even slightly, climate change is averted as american consumerism falls. As Western Europe has had lower work hours than the US for decades on end, it proves that lower work hours don"t draw any significant negative consequences. According to Alicia Munnell, in the late 1960s and 1970s thee federal government sponsored four large-scale social experiments on the negative income tax a basic income program, the largest of whom including 4,800 families over an 11 year span. The experiments caused reductions in work effort, among women 17 percent and among men 7 percent. NIT basic income experiments have empirically decreased overall work. If done at a national scale, UBI would substantially decrease work hours and helping solve global warming through lower overall levels of consumption. Contention 3 is Economic Inequality Income inequality has been extensively correlated with environmental degradation, with] negative correlation between income inequality and environmental sustainability. higher the income inequality the worse the environmental indicators such as biodiversity loss and environmental composite indices [like ones ecological footprint. from an economic perspective income inequality reduces pro-environmental public spending via a "relative income effect" which causes shifts in the preferences of those with below average incomes in favour of greater consumption of private goods instead of public ones. Using data on 19 OECD countries studies found] that wider income inequalities were associated with lower environmental expenditure. According to Dylan Matthews of Box, researchers estimate that UBI would cut the poverty rate for all persons between 40 and 84 percent. Helping eliminating structural violence and poverty and making those formerly poor equals in society. Overall UBI first, increases innovation by increasing entrepreneurship, lowering dropout rates, and increasing higher education, second lowers working hours and by extension carbon emissions, and third, decreases overall inequality. all of whom link back to solving global warming. For these reasons I urge voting for the motion. Sources US Department of Energy, (December 5, 2015), "How We Solve Climate Change", https://www.energy.gov... Scott Santeens, (November 30, 2016), "Universal Basic Income Will Accelerate Innovation by Reducing Our Fear of Failure", https://medium.com... Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, 4-16-2015, "An alarming number of teenagers are quitting school to work," Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com... Center for Economic and Policy Research (February, 2013) "Reduced Work Hours as a Means of Slowing Climate Change " http://cepr.net... Alicia H. Munnell (N/D) "Lessons from the Income Maintenance Experiments: An Overview" http://www.bostonfed.org...

Universal Basic Income Full resolution: The United States should begin to convert existing welfare programs into a universal basic income (UBI). There are about 126 different welfare programs that are currently on the books.1I am arguing that we should begin to replace these programs with a UBI. Note that I do not need to argue that these existing 126 welfare programs must be eliminated immediately, but rather I will argue that these programs should eventually be phased out and a transition to a universal basic income should begin. First round is for acceptance. No new arguments in the final round. I will outline my UBI proposal in the arguments section.I have made this debate impossible to accept. Accepting without permission will result in a forfeit of all seven points.1. http://object.cato.org...;

The US ought to provide an universal basic income. I accept. Where is that debate?

Universal Basic Income I accept

Universal Basic Income As my opponent predicted, I will be running a counter-plan:Replace the current welfare system -- implement a federal "Workfare" system for the unemployed, and rely on Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) to subsidize the salaries of the employed.There is a single, crucial difference between Workfare and UBI -- the $10,000 will not be granted unconditionally. Under the Workfare system, the unemployed recipients will be required to either (1) work on government-sponsored community service & public works projects, (2) receive government-sponsored vocational education, or (3) engage in some combination of both. For the purposes of this debate, it is unnecessary to formulate a detailed system of specific requirements, but that is the general framework which the requirements will follow. If the requirements are met, then the recipient will receive $10,000 for each member of his/her household. If the requirements are not met, then no hand-out is granted.As for employed people, we already have an EITC system in place, although I advocate making it substantially more generous, so that no employed household will be earning less than $15,000 per member. Note that EITC *does* target people who actually need their salaries subsidized, but also contains a specialized system for calculating the amount paid in order to minimize phase-out work disincentive effect my opponent described [1].With that established, I will now proceed to go over the benefits of my counter-plan.(1) Welfare DependencyMy plan would vastly reduce dependency. Under both the UBI and the status quo, unemployed people are faced with a choice. Either (1) they don't work but still receive enough money to survive, or (2) they DO work and earn/receive substantially more money. Ideally, welfare recipients will be motivated to choose Option 2 due to the financial opportunity cost of Option 1. However, in reality, many people value the benefit of leisure time over the cost of a lower income, and the result of that is welfare dependency -- a social malady which needlessly eats up tax dollars, creates a large population of economically unproductive people, and has been empirically proven to exacerbate crime rates. And it's a widespread problem too -- in the United States, there are *14 million* Americans who are classified as welfare-dependent [2].Both UBI and Workfare significantly increase the costs of not working (because $10,000 is way less than even a minimum wage salary). However, Workfare also eliminates the *benefits* of not working -- by forcing recipients to spend the majority of their time either working or getting trained, there is no leisure time to be found in remaining unemployed. Therefore, under my plan, the choice that unemployed people face becomes a simple one between an income of $10,000, and an income of at least $15,000 -- they will have to work either way. This creates a much stronger work incentive than UBI does. No rational person who is capable of getting a job is going to abstain from doing so, and that alone will cause an enormous reduction in welfare dependency. Look to Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reforms as a case-study in the efficacy of Workfare -- as soon as work requirements were implemented, welfare caseloads declined by an astonishing 60% [3]. Some critics of work requirements attribute that decline to favorable macroeconomic conditions, but a carefully-controlled analysis by the NBER revealed that Clinton's welfare reforms were, in fact, directly responsible for the decline [4]. It is obvious that the Workfare system will result in a drastic reduction in welfare dependency and its associated harms.(2) Public WorksA major part of Workfare is employing people in the construction of public works, and public works (as the name implies) benefit the public. Look to President FDR's Works Progress Administration another case-study in the efficacy of Workfare -- it employed 3.3 million people, bringing about the construction of "roads, bridges, schools, courthouses, hospitals, sidewalks, waterworks, and post-offices ... museums, swimming pools, parks, community centers, playgrounds, coliseums, markets, fairgrounds, tennis courts, zoos, botanical gardens, auditoriums, waterfronts, city halls, gyms, and university unions. Most of these are still in use today" [5]. Not only do such endeavors make society a more generally pleasant place to live in, but they also create jobs (from their maintenance and operation), and can serve as sources of government revenue.Moreover, Workfare provides a means for the US to start working on the declining quality of its infrastructure -- "The American Society of Civil Engineers has released its annual infrastructure report card, and the prognosis for the country's roads, bridges, and public facilities isn't good. America's infrastructure has been in bad shape for years, and things don't seem like they will get better anytime soon. Of the 16 categories ASCE graded, all but one got Cs and Ds" [6]. There is more than enough work which needs to be done, and implementing Workfare is an ideal way to go about doing it.(3) Vocational EducationAnother big part of Workfare is having unemployed people receive vocational education -- in other words, providing them with the skills they need to become employed, rather than just throwing money at them. Not only is this better for the long-term interests of the recipients, but it's also crucial for the future of the economy. It's quite well-known that we are currently facing a trade skills shortage due to the decline of vocational education -- far too many people are getting trained for high-skilled jobs thanks to our undue emphasis on collegiate education, and as a result, there aren't nearly enough of the medium-skilled workers which trade schools used to produce [7]. One study from Northeastern University reported that employers in manufacturing & service industries "overwhelmingly prefer to hire graduates from VTE schools or vocational programs ... More than 90% of employers see a need to increase the number of vocational high school graduates" [8]. Workfare is a potential solution to this problem -- it may not be possible to convince college-bound students to settle for a trade school certification, but unemployed people will gladly go for such an offer. By making government-sponsored vocational education one of the options that unemployed people can choose from, Workfare will inevitably produce a large number of the medium-skilled workers which there is so much demand for, thereby filling in the job market's void.UNDERVIEWMy counter-plan is clearly preferable to Pro's UBI plan. -- It keeps most people above the poverty line -- It minimizes wasteful government spending by reducing welfare dependency & targeting EITC hand-outs -- It maximizes society's economic productivity by producing skilled workers & reducing welfare dependency-- It keeps unemployed people occupied (i.e. away from crime)-- It benefits society by providing a variety of public works & improving the quality of its infrastructureOut of all of these, only the first benefit can be said to apply to UBI.The resolution is negated.[1] http://money.howstuffworks.com...[2] https://aspe.hhs.gov...[3] http://www.brookings.edu...[4] https://aspe.hhs.gov...[5] https://en.wikipedia.org...[6] http://www.businessinsider.com...[7] https://www.bostonglobe.com...[8] http://www.northeastern.edu...

Universal Basic Income There are multiple objectives a welfare program should achieve. Economist Ed Dolan offers the following four criteria in which to evaluate welfare programs:1 1) A good welfare program leaves few, if any, people below the poverty line; 2) Whether or not the program is targeted for those who need it most; 3) A good welfare program would keep work incentives intact, at least as much as possible; 4) A good welfare program would reduce administrative costs and waste. The UBI accomplishes all of these goals except for one, but I will explain this in a moment. M specific UBI involves a minimum income of $10,000—unconditional, you earn it whether or not you are working—and all welfare programs (even EITC!) except social security (would be phased out, I will elaborate if my opponent brings up costs), medicare, and medicaid. This would eliminate all poverty for families of two or more, and eliminate poverty for the vast majority of single person households. The reason I would not abolish medicare and medicaid is because the UBI would likely not be high enough to cover both their welfare and medical needs. We would also eliminate most middle class and upper class loopholes and tax credits in order to increase the UBI funding pool. The UBI benefit will outweigh the loss in credits for most middle class families. 1. A UBI would leave few, if any, people below the poverty line A properly crafted UBI would leave virtually everyone above the poverty line. My proposed UBI would keep anyone who earns just a few thousands dollars a year—something that can easily be done doing odd jobs occasionally—above the poverty line, and people who earn $0 would be only a little shy of it. All households with more than one person would be lifted above the poverty line. A UBI would fulfill this goal. 2. A UBI would not be targeted—and that’s a good thing! This is the only criteria a UBI does not meet, but this is actually a good thing. Why? Because means-tested programs focus on targeting. It focuses on giving aid to only those who need it. But the consequence of this is a decline in work incentives because means tested programs phase out over time and impose high marginal tax rates on the next dollar earned, thus discouraging work effort. Not only that, but an untargeted welfare program increases administrative efficiency because you do not need workers to make sure each family receiving benefits needs it—the untargeted aspect of the UBI means it can be administered through the tax system and be calculated by a computer algorithm. 3. A UBI would preserve work incentives overall, and do so better than any means tested system Implementing a UBI to a society where welfare did not exist at all would reduce work incentives. But a society without assistance for the needy is not desirable. Free markets have made us so wealthy that it is not only feasible to eliminate poverty, it is desirable because no one should starve in a wealthy society like as ours. The UBI would significantly increase work incentives compared to a means-tested welfare system because there is no phase-out of benefits. Phase-outs work the same as high marginal tax rates. In other words, for every extra dollar a poor person earns, they gain less than a dollar of disposable income. Let me give an example. Say we have a phase out of 0.75 cents per dollar earned. This means if I make one extra dollar from work, I lose 0.75 cents in benefits, and only get 25 cents. This means my marginal tax rate is 75%, which clearly disincentivizes work. Is the extra 25 cents worth it? Is it worth working for an extra dollar to only receive 25 cents? For some people, the answer is yes. But for others, the extra work may be worth one dollar, but the extra work is not worth 25 cents. Thus, a means tested system is destined to significantly reduce work incentives. This is not the case under a UBI. People will obtain the $10,000 benefit no matter what—if they earn a million dollars or $2,000 dollars, they will still get $10,000 in benefits each year. There is no phase out. No tax levied on every extra dollar earned. To further analyze this, let's look at economic theory. There are two effects of a UBI (and welfare in general) on work incentives: the income effect and the substitution effect. The income effect generally reduces work. As disposable income rises, people tend to use more of that money to go on vacation and work less. The substitution effect generally increases work effort. As disposable income rises, the opportunity cost of not working grows larger. This increases work effort. Both of these effects work simultaneously. How would it work under a UBI? Look at the following graphic.2 Now assume we are at arrow one before the red and green lines cross (green = UBI, red = means tested, blue = no welfare). For this group of people, the income effect and the substitution effect simultaneously increase work incentives because the opportunity cost of not working grows with an added UBI and the income effect increases work effort. The reason the income effect actually increases work effort here is because having more disposable income means more leisure time in the future, but as you are poor in this part of the graph you cannot afford to take time off. So both of these effects under a UBI serve to increase work effort more than they do under a means tested program. Now look at arrow 2: a person’s income a little above the crossover point. The substitution effect is stronger under a UBI than under a means tested regime because there is no longer a 0.75 cent reduction in benefits for each dollar earned (in fact, the marginal tax rates under the current welfare system often exceed 100%, so by using 75% I am being generous).3 Now the income effect is greater under a UBI at this point of the graph than under a means-tested regime, but the substitution effect is likely much larger than the income effect at this point because it will only be as large as the difference between the UBI and the means tested regime—the income effect between no welfare and a UBI is fairly large here, but that is because earned income is a lot higher under UBI than under nothing. At this point in the graph, the difference in disposable income between a UBI and means tested is not very large, so the positive work incentives will outweigh the negative ones here. Now look at arrow 3. This represents people who wish to work less and qualify for government assistance instead of losing benefits and hopping onto the blue line (which is how it works in the U.S. right now because the phase out eventually ends up being zero). The UBI would remedy this because no phase out means no working less in order to qualify for a benefit—you always get the benefit—so, at this part of the graph, the UBI would enhance work incentives. Now jump to arrow 4. At this point, a means tested system ceases to offer benefits because they have been phased out—the individual at arrow 4 is middle to upper class. At this point, a UBI only has an income effect compared to a means tested system. This means, for the upper and middle class, a UBI would reduce work effort. However, the effects are going to be small because the higher the income, the smaller percentage of that income will come to a UBI. So while it will disincentivize work for these people, the effect will be small, and virtually zero for the rich. Thus, economic theory dictates that a UBI would increase work incentives compared to a means tested system. As Ed Dolan argues, a UBI “would substantially increase work incentives for low-income households while having small disincentive effects, if any, for middle- and upper-income households.”2 For this reason, Dolan believes work effort will be higher on aggregate under a UBI than under a means-tested system. 4. A UBI would reduce administrative waste This is the clearest and least disputable benefit of the UBI. A UBI would require no verification of personal characteristics. A means tested system would: you have to determine whether or not a person actually needs assistance. A UBI would just be integrated into the tax code and calculated by a computer. A person who made $0 would receive the money no questions asked. For people who earn $1 - infinity, you would receive the $10,000 minus taxes due. So a person earning $1 owes essentially no taxes, so he would get $10,001. But a person earning $100,000 will earn $110,000 minus taxes due. The only welfare program that is simple enough to virtually eliminate administrative costs is the UBI. Failures of the current welfare system A UBI is so important because the current system does not work. The poverty rate has remained virtually the same since the War on Poverty was declared, despite trillions in welfare spending.4 As noted in round 1, we have 126 different welfare programs. Each of these programs simply add to the red tape, and with no decrease in poverty since the late 1960s, these programs seem to add little to no benefit. My opponent will likely be providing a counterplan, as the failure of the current welfare state is fairly obvious. The failures of the current welfare system require that we get something done, and an unconditional UBI best protects work incentives, reduces administrative waste, and reduces the number of people below the poverty line 1. http://www.economonitor.com... 2. http://www.economonitor.com... 3. http://www.forbes.com... 4. http://object.cato.org...

Universal Basic Income His plan increases the “income effect” compared to a UBI The entire premise of my opponent’s argument is that everyone will get at least $15,000 and full employment. The differences between a UBI and a means tested program are not significant under the current system, as far as income effects go, for poor people, and both programs retain work efforts at the lowest income levels. My opponent’s plan, however, provides an extra $5,000 in income at this level for those in the private sector. The difference between no assistance and assistance under Con’s plan is more than it would be under a UBI, meaning his plan would reduce work incentives compared to a UBI. EITC reduces work incentives for many groups Con claims the EITC has mechanisms which reduce the negative effects of the phase-ou. Economic research has demonstrated that the EITC significantly discourages work for many demographics, especially women. Women in the phase-out portion of the EITC become 5% less likely to work, and for women who are already working, women work 20% fewer hours per year.[1] Another study came to the same conclusion, and discovered evidence of a negative impact on many females. “[T]he EITC explains 71 percent of the decline in low-educated married mothers’ desire to work between 1988-1993 and 1994-2010…While the “welfare to work” reform was designed to do bring welfare recipients into the labor force, the reform could have had the opposite effect on the “weaker” nonparticipants by shifting them from a program with some connection to the labor force (welfare) to a program with no connection to the labor force (disability insurance).”[2] Wage subsidies, like the EITC, introduce multiple distortions in the labor market. These distortions are favorable to low-wage industries, making domestic production costs lower. This means imports are negatively affected, which distorts trade, and hurts the economy.[3] By making the EITC more generous, we would be increasing the work disincentives for women. A more generous EITC would also increase distortions in the labor market. The issue with public works and education Con’s plan is trying to create a quasi-universal basic income system, but instead through providing employment and job training. This solution is problematic. The way Con sets up his plan would negatively affect the private sector. There are two scenarios for poor people: either they get nothing, work for the government/educate and get a $10,000 UBI, or work for the private sector and at least earn $15,000. This plan creates a whole new level of bureaucracy and would drastically increase spending--Con’s claim that this would somehow reduce spending is insane. The plan causes thousands if not millions of new people to work for the public sector. The issue with this is that there would be a “crowd out” effect. Many tasks the government completes could be provided for by the private sector if the government wasn’t providing them. While government expands, the private sector retreats.[12] We must weigh the two effects. The crowd out effect would affect all industries, because my opponent’s plan has to be able to, at full capacity, be able to employ the entire country. Every industry will experience some type of crowd out. The cost of his job guarantee for low-income people in order for them to obtain welfare is extremely large. This is essentially his plan: People are poor. People need assistance. They must work in order to get assistance. The government should offer work to those who are currently idle. Thus, he basically is ensuring work for anyone who wants it. It is implied that the government should be able to, at maximum capacity, provide work for 300 million people. But this means the government would have to get involved in all industries: fast food, technology, yard work, etc. The reason is because we only have so many construction projects, and many construction projects are already done efficiently by the private sector. When public roads are fixed, all public buildings repaired, and all museums erected, what then? What if the demand for these new products (like museums) wane over time? Or a recession strains the system and it cannot handle the influx of workers? The simple fact is these public works programs would not be doing traditional public construction jobs after a period of time, and the government would be forced to distort the market by entering formerly private industries in order to ensure employment. The cost of such a program would be enormous. Under a UBI, you simply hand over the check. Under a job guarantee/workfare regime, you have to pay managers, supervisors, and other bureaucrats in order to supervise work projects. You would have to pay for the education programs, the teachers, and administrators. You would require a large number of other employees to make sure everyone receiving benefits needs it; the increase in administrative complexity and costs would be enormous. Under a UBI, administrative costs would be virtually zero. Nothing about the UBI restricts or inhibits public work programs. As I already explained, the UBI increases work incentives, on balance, even for those who are at the bottom of the income ladder. This means implementing a UBI would expand the size of the labor market and it would be easier to staff public work programs. A study in Germany predicts a UBI would increase the labor supply and increase work incentives.[4] The U.S. is considered the most innovative economy because of its “cut throat” capitalism and private sector innovation.[9] By making the government the largest employer and heavily distorting private markets, the U.S. economy would be destined to become less innovative and productive. It would be much more efficient to allow the private sector to deal with education and employment. Marco Rubio has an education plan that promotes and encourages vocational training using private sector mechanisms.[5] The research on vocational training is ambiguous, with the GAO saying any “positive impacts [from vocational training tend] to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term impacts.”[17] A 2008 study found no difference in employment, wage, and economic outcomes for those who have gone through work training programs compared to those who had not.[18] Did workfare work in the past? Con claims the welfare reform act of 1996 dramatically reduced welfare rolls and increased work incentives. This argument is flawed because welfare rolls were falling before the implementation of workfare. One study found only “15 percent of the decline [in welfare rolls] is due to welfare reform, the rest to the significant expansion of low-wage work during the 1990s.”[6] In other words, economic growth reduced welfare rolls. Another study published in the American Economic Review argues 50% of the decline in welfare roles was due to a reduction in number of people receiving welfare.[7] This has important implications for those who interpret welfare reform as a success. A reduction in the number of families receiving welfare may have negative impacts on those at the bottom of the income ladder. Indeed, of those who have been kicked off of or became ineligible for welfare, “most are in poverty.”[6] Economists who have reviewed the literature also note how only about one third, at best, of the reduction in caseloads is due to welfare reform.[8] The benefits of my opponent’s counterplan are overstated Keeping people out of poverty is a benefit of both of these plans, according to Con. But as I noted, the significant distortions in the labor market caused by his plan may make the situation worse, and require that the U.S. becomes the largest employer in the country. In the long term, this would reduce not only U.S. but also global economic growth and innovation. His plan would not reduce wasteful spending. A UBI would eliminate administrative costs. His plan increases costs, because not only are you giving money to people, you are also doling out paychecks to thousands of extra unnecessary employees that oversee the public works. A UBI program is affordable.[10][11] My opponent’s plan would undoubtedly increase costs. The production of skilled workers is much better suited for the private sector, mainly due to the massive public costs of ensuring education for every poor person if they wish to pursue it (and by artificially increasing the amount of skilled workers, the value of education would fall and reduce wages for those who are already educated). Crime rediction is nonunique. Poor people, who are more likely to commit crime, often do so in order to make a living. One way to fix this, as my opponent notes, is to give them a job. But a UBI would have the same effect: by reducing financial hardship, a motive for crime would be substantially weakened; a UBI would also increase social cohesion. In Nambia after a UBI was implemented, crime fell by 42% due to an increase in cohesion.[13] In India, UBIs increased economic activity and school attendance.[14] Obtaining unearned income makes people more sociable. When people earn small lottery winnings, the ones close to UBI level, it has been found “that unearned income improves traits that predict pro-social and cooperative behaviours… as well as reduce individuals' tendency to experience negative emotional states.”[15] A UBI would have the same effect, meaning a UBI would positively impact our society. When the government does more, the private sector does less, and oftentimes the crowd out effect is larger than the benefits of increased public works. An research suggests increased infrastructure spending is a poor economic stimulus and the crowd out effect more than cancels out the benefits of increased infrastructure spending.[16] Creating other public goods, if there is no demand for them, is a net-negative because the taxpayer has to pay for these institutions. http://bit.ly...

