Question: Should Social Security Be Transformed into Private Accounts?

Social Security should not be privatized.

Counterarguments:

1. Yes/No: While it's true that Social Security might face financial challenges due to the retiring baby boomers and the lower numbers supporting their retirement, there are other contributing factors at play. The issues affecting Social Security's Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) are more complex than mere ratios. For instance, the government borrowed $2.5 trillion from the Social Security fund between 1970 and 1983, issuing Treasury Bonds against these loans. From 1983 to 2000, the Social Security Trust Fund was at a surplus, capable of funding the boomers' retirement into the future. However, G.W. Bush's tax cuts in the early 2000s reduced the inflow of funds, impacting the OASI. Despite these funding decreases, OASI is self-perpetuating with its balance and funding at current rates. Trust Fund depletion will not begin until 2024. In 2015, the fund ran at 308% above cost, and by 2024, it's expected to be at 171%. The projected shortfall is due to the Disability Insurance (DI), a separate fund from OASI, which is soon to be depleted. The Trustees recommend merging OASI with DI to ensure funds are available for DI future liabilities. However, privatization is not the answer. Privatization at whose expense? Who will profit and benefit? The government does not have a profit motive, and the current administration expenses of Social Security are at 1%.

2. Choice is good, but who will determine what the options will be? Which system will be chosen; a centralized government system or private financial? As mentioned earlier, the financial sector will have significant influence. They have a poor track record in protecting the public interest, as seen in the 2008 financial crisis. How will a larger investment be made at a cheaper cost? Under the current system, people pay into a new system but also contribute to the maintenance of the current system. This means you pay into an Individual Plan (IP) for yourself and pay toward the current system's maintenance. Social Security benefits are not fully comparable to private-sector plans, since many features of Social Security benefits are not typically available in private-sector plans. This results in slightly higher internal real rates of return under the OASDI program and slightly lower accumulations for individual accounts. The

The opponent seems to have a murky knowledge of communism, and what it really is. Firstly, I would like to define several terms:1. Communism: A classless, stateless, moneyless self-administering societyThe opponent states things about oppression, but in a self administering society like that of communism, where would the oppression come from? 2. Private Property (Marxism): Private Enterprises in generalTherefore, if Private Property is Private Enterprises, how could the worker not have any incentive for work?Now, with some terms defined, I would like to add that all the points the opponent has given me, I have to accept, as we anti-communists must create a brotherhood against the devil that commonly launches attacks on our almost utopic society. Instead of attacking my opponent's points, I shall do the same thing he does: explain my views on communism.The working man is the backbone of the nation; any nation. The working man produces, sustain, and is relied upon to create a greater good and benefits for the nation. However, the working man faces a popular dillema: either work, and get society's support, or do not work, and do not get society's support. If they work, they face society's support, but low pay. If they do not work, they do not get society's support.In 1848, some socially phobic aristocrats and high living bourgeoisie decided to write a manifesto to attempt to seduce the workers into a dream, so they could shut their mouths up. Karl Marx, a son of a government official, and Engels, a son of a capitalist factory owner, decided that they could stop their workers from complaining about the system by luring them into another system, which would destroy the working class: why?1. The Communist Society is an Obsolete SocietyIn early Christianity, Christian societies seemed to have practice a simple form of communism. According to the book On Politics by Alan Ryan (pg 207: The Justification for Private Property), they seemed to have put all their property on a pool table, and the inhabitants of that community would come and take what they needed: this practice is known as mutual aid, and is endorsed by the modern left, but much more by anarchists than communists. However, once institutions of worship were created, the need for private property grew. Churches soon grew by the need to expand and be bigger and better than many other churches. Soon, the Papacy arose: from taking things at the pool table to an enormous theological organization that claims to be the messengers and the direct sons of god shows the path of all communist society: private property is human nature. The opponent claims that communists do not care about our property, but yet Marxist doctrines show that they do: they care about the land we own, they care about our children, they care about where we live, and they care about how we live. Under communism, all land and property is held in common. Is that not theft to a point? That only propels my point: private property is human nature. In all attempted communist societies, there have been inequalities. People taking more than what they need is the exact reason for the rise of more powerful institutions, such as the case of the Papacy, and in other institutions too: the rise of the government itself can be seen as a development of primitive communism, where everything was held in common. In both Christian and Primitive communism, we can see one prime way: years of practicing mutual aid and/or communism cannot lead to a classless moneyless stateless community that Marx and Engels are advocating for. Years of practicing mutual aid and communism can only lead to the establishment of a government, of a state, and of a institution that could claim legitimacy over ruling. This makes communism totally obsolete in this world (it also makes it unsustainable), as it is a primitive way of organizing the society, and it lead to the governing systems that we have now. This makes in inapplicable to current human society, because through communism, we have led the world into the path of what it is now: governments and capitalism. We cannot reverse that trend. Humanity will never advance backwards, but would only advance forwards, forwards to the path of being more complex, not simpler. To the path of being more human, and less animal. To the path of being more civilized, and less barbaric. Is it not clear that communism was built for those who do not understand human society thoroughly, whose human nature aren't fully developed yet? Communism will only destroy humanity and it's innovation. I support reformation within the capitalist system. I hope you all do to.Workers, unite for the fatherland against communism!

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...

I was expecting someone who vehemently and fundamentally opposes the idea of universal coverage, so I have to admit I was thrown a bit when I read your argument. But I've recouped myself, so here we go. .. 1. The Department of Health and Human Services has operated Medicare since its inception. In 2006, there were 38 million people on Medicare. In addition, some estimates show that 30,000 people a month for the next 10 years will start using Medicare as they become eligible. Medicare recipients also represent a much larger share of health care customers then their share of the total population. It seems to me at least that DHHS has the experience running programs instrumental to health care in this country that would be capable of running a single-payer universal system. If we could just get a president that appoints capable, knowledgeable, worthy people to important positions instead of a president that appoints personal and professional friends who know nothing of the agencies they run, most of government has the ability to function as well as any private corporation. See "Case for Bureaucracy" by Charles Goodsell. 2. I don't know if we are in the biggest recession we've ever been in. To start, you'd have to technically separate "recessions" from "depressions". If not, the Great Depression would be FAR greater. Even if you do separate them, then the recession in the mid to late 1970s when unemployment hit around 10-15% would still have to be worse then this. Even so, your point is taken about the economy. Here's the thing though, benefits from preventative care would be noticed just as quickly as the taxes would be, especially since those taxes would be laid on hospitals, doctors, drug and device manufacturers, as well as taking already taxed resources from Medicaid and Medicare, would all happen before any individuals would be taxed. Economic productivity would grow as workers got healthier and felt more secure about their financial and medical futures. In addition, since everyone would be paying much less for their health care, that's extra money they'd have to get out of debt and/or spend. The economy would benefit greatly from universal coverage. 3. I'm not sure what you're talking about in this point. If you're talking about private hospitals and doctors, you're right. That's why both would remain private. They would compete based on patient outcomes and satisfaction. Medicare is mandating that hospitals report their outcomes starting this year. They plan on extending it to doctors in a couple years as well. They intend to pay hospitals/doctors in the top 10% an extra 10% in their reimbursements, after risk adjusting for regional differences of outcomes for certain diagnoses. This would be continued and relied upon in the plan I mentioned. Competition would still be an integral component of this plan. Besides, private companies screw up just as much, if not more, than government agencies. We just don't know how much because oversight is so much more difficult once a government function has been privatized. The contractors of the Big Dig in Boston will have to pay $456 million in fines due to faulty designs and shotty workmanship. I'll also mention Halliburton and Blackwater. You get my point. 4. It is illegal for hospitals to turn people away for not having coverage, but all they have to do is stabilize people in their ER and then send them on their way or to a public hospital. They still have to eat the costs associated with time, labor and equipment. Meanwhile, public hospitals are so overwhelmed from every private hospital sending them uninsured patients that care starts to suffer. But public hospitals still need reimbursement as well if they hope to make any kind of profit. But because they can't get any from uninsured people, the rest of us pay more in taxes to support these public hospitals. This is one of the many examples of how we all already pay for uninsured peoples' health care, so we might as well do it in a smart and effective way. 5. There would be no need to "mandate" some procedures since just about everything would be covered. Only cosmetic procedures and elective procedures that do not dramatically enhance quality of life would not be covered in the universal plan. Doctors would find much more flexibility in having just about every procedure or service they provide compensated, as well as (and primarily) not having to fight with HMOs to get paid. Doctors spend so much time doing this that it takes away from taking care of patients. With such a simple system, they would be free to spend more time performing procedures and meeting with patients, thus earning more money. 