Resolved: The US ought to provide a UBI As a roadmap, I will be first going over the flaws of my opponents Counterplan, as well as how my opponent has failed to see the fallacies in "his" framework, and how it does not work. I will then go over how my opponent's observation is contradictory to the resolved. Then, I shall go over his case and prove that it my opponent does not solve for the resolved, or to my case. Now, onto the debate My opponent's counterplan, once again, is to provide a basic income to all excluding felons, violent criminals, FBI watchlist members and legal immigrants who have lived in the US for less than 10 years. Going over felons and violent criminals first, my opponent has failed to recognize the number of wrongful convictions in our society. "I feel that if I die this afternoon, I"ll be able to go to my tomb and rest in peace because my name has finally been cleared," said William Vasquez, who was cleared in December of an arson that killed a mother and her five children in 1981. Vasquez already served 31 years in prison, where he went blind for untreated glaucoma, and was released in 2012. He even had an alibi witness at trial, who testified he was with her when the fire was set, but the building owner, Hannah Quick, accused him of the arson. Mr. Vasquez spent half of his life in prison because of a wrongful conviction. If UBI was implemented, does he not get any payment because he was an ex-felon? Although this is only one example, many other people in this world face similar conditions. They deserve to receive a basic income as much as any other people in this world, but under my opponent's counterplan, he would get nothing. Even if my opponent states "he is no longer a felon", just imagine those people who are still imprisoned because of wrongful convictions. With a basic income (that my opponent is stating that they should not get), they would not even be able to get out of jail by bail to secure their freedom. Now moving on to legal immigrants, who have lived here less than 10 years - firstly, how does my opponent expect to get a kickstart on their new life if they are unable to receive a substantial income for at least 10 years? A big number of all legal immigrants become homeless because they cannot sustain a substantial income for them and their families. What UBI is doing, as I have stated in my first case, is solving for poverty, INCLUDING those that are immigrants. All people in this world are originally immigrants. Poverty denotes serious lack of the means for proper existence: 100 million people are homeless in america. That is 30% of our population. When you take into account the amount of families that are homeless, and include the number of immigrants in this number, it is unnecessary and is harming our society. As I have stated in my case, poverty is a human-caused tragedy and can be ended with UBI. We are supposed to be helping all Americans, immigrants or not. Now, my opponent agreed to meet my standard of Kantian Social Contract, stating that his case would better solve for it, but has failed to make any arguments or examples or actual facts supporting this statement. Kantian Social Contract is saying that people have the right to do what they want in life to make them feel more human. Any law that denotes an absolute, and takes away these people's rights to be human are immoral. My opponent's counterplan is isolating society but taking away the needed income of so many innocent people, as well as thousands of immigrants each year. My opponent is valuing poverty by taking away the basic income of a grand amount of our society. This is not maximizing the individuality of our individuals. My opponent's grounds/observations states that I "must prove how UBI would better support the average american compared to a merely a basic income". Well, I counter this by saying what is an average american? Going by logic, my case thoroughly supports the average american. 33% of all workers say that they are doing the job that they love, while 67% say that they dislike it dramatically. With UBI, people would have that financial freedom to get the job that they want, without being held back and in a job that they dislike because they must be because of the lack of financial security. The 33% can still stay in their job, while the 67% can finally quit, or try to change jobs without fear. This is argument goes along with my first contention, giving the economic freedom to ALL AMERICANS, and, by correlation, the "average american". Now, onto my opponent's arguments - firstly, in his first contention, my opponent talks about how in his counterplan, basic income isn't supplied towards violent criminals and felons. Going back to my previous argument, as well as the example of William Vasquez, my opponent does not take into account the number of innocent convictions there are in this world, and is validating taking money away from these innocent people who deserve a basic income. I would also like to take into account that my opponent made the outrageous statement of every single person receiving $10,000 annually (monthly) which is completely absurd. In UBI, what would happen is that individual adults above the age of legality (in most states in America, that would be 18) would get $1,000 a month, and $12,000 a year (to stay above the poverty line) and those under the age of legality (depending on age) would get about $4,000 a year (and that number would gradually increase with age, so it would go to $6,000, $8,000, $10,000 etc.) Moving on from the economic fallacy that my opponent made, he also told us to imagine a world where criminals would get paid $1,000 each year (once again, stating $10,000 annually which is a grand misconception, it would better to be $1,000 annually). Going along with my opponent's math, the criminal group of Tango Blast would receive $190,000,000 in a year based on its members (which would be incorrect math) but overall in a month the group would make a total of $1,900,000. But logically - it wouldn't. Going along with my definition of basic income (see above case), basic income is paid on an individual basis, meaning that Tango Blast would NOT get paid $1,900,000 a month, but rather each member of Tango Blast would receive $1,000 a month. Subtract the cost of housing, any taxes, food, clothes, and healthcare issues that could affect each individual (which cannot be totaled because every human's health and needs are different), then this criminal group makes nowhere near $1,900,000 a month. And this is just by basic logic. And we are missing the big picture here, anyways, and that is the way that these "crime lords" actually receive payments. How are they supposed to receive these payments without getting caught or arrested for their crimes? My opponent's case shows no empirical backing, as well as no evidence showing that A) these "crime lords" can get their payments without being arrested for their crimes and B) that these groups will get hundreds of thousands of dollars because of Basic Income. My opponent's first contention should fall. Moving on to my opponent's second contention, he states that UBI will become a beacon for more immigrants to come to America to get money. My opponent has three flaws with his logic and one flaw with his counterplan. Firstly, he shows no evidence showing that this would actually take place if UBI was implemented. Secondly, there is already "mass immigration" in America. We are literally known as "The Promised Land". There have been no negative effects, and my opponent fails to prove how it will be worse. Thirdly, giving these immigrants a basic income would not have a negative effect on our economy (which I'm guessing is my opponent's main concern, because by definition of basic income, it is a cash payment, and not, therefore, in use of food stamp) because these immigrants will still have to pay taxes that will inevitably go back to the actual amount of money used in UBI. (CP Flaw in Comments)

The Negative Income Tax Your "low accuracy - high precision" argument is very interesting. I admit that indeed the Mincome study had to take that into account. ************************************************************************************************************ Your quote: "Objection : What does prevent the employers from adjusting wage rates in order to discharge costs on the state. Ex : Mincome is set at 1000$ per month. Mr. Mario who works as an apprentice plumber earns 1000$ per month and therefore nothing is added to his income Mr. Luigi who works as a pizzaiolo earns 700$ per month. Mincome will provide him with the extra 300$ What would happen if Mr. Mario employer decided to cut his salary to 700$ (or hire new personnel at 700$) ? The state would have to set minimum wages for every single job type to prevent this situation. This would make mincome pointless ! In addition, Labour market flexibility would substantially drop and we could expect involuntary unemployment to rise (since demand-offer courbe is no longer followed)." Objection: If Mr. Mario knows that he could get 1000$/month anyway, he would have the power to negotiate his salary in a fair way with his employer. Mr. Mario would probably say "Listen boss, if you don't pay me more than a 1000$/month, I simply quit, I will get mincome anyway" So you see, employers will have to offer wages higher than mincome if they want to attract any employees. Now you might be tempted to object that Mr. Mario would accept low-wage jobs, work less and thus earn less in order to get half of his income covered by mincome. Since this is plausible the state could indeed set a Minimum wage for all jobs, that would be at least as high as Mincome. To be honest, I see nothing wrong with this. Mincome and Minimum wage could work hand in hand: If you lost your job, you get mincome and if you work, you'll get at least minimum wage + you have a lot of negotiating power. *********************************************************************************************************** Your first quote: "Objection 1 : "if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn". Ok so this is about giving everyone free fish forever hoping that they will learn fishing." I have no objection here, I completely agree with your quote. But don't forget, mincome wouldn't "give you free fish", it would just be the "fishing rod" that would help you catch the fish. If you know what I mean. Consider this: Why do most western countries have Universal Healthcare and free education? Easy! Because most people realize that if you want to work, you must be healthy and educated. So the state ensures that everyone is healthy and educated enough to enter the labour market. However, being smart and healthy isn't enough if you want to work. You also need food that will give you enough energy to work and you need a decent shelter if you don't want to freeze to death during winter. So Mincome would be set high enough, so that you can access these necessities, But will be low enough to give you an incentive to work and purchase with your own money the luxuries you desire (iphones, a car, a TV and you name it). Your second quote: "Objection 2 : If the money comes from outside, it just makes more aid to Africa. The purpose of humanitarian aid is to increase people's quality of life. But it also sustains artificially an unsustainable situation. However I see that the final idea is to take that money from taxes. Very well ! How can Namibia find this money considering they already have a 5,5% of gdp public deficit ?" Objection: I totally agree that it would be difficult to implement mincome in poor countries. But we should first ask ourselves why so many African countries are poor. One argument is that most African leaders make deals with western companies to suck the wealth of their own people. Another argument is that poor countries (especially in Africa) have to pay back all the money the World Bank or the IMF gave them at very high interest rates. And add all the wars to it. Now this is getting a bit off-topic so I'll stop here but you know what I mean. Your third quote: "Objection 3 : If we assume that the state intervention is the only possible solution to prevent poverty why should the state just give money to people for nothing ? The state could employ people or orient them towards a sector needing workforce (perhaps by sponsoring studies)" That's true, and it's already done in most countries, especially in Austria, Sweden, Switzerland... but this system is reaching it's limits. In Sweden for example they hired unemployed people as substitute teachers in public schools. And it's a nice concept but many students complained that the substitutes weren't competent enough. http://en.wikipedia.org... ***************************************************************************************** Quote: "If there is a sum of money guaranteed for everyone regardless of what they do, there will always be some people taking advantage of the system." "There is no time limit to this aid. Therefore there are many cases of chronically assisted people. Some of them even top up working part time under the table. (That is fraud, and punished by jail time)." True, but that's something you can't avoid in any system. Even when it comes to healthcare some people have "accidents" on purpose so that they can get the insurance money aka. insurance fraud. But that doesn't prevent us from having Universal Healthcare. Small quote to better understand what I mean: "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean. If a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean doesn't become dirty" - Mahatma Gandhi *************************************************************************************** Quote: "2) More tax pressure on people not receiving Negative income tax. And this represents the largest part of the population (most of them would probably be unhappy, others do not). Coercion is not the answer." "3) We can expect higher inflation rates on basic commodities. This would mean a substantial drop in purchase power for middle classes not benefiting from the aid. The mechanics are simple : If you induce demand artificially (by permanently giving money to people, in this case poor people) prices of basic commodities will rise." "4) Meritocracy, Meritocracy, Meritocracy ! In order to reduce poverty, the state should focus on making possible for the deserving poor to advance in society. I do agree there are some people forced in to poverty by the force of events even if they are competent and probably deserve better. I mean instead of guaranteeing minimum income for all, why not just increase education funding ? For undeserving poor the answer is not giving them taxpayer money. We have private charity for that and some other aid initiatives (e.g In EU , agricultural surplus is distributed freely to poor people )" Objection 1: There are many models for the negative income tax. But most models share the fact that they would replace several existing forms of social assistance and therefore wouldn't reduce the states annual budget. In Switzerland for example, we have an annual GDP of approx. 600 billion francs. The Swiss government is already using 180 billion francs (1/3) for existing social services. If the "Basic Income Initiative" succeeds, it is estimated that the government will have to use 20 billion more francs to finance the BI. In total about a 1/3 of our GDP. As you notice there isn't much of a difference, simply because many existing social services would be replaced. Now imagine a negative income tax initiative in Switzerland. It would cost even less than existing welfare. http://www.admin.ch... http://bien.ch... http://www.businessinsider.com... http://www.bbc.com... Objection 2: On the other hand, people need money if they want to consume and keep the economy going. Objection 3: Meritocracy is fair of course but have you considered technological unemployment which might be a problem in coming years? Once we arrive at that point we might have to rethink the way we manage our economy. One solution might be a BI or the Negative Income Tax, that way people who lost their job due to automation could study, volunteer and develop interests for arts. Maybe you think that most people wouldn't volunteer but per year the UN registers 90 billion work hours in Germany and 60 billion of these work hours are done by volunteers. http://revenudebase.info... Or we can go Star Trek style and have replicators and robots that do anything for us for free.

It would abandon the worst off Unless I have misunderstood, this means the state would top up incomes below certain amounts on a percentage basis. This would mean people with no income whatsoever would receive no money at all and would be left to fend for themselves.

Money cannot be targeted to meet specific needs This is simply creating individual responsibility. A few will spend the money badly but most will realise that they need it for necessities. The whole point of the system is that it is flexible rather than limiting in the way other subsidy systems are. It should be considered that while some may misspend their money as suggested on drugs others may find ways of investing it so that they make more money and pull themselves out of poverty which then saves the government in the long term. Ultimately however it is the government that controls the flow of money; if someone is misspending it they can always halt the transfers.

Universal Basic Income Thanks, Con. I’ll use this round to defend my case and crystallize.Trialsa) Con alleges that the countries that had UBI trials in are incomparable to an American-implemented UBI because they’re considerably poorer, more corrupt, and less stable than the United States is. However, Con doesn’t illustrate *why* this matters, and expects us to assume that, because a country is less developed, any UBI trial conducted is going to be invalid. This string of assumptions is really going to hurt Con, and I’m going to show why.The underlying principle of a UBI is that an increase an income is inherently beneficial, as money is the basic means that we use to provide for ourselves. This principle doesn’t change in a country with proportionally less poor people. Even if we buy Con’s assumption that “each of these nations have significantly more room for improvement than the United States does, so the effects will be amplified”, there’s no reason to believe that a UBI *won’t* be effective. Given that the U.S. has 43 million people living under the poverty line [12], the U.S. *absolutely* has room for improvement, and indeed has room to see a benefit from a UBI. Con’s premise is essentially that a country needs to be poverty-free in order for a UBI to be ineffective. Because a UBI would exist for the very purpose of reducing poverty, this point is nonsensical.Con doesn’t show how corruption or instability is relevant to a UBI. How would the basic principle of more income increasing financial leverage be confounded by more corruption or instability? Furthermore, “instability” isn’t defined by Con. He wants us to outright buy his assumptions that such would “amplify” the results of a UBI trial, and that such amplification results in in conclusive evidence that a UBI would have no effect whatsoever in the United States. We have no reason to buy either of these assumptions, so this point is negated. b) Con contends that my trials are limited, and are thus incomparable to the U.S. on a national level. But again, he gives us very little reason to dismiss my evidence; trials for cash transfers haven’t yet been done on that immense of a level, and in the absence of such, we should buy my pieces of evidence prima facie. Con gives us no instances of a UBI working, beyond a “model” in the UK (which I demonstrated to be flawed in R3), whereas I provide 4 instances of *actual* conducted trials, all of which pointed to UBI benefits. Additionally, Con admits that his model is a micro-implementation of an actual scenario, so *even* if his example is valid, we should dismiss it by Con’s own admission.Current Welfare Programsa) Yes, we have a progressive tax system in the sense that the poor pay marginally fewer taxes from their ordinary income. They are, however, taxed more when unrealized capital gains are added [13]. When one considers state and local taxes in addition to ones on the federal level, the illusion of the progressive tax system vanishes. In fact, a study [14] from the Institute on Taxation and economic policy found that “Overall, the poorest 20 percent of Americans paid an average of 10.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes and the middle 20 percent of Americans paid 9.4 percent. The top 1 percent, meanwhile, pay only 5.4 percent of their income to state and local taxes.” [15] The poor simply do not have less incentives to move up the income ladder, contrary to Con’s claim. He also dropped the CBO report I cited, so extend that.b) My asset cap point is pretty much dodged. Con insists that asset caps exist because some people just don’t need welfare programs. But he concedes that “there is definitely an argument to be made” in raising that cap. That’s exactly the argument I’m making: the caps are dangerously low, which discourage self-reliance and saving. Con is supposed to be defending the welfare programs as they stand right now, yet he admits that they might not be ideal. This can’t be good for him; I don’t see how he can simultaneously defend the status quo and agree that the status quo may not be idea.c) Con asserts that the poverty rate isn’t taken into consideration for in-kind welfare programs. How is this relevant? They do, in fact, take into consideration things like income and total assets. Con doesn’t show why this matters.I've shown how (1) multiple examples prove that a UBI works, and that (2) it reduced poverty, which Con has essentially conceded. Thus, I affirm.Sources[12] https://poverty.ucdavis.edu...[13] https://www.alternet.org...[14] https://itep.org...[15] https://www.cnbc.com...

Guaranteed Minimum Income I will be making my case against the resolution within my rebuttals to Pro's arguments. I. POLICY == Counter-Plan: Reform the System == Pro spends a lot of space telling us about how dysfunctional our current welfare system is-- and I agree with him; however, this doesn't actually bring us to the conclusion that the best remedy to the problem is replacing it with a guaranteed minimum income (GMI) program. I propose that instead we simply reform the system. Reform has already been demonstrated to be a realistic and effective option; the 1996 welfare reforms passed under the Clinton administration enforced strict work requirements which were highly effective in increasing employment and reducing poverty, as can clearly be seen in the cited graphs [1]. This is further confirmed by one particularly expansive study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which thoroughly accounted for relevant external variables [2]. On a related note, one of the main reasons that the current welfare system isn't producing tangible impacts is that these work requirements were removed under the Obama administration. There are also plenty of other opportunities for reform which have yet to be tried out. For example, Pro actually helps my case by pointing out that many potential welfare recipients are unaware of the benefits which are available to them. That is serious problem which is not particularly difficult to overcome (and it's non-unique because GMI is also futile if its intended beneficiaries don"t know it exists); in other words, simply doing a better job of publicizing welfare benefits could substantially improve upon the status quo. The point of all this is that reforming the system is most certainly a feasible option which can solve for many of the problems with the status quo which Pro has pointed out. And really, Pro is in no place to claim that the system is beyond repair, given his advocacy of a gradual "transition" to the GMI. Surely if the government is capable of transforming the status quo's byzantine bureaucratic monstrosity into something as simple as the GMI, then it is also capable of steadily reforming the system by implementing work requirements, abolishing subsidies which encourage single-parenting, scrapping/merging unnecessary programs, hunting down the various areas which facilitate inefficiency and corruption, placing regulations to prevent improper payments, etc. With the plausibility of a reformed welfare system established, we are left with the question of why we should prefer that to GMI. Here are a few reasons to prefer welfare reform... a. Accountability GMI doesn't include any sort of mechanism for holding recipients accountable for how they spend their money; it just blindly hands out sums of money to everyone who is earning under a certain income threshold, including drug addicts, high school drop-outs, and clients of prostitutes. Given that a substantial portion of tax dollars are going towards the cause of aiding the impoverished, it is only fair to the tax-payers that the government be able to guarantee that their money is actually going to be used to achieve that end. This desire for accountability is the main reason why all the bureaucratic processes involved in the welfare system were originally put in place. A reformed system still keeps the most essential of these processes in order to hold welfare recipients accountable, for the sake of the ones who are funding their paychecks. b. Dependency GMI does nothing to avoid creating a vicious cycle of dependency among the poor. While a reformed welfare system can include things like work requirements to discourage dependency and push them along the path to self-sufficiency, GMI allows people to simply live off of government hand-outs for their entire lives. And dependency *is* a real problem; according to CATO institute "only 18.3% of poor people receiving welfare benefits in 1987 moved out of poverty, while 45% of poor people who never received welfare escaped poverty" [3]. GMI can only give the artificial impression of eliminating poverty; welfare reform genuinely alleviates poverty by aiding people in becoming self-sufficient. c. Cost By Pro's own admission, GMI is already going to cost more than the current welfare system (about $288 billion more). However, the reformed system would be even *more* inexpensive than the current one. Pro has stated that 25% of welfare costs come from needless bureaucracy; since one of the primary goals of reform is to cut down on that and shut down unnecessary/redundant programs, we can expect to see a huge cut in costs from that aspect. In addition, dependency and a lack of accountability can both translate to financial harms, as they lead to more people feeding off the system for a longer period of time; since welfare reform avoids them, we can expect costs to be significantly cut down in that respect, as well. The cost savings add up, meaning that welfare reform is going to end up being a lot less expensive than GMI. == Case-Study: Quebec == GMI has already been experimented with in Quebec, and the results have been far from "abolishing poverty", as Pro seems to believe. Consider the conclusion reached by the following study on GMI there: "Simulations show that the original recommendation would have strong negative impacts on participation rates of low-earners and that its cost would exceed $ 2 billion... We find that contrary to what is usually assumed, guaranteed income schemes may increase the incidence of low-income rather than decrease it." [4]. This is nothing but empirical confirmation of the theoretical reasoning explained previously-- GMI is expensive, facilitates dependency, and offers no way to ensure that the money is even being used for the right reasons, thus failing to make much substantive progress in mitigating poverty. Rather than adopt such a policy, the US should turn to reforming its current welfare system to reach its full potential. II. PRINCIPLE == Libertarian Morality == The first objection I can make to Pro's philosophical arguments is that he fails to set forth any sort of ethical framework from which he can make any meaningful moral claims (e.g. that society "owes" us something). Since I am about to put forth an ethical framework of my own (libertarianism), my philosophical case automatically trumps his. All human beings have ownership over themselves. This is intuitively obvious-- since you are the sole user and occupier of your own body, you are the only one who can exert any sort of authority or control over it. Denying self-ownership results in a performative contradiction because simply the act of speaking/typing to do that requires you to have ownership over yourself. With self-ownership established, it logically follows that one should also be granted the same ownership over material property which they have rightfully acquired, since one's actions are an extension of their person. So we can conclude that all human beings have the rights to life, liberty, and private property ownership; note that these are all negative rights-- entitlements which prevent others from doing certain things to us (i.e. murder, slavery, rape, theft, etc). Given this, the only plausible role of the government is to accept tax money in order to protect the rights of the tax-payers from being violated. We can't really derive positive rights from self-ownership, since property has to be acquired by virtue of a person's actions (i.e. earned) in order rightfully be their own, and the government can never forcibly redistribute property (i.e. spend tax money on social programs), so all welfare expenditures, including the GMI, should be rejected on an ethical basis. == Robot Apocalypse == Pro argues that as technology advances, automation will continue to rapidly replace human labor and economically displace people, until eventually everyone is displaced. I have several objections to make... a. Cross-apply: (1) my libertarian moral argument; regardless of the circumstances, redistribution on the part of the government is never morally justified. (2) my entire economic case; a reformed welfare system can serve as a more effective safety net than GMI. b. Even if technology can really advance to the point which Pro predicts it will (which is a very big "if"), social barriers exist which will still prevent that new technology from replacing human labor much more than it already has. Currently, the technology exists to have a fully-automated fast food restaurant [5]. Yet not a single major fast food chain has made any serious attempt to adopt the new technology. Why? It's because businesses and customers alike don"t *want* everything to become automated; businesses want to keep up their public image by "giving back" to society via employment, and customers want to be able continue interacting with humans rather than machines when they go to buy from these businesses. Everyone gains from utilizing human labor. c. Even if things really did start going in the direction of full automation, the government could just place restrictions on the businesses' use of automation for the sake of national economic stability. Considering the dire consequences of allowing capitalistic innovation to take its course, it is likely that such a motion would be widely supported by the American people as well as by businesses (because the people want to keep their jobs, and businesses want their customers to have spending money). d. If all else fails and things do play out as Pro predicts, then we're all screwed anyways regardless of what safety nets we have in place, because as more people have to rely on GMI, there will be fewer people to fund it, until the whole system collapses and all hell breaks loose. Resolution negated! [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com...

Universal Basic Income Con has been very specific with his wording limiting a variety of general objections to his position that are often considered when peeps discuss this. I'm stating this because it 'morally desirable' is a black hole of ambiguity and I do not want to lean on semantics so I will instead try to focus on what is morally desirable in a practical way and what that means in general using standard definitions. I'm not aware of anyone that receives payments in cash or anything that is uncondtional but I do not expect Cob to lean on these too hard. Many things are morally desirable. In a subjective moral world view you can justify torture (USA #1) or killing apostates. Utilitarians, rule based types or even absolutists could as well. It is obviously ideal to ensure that the worst off in our countries do not starve (reach a sub-subsistence level of existence.) The debate here is normally just about to what degree we will do this. We make 'cash' payments to provide roads, hospitals, food banks and shelters to anyone who bothers to use them. They do not get the check directly and That's the lame leg Con is trying to lean on. We already pay for a minimum standard of living just by paying taxes. We make sure all citizens have justice, are not subject to theft or murder etc. We subsidies farmers, factory workers and billionaires. This question has already been decided. Of course we make cash payouts every month to ensure that everyone reaches subsistence, aka doesn't die. It's only a question of degree. Con can only argue the degree to which we support eachother. By setting the bar at morally desirable all I have to show is that some moral code wants to stop people from dying due to poverty. We are all mutually interdependent and even those lacking empathy can appreciate that preventing others from starving to death or dying from the elements is helpful/desirable wherever it falls on their to do list. While, cash payments that benefit you directly vs those you receive directly are obviously different those that cannot use the funds, at least to reach, subsistence are normally subject to guadianship.

Universal Basic Income Con has been very specific with his wording limiting a variety of general objections to his position that are often considered when peeps discuss this. I'm stating this because it 'morally desirable' is a black hole of ambiguity and I do not want to lean on semantics so I will instead try to focus on what is morally desirable in a practical way and what that means in general using standard definitions. I'm not aware of anyone that receives payments in cash or anything that is uncondtional but I do not expect Cob to lean on these too hard. Many things are morally desirable. In a subjective moral world view you can justify torture (USA #1) or killing apostates. Utilitarians, rule based types or even absolutists could as well. It is obviously ideal to ensure that the worst off in our countries do not starve (reach a sub-subsistence level of existence.) The debate here is normally just about to what degree we will do this. We make 'cash' payments to provide roads, hospitals, food banks and shelters to anyone who bothers to use them. They do not get the check directly and That's the lame leg Con is trying to lean on. We already pay for a minimum standard of living just by paying taxes. We make sure all citizens have justice, are not subject to theft or murder etc. We subsidies farmers, factory workers and billionaires. This question has already been decided. Of course we make cash payouts every month to ensure that everyone reaches subsistence, aka doesn't die. It's only a question of degree. Con can only argue the degree to which we support eachother. By setting the bar at morally desirable all I have to show is that some moral code wants to stop people from dying due to poverty. We are all mutually interdependent and even those lacking empathy can appreciate that preventing others from starving to death or dying from the elements is helpful/desirable wherever it falls on their to do list. While, cash payments that benefit you directly vs those you receive directly are obviously different those that cannot use the funds, at least to reach, subsistence are normally subject to guadianship.

All people should receive the same income Every citizen, regardless of occupation, should receive the same wage an hour. The doctor should receive the same as the plumber. The reason being is that economic inequality is harmful and all work is a contribution to society as should be treated equally.

That UBI should be implemented in the western world Well to that, I will simply reply... Your first point is actually a very reasonable and valid solution, however, proposing such a tax reform and welfare slash would definitely NOT be popular with the public. This is evident in Switzerland wherein 2016, a UBI referendum was rejected. Trials are being run in many countries in Africa along with Finland, however, countries such as Australia and America have yet to seriously consider this. In Australia, a $20 000 UBI was proposed. The cost of this would be twice the current cost of the current welfare system. Additionally, regarding your point on homeless people and their spending, in Australia, there is a huge cultural debate on Aboriginal welfare. In fact, in many towns, the government has begun to introduce an income card/ food voucher system. The reality is, disadvantaged members of society in both America and Australia receive generously from the welfare system. These provisions are enough to provide basic housing, food and water. However, despite this, these people still sleep on streets and beg for money for food. Alcohol and drugs are a huge reason behind this. There is debate trying to push a nation-wide income card system for welfare receivers, however, this is argued to be a breach of human rights with no supporting evidence. The main problem is, there is lack of public funding to support an investigation which would be both lengthy and costly. In fact, if the government would manage (somehow) to pass a tax reform on private industries, the money would be much better off refining the current welfare system instead of abolishing it completely and replacing it with an impractical UBI system. The main aim of welfare is to aid disadvantaged members of society, not to make government money distribution equal.

Universal Basic Income I. IntroThis was an excellent debate, and I appreciate Varrack proposing the topic. Admittedly, before the debate I knew very little about UBI. This debate has been a great way to educate myself on a very interesting topic. Varrack, if you win this round, good luck in the rest of the tournament. If I win know that this was, as I said, an excellent debate and I'd like to debate you more in the future. With my remaining round I will be presenting voting issues, why they matter, and why they mean that I have won this debate.II. UBI and CapitalismIn my case, I demonstrated how without offering a living wage, UBI means that individuals will still have to work. Per Pro's own evidence, the poverty rate is $12,000 per adult. Pro's plan offers $10,000, meaning individuals will continue to be forced to participate in the market. This means that employers will be able to drive down wages and more "buIIshit jobs" will be created, causing many workers to be in worse conditions and have less satisfaction.Pro's attempt to dissuade voters from evaluating this point was to say I created a straw man out of the purpose of a UBI (in decommodification of labor). However, the purpose is irrelevant, the effects will remain the same. Just because Pro isn't attempting to decommodify labor with his plan doesn't mean we won't see the decrease in wages. Prefer my analysis from leading economists from Cambridge and The London School of Economics to Pro's bare assertion.The ramifications of this are as follows: we strip Americans of their current welfare plans. The government provides a universal basic income of $10,000. Employers see this as supplemental income. Wages are reduced. Americans are far worse off than before. Because UBI will not work unless as a subsidy for a business, this alone is reason to negate. Pro essentially dropped this point, which alone negates the entire case.III. The Current Welfare SystemIn my defense of the current welfare system, there were two repeated themes. The first one was that the "negative incentives" of our current system aren't legitimate challenges faced by those receiving welfare in the United States. To challenge this, Pro mentions his CBO analysis. However, I offer my own source, in which a Forbes contributor comments [6] on analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). [9] The CBPP analysis proves that the American poor are encouraged to work (through collectivization) more than their more affluent counterparts, and is based on a more recent CBO report (2015.) [10] Pro literally uses an older publication (2012) [11, Pro's Source 6] from the exact same group to attempt to disprove my argument.These "negative incentives" don't exist. Prefer my argument because Pro and I use the same source, but mine is more recent, and in turn more accurate.The second talking point I had was that the poverty rate does not actually reflect what it claims to. It does not account for your income post-welfare reception. I used an incredibly simple example in R3 to show how someone who does end up receiving more than $12,000 a year (between income and welfare) would still be considered "below" the poverty line. This means that any analysis of the current welfare system measuring its effect on the poverty rate is irrelevant. As I have proven, the American system is an excellent safety net with positive incentives toward financial growth. Pro essentially avoided my argument about how inflated our poverty rate was, which is evident in the UC Davis evidence he uses in the closing round.IV. ConclusionIt is clear that you should be voting Con in this debate. In my opening round, I pointed out that because of the incompatibility between UBI and capitalism, Pro must prove that 1. This is not true or 2. Capitalism will be phased out. He did neither of those things, therefore failing to fulfill his burden. I win on these grounds alone. However, if you need an additional reason to vote Con, look at the successes of our current system. We have helped far more people than our inflated poverty rates would lead you to believe, all while providing incentives for those below the line to break through it.Therefore, I negate the resolution. Thank you.Again, thank you Varrack for this debate. I have learned a lot and have enjoyed a stimulating conversation. Thank you voters for taking the time to read this. Thank you 1harder for hosting.V. Sources[9] https://www.cbpp.org...[10] https://www.cbo.gov...[11] https://www.urban.org...

Income is not necessarily proportional to 'hard work' It is frequently argued by right-wing thinkers that "if you work hard, you will earn more", and while this is true in the sense that working longer hours will result in a larger pay-cheque, it seems to imply a level playing field for everyone to begin with. Quite simply, this is not the case. Incomes and employment are affected by a whole range of factors such as education, contacts, social stigmas not to mention simple geographical location, while everyone knows it is easier to establish a successful business if one has investment and financial stability to begin with. A negative income tax which rewards 'hard workers' will more often than not reward people who earn higher incomes based on a range of factors which are often out of their control. Similarly, it will penalize people who might work 'hard', but work in industries, regions or businesses with relatively low incomes. The existing benfit system, while imperfect, at least supoprts people on low incomes, regardless of extraneous factors.

It would abandon the worst off There would have to be a different system for people with no income, otherwise they'd have to divide by zero.

The Negative Income Tax Thank you Olark for accepting, and as you said: may the best win. One of the main reasons why I support a negative income tax is that it's a very cheap and yet effective way to end poverty. My alibi is the "Mincome" project that was conducted back in the 70's in the 2 towns in Manitoba, Canada; the town of Dauphin and Winnipeg: http://america.aljazeera.com... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://basicincome.org.uk... Those below the fixed poverty line received a monthly cheque that allowed them to survive. In the beginning, the researchers predicted that this would encourage people to be lazy and that it would cost a lot of money. But in the end, none of the above turned out to be true. From those who benefited from this project, only pregnant mothers and students worked substantially less. This by the way, resulted in a higher number of students graduating. Also hospitalization and domestic abuse went down. The project started in 1975 but was ended in 1979, when a centre-right government came to power. For many years the results of this project have been forgotten, until a few years ago it caught the attention of Prof. Evelyn Forget of the University of Manitoba. Now you might say that that these were small towns and that such a project couldn't work on a nation-wide level and that the people of Winnipeg and Dauphin feared that this project would end some day. Well for the nation-wide thing, I don't know to be honest. It has never been tested on such a large scale. But "I don"t find the "temporary program" argument very compelling. If people are irresponsible, will they really project four years into the future to decide how to behave?" (quote from Prof. Evelyn Forget) Contrary to most basic income models, the negative income tax, would only give the amounted of money needed to the people who need it. That's why it would be a cheap way to de facto implement a basic income. There have also been other basic income (BI) experiments, like in Otjivero, Namibia and in Uganda, India and even In the US: http://www.spiegel.de... http://usbig.net... https://www.opendemocracy.net... http://en.wikipedia.org... The Namibian project also caught my attention for the following reasons: In 2 years, -the percentage of people living below the poverty line went from 76 to 36% -the percentage of under-nourished children went from +50% to less than 10% -the percentage of young adults graduating went from 60 to 90% -crime went down significantly Another interesting project is "Bolsa familia" in Brazil. Basically it's a negative income tax for poor families IF they send their kids to School: http://web.worldbank.org... As for the BI initiative in Switzerland, I'm crossing my fingers since I live there ;) It would be really useful for me since in a few years I will be going to University.

All people should receive the same income Alright, I shall respond to the questions as a refutation. "How would this fixed sum be defined?' It should be defined by the government in accordance with the pricing of economic output. For example, if all employed citizens got an income of $25 an hour, which would mean $4000 a month on average over the course of a year which would be $48,000 a year would be effectively eliminated because everyone who has a job will be able to pay their bills and satisfy their needs and, to a degree, their desires including savings in which people can become successful by merely saving such income. Thus, employed people would no longer live in poverty. " Is it really justified for someone who say is, a waitress/waiter to get paid the same amount as a doctor or lawyer?" That is subjective, however both individuals are contributing to satisfying the desires and needs of the population and thus should get paid the same amount an hour. And you might think this would be a disincentive, however this is not the case. For one, you would still have to work to earn a wage and a lot of people, and if not they took an oath to do it until they die, enjoy their work. As a result, not many doctors would leave because they still get paid and still work more hours thus they would make more than the McDonalds employee. A doctor who works 12 hours a day will earn 300 more dollars than the McDonalds employee. Not to mention, this actually would expand job growth to some level because if you're going to quit your job because you aren't getting paid a certein amount, you must hate it in the first place and thus you probably are terrible at it. This actually opens up more people to work in other vital industries such as agriculture and food distribution, and other jobs for people who want that particular one. A lot of people would happily work for a hospital for FREE, and many people would also work as a lawyer for next to no pay. People do things and like to do things, and open access to higher education free of tuition would make this a lot better and expand economic growth overall. So not only would this resolve many of the pyschologically destructive nature of economic inequality, this would also bring us closer to a moneyless society. Not to mention, ceterin economic preconditions such as establishing democratic workers self-management in industries would create a bigger incentive to work. Your third question, I baisclaly anwsered this. However, my official position is there should be a minimum and maximum ratio of pay (a universal minimum and maximum wage if you will) in regards to the difficulty and time put into a job but if should slowly move into equal pay for all. In regards to your last question, I believe fees for human rights such as education should be paid by taxes. Also, we speant trillions on nonsense like increasing military speanding. We have the money for this, we just don't use it wisely.

Resolved: The US ought to provide a UBI Framework, neg case, aff case My opponent has failed to realize that my value criterion was not generic consistency, but was, in fact, upholding Kantian Social Contract. Let that flow through and be seen in judging, since my opponent has failed to argue my value criterion. Meaning that judging my arguments should solely be based upon upholding Kantian Social Contract, since my opponent dropped my criterion. My opponent has mis-defined Kantian Social Contract, as well, because the definition of Kantian Social Contract is saying that the purpose of government is to ensure that people are valued as ends in themselves and to promote their liberties in life so they can pursue happiness as they see fit. My opponent has failed to value the intrinsic lives of society as a whole, and has failed to meet the grounds of proving that basic income does not benefit the citizens of the US, which will be explained when evaluating their first and second contention. My opponent has failed to prove how Kantian Social Contract proves the neg case, since my opponent has used the wrong social contract. My argument holds more value and evidence than my opponent on a framework standpoint, and the affirmation should hold strong in voting so far. Vote aff on Framework. My opponent's counterplan, which is relied so heavily on, has no foundation to stand on, and has completely fallen. Firstly, my opponent has chosen to drop my argument about those of innocent convictions, meaning that my opponent's counterplan falls, since it does not uphold his value of Kantian Social Contract, since his counterplan is not valuing the intrinsic lives of those felony convictions that are innocent and wrongfully convicted. This cannot be morally acceptable, to punish those who have been wrongfully convicted so they receive no part of the UBI process, when they need the money to secure their freedom and receive bail. My opponent's first contention on crime and terror has completely fallen without the framework to support it. He has failed to prove his case against the DEFINITION of basic income, which states that UBI will be paid to an INDIVIDUAL BASIS, NOT A HOUSEHOLD, NOT A GROUP. This is a giant factor in this debate BECAUSE those thousands of dollars that my opponent is arguing for is non-existent! These so called "terror-groups" are NOT getting the money that my opponent is stating they are. My opponent's first contention holds very little to no argumentative value, and should not hold any factor in evaluating a winner for this debate. My opponent's second contention goes against my opponent's framework of Kantian Social Contract, as it does NOT value the lives of all of these immigrants and these children and families that my opponent has talked about. My opponent is advocating for poverty, homelessness, mass inequality and racism by stating that these LEGAL immigrants (illegal is irrelevant, since my opponent originally focused on legal immigrants, meaning he is changing facts if he continues talking about illegal immigrants), who may be hard workers, who may be trying to support their children and family, who may be trying to fulfill their personal needs, deserve less than Americans who may not have worked a day in their lives. Just imagine if you were an immigrant, you've worked hard to make sure your kids get food everyday, putting in hard labor, and now Basic Income is being implemented to give your family more of a chance in society, get a well education, you don't need to worry about them starving, but now you can't continue to help them, because according to my opponent, if you aren't a legal immigrant for 10 years, you cannot support your family. My opponent's argument has been eliminated based on the bias that my opponent is choosing to advocate for. My opponent has still failed to prove that immigration will indeed have a negative effect on society and economics if we were to give them a basic income. As human beings, we are held accountable for helping others that are just like us. My opponent thinks otherwise, and chooses to make our world into a hierarchy, with all immigrants on the bottom. This is not what the United States is about. We are a Promise Land, a land of opportunity for all people. We should not give immigrants a disadvantage in life because they haven't been in the US as long as us. The affirmative has proven all of the negations arguments as FALSE! The negation has not disproved any of the affirmative arguments, meaning that all affirmative arguments and cases have completely stood. My opponent has no evidence to support any of his arguments, so the affirmation should obviously win this debate. I thank my opponent for instigating this debate, as well as thank all of the voters. I stand in firm affirmation, with the evidence I have provided and the evidence that the negation has not. Vote Aff to value the entire society as a hole, and to solve poverty for ALL people in the United States, and not just the ones born here.

Guaranteed Minimum Income The United States should begin conversion of the existing welfare structure into a guaranteed minimum income. I affirm. The resolution is beneficial to society as both policy and principle. I. Policy The status quo is not working. CATO explains that when the expenditures of the federal government is combined with the efforts of state and local governments, nearly 1 trillion (952 Billion) is spent each year on efforts to fight poverty[1]. Despite this, the Census Bureau estimated 45.3 million Americans living in poverty in 2013[2]. According to the Congressional Research Service, there are 24,492,000 households in the bottom quintile of income distribution[3], meaning that foreveryhousehold in the bottom quintile of income distribution, around $39,000 is spent on poverty alleviation efforts. Given that the statistically average household contains 2.54 people[4], this amounts to around $15,354 spent per person in the bottom quintile of income distribution for means-based policies specifically designed to alleviate policy, without factoring in Social Security and Medicare--literally the two largest components of the federal budget other than defense. And yet, we still have 45.3 million people in poverty. This should not be mathematically possible. Indeed, the disparate state of anti-poverty programs in the United States combined with bizarre policies leads to massive inefficiency and abuse, with many citizens not even being aware of the benefits offered to them. The US welfare system is so broken that a single mother is better off working a $29,000 a year job than a $69,000 a year job when government aid is factored in, according to Pennsylvania's secretary of public welfare Gary Alexander[5]. Poorly constructed phase-out policies cause the poor to often face higher de facto marginal tax rates than the wealthy. When government assistance is factored in, over 20% of low to moderate income tax payers face tax rates of over 40%, according the the Congressional Budget Office[6], with 37% of these tax payers facing down rates of 30-39%. Fraud and error abounds: The Federal government made $98 billion in improper payments in 2009, according to CNN[7] with the vast majority of these improper payments going towards welfare system subsidies to individuals who are ineligible. $98 billion might seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the total US budget, but that's enough to send a check for over $2100 to each of the 45.3 million people living in poverty in this country. Because there are so many different welfare programs, administrative (read: bureaucracy) costs account for about a quarter of all welfare spending in the United States according to Daily Kos[8]. This alone is sufficient cause to affirm the resolution: it's inconceivable that the administrative costs for a single agency that sends checks to people in lieu of having hundreds of different policies would have overhead costs in the range of 25% of all costs. I'm getting our citizens 25% more in benefits without cutting it anywhere else just by simply sending them a check and letting them decide what to do with the money. Suffice to say the welfare system in the United States is broken. Governments spend about $15,000 per individual in the bottom income quintile, without factoring in Social Security and Medicare. That's a nice, even number. How much would it cost to guarantee a minimum income of $15,000 per adult? If we implement a sliding scale policy where $15,000 is allocated to each adult and for every dollar in income that individual makes, 20 cents of the $15,000 is lost, about 1.248 trillion a year. Since the poverty line in the United States is $15,930 for a household of 2[9], poverty would essentially be abolished. The United States can easily implement a policy like this, and it should. Anti-poverty spending is already around a trillion, corporate welfare in the United States is enormous ($63 billion in handouts to the Fortune 500 companies alone[10]) and would swiftly be eliminated if the public demanded it, and most importantly after adjustments are made to exclude individuals with a high net worth who just aren't working working, the cost of the minimum income policy would significantly decrease. The point is, the money can be found, and this is *without touching* Social Security or Medicare. Social Security alone costs $814 billion a year[11], and Social Security benefits could slowly be integrated into a minimum income policy very easily. The money can be found. Worst case scenario, changing the income guarantee from $15,000 to $13,000 would keep the total cost under 1 trillion and would almost certainly benefit our poor far more than the status quo which already spends the same amount. II. Principle The resolution ought to be affirmed on principle for a multitude of reasons. First, we need to look at the changing face of the labor market. As technology progresses ever forward, there becomes a larger and larger IQ/Education cut off for who can be economically productive. The Bell Curve explains how this process is already occurring, with the increasing cognitive segregation of the American workforce[12].The days where any American could reasonably expect to get a decent job if they were willing to work hard is but a memory now, and it's only going to get worse. Business Insider[13] reports that 47% of American jobs are at a high risk of becoming automized within two decades. Humanity has dealt with sudden bursts of technology changing the way the labor force functioned before, but this time is truly different because as technology increases exponentially, soon the only jobs humans will be able to perform are those that the machine is unable to do. Moores Law tells us that computing power doubles every 18 months. It won't be very long at all until the machine overtakes us all, and it's in everyone's self interest to establish an economy where those unable to get jobs because their skills are obsolete are taken care of--before your skills become obsolete. Even if my opponent proves that new jobs will be created eventually due to increased productivity which he won't because this time is different from the past, he still loses because the history of the Industrial Revolution is marred with a century long period of misery and exploitation of all those who didn't benefit from it. A minimum income serves as a safety net to keep this from happening to those who's livelihoods are destroyed by the technological revolution.Secondly, the moral element. Slate Star Codex[14] makes a compelling argument that we should view a minimum income through the lens of eminent domain. As we know, since employment increasingly requires more intelligence and education as technology progresses, more and more people get left behind. Modernity has taken hundreds of thousands of people who could've lived happy, productive, and fulfilling lives as farmers or craftsmen, and created a society where productivity requires skills these people simply do not have. Advances in technology have benefited everyone by making things thousands of times more productive, but has left behind people who couldn't participate. Thus: "Think of it as the ultimate use of eminent domain; a power beyond your control has seized everything in the world, it had some good economic reasons for doing so, but it at least owes you compensation!" Again, it's in our self interest to establish this principle before we too are left behind.Thirdly, freedom. With a minimum income, citizens are free to spend their money on whatever they please instead of having their choices dictated by the whim of the state. We should prefer a system that allows for the maximum number of people to act according to their own interests. The resolution is affirmed. Appendix: Here's how I got the numbers I did. A few assumptions were involved. The Congressional Research Service published a report detailing income brackets in the US and how many households were in each bracket[15]. Taking an assumed average in the center of each bracket (so the assumed average in the 35-40 thousand bracket was 37.5 thousand), I calculated how much of the income subsidy each bracket would get if they lost 20 cents of the subsidy for each dollar of income they made. I then calculated the cost of the policy per household and from that number and derived the cost per adult by estimating the number of adults per household if the average household is 2.54 individuals and adults make up approximately 75.4% of the population[16]. The result was a cost of $1.248 trillion. Not a perfect calculation by any means, but effective enough for an estimation. An actual policy would likely be more complex and phase out the income guarantee at a progressive rate based on how much income is made, rather than a flat one, costing even less. Sources: 1.http://www.cato.org... 2.http://www.census.gov... 3.https://fas.org... 4.http://www.statista.com... 5.http://www.aei.org... 6.http://www.cbo.gov... 7.http://money.cnn.com... 8. http://www.dailykos.com... 9.http://aspe.hhs.gov... 10. http://www.forbes.com... 11. http://www.cbpp.org...12. Herrnstein, Richard J., and Charles A. Murray. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.13. http://www.businessinsider.com...14. http://slatestarcodex.com...15. See 3 16. http://www.census.gov...