6. As I mentioned above, we already pay for a lot of peoples' health care. Their costs get transferred to us through higher taxes to support public hospitals that aren't getting compensated for their services, decreased tax revenue to the government since hospitals and doctors have to write off so many services as charity, as well as higher premiums and costs with insurers, hospitals and doctors. Our economy also takes a hit because these people take more from the system then they put in because they can't get insurance, yet continue to rack up bills, pushing them towards bankruptcy. Over 51% of all bankruptcies are medically related, which makes the rest of us pay more in credit card interest. I'm watching the news right now and they have a story on talking about how diabetes is already costing the country $174 billion through various means. We're already paying the price for diseases like these, and this is with a private system. A single-payer system would be able to negotiate for lower prices which would bring this number down. 7. Private insurers would have to cut back, but there would be gains in other areas. First, the government would be hiring, and I don't think that is a bad thing if it means that the already trained personnel are making the new system run more efficiently. Also, as it is, over 300,000 beds lay unused because private insurers make their money off of keeping people out of the hospital. Meanwhile, 25% of hospitals are operating in the red. As people who need health care can finally get it, and hospitals can count on getting paid more frequently, they will hire more nurses and doctors. 8. As it is, doctors are in it more for the fame than the money. Like I said before, doctors spend much of their time fighting with private insurers just to get paid. There wouldn't be reduced private practice options. No offices would be socialized. The fact that doctors would be paid much more frequently and the system would be more efficient, I think more people would become doctors. 9. I feel that health care is a right already, and I'm not on any kind of government coverage. If it works as well as I think it will, or as well as similar versions in other countries, why would you want it to go away? 10. People with money do come here to get their health care, because we do have the best system in the world if you can pay for it. Very poor people also come here to get care and don't plan on paying for it. This system keep the quality that we've become accustomed to since hospitals and doctors would still be competing based on the quality of the care they provide. The only thing that would be socialized is the payment of their services, at least for basic care. Private insurers would still be utilized to pay for catastrophic care. I don't think all people want universal care. In fact, I've debated with a few people on this site already that flatly don't. The fact of the matter is that the private system of multiple insurers is broken and cannot be adequately fixed while keeping the same structure. It is the structure itself that has led to the problems we have. Therefore, we need a totally different structure based on a single-payer for basic care.

Public school (and even a voucher system for private schools) is socialism - it redistributes wealth. Social Security is socialism - it redistributes wealth from workers to the living elderly. Medicare is Social Security. It subsidizes health care costs paid for by other tax payers. All of these are examples are socialism. To be completely against socialism means to remove all of these things completely. My position has always been that a mixed economy is best. Both capitalism and socialist programs are good. Both work well together. For example, if I open a business and make profits, that's a capitalistic element. Then, if some of my profits are sent into a government program to help poor people eat and go to Kindergarten, that is socialistic element. I profit, and some wealth is distributed. I win, society wins. You further prove my point (with your own sources) by saying that socialist Europe is enjoying more economic freedom than the United States itself. Your very first sentence was that socialism is impossible, yet you provided examples of successful countries which have socialism. The countries you mentioned have universal health care. The wealthy people in those countries are taxed for half or more of their income. And they're still successful. The argument against socialism is that you can't have a successful society with a heavy tax burden. Those countries do have heavy tax burdens, and you said they are successful. So, why not tax the rich then? Since you're absolutely 0% socialist, I ask that you name me a couple of financially well countries which have absolutely zero socialistic elements.