That UBI should be implemented in the western world You have still failed to identify my main point... a UBI system is not a feasible replacement for welfare. The truth is, ordinary middle class, working citizens in their prime working age range DO NOT require the payment from a UBI system. It baffles me how you have failed to understand why currently, there is no country who has even begun to seriously consider this. The only country so far to pass a referendum is Switzerland, in which it was rejected 3 to 1. You claim to be Australian, I am as well. However, in your last argument, you failed to tell me how I was misinformed on the Aboriginal debate. Over the last 5 years, I have worked closely with a school foundation providing not financial funds, but things such as toiletries and access to health and nutritional education to a small town community with a large percentile of Aboriginal residents. We have seen that these provisions seem to have led to a greater improvement in the overall health of the community and we have even begun to get in close contact with some of the elders. But, back to the UBI point, I will once again enlighten you on reality. The truth is, many citizens in civilisation are born disadvantaged. Some children have parents with a bad influence, others have faced abused as young children and in many cases, these people end up broken mentally the homeless people on streets living off welfare. It is not that they are lazy and refuse to work. They were never taught the work ethic and never experienced a feeling of belonging to our society. These are the members of society who require the help of welfare. You seem to be overly confident that you have found a feasible UBI solution. However, you fail to realise that if you, genuinely, had found a practical, feasible UBI solution, you would not be on debate.org arguing. The popularity of a notion is directly correlated to how practical and real it is for the rest of society.

Resolved: The United States ought to provide a universal basic income. u know the rules. AC, NR, AR,2NR, 2Ar. no new args in 2ar

All people should receive the same income -->>Rebuttals: A little more is required from Pro for them to actually *affirm* their resolution and provide a convincing case, merely answering to the questions that I've provided is not quite satisfactory and Pro should (technically) extend their main arguments further. Anyway, I will respond to each of Pros answers in full: #1 'It should be defined by the government in accordance with the pricing of economic output. For example, if all employed citizens got an income of $25 an hour, which would mean $4000 a month on average over the course of a year which would be $48,000 a year would be effectively eliminated because everyone who has a job will be able to pay their bills and satisfy their needs and, to a degree, their desires including savings in which people can become successful by merely saving such income. Thus, employed people would no longer live in poverty.' Firstly, it's extremely unlikely that governments (especially those in poorer countries, as Pro didn't say anything about this being exclusive to the U.S) would be able to afford $25 per hour, specifically when taking into account all of the resources that governments must prioritize~~such as health care, education, etc. While these areas are not presently ideal, they would suffer even more as a result of businesses/governments paying such high wages for each working individual. In fact, millions would inevitably be spent and the ultimate result would likely be recession and extreme debt. Also, there is very limited justification for a the previous example (a beauty therapist) receiving the same amount as a doctor. In addition, on the contrary to Pros assertion that $48,000 a year would enable people to be debt-free and able to pay their bills~~it would likely actually lead to further spending (and more debt) from those who are not able to manage their wages wisely. #2 'That is subjective, however both individuals are contributing to satisfying the desires and needs of the population and thus should get paid the same amount an hour. And you might think this would be a disincentive, however this is not the case. For one, you would still have to work to earn a wage and a lot of people, and if not they took an oath to do it until they die, enjoy their work. As a result, not many doctors would leave because they still get paid and still work more hours thus they would make more than the McDonalds employee. A doctor who works 12 hours a day will earn 300 more dollars than the McDonalds employee. Not to mention, this actually would expand job growth to some level because if you're going to quit your job because you aren't getting paid a certein amount, you must hate it in the first place and thus you probably are terrible at it. This actually opens up more people to work in other vital industries such as agriculture and food distribution, and other jobs for people who want that particular one. A lot of people would happily work for a hospital for FREE, and many people would also work as a lawyer for next to no pay. People do things and like to do things, and open access to higher education free of tuition would make this a lot better and expand economic growth overall. So not only would this resolve many of the pyschologically destructive nature of economic inequality, this would also bring us closer to a moneyless society. Not to mention, ceterin economic preconditions such as establishing democratic workers self-management in industries would create a bigger incentive to work.' Pro asserts that my question is somehow 'subjective' when there were two different (clearly objective) options given~~moreover, they have failed to explain *why* it was subjective. As indicted in round one by myself, Pro is taking an extreme approach to a problem that requires addressing moderately. As well as that, they have made claims about there existing further incentives to work without supporting them. Clearly Pro is failing to see the 'realities' that would be involved. Regarding hospital workers, to suggest that you can have (untrained) staff assisting people's medical requirements is nothing less than absurd and *if* actually ever practiced, ultimately very dangerous. To qualify as a nurse, one must receive training and have the correct mental competence. They cannot just be anybody doing the job because they simply feel like that~~standards and technicalities exist in order for someone to actually be (proven) as capable. #3 'Your third question, I baisclaly anwsered this. However, my official position is there should be a minimum and maximum ratio of pay (a universal minimum and maximum wage if you will) in regards to the difficulty and time put into a job but if should slowly move into equal pay for all.' Pro has essentially contradicted their own argument(s) as they did specify that any minimum/maximum wage would apply. Rather, they explicitly stated that all people would receive $25 per hour, regardless of education/experience/job. #4 'In regards to your last question, I believe fees for human rights such as education should be paid by taxes. Also, we speant trillions on nonsense like increasing military speanding. We have the money for this, we just don't use it wisely.' Pro makes a valid contention regarding military spending (one that I personally agree with), however, this still doesn't answer why everyone should receive the same wage~~especially a high one. And while improvements should be made, taxes already go towards things like education. I will reiterate once more that I understand Pros main point~~which is that people should be treated equally, and that the poor should be looked after, etc. In fact this is a belief that I mostly share, however, there are more balanced and financially sensible methods of approaching such a reform.

Guaranteed Minimum Income This debate is a clear Pro win as most of my case stands unrefuted. I. Policy Con is hinging his hopes of winning the debate on the libertarianism argument because never responds to most of my damning indictments of the welfare system. Unfortunately, this is a policy debate, not an ethical one; we have to look to whichever plan best solves human problems--the purpose of state policy is to benefit its citizens. His "reforms" are vague and dubious, at best. Con says we can just combine similar programs and slim the system down in other ways, but if it were that easy, we would already be doing it. The vast amounts of regulations and precedent make working within the system incredibly hard, it's better to just work outside the system by abolishing it and implementing a system of cash payments. You can vote Pro off of the overhead costs alone. Again, 25% of the systems cost are administrative. Abolish the system and just send people checks and you have 25% more money to work with, right off the bat. Con totally misunderstands the purpose of objecting to the work requirement--it required so much paperwork that overhead costs *skyrocketed* and since the government is so incompetent at enforcing rules, less than a third of people even met the requirement according to the nonpartisan GAO. Obama reformed the system by maintaining the work requirement but letting states opt out *if* they met certain stringent requirements. This is exactly what Con wants, and yet he's arguing that reforms like this don't work. Even if you think Obama made the wrong choice, to pin the failure of the system on this tiny reform as Con does is beyond absurd. Again, Con pretends that he can wave a magic wand and do away with the nonsense of the bureaucrats, but he doesn't have this ability. My plan destroys red tape and minimizes administrative costs.Con says that it's not fair to expect him to come up with a comprehensive plan, but all I really asked for was something to rival my own plan where I gave an analysis on what we should do and how to do it. Cons entire "plan" basically boils down to "make the welfare system better". In addition, Con never even shows these reforms to be possible. They seem like no brainers, if they were possible they would've already happened. The bureaucracy in the United States has made such a mess that something as simple as a work requirement almost doubled overhead costs and wasn't even enforced. It's time to take power out of the hands of such people. Once more, Con argues that the government has an "obligation to make sure tax money is being used properly"--if this is true, then his entire case falls because the government is simply incapable of doing this under the current system. 25% of the system goes into the pockets of administrators. $98 billion was paid to people who were ineligible for benefits. People sell their food stamps, anyway. It's dubious to say the least that the common man is so ignorant that his mismanagement of funds allocated to him would come even close to outweighing these costs.Con tries to argue about cost, but you need to reject this argument for three reasons: First, I said in my opening that if we couldn't find the money for a $15,000 GMI we could just scale it down to, say, $13,000 and we would have enough--$15,000 was just a general ballpark number. The point is, converting all of the money in the current system into cash and just sending people checks would be far more beneficial. Maybe Quebec's proposed system would cost more. I've explained mine, Con should've attacked it, not Quebec's. Second, Cons reforms are going to cost, too. He wants to pretend that he's saving money but he won't even say by how much, not even a general ballpark estimate. The welfare system in the US is so broken that fixing it is probably not even be possible or, if it was, would cost so much in administrative costs to make the venture not worthwhile. Third, I'm not even touching Social Security. Social Security is a cash payment to elderly individuals. It doesn't take an Economics Ph.D. to understand how easy it would be to reform this to join a GMI. At the end of the day, what we're looking at is a system so broken that it's better to do away with it entirely and pay the poor in cash. It really is that simple. Since this is a policy debate, you can affirm right here. II. PrincipleI'm grouping libertarianism and the economy of the future here. a) EthicsCons libertarian argument is unpersuasive. He claims that he doesn't have to explain how it's possible to turn the US into a Randian paradise because his argument is about ethical truth value, but this is a policy debate. I think it would be nice if we abolished rape, but unless I can explain how it's possible to do so I gain no impact. Con says I don't establish an ethical framework, but I really don't have to. Not only am I showing that the resolution should be affirmed because it provides more benefits than the status quo, but I've shown that my way is the best way to maintain a libertarian society, so if you want to go with Cons ethical framework in the real world, you affirm.Con agrees that medieval feudalism is as close to a libertarian society as humanity has ever gotten. Thus, we can see why exactly Cons ideas don't work--the Church (which at the time was closely linked with the State, not a private entity like Con characterizes) demanded a tithe, and enough people were willing to pay it because they knew that if they didn't, the poor would rise up and kill them. Starving people don't just say "Oh, well, I respect the nonaggression principle so my family and I can just die because those aristocrats are paying for their 15 course meals with private money". They go straight to the nearest farmhouse or manor and take what they need. People don't just quietly die, they go down trying to do what hundreds of millions of years of evolution have taught us to do--survive at all costs. Even from a purely cold hearted, capitalist, non altruistic viewpoint we have no choice but to ensure that people have the means to survive, lest they rise up. The historical landscape is littered with the bodies of hundreds of rulers who failed to understand this concept. As policymakers, we do. Even if you buy that we should be libertarian, the only way to maintain libertarianism is to support the poor and the most libertarian way to support the poor is a cash payment rather than a labyrinth system supporting thousands of government workers in over 100 different agencies. There's a reason that a GMI is mostly advocated for by real world libertarians trying to craft policy.Con thinks that the fact that there were still poor people in the Middle Ages supports his case. It doesn't. The government of today has a quite a bit more coordination power than feudal kings did, and the tithe was *certainly* better for the poor than *nothing*. Con says that we could just have welfare through private organizations, but we know this isn't true because if it was, the state would never have needed to help the poor to begin with. Nothing is stopping private organizations from helping people, but you can't rely on altruism.Moreover, Con never really disputed that modernity has destroyed the possibility of many people to live meaningful lives for the benefit of everyone else. Those people are owed compensation for what was taken from them, just as the farmer is owed compensation when we pave over his land to make a road. b) The economy of the futureCon continually misunderstands this point. As technology increases, the jobs humans can compete with technology in steadily diminish. Remember, in a mere two decades, about half of the jobs that currently exist are likely to be obsolete. Con argues that since fast food restaurants haven't immediately automized, they aren't going to, as if it isn't a gradual process. Frey and Osborne of the University of Oxford predict a 92% chance that fast food labor will become automized in the coming decades[1], along with a myriad of other jobs. Remember, nearly half of jobs are about to become obsolete. It's pretty indisputable that advances in technology are going to push people out of work like it has innumerable times in the past. The reason this time is different and more jobs won't be created is due to what Harari tells us: computers are simply becoming *better* than humans at the tasks the market needs us to perform. The age of the masses is over. Even if I'm wrong about this (and Con hasn't proven so), history still shows that it takes a long time for society to adjust, and we should give people a helping hand. Remember that even if you buy Cons ethical arguments you still have to help the poor. Thus, it's obvious that we need to establish a GMI because it's the best welfare policy. It's in the self interest of pretty much everyone reading this to affirm, because there is a significant chance that our skills too will be overtaken by the machine. Con calls the argument that we're done for anyway his most "fatal" objection, but it relies on a very simplistic viewpoint where the existing tax structure doesn't change at all even when most of the population isn't working. Like I said, let the companies innovate and redistribute a part of the profits. Jobs aren't going to disappear overnight, but we should begin facing the problem as soon as we can by creating a more efficient and fair welfare system, tax changes can occur as necessary. In conclusion, throughout this debate I've proven that a simpler system is preferable, ethical, and necessary. My case stands almost entirely unrefuted and all of Cons arguments demonstrate the necessity of establishing a minimum income as welfare reform is entirely unfeasible and a libertarian society demands a guaranteed minimum income. It's in the best interest of us all to ensure a simple and effective welfare system, lest we come to rely on it. Vote Pro. Source:1. http://goo.gl...

Universal Basic Income Thanks for providing the opportunity for this debate. This isn't a subject i am particularly opinionated on but I am currently educating myself to form an argument. I look forward to hearing your first argument.

All people should receive the same income Debate accepted. Now, as Pro has left his opening argument rather short I will likewise do the same with mine (assuming that this round is *not* for acceptance, as Pro hasn't specified the terms.) -->>ArgumentOne major reason why everyone should not receive equal pay is because of the *very* prevalent difference(s) in what people's jobs actually are~~and the amount of experience and educational credit that they require. For example, to become a doctor in most countries, you have to complete at least seven years of studying and an additional three years is often required. However, taking the example of someone who may want to become a beauty therapist~~it will take no longer than two years for them to become fully qualified, and if they exclusively want to work as a manicurist, that can take as little as six months, and no university education is required. A doctor, however, will have a hugely significant sum for their degree(s) and training, and can have debts up to 60,000 in places such as the U.K. once they've completed their education and become qualified. [1.] http://www.theguardian.com...Moreover, they are providing a *vital* service to people. Those in other job sectors (such as the example of a beautician) are technically not. They may be providing a desirable service, but it is not one of demand and necessity. To use Pros example, obviously a doctor should not receive the same as plumber as again, the plumber has not had to attend university for several to ten years and spend such vast sums of money. In addition, they certainly do not have to retain the same kind of information as a doctor. In fact, the two jobs are entirely different. This brings one to main point which is that people should be paid according to skill/education and based on what the job IS. I would agree with Pro in that there is inequality relating to pay and that those in certain jobs should receive more, however, it's senseless to presume that everyone regardless of what the work is should receive exactly the same. For Pro to make a case, he/she will have to answer these following questions: -How would this fixed sum be defined? -Is it really justified for someone who say is, a waitress/waiter to get paid the same amount as a doctor or a lawyer? -Wouldn't this actually be damaging to the economy in the long-term? Possibly Pro could argue that more people would be inclined to work (but this is assuming the sum is reasonable/decent.), would it not be detrimental if so much was being spent on equal pay for each working individual? -Would this not create a more financially destitute society? I.E~~most governments would not be prepared to give everyone large equal pay, and if so: they would make it a small sum, so wouldn't those who become doctors, politicians, etc. not be able to pay for their university fees? Exactly how would they pay off their debts? Technically, both #3 and #4 (the questions) would ultimately damage the economy and society. But I will leave it to Pro to provide an answer for each one.

Everyone in the nation should have a government issued pony I find a huge flaw with that. If the people can't afford the pony and the government provides them one, then most likely they cannot afford to feed and maintain the pony either. This will cause more people to go on pony welfare and ultimately bankrupt the government.

Resolved: The US ought to provide a UBI Framework, case, offcase, topicallity, votersFrameworkEven if I misdefined the Kantian Social Contract, I still fufill it as the negation is still supporting the human rights of immigrants and discouraging crime groups and terrorists from taking away rights we all hold dear.Though my opponent assserts that I have dropped his value criterion, he never explicitly mentioned that upholding the Kantian Social Contract was in fact his value criterion. Even so, these may as well be lumped in together. It's the equivilant of having a value of morals, and having a value criterion of upholding morals. They're more or less the same thing. If you value the social contract, its logically sound to say that you should uphold it. I did in fact say that I better upheld the social contract. Due to the value criterion of upholding the social contract not being extended, this can't be brought up now, since it was dropped.Because of this, the negation still clearly wins on framework. Nontheless, my opponent has failed to counter my value criterion of consquentialism, which has been extended in every round. Overall, neg wins on framework, and voters should judge any impacts in a consquentialist framework. CaseThe negation still solves all aff impacts, and by extension, making the entireity of the aff case non unique. I bid myself to the good will of the spectators again, did I or did I not cover wrongful convictions. Most of these are caused through plea bargains who almost exclusivelly result in misdenemors. Severe criminals end up at trial, getting felony convictions. It could very well be said that the potential of losing one's basic income could act as detterence against felony acts, lowering overall crime. Even if the CP doesn't fall under the social contract, it still falls under the consquentialist framework, meaning it still stands.OffcaseThese criminal organizations are incredibly affluent, and it is incredibly likely that they would use these funds for criminal purposes. Where did I ever even imply that these funds would go directly towards the organization? I said that through the individuals, the organizations would be funded.Mass shootings and terror have been extended through every speech and was conceded by my opponent. Even if you believe crime and immigration could go either way, this is a clear cut issue. Mass shootings and terror would increase in both practice in severity. On September 11, 2001, we all learned what planes could do the skyscrapers, when jihadists flew planes full of living people, into buildings full of living people and shouted that god was great. Overall, as we all saw in the skies of the Big Apple that fateful day, terror is one of the largest impacts imaginable. Neg defintely wins on this point. On immigration, the impacts are first, mass immigration, and second mass deportation. Even if America is the so called "Promise Land," my opponent compleyly ignores my link and impact on Trump's base and mass deportation. This means that even if aff gives funds to the cherished immigrants, they'll face mass deportation. The UN's OHCHR declares mass deportation against international law, and for good reason too. Mass deportations by their very nature result in human rights abuses that outweigh any advantage the affirmative could even fathom. Not only do they Maintaining our current immTopicallityAs the two of us discussed in the comments section, aff provides $12,000 annually, which is below the continental US poverty guidelines by a few hundred. Even if we ignore this small diference, in the case of Alaska and Hawaii, those poverty striken would still be several thousand dollars short of having a basic income. My opponent responds to this by saying that UBI at least covers the 48 states. However, the resolution calls for a universal basic income, not just a basic income. It isn't like aff can say, "Screw Alaska, they have Sarah Palin," and not provide them a basic income, On this, even if you believe everything the affirmative says is true to a tee, he isn't advocating for an UBI and isn't supporting the resolution. This is damning for the affirmative since nothing he says is truly related to the topic. VotersI ask you to consider this while voting. Is is good for the world to support mass shootings and terror, crimes that many don't even wish to fathom. To give billions upon billions of dollars year after year to organzied crime, is that good for the world? To cause mass deportations, ethnic raids, and for families to be seperated permanently is this good for the world. I say that it is not, and to anyone that would ever hope or dream of advocating for anything along these lines I feel sorry for. For these reasons I strongly urge a negative ballot.Since I conceded my first speech, for fairness, aff must concede his last. May I suggest using that space to copy and paste the Fan K.

It would be too complex and radical to instate The welfare system as it stands is currently quite wide reaching and complex. The negative income tax system would only work if all other benefits are removed or if they are set against the subsidy that people receive. In this transition, some people will inevitably lose out or be lost in the cracks of the system. It will also require an enormous amount of bureaucracy to check that everyone is receiving the correct amount of money.

Money cannot be targeted to meet specific needs Governments have accepted, in documents like the universal declaration of human rights, that one of their primary roles is to provide a basic standard of living for their citizens. When the state simply hands out some money this responsibility is not fulfilled. The state is simply leaving the poor to fend for themselves with a little extra money. Governments provide subsidies in kind or for specific products and services for a reason; those are the things that are necessities rather than luxuries. If money is transferred directly then the person who is getting the money can use the government’s money on anything. Some may use it on the things the government was providing before but others will spend the money badly on tobacco, alcohol, or drugs. Subsidies however can be targeted at the things that the poor really need. This means the state provides subsidies for food, free or cheap housing and healthcare, fuel for cooking and heating etc.

Basic income tax should be abolished Yes Reasons

Guaranteed Minimum Income I'll start off by clarifying some issues on case structure. My main negative case against the resolution is the libertarian ethical argument against all forms of government-funded welfare; everything else, including the counter-plan, is in rebuttal to my opponent's case. Since my rebuttals function independently of the neg case and of each other, Pro's claims that my advocacy is inconsistent are false. Apologies for not making that clear from the outset. == Libertarian Ethics == In response to my ethical justification of a libertarian government, Pro has only attempted to show that a society based on libertarian principles is untenable. The biggest problem with this response is that it is irrelevant to the actual truth value of libertarian ethics. Pro cannot use a consequentialist moral standard to condemn libertarianism without first warranting and demonstrating the superiority of that standard. Pro's observation about Feudalism and the Catholic Church actually supports my case on two levels. Firstly, reading further into his source, it goes on to describe how the Church's attempts at helping the poor through redistribution eventually failed due to being unable to keep up with increasing poverty rates; this feeds directly into my main objection to Pro's automation argument (i.e. that poverty will reign regardless of social safety nets). Secondly, the Church's efforts aren't really comparable to state-sponsored welfare programs, as there was no real coercion involved-- the Church was a private organization which used the power of religion to move people set aside a part of their savings for charity. That did not violate any libertarian principles, thus showing that even in a libertarian society, a social safety net of sorts can be established via voluntary means (especially since minimal taxes = much more money in the hands of citizens = more generosity & charity). Also, let's note that the libertarianesque system of feudalism *did* successfully grant Europe stability and security for centuries. Most medieval Europeans' hardships came from environmental factors rather than anything to do with their political/social structures. In fact, it was only after the decline of feudalism and the rise of the state that political turmoil became a big problem. Pro has inadvertently provided us a case-study showing that a functioning society *can* be run on libertarian principles! As for Pro's claim that his ethical framework is based on "intuition"... my libertarian framework is easily shown to be superior; it is based in objective concepts such as self-ownership and personal autonomy, whereas intuitions are completely subjective. We cannot rely on Pro's framework to make meaningful moral claims because different people have different intuitions, which results in contradictory moral judgments. Libertarian ethics are clearly preferable. In conclusion, Pro has not refuted libertarianism at all; I have shown that we are morally obligated to reject all forms of welfare including GMI, thus negating the resolution regardless of how the rest of the debate plays out. == Reform vs. GMI == As expected, Pro attacks the feasibility of welfare reform. Firstly, he is utterly mistaken in his claim that 'GMI destroys the red tape while reform piles it on' ; sure, some reforms, such as work requirements and anti-corruption regs, would involve added complexity, but other reforms, such as scrapping redundant programs, would result in huge reductions in complexity. According to Pro's 1st source from R2, there are currently over 100 separate welfare programs in existence, with 33 of them being for housing alone, and another 22 being for food distribution. We could easily eliminate many of these programs, which would greatly decrease administrative costs while also increasing efficiency. Overall, reforms would result in a simplification of the system, while still keeping the red tapes which help to more effectively alleviate poverty. Pro also attacks work requirements by characterizing them as counter-productive, yet that is flatly contradicted by the graphs and the NBER study provided last round, both of which clearly show that poverty rates declined substantially after 1996 reforms. Pro claims that Obama did not actually hinder the use of work requirements, but quickly proves himself wrong by observing that only 30% of recipients even meet the work requirements anymore. The lax enforcement of work requirements *is* a major factor in the failure of the status quo, along with unnecessary bureaucracy, corruption, and a lack of awareness among potential benefactors. Pro claims that I am not being specific enough about which reforms I am advocating, but I have already named several potential areas for reform... I can't really be expected to put forth highly specific proposals, as that would require a detailed background knowledge of the workings of the current system, which neither I nor my opponent nor the majority of the voters have. Ultimately, there is no reason to accept that welfare reform is unfeasible; it is certainly a viable option, and if the government is willing to take the initiative to implement GMI, then they can do the same to make welfare reform happen. Again, we are now faced with the question of why we should prefer reform over GMI... ACCOUNTABILITY: Pro cites an isolated instance of people abusing food stamps; obviously there will always be people who find and exploit loopholes, but the point is that abuse is far, far easier with the completely unregulated GMI. This point is not about emotion; it is about 1) the government's obligation to make sure tax money is being used properly, and 2) the overall efficacy of welfare being jeopardized by widespread irresponsibility. DEPENDENCY: Pro basically just ties this to his automation argument to show that dependency is inevitable. I will address this point in-depth in the section entitled "Robot Apocalypse". COST: Pro says GMI is cheaper because it doesn't touch social security, but that is a non-unique... Pro's own estimates clearly showed a $228 Billion difference, so I'm not sure why he's going back on that now... It is true that I am not taking the effort Pro took to try giving numerical estimates of cost savings (mostly out of fear of inaccuracy), but my logic stands nonetheless-- the current system is already cheaper than GMI, and a reformed system would be at least as cheap, if not much cheaper. CASE-STUDY: Pro is correct; I was mistaken-- the cited paper is actually just an evaluation of a GMI proposal. However, it still should be considered as Con evidence because it is the only formal, academic study of GMI that I could find, and the fact that it condemned the policy as being detrimental is still empirical confirmation of the above points. == Robot Apocalypse == Pro conveniently ignores my most fatal objection to this argument-- that full-scale automation is going to result in widespread poverty regardless of what social safety net we have in place. Any welfare system relies on a large population of self-sufficient tax-payers in order to continue supporting a relatively small population of dependents. However, Pro is telling us that as a result of technological advancement, the majority of those tax-payers are going to be put out of work and turned into dependents. That's like taking a mule which is already carrying its maximum capacity, breaking three of its legs, and then forcing it to carry an additional 500 pounds-- the mule is going to collapse and drop all its weight. So by making total automatization seem inevitable, Pro is basically admitting that GMI is unsustainable and doomed to fail... Fortunately, technology is probably *not* going to replace human labor to that extent, due to the social factors described last round. In response, Pro just quotes a line from my source which affirms his position; however, the only reason that source was included was to show that the technology to build a fully-automated fast food restaurant exists. In reality, the article's conclusion does not follow from its content, because no major fast food chain has actually made any serious attempt at adopting this new technology. Simply put, most businesses are not willing to go that far to maximize profits; the social benefits of primarily utilizing human labor outweigh the potential increase in productivity. I also argued that the government could simply place restrictions on businesses to stop them from engaging in full-scale automation. Pro responds by saying "let the companies be more productive and redistribute some of the profits." But this is completely misguided because "some of the profits" of automated companies is not *nearly* enough to guarantee a minimum income for the number of unemployed people which Pro anticipates (i.e. most of the population). This is especially true since people would at most be earning $15000 a year, which obviously means a lot less spending and way lower profits for businesses in general. The loss of potential productivity looks negligible in comparison to the widespread and incorrigible poverty which would result from full-scale automation. So we have three ways to look at this argument: either (1) businesses are going to voluntarily abstain from fully automating because it isn't practical, (2) the government will place restrictions on automatization in order to avoid a virtual apocalypse, or (3) virtual apocalypse. In any case, GMI doesn't seem to be particularly helpful, and thus the argument doesn't affirm the resolution. Especially not since welfare reform is preferable to GMI as a social safety net anyways. ************ The resolution is negated!

Resolved: The US ought to provide a UBI I'll cover framework, case, and off case respectively.Going over framework.It's fair to say that my opponent dropped his value criterion of generic consistiency and my value criterion of consquentialism. Therefore all impacts should be decided through a consquentialist framework. The value of Kantian Social Contract is better supported on the negation, as we avoid the disadvantages of the aff plan. The social contract as explained by Kant is the agreement between individuals and the goverment for the individual to give up some rights to ensure the goverment protects the remaining. However, criminals violate others rights through murder, plunder, theft or such. Therefore, they don't have the same rights as the average citizen as they have broken the social contract. For example, a criminal may suffer from disenfranchisment, incarceration, capital punishment or such as punishment.Going over case.Overall, my opponent fails to realize that via establishing a partial basic income brings all the same benefits as UBI, and avoids the disadvantages of crime and terror and welfare magnets. The partial basic income is still supplied to the common American, solving everything that my opponent says is unique to UBI. We both solve for poverty, economic equality, gender equality, drug abuse, health care, and education. Overall, all the affirmative advantages are nonunique, since neg also solves.Going over my opponent's attack on my C1 on crime and terror. First, I'll appeal myself to the good will of the spectators and my opponent. Where did I ever breathe a word, or even the edge of a word that UBI would be a $10,000 monthly payment. I'm sorry to say, but my opponent fails to realize the proper definitions of words. According to Merriam-Webster, annually is defined as occurring or happening every year or once a year. Cambridge Dictionary agrees: once per year. Holidays are celebrated ANNUALLY, birthdays are occur ANNUALLY, and anniversaries happen ANNUALLY. Completely ignore everything my opponent says on this faulty basis. What must be said, however, is that UBI proponents disagree what quantitatively is a basic income. Some say $10,000, others say $12,000, while others advocate for higher. I'll take the $12,000 number, however it can very well be said that my opponent is making a rod for his own back. If we pick the higher of the two, Tango Blast would receive $228,000,000 annually, only worsening the problem. I'll further elaborate the impacts. According the FBI's report on the National Gang Threat Assessment, there are approximately 1.4 million active gang members. Given that, this would give organized crime groups $16,800,000,000 annually. This would only further expand their massive criminal enterprises and such, exacerbating their power in the global sphere.Now my opponent asks how are criminals going to receive these funds? Very important question indeed? Nonetheless, they would receive it the same way everyone else would, whatever that may be. Many criminals have bank accounts, and pay their taxes and such, and under UBI, the government would treat them like any other citizen.My opponent drops my point on domestic terror and FBI watch lists, and by extension admitting that under the affirmative domestic terrorism would by increased in both number and severity. Imagine the pointless, violent bloodshed in say Orlando, or Las Vegas, or Parkland or such, only exacerbated with military grade weaponry. Under the affirmative, the school walkouts would need a great deal more than just 17 minutes for the lives lost.On the point of wrongful convictions, most of these are done through plea bargains. Misdemeanor convictions are almost always the standard with them, meaning that the Now lets go over my C2 on immigration.First, this is merely basic logic. Currently in the status quo, many immigrants illegally come to our country to bear children, ensuring they are US citizens. Then as their children are US citizens, they too want citizenship status. UBI grants additional incentives, since they don't even need to work to survive. Setting a 10 year limit ensures that immigrants are able to become productive members of society, and don't come here just for welfare.Second, immigration does in fact have consquences. Mass illegal immigration would encourage Trump to engage in mass deportations to maintain his Republican base, and to be hard on immigration. Mass deportations of that sort haven't exactly the best history in this country. For example, during the mass deportation during the Great Depression, Hispanic homes were raided, regardless of who they were, and were forced onto south bound trains to Central America and Mexico. This permantly seperated families, and sent multitudes into a country that many never knew. Third, I made no economic concerns about UBI in regard to immigration. This point is mute. I expect immigrants to kickstart their lives by getting a job. It isn't the goverment' job to support someone just because they moved here, they need to prove their worth.The CP solves this disadvantage by preventing legal immigrants from getting a UBI till they have been here 10 years. For these reasons I strongly urge a negative ballot.Since I have characters remaining, here's a word of warning. Never ask for a doggie bag in Pyeonchang.

Guaranteed Minimum Income Thanks for the debate, Thett. == Libertarian Ethics == Pro states that this is a "policy" debate in an attempt to reject my libertarian ethical argument off-hand, yet nowhere in the opening round is this stated. There is nothing in the resolution implying that we are strictly limited to "pragmatic" utilitarian arguments. The resolution simply states that the US *should* adopt GMI-- what exactly "should" implies is up for debate. This argument shows that what the US government *should* do is determined by libertarian ethical principles; yet Pro has still made absolutely no attempt at refuting said principles, instead deferring to an unsubstantiated consequentialist standard to judge libertarian policies. For that reason alone, this argument succeeds in negating the resolution and warrants a Con vote. Because it is categorically immoral for the government to use its force to redistribute property, the government should not implement GMI or any other form of welfare-spending. Pro tells us that there are substantial utilitarian harms in allowing the poor to starve. I agree. However, that doesn't mean that the government should be allowed to force people to support the poor via redistribution-- it simply means that it is in our self-interest to voluntarily choose to be altruistic. That does nothing to support GMI. Pro says that we can't rely on altruism to support the poor, yet he contradicts himself by noting that the whole tithe business from medieval Europe was *voluntary*, and that it *did* do an adequate job of supporting the poor (for a while). In addition, he never responds to my point that super-low taxes = a wealthier populace = much more altruism. Pro also never responds to my observation that "the most libertarian society on Earth" was successful and stable for nearly a millennium, which blatantly contradicts his claim that a society cannot be run on libertarian principles; so even under a consequentialist standard, libertarianism passes the buck. This contention is a resounding Con win. == Reform vs. GMI == Pro ignores all my arguments in favor of the feasibility of welfare reform, simply dismissing them with the logic that "if it were that easy, we would already be doing it". But that reasoning is ridiculous-- it can pretty much be used to argue against making any sort of progress at all. I can use the same fallacious reasoning to say that "if it were that easy to implement GMI, then we already would have implemented something like it." Pro is blatantly contradicting himself by suggesting that the government is capable of scrapping everything and setting up an entirely new system but incapable of merely changing up the current system a bit. Publicizing welfare benefits, scrapping redundant programs, re-establishing work requirements, and hunting down the sources of corruption and inefficiency within the system-- I have demonstrated that all of these would have a huge positive impact on the overall efficacy of the welfare system, and that they can easily be accomplished if the government were to make a concentrated effort at it (which would be necessary to implement GMI as well). The bottom line is that welfare reform is just as feasible as implementing the GMI, if not *more* feasible. Pro keeps talking about the administrative costs of a reformed system, but really, such costs don't matter if they are allowing the system to do its job (alleviating poverty) better than it otherwise would. Pro has not even attempted to contest my evidence that the work requirements substantially reduced poverty and increased employment rates; instead he has just railed against the higher administrative costs they incurred. What Pro fails to realize is that not all bureaucracy is inherently bad; if used properly, government regulation can be quite effective, as is the case with work requirements, and efficacy is ultimately more important than simplicity. And on the subject of efficacy, Pro keeps citing the 30% stat to show how bad the government is at enforcing rules, but he neglects to notice that number came from *after* Obama stopped strictly enforcing work requirements. Obviously, very few people are going to bother to continue working if they can receive the same benefits without doing anything. This just shows that having strict work requirements in place does have a profound effect on dependency rates. Anyways, the point is irrelevant because, on balance, reforms *would* reduce complexity-- scrapping/merging the many, many redundant programs out there would result in enormous administrative cost-savings, and in conjunction with the cost-savings that would come from reducing dependency, it would easily outweigh the costs of re-establishing work requirements. Pro claims that GMI is less expensive because it doesn't touch social security, but again, neither does the welfare system, so I really have no idea what he's trying to get at here... furthermore, he commits the same sin of vagueness he's been accusing me of by saying that social security can "easily" be incorporated into GMI, without actually proposing how that could be done. Pro's central thesis is that the welfare system is so broken that it would be better to just replace it, but he's given *no* reason to believe it can't be fixed other than an elaborate description of the sorry state of the status quo. Meanwhile, I have provided several different general approaches the government could take to reform the current system, many of which have been empirically shown to be highly effective in the past, and none of which would take more effort on the part of the government than implementing GMI would. A reformed system is preferable to GMI because 1) it does a far better job of ensuring accountability on the part of recipients, 2) it actually has a mechanism for reducing dependency and getting people to become self-sufficient, 3) it costs roughly the same as GMI even in the worst-case scenario, and 4) the *only* academic evaluation of a GMI proposal thus far has turned out decidedly negative results. Thus, a pragmatic analysis of things leads us to the conclusion that we should reject GMI in favor of a welfare reform bill. == Robot Apocalypse == First of all, remember that both the libertarian argument and the counter-plan defeat this case. Pro notes that the reason this next wave of technological advancement is fundamentally different from all the ones before it is because there is literally no chance of humanity as a whole ever regaining its economic value-- and that is *precisely* why technology will *not* be replacing human labor on the scale that Pro predicts. No one wants that to happen; the people want to keep their jobs, the businesses want consumers to have spending money, and the government wants to avoid having society's economic structure decimated. Everyone loses if automation replaces human labor, and for that reason, either voluntarily or as a result of government regulation, businesses will not be adopting the new technology to the extent that Pro claims. The productivity boost would be completely and utterly outweighed by the effects of widespread poverty; even if GMI worked out, it would still mean that the vast majority of the population would be restricted to a subsistence-level wage, which would be an enormous blow to an economy based in mass-consumerism. But the GMI *won't* work in such a situation. As explained last round, there would be no way for the GMI to remain functional when the population of dependents it has to support vastly outnumbers the population of tax-payers which fund it. Pro says we can "change the tax structure", but he never explains how. If it is at all possible, we would literally have to raise corporate and income tax rates to near 100% in order to continue supporting the rest of the dependent population, which would completely erase any incentive to continue being economically productive. Simply changing the tax structure isn't going to work. Trying to financially support hundreds of millions of people with the earnings of a couple million is beyond absurd. So no, it is not in our self-interest to support GMI because either 1) the mass-automatization Pro speaks of is not really going to occur, or 2) mass-automatization will occur within the next two decades and any social safety net we have in place is going to collapse almost immediately afterwards. GMI barely does anything to help in either case. ============ CONCLUSION ============ Some reasons to vote Con in today's debate: 1. GMI is unethical, in accordance with libertarian ethical principles which I fully warranted and Pro did not even attempt to refute 2. Reforming the current welfare system is a viable option which has numerous advantages over GMI 3. GMI is practically useless regardless of how the impending wave of technological advancement ends up affecting our lives The resolution is negated!

The United States should adopt a negative income tax. Thank you for the definition. You can be more specific about what plan for a negative income tax you support in your argument, so I will use this round to argue against the tax in general.Contention #1: A negative income tax decreases incentive to work.Experiments in Seatle and Denver tested the effectiveness of a negative income tax. The Stanford Research Institute analyzed the results and found a 9-18% reduction in productivity, and that 50-60% of those recieving the tax used it to replace wages they would have otherwise earned themselves. [1]The same study also found that the tax decreased family stability because families no longer relied on wage-earners.Contention #2: A negative income tax would be expensive to implement.Even proponents of the tax estimate a cost of $38 billion a year, and that is underestimated:"And if once the main principle of either proposal were accepted, the minimum subsidy or guarantee demanded would be bound constantly to increase. Anyone who doubts this need merely consult the history of unemployment insurance and Social Security benefits since those plans were initiated in the 1930s."Implementing this system would be very expensive, possibly reaching trillions of dollars.ConclusionA negative income tax would be ineffective because it decreases incentive to work and causes family instability, and it would also be costly.I will not have access to my computer this weekend, so I would appreciate it if you could take your time to respond.[1] http://www.econlib.org...[2] https://mises.org...

I will create worse essays than you (Troll debate) We all deserve a million dollars for free If we don't give everyone a million dollars, eventually no one will ever earn any kind of money. Would you really want no one to earn any kind of money? Without money, we would all starve and not be able to breathe. I've seen so much money being printed in this dream I had last week I can just imagine how easy it would be to give everyone in the USA a million dollars for free by dumping it out of a large air balloon. They say that money is the root of all evil, but they forget that money can buy drugs and booze. Everyone deserves to be given a million dollars for free because money is cash! The simple fact is, we either give everyone a million dollars or we're all gonna be broke and homeless. That's all there is to it. Everyone deserves a million dollars for free because money printers are greedy adulterers that don't want everyone to have a million dollars. Let's face it: if you were a true human being you would support giving everyone a million dollars for free. Haters might say that everyone getting a million dollars might cause inflation, but then how would everyone go hunt for firewood when they want to go camping? Everyone who doesn't support giving everyone a million dollars really just hates the poor. Truthfully, those people who oppose giving everyone this free money are just as bad as Hitler. Everyone is starting to support the idea so it must be true anyway. A baseball player hitting a home run is just the same as giving everyone free money and really drives my points home. I've given every reason for why we all deserve a million dollars for free.

Eliminate expensive administrative costs Most social welfare programs are paternalistically administrated by an army of public servants. Most programs have strict eligibility requirements and rules on spending welfare money - to ensure that public dollars are not wasted. Every dollar of benefit has to be accounted for to ensure that they are wisely spent on individuals' needs, rather than more sinister ways. While this is a noble objective, greater accountability requirements demand greater administrative resources. More social workers need to be hired to look over the shoulder of benefactors; more administrators are needed to ensure eligibility requirements are met; and more administrators are needed to administer the additional public servants. This adds layers after layers of bureaucracy and layers after layers of costs. In some countries, 40 per cent of government spending is on the wages and salaries of public servants. A negative income tax system would eliminate the unnecessary administrative burden, allowing governments to spend additional money on welfare or on other priorities. While this would inevitably invite corrupt spending of taxpayers money, certain studies have said that the benefit (greater resources from the eliminated bureaucracy to be reprioritized) outweighs the cost (the money that is unwisely wasted by certain individuals on, for example, drugs and alcohol).