It is because I see through the facade of social networking websites straight to the many obvious hazards in the business that I urge a negative ballot on the resolution at hand. Resolved: That, on balance, social networking Web sites have a positive impact on the United States. ============================================================================ Contention I: Social Networking Web sites have little security built into them. ============================================================================ SUBPOINT A- HACKING IS PREVALENT ON SOCIAL NETWORKING WEB SITES, AND THIS LEADS TO IDENTITY THEFT Brian Krebs of the Washington Post writes in August of 2008, "Social Networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and LinkedIn are fast emergiing as some of the most fertile grounds for malicious software, identity theives and online mischief-makers." Think of the ways that these social networking can be used as a focus for identity theft. The majority of the useres post their birth date and other personal information, items commonly asked by banks to determine a person's identity. Combined with the full name and things like pet names, Mother's maiden name, and other such information, it isn't difficult to work out the rest. According to the Department of Justice in October 2006, "There has been a sharp 34% increase of Social Network users reporting having personal information stolen over the internet in the past year." With so many hackers targeting social networking websites every day, these site are part of the problem towards helping Identity theft. SUBPOINT B- IDENTITY THEFT HARMS THE ECONOMY According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in a September 2003 report on Identity Theft, "1 in 30 Americans surveyed reported having a personal account on the Internet taken over. The average los from the misuse of a victim's personal information [was] $4,800." The same report explains that this amounts to approimately $48 billion removed from the economy every year. Given the current state of our economy, when money is precious, this 48 billion could not come at a steeper cost. ============================================================================ Contention II: Social networking sites are destroying technological innovation. ============================================================================ While it might seem easy to view the Internet in the abstract, as some ethereal object, the truth is, its not. The internet only exists because of the physical infrastructure provided by private investors. For every byte of information sent on the internet, there exists a physical server that hosts the memory storage for that information. These servers are bought and paid for by a number of actors, the majority of whom are private investment companies. The contention that I bring up is the internet's need for storage capacity is drastically increasing; requiring a drastic increase in the amount of money diverted to purchase infrastructure needs. This is because of social networking websites. SUBPOINT A- THE INTERNET IS REACHING THE LIMITS OF ITS CAPACITY, AND SOCIAL NETWORK WEBSITES ARE CAUSING THIS TO HAPPEN. Without investment, the Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010. The "unprecedented new wave of broadband traffic" would increase 50-fold by 2015. Eight hours of video is loaded onto Youtube every minute. Five hours of video is loaded onto Facebook and Myspace every minute. Video will be 80 percent of all traffic by 2010, up from 30 percent today. [The internet] is a finite service upgraded and maintained by private investors: without necessary investment, it will run out of room Websites like Myspace, Facebook and Youtube all suck up precious bandwidth through uploading massive amounts of pictures and video. There are no other places on the Internet that contain the same amounts of massive files, nor engender such uploading by making it easy and socially desireable. The choice for the internet is to crash, or significantly increase investment in physical infrastruture. Obviously, because of the value provided by the internet, investors will not allow it to crash. What that will mean, however, is that they will be forced to bottleneck their precious resources into creating physical memory storage devices to keep pace with the amount of memory storage. Imagine the internet without major contributors such as "amazon.com" or ebay. Most people in today's economy spend most of their time on these types of websites just to earn a living. Furthermore, imagine the world without google. Pure chaos. It is because I believe anything that harms both the American People and the American economy so much outweighs any positive aspects of social networks, that I urge a negative ballot today.

1. Your facts are wrong and are from a biased source. A health care repeal would cost 109 billion ( http://www.cbsnews.com...) so I have no idea where you are getting this 7 trillion dollar debt from 2. A total of 2.6 trillion dollars is gone from social security and part of that money has been allocated towards obamacare. http://www.forbes.com... 3. Why should we give the poor tax breaks when they pay so little in taxes, and why should we increase taxes on the rich when the 1% pays more than 50% of our income taxes each year. The answer is not to keep taxing the rich until they pay 75% because that money would be used to fuel more idiotic programs like Obamacare.