Universal Basic Income Yo accepto el debate

The United States should adopt a negative income tax. In this debate, we will be presenting support for a negative income tax (NIT). As defined in R1, a negative income tax is "A tax system where people earning below a certain amount receive supplemental pay from the government instead of paying taxes to the government". We will be proposing the negative income tax as being an essential part of overall tax and welfare reform, to ensure that government assistance is traceable, limited, and easily found as part of the overall tax system. Our case explicitly assumes a negative income tax as being a replacement for most, if not all, welfare programs and as one part of a broad simplification and reform of the tax system. Contention 1 - Negative income tax would reduce the size of bureaucracyOur insanely complex tax and welfare system is virtually unworkable outside of a small class of tax lawyers. Welfare payments are virtually untraceable, or at the very least requiring a massive bureaucracy to do so. To put it bluntly: our modern welfare and tax systems are broken. The negative income tax seeks to rectify a major problem: it simplies the welfare system and works broadly within the tax system. In other words, it isn't a separate bureaucracy, but rather a part of the tax system. To give an example, let's look at what noted libertarian economist and NIT proponent Milton Freidman proposed. The Economic Library sums his view up as follows:"The NIT would thus be a mirror image of the regular tax system. Instead of tax liabilities varying positively with income according to a tax rate schedule, benefits would vary inversely with income according to a negative tax rate (or benefit-reduction) schedule. If, for example, the threshold for positive tax liability for a family of four was, say, $10,000, a family with only $8,000 of annual income would, given a negative tax rate of 25 percent, receive a check from the Treasury worth $500 (25 percent of the $2,000 difference between its $8,000 income and the $10,000 threshold). A family with zero income would receive $2,500."[1]By being a mirror, or extension, of tax system, we reduce bureaucratic expenses. Rather than having hundreds of separate welfare programs, we have but a single program.Contention 2 - A negative income tax is better for the economyA major problem with modern welfare programs is their use of money. People are given welfare money, and it is limited to a single category: housing, food, education, etc. In effect, welfare implicitly assumes that it understands the needs of most, if not all, individuals who might need government assistance. The negative income tax opposes this view. The NIT is implicitly individualist; that is, it assumes people know best how to spend money, not the government.[2] The NIT is a superior method because it allows people to spend welfare in the way that works best for them and their families - it shifts accountability from government back to individuals, where it should be. Not only does it do that, however, it also allows businesses to benefit; rather than going to government to spend, or businesses having to send their food stamp or WIC vouchers to the government for redemption, the businesses get money. Again: we reduce costs, reduce waste, and increase individual accountability.Contention 3- The negative income tax allows better working conditionsKnowing that workers have a guaranteed income to fall back on empowers workers when negotiating contracts with employers. Workers know that if negotiations fail, they have a back-up plan and will not be forsaken. Employers know this also, forcing them to be more accomodating to worker demands, since workers can afford to quit. [3] All told, it is a unique way to benefit the workforce that no current welfare program offers.Contention 4 - The negative income tax encoruages and rewards workOur current welfare system haas been dubbed a "trap".[2] Because people get caught in it and can never get out. Why? Because there often is either no reason or in fact a downside to finding well-paying work. In our current system, increased pay can lead to ineligibility for benefits - more work can cause a net loss in income. Gradual income growth is often impossible.[2] In contrast, the negative income tax rewards work; working does not cause nearly as sever a penalty. Once one crosses the NIT threshold, of course, they lose those benefits, but they don't lose any net money.Contention 5 - The current welfare system defies logic; the negative income tax embraces logicPeople in poverty have different issues, but they all share a single, overarching concern: a lack of money. Our current welfare model assumes the best way to address this problem is to create a vast, inefficient bureaucracy that provides specific needs, spread out over dozens of organizations with different elgibility levels, costs, and methods of aid. To put it bluntly, this sytem is insane. It makes no sense. If the issue is that people need money, why on earth are we creating such a complex solution - and one that, simply put, hasn't eliminated the problem?The negative income tax, in contrast, operates logically. If the issue is that poor people don't have money, and we presume the government has an obligation to address this problem, why not just give people money?[4] Rather than having a virtual army of bureaucrats providing different services, offer one service designed to specifically address the problem? That's the brilliance of the negative income tax: a simple solution to a complex problem.We look forward to the opposing team's next round.References1. http://www.econlib.org...2. https://medium.com...3. http://www.theatlantic.com...4. http://www.nytimes.com...

Income is not necessarily proportional to 'hard work' Higher salary does not equals harder work. Some of the hardest jobs implicate lower salary. Most of the high payed persons in the companies are having easy working places that beside good position often gives additional benefits and bonuses. Capitalism is a system where "hard work" is not in proportion with "high salary" and therefore the negative income tax-model will not penalize the hard working persons, but under contrary it will put balance between hard-working people with lower salary, and persons who are receiving their income on "easy" way, trough company profits, shares and other benefits.

It would be much simpler and fairer There simply isn't enough money in the treasury to pay people who don't have work and people who find work. Work should be an incentive in itself. The vast majority of people on benefits have no desire to stay on them. It leaves very little to live on, and it carries a social stigma that people want to avoid. There is no need to further incentivize work. The benefits system is necessarily complex because people have different needs, such as incapacity benefit, child benefit and unemployment benefit. If we reduced this to a single flat rate, then some people would lose out.

Abolishing and Eliminating Currency is a viable proposal. I'll just jump right in I suppose... My opponent states that SS is already active in people's lives and that it should be expanded to providing benefits earlier. But he fails to address the real heart of my argument here. It's not as simple as "you get out what you put in right away" which is how he perceives it. Instead, it's "I put in a little over a long period of time so I can take out a lot over a small period of time." The reason it MUST be this way is because we require a lot of consumption. And by require I include want. And I'm not sure my opponent understands SS very well at all. SS is a bank. I put in a percentage of my paycheck every time towards SS. It doesn't record how many hours I work, but rather how much I made. If I make a lot of money, more money is put into my SS. Then, when I retire, I have that money saved up in SS checks. Sorry to say this, but that's a bank...only without the interest. You can't say that the USFG shouldn't be involved in setting an across the board ruling when you're asking them to do just that. The USFG would be required to set an across the board ruling in EVERY INSTANCE because they're the ones giving the people what they require to survive. So they will absolutely have to be involved...they'll be the only one's involved. Now let's address the point that really loses you the argument. "A rocket scientist's time is equal to that of a ditch digger." Wrong. In fact, the very reason it isn't equal, is because of the amount of specialization it takes to SEND SOMEONE TO THE MOON!!! A ditch digger has absolutely no idea where to start, where the rocket scientist can still dig a ditch. Specialization is what drives economies. You're asking people to put in a lot of effort, a lot of time, and a lot of suffering to get what someone who answers phone calls get. This cannot be the case. This is where the real argument lies in this debate. This is where you should be focusing your response. Someone risked everything to create Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Samsung, McDonald's, etc...without the risk vs. reward factor, you have people stop taking risks. This plan removes the reward from entrepreneurship. You lose small business owners because they get the same thing everyone else gets while working considerably harder for it. You lose CEO's because they like being rich and you're giving them some bread and cheese for dinner when they want prime rib. You're losing the entire upper class of people, which means most middle class people don't have places to work. So now, it's up to the government to create jobs. And the way they do this, is by opening factories, running farms, etc...The problem with this, is that they're now the cheapest in the industry, and all other business in those markets are now beaten by the unstoppable force of the government. Because the government isn't selling their goods, they're giving them away. You can't compete with free. So VERY SOON after this idea comes into play, the government is the only producer of goods. The reason this is bad, is because then people stop investing into R&D. The government doesn't need to make their products better because nobody is competing against them. They're 100% of the market. So new drugs don't get created and diseases don't get cured. New video games aren't created and I'm stuck at home bored. New science isn't discovered and we're still less than 50% on making it to the moon. This is a severe problem. People don't want mediocrity. And even less than that they don't want less that. You're creating A Brave New World without the caste system, and that's worse than Huxley's vision. At least in Huxley's book we were happy with our class. Now we've all become the same class. A very boring, dreary, and lower class. Lastly, the consumptive ideal isn't what places pressure on aspects of our lives to spend. There is no pressure on our lives to spend save what we want their to be. Those who don't want to spend, don't. Those who do want to spend, do. That's just simple truth. I'm given the right to decide what I want, and the market responds to that. It's not a market driven and consumer reactive system here. Quite the opposite. If the consumers don't want bananas...bananas won't be produced. It's reliant upon what the consumer wants. The companies that figure this out faster and better than others succeed. That's how it works. You're removing the consumer from the market and telling us there will still be suppliers. That's just illogical. There's absolutely no basis in reality for this idea to work. Don't hold any of the arguments that he missed against him please. The real heart of the argument has been addressed by both sides. This shouldn't be judged on who had the most arguments and who responded to what. Make sure the ideas behind this debate are argued. There are a lot of people who agree with my opponent here, and ideas have consequences. This is a BAD, BAD, BAD, TERRIBLY BAD, idea. I'll take the negatives that come with consumerism over this idea any day of the year. Don't hear me saying that our current system is perfect, because it's not. But this is not the right way to go about fixing it. Just because pure greed is a bad thing doesn't mean that no greed is the way to fix it. There has to be a middle ground here. If you're really interested in these ideas of market principles and how we as human beings can solve for poverty and hunger and other things that the very system produces, read Friedrich Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom."

That UBI should be implemented in the western world As someone who lives in Australia and has personal experience with the Aboriginal debate, you are again misinformed. I will now lay out my rebuttal Rebuttal Popularity Difference between income card and UBI Abolish not refine Addressing your point on popularity. This debate is about whether they should do so, not how the government would get it through Parliament. Besides, your reason for the popularity was a $20,000 proposal. However, I am proposing a $10,000 UBI, which as logic entails is the correct amount of the budget. You pointed out that the income card doesn't work. This is true, but that is not what we are suggesting, isn't a card to control what you spend your welfare on, which is what an income card is, we are suggesting we give them money free for them to spend. You said that we should refine the welfare instead of replacing it with completely different system, however, the welfare program has been proven not to work as any amount above it's small benefit window and you lose the welfare leaving you with less. In conclusion, UBI is a better system, as opposed to normal welfare. This debate is not about getting it through Parliament, or what completely different systems do. This debate is about, what has already been proven as the better system, UBI.

Guaranteed Minimum Income I. CounterplanCon cites the 1996 Welfare work requirements as an example of what we should do. First, turn this argument. Daily Kos[1] explains that after the work requirement was implemented in 1996 the administrative costs of welfare skyrocketed from around 14% to nearly 30% by the early 2000's. Throughout this entire process, the average benefits stagnated. Follow Cons plan and all you do is put more money into the pockets of bureaucrats. In addition, Cons argument that the welfare system is failing due to Obama removing the work requirements is false. Factcheck[2] tells us that arguments that Obama "gutted" the work requirement are greatly exaggerated. According to Factcheck, the only real effect of the work requirement was to bog administrations down with paperwork: "The new work-participation rules did have one impact on states: They were time-consuming to comply with and counterproductive to helping people find jobs, as documented by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office in a 2010 report." Obama allowed states to bypass this wasted time if they met certain stringent requirements to gain a waiver. Thus Con gains nothing here because his proposal is already happening and probably isn't good policy anyway. Only 29.4% of people receiving assistance actually met the work requirement in 2009 according to Factcheck so the current system doesn't work anyway. Obama added flexibility to the welfare system. This is exactly the type of reform Con wants, but according to him it is exactly this reform that's causing our system to not produce results.Con isn't offering any real solutions except for a work requirement that already exists. It's easy to say that he would "reform" the system if he's not going to be specific. It's not fair for me to have to argue against some amorphous plan of "scrapping/merging unnecessary programs." Part of Cons plan to slim down the welfare system is to throw even more paperwork in it's path by crafting regulations to prevent improper payments, but these improper payments happen precisely because the system is disparate and bogged down in paperwork.Con says "...if the government is capable of transforming the status quo's byzantine bureaucratic monstrosity into something as simple as the GMI, then it is also capable of steadily reforming the system..." Here's the difference: My policy destroys red tape. Cons plan piles it on. That about sums up the differences between our advocacies. ==My case==Note first that other than his counterplan, Con has no case of his own. If I take out his counterplan, the only way he can win is to have enough offense coming off of his rebuttals to my arguments to outweigh.I. Policy a) AccountabilityFirst, turn this argument. In his article about Appalachia, Kevin Williamson explains how many of the dependent actually spend their food stamp handouts on cases of soda to be bought by drug manufacturers, who give them 50 cents on the dollar[3]. People prefer cash. It's true that much of the money would be used irresponsibly, but it's used irresponsibly in the status quo as well, except in the status quo the poor often don't even get their full share. At least under my system the irresponsible would hopefully have enough money left over to care for their families. Obviously it's very irking to think that money taken from the pockets of the hardworking will be used by the irresponsible, which is why Cons argument registers so well on an emotional level. The problem is, it's just a trade off we have to make if we want to help the deserving needy, and we should prefer a system that gives everyone more money than one that gives everyone except worthless bureaucrats less. The irresponsible are going to be irresponsible either way. Moreover as irking as this argument is, the idea that 25% of the costs of the welfare system are administrative should inspire equal wrath. Irresponsibility is bad at any level.The current system does nothing for accountability, either. Con says that we should only support welfare programs if we are assured that all of the money actually helps the poor, in which case we should reject his entire case because we know that overhead costs are jaw dropping and the status quo isn't forcing responsibility. Less than a third of people actually met the so called "work requirement".b) DependencyDependency or death is inevitable. As technology marches forward, jobs are lost. Historian Yuval Harari tells us[4]: "...in the 21st century, there is a good chance that most humans will lose, they are losing, their military and economic value...the biggest question of 21st century economics is what will be the need in the economy for most people in the year 2050...this is where we have to take seriously, the possibility that even though computers will still be far behind humans in many different things, as far as the tasks that the system needs from us are concerned, most of the time computers will be able to do better than us."Times are changing. Even if Harari is wrong and most humans will still be economically useful, it's going to take a long time before the economy adjusts to accommodate everyone. As policymakers we should establish the principle of GMI now, before it's too late. As humans, we are losing are economic value--let's not lose our moral value as well.Con cites CATO as if it's surprising that people who literally refuse to take handouts when they are in poverty are less likely to end up depending on the government their entire lives. c) Cost/QuebecI do not concede that GMI will cost more than the current system. It's far cheaper because we can almost afford it without even *touching* Social Security, the biggest component of the federal budget which can easily be worked into a GMI. There really is not much to say here except that Con concedes that much of the cost of the status quo comes from a complicated system that he claims he can fix without giving many solutions. I gave a detailed explanation of my system and the math used to reach my cost estimates. Con can't even give you his "savings". Moreover, Con argues that we should engage in a publicity campaign to get more people more benefits, which will eat into any savings he manages to procure. Ignore the Quebec evidence--Quebec didn't try a GMI as my opponent claims, rather they *proposed* it and the paper is analyzing the viability of a proposed GMI that didn't accompany any changes in the existing welfare structure. It's classic apples to oranges. II. PrincipleLibertarianismCon doesn't get to argue that we should keep the welfare system while also arguing that "the only plausible role of the government is to accept tax money in order to protect the rights of the tax-payers from being violated." If extreme libertarian ethics are true, we should prefer them and just abolish the welfare system totally. But hardcore libertarian ethics aren't true--or at least, you can't run a society with them. Let's examine libertarian societies of the past. It will surprise many to learn that there was a nearly 1000 year period in Western history where government was limited and decentralized. Where much of sovereignty was derived from a a personal rather than territorial tie. Where property owners could essentially do whatever they wanted and where ties were typically "private, personal and contractual"[5]. It was called Feudalism and was the dominant political and economic system in medieval times.We can see the effects of technology on these people living in a libertarian society. Lynn Nelson[6] explains how increases in farming productivity drove millions of peasants out of work and forced them into destitution. How did medieval society react? The state, at the request of the church, commanded a 10% tithe of all production to help the poor. Parts of feudal Europe were probably the most libertarian societies in history, and even they realized that you can't just leave people to die for reasons both ethical and practical. It's immoral to let the pauper starve so the aristocrat can buy a new robe, just as it's impractical to tell the starving masses to "eat cake", or else they'll rise up and chop off your head. The best way to protect private property from the destitute is to treat them with kindness and respect by guaranteeing them the means to survive. The parallels to our current situation are on point. Con says I don't establish an "ethical framework", but all I'm doing is following basic intuitions that it's probably not a good idea to let people starve to death just because the economy has left them behind. Even if you think my opponent is right about libertarianism, let's follow the example of the most libertarian society in history and protect private property by having a fair and efficient welfare system.b) AutomizationI've already hit on this under dependency, so cross apply.Con says that new technology doesn't axe jobs, but his source *literally* ends by saying: "What happens after that should be clear to everyone: more unemployment, lower wages for the remaining employees, worse worker morale, but even higher profits to holders of capital. And so on. Because in a world in which technology makes the unqualified worker utterly irrelevant, this is what is known as 'progress.'" Remember, 47% of jobs are about to become obsolete. Businesses may keep some token workers for good PR, but not enough. Contra Con, this process is already happening and has been for some time. This nation is littered with hundreds of former mill towns as proof.Con makes the very libertarian argument that the state should stop companies from adopting new technology, but this is the worst of both worlds as it decreases productivity. Let the companies be more productive and redistribute some of the profits. Sources:1. http://goo.gl...2. http://goo.gl...3. http://goo.gl...4. http://goo.gl...5. Robert Nisbet. Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary. Pp 125-1316. http://goo.gl...

Destroys incentive to work Once you have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life, there would no incentive to earn any more. If you can pass some on to your children, you can justify working until you are too old to do it. A lot of middle class workers are docters, entreprenuers, plumbers and other important parts of the economy. Prevent them passing on their money will prevent important work being done.

We should not spoon feed adults There is a huge unemployment crisis in our midst. We can not simply ignore this by claiming something along the Neanderthal lines of : every man fend for himself. As Thomas Hobbes declared and I paraphrase: Institutions bring out the civility in all of us; where civility is covering our short,mean,ugly and competitive selves with a veneer of kindness. If we forget to care; we all lose out as in Prisoners' dilemma: Nash equilibrium. We cannot let the brutish spirit that rots our very souls deny justice and humanity towards fellow human beings. We are aware of corruption/nepotism/luck/the-continuing-stable-discrepancy-between-economic-classes. We know that life isn't fair and therefore cannot stand and watch as these factors, which are no fault of the students; determine their/our fate.

Vouchers for Basics of Life Limits People's Freedom of Choice Giving out cash rather than vouchers for basics of life, as in SQ, allows people to use the money freely, thus satisfying some of their personal needs, while vouchers limit freedom of choice. It’s just like the government telling people what to wear or eat. These people still have rights to pursue their own needs, for unemployment is not always a vice. Those people eligible for unemployment benefits have all once been employed full time, and it was not their fault that they got laid off. Furthermore, the idea of limiting freedom of choice as a means of forcing people to search for jobs is both contrary to democratic beliefs and debilitating. According to the democratic ideology, the state must serve its people. While it seems that the government is rescuing its people from destitution, it is, in fact, sacrificing people’s needs for better economy. Does the government really have rights to use people’s money however they want? Vouchers impose limitations to where people can shop. When such a high percentage of the population is unemployed, forcing these people to shop at large chain stores would negatively impact revenue for small local businesses. Those people who prefer to support small businesses would be unable to do so. Unemployment benefits are reserved for the case of economic emergency. Therefore, the government has no jurisdiction on how the benefits are to be spent. With cash, unemployed people can maintain better life quality altogether with basic necessities, which is why they have saved and paid the government 1.5% of their income. What is more, not allowing unemployed people pursue their personal needs simply pressures both the people and the society. The people would be forced to give up their private life and live as the government would have them to instead.

It would encourage low income earners to work. Any system which attempts to promote equality by giving low income people money will necessarily create a disincentive to work. The negative income tax reduces that disincentive because there is a reward to work on the margins. Suppose that the negative tax rate is 40%; for every dollar that a low income person earns within the negative tax bracket they will take home 60c (the remaining 40c is deducted from the supplementary income payment, as the 'No' argument correctly identifies). Under a system with an unemployment benefit however the incentives are far worse; as the benefit is removed or substantially reduced if any work is taken up. This means that in order for the incentive to take a job to exist the incomes have to be substantially higher than the unemployment benefit (i.e. you actually LOSE money if you take up a part time job); which is unlikely as the vast majority of people on the unemployment benefit lack the skills to earn high incomes.

The United States should adopt a negative income tax. Thank you to Bob and Shab for the debate. Good luck if you advance.Just a general note to the voters: please recognize Con didn't offer a shred of evidence to attack our case. Prefer our evidence-based case to our opponents' logic-based rebuttal. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with logic - but if the evidence proves the contrary, which it does here, we have to side with the evidence. Vote Pro on this alone.We're going to provide key voting issues on which the debate should be decided.1. Reduction of BureaucracyCon concedes this to be true. It's just a matter of whether it's a benefit. We showed that this reduces cost (more in Voting Issue 2) and also reduces unnecessary government control on our lives. It is safe to say that individuals will, on balance, make wise decisions with their money. The opponents make a distinction between this belief and the belief that the poor will spend money wisely. However, just like the rest of the population, the majority of the poor will utilize their finances properly. Therefore, the reduction of bureaucracy is a good thing due to the reduction of cost and unnecessary oversight.2. Reduction of CostsWe proved that this system is significantly cheaper. This is an obvious benefit that goes Pro. While the opposition claims costs would increase (again, with no evidence), we demonstrated an NIT would cost less than 1/13th the current welfare system. It is safe to say we won here.3. Incentive to WorkOur opponents' idea of decreased incentive to work is ridiculous, based on information that is outdated at best or incorrect at worst. We completely refuted their study in the third round. Don't let them pull this through.4. Empowerment of WomenRemember, we turned this against our opponents. Women gain financial independence and can break free from troubled relationships. Our opponents' have no response here.Therefore, we have four key arguments in our favor and our opponents have none, as their summary is disproven by our voting issues 1 & 3. Since Pro is the only side with arguments still standing, we can see no other vote than Pro. Thank you!

Unemployment benefit should be paid in the form of vouchers for food, shelter and the basics of life Vouchers for Basics of Life Limits People's Freedom of Choice

Resolved: The US ought to provide a UBI You know the rules. Your aff, so skip your last speech so we have an equal number of speeches. I know LD doesn't work that way either, but this is debate.org and I do what I want.

Replace Welfare with the Negative Income Tax To start off, I will introduce my proposal by explaining why the current system needs to be changed and why the negative income tax is a superior model to welfare. After, I will explain why a negative income tax system is superior to having no governmental means of helping the poor. The Welfare System has Failed Since the declaration of the war on poverty by Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960's, poverty in this country still remains a major issue, with a total of 50 million people living below the poverty line, and the overall poverty rate fixed at around 15% (1). Despite the fact that federal and total welfare spending has increased drastically over the past 3 decades, one can see in the graph above that the poverty rate has remained stagnant (1). With so many people still in poverty, the question is raised if whether or not the current welfare system is an effective method of reducing poverty. Economists have analyzed the effects of welfare and have determined that there are significant problems that have led it to being ineffective and even harmful to the very people it is intended to be help. As Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman explained, "Our present de facto guaranteed annual income is a mess. It is expensive and most of the money goes to people who are not by any stretch of the imagination poor. It involves a tremendous bureaucracy, wide-spread intervention into the operation of the market system in areas that have nothing to do with poverty, and inexcusable interferences with the individual freedom and dignity of the truly poor who receive assistance, let alone of the rest of us" (2). Instead of continuing on with the current welfare system, I propose to replace welfare with a negative income tax system (or NIT). The negative income tax is the best method for helping the poor because it incentivizes work, is extremely efficient, has very low administrative costs, is less intrusive on people's lives, and more effectively gives poor people what they need to live: money. How the Negative Income Tax Works So, what is the negative income tax? First proposed by Friedman, the NIT is a type of tax where people earning below a certain amount of money receive supplemental pay from the government instead of paying taxes to the government. If one makes below this minimum income floor, people are given money from the government equal to 50% of the minimum income floor minus their income. People that earn more than the minimum income are taxed only on the additional money they receive above that minimum income. For example, let's say that the minimum income floor is $20,000 a year. If the floor is $20,000, a person making no income would be given a $10,000 subsidy from the government. If a person becomes employed and makes $10,000 a year, he would receive an additional $5,000 from the government, making his annual total income $15,000. If someone makes $20,000 a year, he would not being given money nor be required to pay an income tax. If someone earns $30,000 a year, a tax would be required only on the additional $10,000 that he makes above the $20,000 floor. In this system, it would ensure that no individual has less than $10,000 dollars to live off of. In the case of families, the poverty line increases for every additional person in the household, but less money is required when compared to households of single individuals. For every additional member of the household, the minimum income floor would increase by $10,000 a year. For example, a family of four making no income would receive $25,000 from the government. This amount would keep that family slightly above the federal poverty line, which is at $23,850 (3). The family would need to make $50,000 to neither be subsidized nor taxed. The Negative Income Tax Would be Cheaper than Welfare From what was explained in the earlier section, it may seem as though this system would be too costly for the country to handle. In fact, one of the most prominent reasons that the NIT is better than the current welfare system is that it would decrease costs substantially. In total, the United States spends nearly $1 trillion every year to fight poverty. That amounts to $20,610 for every poor person in America, or $61,830 per poor family of three. The federal government alone spent $668 trillion on 126 different programs to fight poverty. This federal spending amounts to $14,848 for every poor person in this country.(1) The graph below illustrates how total welfare spending is actually much higher than the amount of money it would take to bring the income for a family of three above the poverty threshold. Also, each of the 126 federal welfare programs have their own method of administering benefits to the poor, but the majority of them are means tested. The problem with having so many means tested programs is that it becomes extremely costly to test and administer all of the benefits. Even worse, many of the social programs end up acting paternalistic in the way they administer the benefits. The purpose of having strict requirements and regulations is to ensure accountability of the welfare recipient, and ensure the recipient actually needs the resources. The result is hundreds of thousands of public servants being hired to determine whether a person is worthy or unworthy of the welfare benefits. Although it could make sense in some cases to administer welfare on a case by case basis, the amount of money spent to do such a task for millions of people is enormous and ends up being more harmful than beneficial. The accumulated waste of maintaining the welfare bureaucracy and its hundreds of different social programs is very inefficient, when the goal is the same for every program - reduce poverty. The Negative Income Tax Incentivizes Work More than Welfare So why is this system better than our current welfare system? The first major advantage is that it provides a greater incentive to work. Currently, the welfare system is designed in a way where one receives benefits only if they are in a certain tax bracket. If one makes enough money to bring them slightly above that tax bracket, they can lose the benefits given to them by one of the 126 different federal programs. This is a problem, because in many cases, the benefits one loses from attaining a job or getting a raise actually makes him or her lose more value in benefits than they would gain in the additional income. This unfortunate consequence of the welfare system is what destroys the incentive to work and move up the economic ladder. This circumstance is what economists refer to as the welfare trap. The welfare trap leads to an endless cycle of poverty among poor families and it is very difficult to get out of. The solution to the welfare trap problem is the NIT. The NIT is designed in a way where getting a job or a raise always makes one's total income and standard of living rise. This system ensures the incentive to work is always there, and it gives poor individuals the security in knowing that they will always have monetary help from the government when they need it. The pathway to upward mobility would finally be opened to millions of poor Americans who have been stuck in a system which unintentionally keeps them in poverty. But wouldn't giving money out to everyone, no questions asked, also decrease the incentive to work? The answer is the same as the current system, yes. The better question is, which system minimizes that disincentive to work the most? Milton Friedman answers by saying, "Like any other measures to alleviate poverty, it reduces the incentives of those helped to help themselves, but it does not eliminate that incentive entirely, as a system of supplementing incomes up to some fixed minimum would. An extra dollar earned always means more money available for expenditure"(4). Rebuttal - Why the Government Ought to Help the Poor It appears that my opponent agrees with my premise that welfare has failed. What he disagrees with is what we should do in response to the failed system. He asserts that "the responsibility to take care of the poor will fall on themselves if they can manage". The problem with this idea is that many are not capable of taking care of themselves in their current circumstances. There are people all over this country that don't have employment opportunities open to them currently, and may be in dire need of basic necessities to simply live. Food, water, and shelter are required by every person, but they cost money. Not everyone has the ability to gain these resources at various times in their lives. My opponent indeed concedes the point that people may not be able to help themselves, and he gives an alternative solution, which is that "families and private charities can assist the poor if the poor cannot help themselves". This proposed solution has been verifiably unsustainable and insufficient, especially in times of severe economic recession. For instance, there simply wasn't enough charitable organizations and donations during the Great Depression to assist all of the unemployed, youth, the elderly, and stranded rural communities. As a result, the New Deal relief programs were necessary to ensure that people still had enough resources to survive. Today, as stated earlier, poverty is still a problem in this country, and private charity could never be counted on to effectively give assistance to the 10's of millions of people in need. Because of this, the government ought to have a means to help the poorest and most vulnerable in society, and the NIT is the most fair, efficient, cheapest, and effective means of assisting poor people and giving them the chance to get out of their troubled circumstances. Further arguments for the NIT will be given next round. Sources (all in link): http://www.multiurl.com...

It would encourage low income earners to work. It would provide a disincentive to those on low incomes to work as the higher the income the smaller the supplementary payment form the state.

A Government payout of 2000 GBP to every UK citizen each year would be a good idea OH YES! NO STRESS! PROWESS! NO CONTEST! THE BEST!

The Negative Income Tax I would like to debate the idea of a negative income tax. The idea is simple: The Gov sets a poverty threshold of X$, anyone earning below X$ would get the difference paid by the Gov. I recently made a poll about this topic and was surprised by how many people were against it. I also noticed that most people made claims that are simply not true. Therefore, I'm asking anyone interested, to debate this topic with me.

BIRT We should abolish the minimum wage. It is common knowledge that everyone is able to generate capital or income, but what happens in a society that does not provide opportunities people to develop? That, sadly, is the society we are living in right now. When employers pay more than than they earn to workers, their business will collapse. This means that if a worker can generate 7$ an hour in capital for the employer, the employer can only employ the worker at under than 7$ an hour in order to not receive a loss. When it becomes unprofitable for someone to be employed, that person won't be employed. Minimum wage laws make it so that anyone who generates capital below the MW unemployable, meaning a decrease in opportunity for unskilled workers. In addition to this, unskilled workers will no longer be able to develop the skills necessary for higher wage jobs since MW laws have destroyed their opportunity for improvement. No one stays in a low wage job forever since the capital the person can generate increases with every skill he has. Minimum wage laws have essentially created a situation in which people are unemployed because they can't generate enough capital, significantly hindering private sector development. Without minimum wages everyone is better off, whether you are the employer, or the employee. Refutations: 1. So called everyday essentials can always be provided by family or private philanthropy before one is able to sustain themselves. 2. Companies compete for workers, meaning that if one company doesn't pay its workers enough, they will simply move to other companies. This creates a situation in which almost all companies pay workers the same price for the same job. 3. In many cases, those who generate low capital can only work at low wages. The alternative is to be unemployed.

Unemployment benefit should be paid in the form of vouchers for food, shelter and the basics of life Vouchers for Basics of Life would Exacerbate the Economy

The U.S. ought to guarantee Universal Healthcare to its citizenry The burden of the Pro is to show that some form of UHC is, on principle, should be guaranteed to the citizens of the United States. The Pro does not have to pick a specific type of UHC to support, nor does it need to offer a policy to implement it. Merely, the debate is about whether, on a moral/principle level, UHC should be granted. The Con should show that, on principle, UHC ought not be guaranteed. My argument: Essentially, we must be free from concerns over our survival in order to pursue those goals, desires we need in order to live fulfilling and happy lives. If we were starving or unsafe, those factors would unduly preoccupy our lives and threaten our independence. Thus, it is my Contention that universal healthcare is necessary to achieve true autonomy, because to be able to e self-actualize we must sate our basic needs. Sub-point A: Without universal healthcare, millions are endangered. According to Prof. Alan Derickson, "the ranks of the uninsured swelled from 33 million in 1983, a year of severe recession, to 37 million in 1986, a year of buoyant recovery, underscoring"the degree to which this problem afflicted the employed as well as the unemployed"" Currently, about 50 million go without healthcare. Derickson goes on to point out that millions of Americans are jeopardized by uninsurance. "The real meaning of health insecurity is not the fears stirred by the lack of a reassuring plastic card in one"s wallet"lack of insurance means otherwise preventable death, disability, suffering, and loss. People without health insurance receive less care and, as a result, suffer higher rates of morbidity and mortality"about fifty Americans die every day from illness or injury because they have no insurance. Beneath the policy jargon and rhetoric"is a tragedy of human sacrifice." According to Prof. Jennifer Prah, "Lack of health care access increases risk exposure; failing to meet health needs when they occur can expose individuals to even greater risk of illness or injury later on. Illness itself brings vulnerabilities: a potential further decline in health." Prof. Leonard Fleck, agrees, noting: "The Institute of Medicine reports that about 20,000"uninsured Americans die each year for reasons directly connected to their lack of insurance"They die prematurely. How can a society as wealthy as our own that wishes to think of itself as "just and caring" tolerate that unnecessary loss of life?" This enormous and wanton loss of life reinforces the concept that healthcare is necessary to simply survive, let alone be autonomous agents. As I stated earlier: to be able to pursue self-actualization we must have our basic needs met. Without universal healthcare, we cannot act autonomously, because needs go unmet. Sub-point B: Universal healthcare is necessary for physiological and security needs. According to Dr. Jeffrey Lobosky, "The huge population of uninsured"Americans have been priced out of the American health care system"" He observes that the uninsured pay most of these usurious expenses out of pocket, leading them into vast debt. This massive debt, notes Prof. Stephanie Woolhandler, is the cause of 50% of bankruptcies in the U.S. The sheer cost of healthcare presents a problem, considering that a family might have to choose between eating and paying a medical bill, preventing them from acquiring physiological needs. Additionally, community security is endangered by a lack of healthcare. According to Professors Chua Kao-Ping and Flavio Casoy, "Communities with high rates of uninsurance have less effective control of communicable disease" jeopardizing everyone"s health and that ""high rates of uninsurance and"uncompensated care costs weaken a community"s health infrastructure. Since healthcare is an important part of a community"s economic base, communities suffer economically." According to Dr. Kenneth Thorpe, universal healthcare could actually save between 320 billion and 1.1 trillion dollars over ten years alone. Prof. Dale Murray argues that universal healthcare would grant, "freedom from financial and care-giving burdens placed"by the uninsured, lower absenteeism, and more reliable productivity from a workforce that can access basic health services." Thus, a community"s stability and security are risked without healthcare and, conversely, are helped by it. Sub-point C: Universal healthcare is necessary for belongingness needs and esteem needs. Prof. Norman Daniels notes that the sick tend to be ostracized from society and that universal healthcare would help remedy this. He posits: "by keeping people close to normal functioning, healthcare preserves for people the ability to participate in the political, social, and economic life of their society. It sustains them as fully participating citizens"in all spheres of social life." Thus universal healthcare promotes belongingness, as it does esteem. According to Kao-ping and Casoy: "The suffering caused by uninsurance goes far beyond the purely physical suffering experienced by uninsured individuals. Emotionally, uninsurance contributes to anxiety, familial stress, depression, and fear. Financially, medical costs are a major cause of personal bankruptcy." Anxiety, familial stress, and depression, all serve to undermine esteem, observes the American Psychiatric Association. Without our basic needs met, it cannot be said that we are fully autonomous beings. Without universal healthcare we"ll forever be dependent, ill, and unable to pursue our own dreams. Thus, to have true autonomy, I urge an affirmative ballot.

The means testing of social security benefits. Since my opponent is not really participating in this debate, I'm just going to state two simple argument points:1. Not granting social security benefits to all can decrease popular support for the program: If not everyone are receiving the benefits, it is much likely for voters to turn against the program as it is part of human nature; no one should get it for as long as I am not receiving it. In order to keep the program funded, every working Americans need to pay for it.2. Difficulty in assessing who "need" the benefits:With a pension of $25,000 a year, you may just be fine living in one of the Southern states; but it is near impossible to live in L.A. or NYC. Social security benefits will not allow you to live grant, but it would at least supplement your income as to close down the gap a little bit. In either case the individual will be above poverty line, meaning he/she will not receive any social security benefit as what PRO argues for.

education should be for everyone and not based on social background In the United States higher education is so expensive that only people with wealthy families or scholarships can afford going to school. If you do not have money to pay you have to borrow money from the government which will give you a huge loan which you have to pay back after university is done. It is also important to remember the cost outside the school with housing and books. This is unfair for the people who do not have the family money or the wealth that other people have. This will lead to poverty in generations because your parents will not earn enough money to go to school, therefore you will not get education and have to say yes to a lower paid job and cannot pay for your children education again. If education is free everyone can go to school if they want to and that can help form the next generation too. If will strengthen families and the society. In the countries in Europe where education is free social background does not matter. If you have money and want to spend them on education you can choose to study at private universities that cost a lot of money. We live in a society where everyone should have equal rights, therefore education should be free.

Everyone should have an equal and fair start in life. Currently there's a lot of inequality worldwide. The richest 1 percent of the world has the twice the amount of money as the poorest 50 percent. And there's said that inequality is growing(World Inequality Report). I think if people out of every country have the chance to educate themselves, the global world will have a huge advantage out of it. Because if inequality shrinks then poor countries can join more in the world trade, which offers new opportunities. With this topic I don't want to say that everyone should earn the same amount of money. But I want to say that every child should have the same start from birth on, or anyway a more equal start. And this should maintain the same rights for everyone. If everyone around the globe could have the same start, great talent could rise and it would give an opportunity to countries to invest more in other problems as climate change. If you have a different opinion on this topic please share it.

Unemployment benefit should be paid in the form of vouchers for food, shelter and the basics of life Opposition Summary & Conclusion

Abolishing and Eliminating Currency is a viable proposal. Besides the fact that abolishing all forms of currency and banking is not a VIABLE (as the resolution states) solution because it will never be supported by enough people to get passed, I'll debate the actual merits of this idea because it seems that is what the instigator intends. I'd rather not get caught up in a semantics debate on what viable means and if this is indeed viable. I'd rather focus on whether this idea will be beneficial or harmful. With that being said, I'll begin with some refutation. There is an interesting statement that my opponent makes very early on. He says that this will "create a paradigm shift..." I tend to feel that not only will this actually be a paradigm shift, but it won't bring about the change in how we pass laws and view the world at all. For one, people won't just think "I guess I'll stop being greedy and wanting as much as I possibly can for myself now that there is no currency." My opponent fails to take into account human nature in his account of things, and this will be the reason he will end up being proven wrong on this issue. Plus, the actual implementation of the bill, will lead to everyone dying right away. And I don't mean this in the policy sense of "no matter what happens everyone dies because of nuclear war." I mean that all he's doing is modifying SS. I'm 25 years old and not receiving SS benefits. The reason for this is because SS is designed to give out what you've put into it at a later time. You theoretically receive 20 years of benefits (from the time you retire at 65 till the time you die at 85, because 20 is an easy number to do math with) for the 40+ years of work you did. It's not a 1-1 ratio because it's impossible to do that. I'll address your actual ideas of getting rid of currency and why they're flawed, but your implementation is seriously lacking. You're asking that Social Security be active at all times in people's lives, and it just can't work like that. The very IDEA of SS is a bank. I deposit the money I make today and receive it back later when I need it. So you implement a policy of a bank to get rid of banking. Now let's discuss the hours he talks about and the work he talks about. You're clearly not a parent. Neither am I, but I know for a fact that you don't spend only 24 hours raising a child every week. So now, I can opt out of the work I do normally in order to raise a child. This means that EVERY SINGLE PARENT ALIVE is now receiving your benefits just for staying at home with their child. We will see a sharp increase in stay at home parents. In fact, both parents are now going to stay at home. This is simple economics. In a free market where goods are exchanged for services provided people try to trade based on what is beneficial for them. In a non-coerced trade, both parties are to have won. This means that I give what I think is less for something I believe to be worth more. The other person I trade with thinks the same thing. So both parties are winning. Now when we translate this idea to your proposal, we have one side giving the same thing no matter what the other party (parents) give. So I can choose to work or I can choose to stay at home with my family. In my opinion, and many other people's as well, the staying at home option allows me to earn more for my trade of services for goods. So now you have people leaving the production side of this goods and services trade en masse. That will cause a steep decline in the amount of goods produced for consumption. You have no way of stopping this from happening. You must give incentives for people to produce and consume rather than just consume. Now let's talk about your misconceived notions of government. Government is not a yin yang sort of agreement. The government doesn't take rights in order to give them lol. If so, who is currently losing their right to life in order that I have mine? Who's losing their right to a name so that I can have mine? This is absurdity at its finest. Have you studied the way government works? Our current monetary policy doesn't undermine citizen's rights, but rather gives them a medium at which to value both goods and services. This is inherently key to having a stable and sustainable way of life. Now let's get into my own argumentation. Firstly, this is really appealing to those who are on the lower sections of the economic scale. This isn't at all appealing for the CEO of any major company. Which means that those people who are the one's providing jobs in the first place...aren't going to do this. This leads to one of two things. The first is that the employees of such companies leave in order to start providing basic goods that the government can make (food, shelter, clothing, etc...). This will lead to a way of life that is viable, but not rewarding. Look to Maslow's hierarchy here. We'll have our basic needs covered, but not the upper tiers that we want. So yes, we'll be able to survive, but we won't be happy. That doesn't sound like a place I want to live. The second thing that could happen is that all companies are abolished and reformed under this new SS. While COMPLETELY impossible, it's also not going to happen. The basic needs need to be covered first, and after those needs are met, the other wants can grow. Countries that are financially stable are able to provide luxury goods to their citizens, but countries that aren't financially stable are focusing on providing the basics first. The reason we won't be financially stable anymore, is that the government is only providing basic necessities. Is the government going to be sending me a Galaxy S 4 and my Xbox and gaming computer that I want as well? If so, who is saying what is given to each citizen? Do I get whatever I want from the government? Or do I have to put in more hours? The government is going to be giving to everyone the same thing. And it's the ability to survive and keep working and producing. But people don't want to just survive. People want to thrive. People want to have the latest and greatest and most fun toys. My life is worth living not because I have life, but because of the things I can do that aren't survival. You're losing that aspect of things. You're eliminating competition from the market. If the government is going to be giving us all phones, then they're going to give us the same kind of phone which eliminates the need for production of other phones. This eliminates jobs. But the same thing happens in every other sector of the market. So now we have one phone company, one gaming company, one food production company, one of everything. And monopolies are not good things. When a monopoly forms, the quality of the product declines. There is no need to create newer and better things, because they don't need to "beat" anyone else in order to make money. So now we stop seeing any sort of new technologies. We're stuck in 2013 AND I STILL DON'T HAVE A LIGHTSABER!!!!!! I'm not ok with that. Freer competition increases the amount of technologies, medicines, and the things that make life better that are produced. You're creating the world Aldous Huxley already proved was bad. This is a cool idea if basic economics didn't exist, if human nature was one of appeasement from the basics of life, if we weren't already so wealthy in the first place. But none of those "if's" are true. Basic economics does exist and they say that life will stop progressing. Human nature is one of greed. We all want our life to get better. We don't want to just survive anymore. We're incredibly wealthy already. This is proven by the sheer number of luxury goods consumed in our nation. Life isn't just eating, sleeping, and procreating. It's so much more than that. And I'm thankful it is.

Financial assistance is not the government’s duty In liberal democracies, the govt’s role is to enable the citizens’ rights. It ensures everyone can exercise basic rights & freedoms by taking care of education, health, security, etc. and operating the relevant services such as police, public health & school systems. Governments must ensure the basic services, but not give money. If the money enables any needed right, the gov should establish a service for it. Throwing money at the problem can’t ensure that the money will be used to solve it, or that it will be used well. When it comes to giving money, as opposed to services, this is what happens. Gov gives people money without enough supervision and follow up. And so, because it can’t address the minute details, the problems are perpetuated, not solved. If not, then what the gov is doing is simply taking money as taxes from everyone, and giving it away to others. The gov should only take money in order to provide needed services - otherwise it should leave it to every person’s decision how to spend their money. It is unfair to harm one person by taking what he worked for, in order to better another’s, who hasn’t worked to earn it, or might misuse it. If the money doesn’t serve a critical need, then one usage of it isn’t better than the other - in both cases, the money goes towards non-essential needs[[http://tinyurl.com/66cbsdv]] It’s the gov’s duty to enable the objective conditions needed to live in a humane manner through services which verify that the needed conditions are met. Subjective conditions are set by society, and so it is society duty’s to enable them. Money, which is free to use by the owner’s discretion, enables those subjective conditions, and so should be given to the poor by the society, since society has decided on the need and will be able to spread it better. Bottom line, as long as the citizens’ basic rights are enabled, then any additional financial expenditure should be done by society, who'll do it better.

Welfare Shouls not Be Abolished 2.) It provides Basic Human Rights Someone finding a cheaper way to provide a service/product but doesn't comply with labor laws needs simply to suggest to the appropriate powers that be how the laws could be amended to facilitate his business, along with credible research to show his idea could work. But in a free market with no government intervention, employers would get away with too much, so we need agencies to intervene to ensure employee rights are established respected. We can't have businesses unwilling to pay insurance or their employees, and when they get sick due to no fault of their own, they have no source of income to pay medical expenses. This is a cruel world, and the poor do not have good Samaritans waiting around every corner to show them compassion, to feed, clothe, shelter them, and pay their expenses so they can work. If the government doesn't do it, no one will. Even in a free market with more job options for the poor, they will still only be able to afford low-paying jobs, seasonal in nature. We can't abandon their support system for a hypothetical idea in Con's mind that better job options "might" be available in a capitalist economy. Daily experience teaches us that humans are selfish. What percentage of people who pass a homeless beggar give him anything? If government doesn't look after the less fortunate society won't either. They will suffer more. Con talks about political elites making decisions without the input of the poor turning out for their benefit. There are two other options to this: leave the poor to fend for themselves, but the challenges they face as I've outlined they won't get very far; or, rely on society as a whole to show them compassion, which is tantamount to letting the poor fend for themselves. You see, at least the political elites are required by law to do something to assist the needy, the society at large has no such obligation and tend to ignore the poor. Someone renting an apartment who can't afford day-care will miss work and get fired, and without labor laws we can see how more people like that would be cast aside unfairly. After all, employers reason that workers' home problems don't' concern them. Con is leaving these folk with no support when he strips them of that welfare check. Con said: "If they are taught to be hypocrites, if their parents lie to their children or appeal to force frequently, then they will learn might makes right, and that they will never reach their dreams no matter what they do. These feelings can kill a persons chance of applying themselves and succeeding, no matter what they do." I agree. And whose fault is it they were raised in that way? Not theirs, so what do we do for them when they end up unemployed or in such low-paying jobs they can't handle all their living expenses? Do we say "tough luck" and move on? Even in Con's imaginary free market capitalist society so full of job options for the poor, what guarantee can he give that they will be paid enough and their jobs will be stable enough to make a decent living? That welfare check is a lot more certain than Con's hypothesis. Without government intervention the poor stand a better chance of being taken advantage of. Con advocates a free-market capitalist system, but let me ask him, in this dream world you've imagine would better help the poor, are there minimum wage laws? That seems a pretty good form of government intervention to me. There is no minimum wage limit determined by the forces of the free market, hence, it must be set by the state. You can't have people working or next to nothing, can we? But the extremely poor who don't have the educational qualifications for other jobs will feel forced to take the crap pay in such a system. Welfare ensures that as the cost of living rises, a minimum wage is still maintain even in cases where salaries don't increase to counter the cost of living. What about competition laws that prevent monopolies from forming and over-pricing their products out of the reach of the needy? What about cost controls on basic household commodities? What about anti-price gouging laws? Without government setting limits on greedy industrialists the cost of living will sky-rocket but wages won't, which will increase poverty. Business wolves will tear poor consumers apart like sheep; only the wealthy or well-off will survive. Con makes a glowing defense of capitalism, but what does history reveal about capitalism? Take for example the rapid industrialization in Europe which led to unfair working conditions such as 14-hour work days, child labor, and shanty towns. The average living standards didn't even improve very fast before 1840. (Frederick Engels, "The Condition of the Working Class in England" http://www.marxists.org.... Nardinelli Clarke, economist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "Industrial Revolution and the Standard of Living," The concise encyclopedia of economics. The Library of Economics and Liberty http://www.econlib.org...) In a free-market capitalist state, we won't have the intervention necessary to minimize planned obsolescence. This is a wasteful and an inefficient use of resources practice under capitalism. By designing products to wear out faster than need be, new consumption is generated. While this increases sales, it also generates excessive waste. A well-known example when Apple designed its iPod to fail after 18 months. (Phillip Inman, 2006-09-30 "When your iPod isn't all that it's cracked up to be" London: The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk...) In capitalism, the direction of the economy is unplanned, which leads to inconsistencies and contradictions, and is therefore better suited to be regulated under public policy. Con keeps saying we don't really have a free market, yet he says each person is best to decide how to spend his own money. The selfish pursuits of the individual is not always best for society as a whole, and in a market lacking perfect information and perfect competition, government intervention is justified. I mean, come on Con, don't you believe that electricity should have a price ceiling? But if power is to be affordable to all or at least most in society, who will ensure that the service provider holds to a price in reach of the poor? 200 million Indians went hungry in 1995, while the Indian economy was exporting $625 million worth of wheat and $1.3 billion worth of rice that same year. (Frances Moore Lappe, The Myth - Scarcity: The Reality - There IS Enough Food" http://www.foodfirst.org...) The more intervention we have to safe-guard folks against this kind of thing the better; would it not be good for some of that money to feed the poor? Yes Con, these exporters knew what was best for them, as you keep saying – people know how to spend their money, but they sure as hell didn't know what was best for their neighbor; if they did, they wouldn't let them go hungry. I see nothing wrong with the government playing Robin Hood, taxing the rich and giving to the poor via welfare. Someone has to look out for those fellow human beings who can't look out for themselves. Let me also add that the removal of welfare would lead to wage slavery. With nothing to fall back on, people would have no recourse but to keep their jobs (unless they qualify for another) even when they are underpaid and overworked. They become the property of their employers. The thing is, water, electricity, shelter, food, clothing, transport, these are necessities needed to thrive in the labor force, and capitalism cannot guarantee that the disabled and uneducated will suddenly find jobs paying them enough to afford such. We need welfare by way of money, low-income housing, medicine, etc, to ensure these less fortunate can operate successfully in the market. Con gives no better option.

People should be matched to the jobs they are most fitted for, not just anything they can do. If people are given any job they can conceivably be capable of, then everyone will probably have a job. However, it won’t be an optimal workforce because people still won’t be doing the right jobs. They will be doing jobs unsuited to their personalities and individual skill sets. They will not be as motivated and capable as people who are truly destined to do that job and enjoy it.

The United States should adopt a negative income tax. This round was written by Shab, and I will write the next round. Contention 1 - Negative income tax would reduce the size of bureaucracy Are we willing to be optimistic enough to believe that, without specifying what welfare money must be spent on, the poor will choose wisely? (More in Contention 2) The issue is not “that people need money” – or, at least, not the one the Government ought to try and solve. The issue is that people are going without certain necessities and are unable to live securely. To ensure that these needs are met, there is nothing wrong with complicated systems. The current system is elaborate, there is no question. It has to be. In order to ensure that welfare goes only to those who need it, and is spent only on those things that they need, there is no solution other than a complex series of rules, regulations, and agencies. This is not a bad thing. The aeroplane is not disadvantaged compared to the horse because it is more complex. Each part plays its purpose, and the whole is indisputably better at fulfilling its function. This point is, therefore, completely irrelevant; unless our opponents can show that NIT does what it sets out to do better than any other system, not just that it is simpler, they have not fulfilled their BOP. Contention 2 - A negative income tax is better for the economy Accountability is not “shifted to individuals” when a government imposes a NIT. In fact, the opposite happens: individuals are less accountable. Under a normal welfare system, there is no incentive to waste money, since the money is bound to particular necessities. One can’t (easily) spend food stamps on televisions. When the government gives people money, however, that money is very easy to squander. What must be done when someone, after having blown their cheque on liquor, is in danger of starvation? Would the government not be obligated to help them further and make sure that they don’t… die? If so, there would be no negative repercussions to spending the money in senseless ways, since there would always be a traditional welfare safety net underneath the people. Unless our opponents advocate eliminating such safety nets altogether, in which case I find it hard to believe that they’re for any welfare whatsoever, then he must admit that granting people money with no strings attached and no accountability makes them more prone to act foolishly. On the topic of businesses, our opponents do not explain why it’s better for a business to be paid by individuals who are paid by the government rather than by the government itself. This step is necessary. Contention 3- The negative income tax allows better working conditions Here, our opponents assume two things: 1.) That the NIT uniquely grants workers leverage; 2.) That granting workers such leverage is beneficial. 1.) is very hard for Pro to prove. It stands to reason that, under even as inefficient a system as our current one, most workers will not have to live in fear of starvation. The point of a welfare system is to provide workers with their basic needs, such that they will never go unfulfilled. What else would Pro want? 2.) is even more of a problem for our opponents. Having the ability to essentially quit at any time and not only survive (for anyone can survive under the current system, so Pro must have something more in mind) but live at a standard that is acceptable is exactly the kind of incentive that causes people to refuse to work. If a worker can just stop working and be fine, why work at all? Contention 4 - The negative income tax encoruages and rewards work This contention is flat-out false. Our opponents claim that someone who earns enough to no longer receive the benefits from NIT wouldn’t “lose any net money”. This is absurd; even if the new income earned precisely covers the amount that would have otherwise been granted by the government, the person is still massively disadvantaged by losing said benefits, for now they also have to factor in labour. “Earning more” is not the same as “being granted more money”, for the former, in almost all cases, implies an incredible investment of time/capital. Note that we do not have to advocate for the current welfare system – in fact, we don’t have to affirm the existence of welfare at all. All we must do here is show that the NIT would be, at best, equal to, or, at worst, more detrimental than, any alternatives. If equality is established, any additional arguments we win against NIT would be enough to fulfill our BOP. Therefore, our opponents must show how NIT is uniquely beneficial. Contention 5 - The current welfare system defies logic; the negative income tax embraces logic This is not a unique contention. It’s essentially a wholesale combination of contentions 1 and 2. As such, we refer the readers to our responses to those points individually.

Free education Everybody needs a higher education. Without free education some people will be denied basic education. Educational basics are life basics. Everybody needs to know the fundamental basics of reading, writing, comprehension, math and whatever else is necessary to function in society.

Replace Welfare with the Negative Income Tax Compromise “The compromise Valladarex calls for is not really a compromise between our two positions…I'd still be holding my nose, because the income tax system is VERY malleable to political pressure“ I did not mean to call for a compromise between our positions, but for a compromise between your position and the current system. You want to keep more of your money for you and your family. This is the most feasible way to substantially decrease welfare spending today. When looking at this country realistically, your proposal for ending welfare entirely is not going to happen so long as there are poor people, people that want to help them, and politicians who can use this problem to get votes. The best one can hope for is a compromise to minimize the size and scope of the social safety net. “I would not expect the gain to last long. As I pointed out earlier, the nearly flat tax in 1986 was quickly chopped up to create a campaign issue "against" the wealthy, and a profitable edge for those who made thier support to Rep. A and Sen. B.” No doubt political pressures will influence what happens to the NIT, but there is also no doubt that reducing 126 programs into 1 will allow for increased accountability and oversight. It will likely be changed over time, but I’d rather have a more efficient and effective system of helping the poor be slightly modified when compared to the huge, bloated, ineffective welfare bureaucracy that we have today. The Cause of Unemployment “Some reading this might want to ask me what exactly would happen to people right after the current system was eliminated. Well, those who could would get employed out of necessity doing SOMETHING for now. Those who are able but won't work will get hungry, then will actually have motivation to work.” It is a misconception to think that the majority of the those people that are unemployed just don’t have the motivation to work. Employment rates change for a variety of reasons and they fluctuate greatly. For instance, the economic growth of a country is correlated with employment rates (1). When there is a recession, increases in unemployment follows. The graph above demonstrates that recessions lead to unemployment. Obviously it would be unrealistic to think that this is because people just get lazy in predictable cycles. So what causes the unemployment to rise? When economies are expanding, businesses can grow, so they are more willing to hire workers. When economies are contracting, businesses must deal with reduced revenues and may actually have to lay off their workers. Even if a particular business has not seen any recent decreases in revenue, if its analysts project that revenue will decrease in the future as a result of a general economic slump, it may start laying off workers pre-emptively or at least halt all hiring processes (2). As a result, the majority of people gain and lose jobs not because of their motivation level, but because there is simply not enough jobs openings for everyone. Other things, like excessive regulations and the minimum wage can further lessen the ability for businesses to hire more workers. Skynet’s Proposal to Phase Out Welfare “I propose offering a lump sum "early retirement" for every welfare recipient. It will surely cost less than $1 trillion a year in perpetuity to give all 50 or 60 million, or 100 million Americans $100,000.00 each in a tax free lump sum or annuity….The quick payout would satiate many users of the current system, making it more politically feasible.” This proposal is not a viable solution because unemployment is not a temporary issue that can be eliminated by simply giving every poor person $100,000 and expecting them to find long-term work after. This proposal ignores the very real market fluctuations that increase and decrease the amount of job openings available for people. Education and information given by the government does not guarantee a job, which can be easily proven by looking at the current high unemployment and underemployment rates for college graduates (3). The graph below demonstrates that college graduate unemployment is also correlated with market fluctuations, which means their unemployment isn’t simply because they are lazy. Overall, Skynet's proposal would leave the poor to fend for themselves after that one-time payment runs out, and poverty and suffering would increase dramatically in this country. It is not a solution, and it is certainly not politically feasible. Equity “NIT does help bridge the gap for someone who's scraping by to advance at work, but it does nothing to incentivise in a posative way those who do not work.” False. In many cases, getting a job while on welfare would actually decrease their net income. Welfare payments can actually pay better than a job. As Michael Tanner of the CATO institute writes to New York citizens, “Here’s an offer for you: $38,004 per year, tax free. No work required. Apply at your local welfare office.” Also, “ There is no evidence that people on welfare are lazy. Indeed, surveys of them consistently show their desire for a job. But they’re also not stupid. If you pay them more not to work than they can earn by working, many will choose not to work. (4)” My NIT proposal, on the other hand, would only give the bare minimum amount of money required for people to stay out of poverty, and their incomes could only increase for every dollar they make through work. This is not the case with the current system. The NIT encourages work while also providing a social safety net for the worst off. Shall we let them starve? “Generally speaking I would not support a government program that proports to prevent starvation. If you are starving, who's to blame you for using it? It might help you survive, but it won't help you thrive or succeed.” You continue to portray poverty as a personal motivation issue as opposed to largely an economic issue. Giving the poor money to survive is needed for them to be able later to find work and thrive. Having them suffer and starve as a result of this mischaracterization and generalization of poor people is unjustifiable and will result in a less fair, less prosperous, and less free society. Fairness, prosperity, and freedom increases by allowing people in poor circumstances to have enough to live and later have the opportunity to achieve their goals, and have a job to pay for themselves and their families. The NIT is not in support of the equality of results, but is in support of a greater equality of opportunity. “Some people are in such a bad way…. So let us line up outside my door all the people who of no fault of their own can't succeed. If they ask for help, that's fine. But I should be under no outside compulsion to give to these strangers.” You may very well be a generous person who would help poor people lined up outside your door. The reality is there are not enough generous people in every poor neighborhood and city in this country to ensure that no person goes without their basic needs. Voluntary action could not fully perform this important task. Only a government program can. “When I turn around, I see my wife who spends her full time taking care of our son. Why should those strangers use the police power of the government to take bread from my family to give to them? Will charity always be adequate? No. Will my best always be adequate? No. That's the way it is for me, that's the way it is for everyone.” You and your family are very fortunate to have had the opportunities to have lives outside of poverty, and through your hard work you are capable of supporting your family. The unfortunate truth is that not everyone has had the same chances that you have had, and people living in poverty, are a lot of the time, stuck in their circumstances as a result of systematical disadvantages. For instance, you may have the means to send your son to a good school, while a poor child in a poor neighborhood will likely get a poor education, decreasing their chances to succeed later in life. Your wife has the wonderful ability to raise your son full-time, while a poor mother might have to raise 3 kids while working two jobs because the father abandoned them. Was it the mother’s fault? Some may say so, but it certainly was not the fault of the children. If that mother loses her jobs, she may no longer be able to put food on the table and a roof over the heads of her children. Maybe there are private charity programs nearby, but maybe there isn’t. I don’t see how any just society could allow these children and their mother to starve and live on the streets when it certainly has the capability to provide a basic social safety net to them. And if hard times were to hit your family, I would like for there to be a system in place to help you and them get through it. This is security not just for the poor, but for everyone. Conclusion “What's fair is me providing for MY family FIRST... Charitable giving must come from a cheerful and willing heart, or it means nothing, as our current system does. It's just extortion.” It is fair that most of your money goes to providing for your family, but taxes are a necessary evil. The government will take your money even if you’d rather keep it. All taxation is extortion, because you don’t have the ability to say no. So then it’s up to people to decide what the government should use their taxes on. It’s reasonable for people to support the NIT as a replacement of the current welfare system because it will decrease taxation, decrease the size of government, increase efficiency, increase the incentive for the poor to work, and give enough money to people to live and have the chance find success later in life. I urge you to support the negative income tax for a fair, free, rational, and prosperous society. Vote pro. Sources (in link): http://www.multiurl.com...

Welfare Shouls not Be Abolished I am impressed with Pro's arguments. Before responding to them, I want to make my core Con-Welfare arguments. I will explain the basic justifications for free market policies and I won't have time to apply them to all of Pro's objections in this post, but I will respond in later rounds. The first argument will be entirely verbal, but I plan on citing case studies later as well. Before I continue, I want to make sure we both agree on what welfare is. Welfare: Mandatory taxation on the general population to fund limited payments to the poor, the disabled, the unemployed and/or the elderly in the form of money, health care coverage, food assistance or other limited assistance. --BASIC JUSTIFICATIONS for a FREE MARKET-- Society is made of individuals making decisions, for their own perceived benefit. (By perceived benefit, I'm including their own desire to help others as well as their desire to help themselves.) Every action they take is an attempt to improve their lives and the lives of other people they care for. They can make mistakes and make themselves worse off, but in general they know their own desires best, and are uniquely positioned to select what actions to take in life. Every day people choose to go to school, go to work, start a business, work on a project, take time off, or participate in society in some way. Everybody chooses different things, because they value different things differently. When you buy something, you and the seller disagree on it's value. The seller believes it is worth less than the price, you think it is worth more. In the same way, some people value free time, or they dislike working at one job or another, more or less than others. All value is subjective, and the valuation of anything can only be determined by a person choosing a specific quantity of something over a specific quantity of another. With that in mind, the purpose of a marketplace is to allow people to come together who disagree about the value of items and exchange them for what they think is more valuable. In any market, the core price is determined by supply and demand, in the absence of any external influence. What I mean by supply and demand is the preferences of the people to consume vs. the preferences of the people to not produce. If you could chose between consuming a good and losing the money of the market price, your valuation is a signal to the producers. If you would rather have the disutility of production along with the utility of the money raised from sale, your valuation of the cost of production can signal to the market, and if in a big enough proportion, lower the price. In both cases, the production and consumption by the producers and consumers is compared with the second best thing they could be doing with their time or money. The consumers might have done something else or worked less, or the producers might have taken time off or made something else. Instead, they selected to produce and consume over all other options, and therefore were all better off. Again they can make mistakes, but because these outcomes result from their own actions, they are closest to the actual desires and improvements in life that the producers and consumers. I will justify this further if need be, otherwise I will assume Pro accepts it as a useful foundation of economics. --BASIC ARGUMENTS AGAINST WELFARE-- Welfare is marked by an intervention in the income market. Most of the time we talk about the market of other things like labor in terms of money, but it is perfectly possible to talk about money in terms of labor. Both are valuable, scarce things we own and trade. In the market of income in terms of labor, what is basically happening with welfare is the government is establishing a price control, and it has the same effect as any other price control, but it's not a control of the price of goods in terms of money, it is a control of the price of money in terms of labor. The government mandates that everyone receives a living wage, through unemployment benefits or food stamps or other payments, regardless of how much labor they pay. Thus, the price of money in terms of labor has an artificially low maximum price: zero. People can get a limited amount of money or money equivalent when they qualify for assistance. This offer is not available to everyone, but it's impact is felt all through the labor market. When people chose to get a job, start a business, or whatever they do, they are deciding which choice will improve their lives. Different people have different desires, but all act upon their desires. When the option exists to receive unemployment benefits/welfare programs/food stamps exist, then people will compare that/those option(s) to what their current or possible situations are. In the absence of welfare programs, they would compare their other activities to having all time off and receiving no compensation, but instead they are comparing their other activities to having full time off and receiving limited payments. As a result, some people could work in the economy but decide they would be better off not experiencing the disutility of working along with the positive utility of welfare payments (minus the payment they would get with a job, skilled or not). They are comparing this possibility with working in the economy being paid similarly to the welfare program. I am not just saying they need to get off their bums and get a job. There are real reasons why unemployment is so high, and it is very difficult to find work. I would argue that unemployment is caused by government intervention, but that's a separate issue. The effect of welfare affects the valuation of the workers to work, and their supply schedule for labor. Now, they will work only for higher wages, and or will work less. The aggregate supply schedule for labor, of all workers in the economy, will have to match up with the same demand schedule for labor, so the price of labor will rise and the amount of labor bought will fall. When the amount of labor bought decreases, fewer things can be produced. Fewer clothes, fewer raw materials, fewer computers, fewer everything. This impoverishes everyone, because if the market has less to sell, the price of everything will go up, because it all requires labor. The economy will be unable to support as many businesses, some will fail, and workers will consolidate as the capital structure is contracted and fewer things are made for everyone. --CRIME-- Like all other decisions, the choice to commit crime is a rational decisions based on a person's varying desires. Many desires are at play here and must be compared with alternatives. First and foremost is the demand for money and what one is willing to do to get it. Another thing is the supply of criminal tools, such as weapons, street knowledge, etc. One of the most important is the utility of crime itself. Some people actually have a basic desire to hurt people. Others have a basic, irreducible desire to respect others. These desires are all balanced with alternatives by individuals when deciding to commit any crime. So what does welfare do? On a purely economic level, it does reduce the demand for money among the poor. It does not touch any of the two other desires. But it also increases the demand to hold money among the taxpayers, who are always the larger group. Furthermore, as a whole, as I have shown, it impoverishes society by pushing marginal workers out of the labor market and the economy produces less, and there are fewer manufactured goods for all, and therefore the aggregate demand to hold money will be higher, and in total will make people more desperate. This is not by itself proof crime will increase with welfare. The demand to hold money is variable among people and incomes so it is possible crime will decrease, but on a basic level it does not guarantee crime will go down. I would like to thanks Pro for his insights and I await his further response.