I would like to note that you are correct, my current argument has been racially inclined. Though my numbers are figurative, you continue to bring them up, and so I will use only well noted statistics. I would however like to change the way we argue this point. Aside from the government unfairly giving out aid, let us also look into the burden which falls upon the taxpayers. There is a story about a war hero from the Alamo. This man is none other than the world famous Davy Crockett. This is how this recounted true story goes: Hero of the Alamo Davy Crockett was a colonel in the Tennessee Regulars and was elected to the House of Representatives from his native state. That was before his part in the valiant defense of the famed Alamo. He served three terms as congressman. While Crockett was in Congress a distinguished naval officer died, leaving a widow. Members of the House proposed to appropriate $20,000 of public money to give to the widow to assure her welfare and to honor the memory of the late officer. Crockett opposed that appropriation in such persuasive terms that it received only a few votes and was defeated. Before you consider him heartless, hear the facts which will show he was just the opposite. Others before him had said that the country owed the departed officer a debt. Crockett reminded the House of the countless men who had served their country with distinction, but to whom Congress never admitted owing a cash debt. In Crockett's speech before the House, he said the following: "Mr. Speaker " I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. "I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money. "Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the grounds that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. This government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the War of 1812 precisely the same amount. "There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor; and if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of, but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. "Sir, this is no debt. The government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. "Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks." When Crockett was later asked why he invoked the Constitution in that manner, and what led him to speak so clearly and forcefully against appropriating such a seemingly small amount, he told of an earlier, somewhat similar event. There had been a fire in suburban Georgetown during Crockett's first term in Congress. He was among several congressmen who rushed to the scene, helped to fight the fire, and sought shelter for the victims who were shivering on a cold night. The very next morning Congress appropriated $20,000 for the relief of the fire victims. Crockett spoke in favor. Because there was opposition, the vote on the issue was recorded in the journals of that day's proceedings and a listing was made of those who voted for and those who voted against the appropriation. Crockett said that when he went back to his home district to run for re-election he stopped to solicit the vote of a farmer plowing in his field. The man remembered Colonel Crockett, said he had voted for him the first time, but that he would not vote for him again. The farmer had read a newspaper account of that $20,000 gift to victims of the fire. He saw Crockett's name listed as supporting the measure. The farmer then proceeded to explain to congressman Crockett: "The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be trusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. "While you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20 million as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and in any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. "No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in the country as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from necessity of giving what was not yours to give. "The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution. So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you." Every American citizen has a moral and spiritual obligation to see that no neighbor, no person, child or adult, suffers for the lack of necessities while he has the slightest surplus in his own name. But neither does man have the right to use government and the law, in the name of charity, to force the unwilling to do that which he would not do if the choice were his. Davy Crockett believed welfare was wrong because it used tax dollars to fund it. Charity should in fact be a given thing from a person, were as the current welfare system uses tax dollars, there for forcing American citizens to pay charity. If nothing else, this story should provide enough obligation to prove welfare is wrong. However, I have a few polls to demonstrate that may further back up my claim. Since 1965, our war against poverty has cost the US government 5 Trillion dollars (all of which was tax money). An interesting fact, the national debt is predicted to reach 21.5 Trillion dollars. Logic would juristic that we use tax money to at least attempt to pay off our enormous debt (although that is a topic for another debate). Currently, it is shown that Americans give approximately 125 billion dollars annually (this of course is just an approximation, although not a figurative but a literal number). Now I ask you this. You came into this debate as the Con, yet you agree the welfare system is unfair. Being the topic is the United States Government distributes welfare in an unfair matter, you would be arguing that welfare is distributed fairly. Instead of picking apart my arguments, perhaps you should state one of your own.

Firstly, I reject your definition of capitalism. If I allow you to define capitalism in idealistic terms then you can simply use a sort of pat, circular, ontological argument, you can argue that: Capitalism is a perfect system and so being a perfect system it must ipso facto be the perfect system that it purports to be. Sorry, capitalism is not the lovely, ideal system you assert it to be and you don't get to start from the assumption that it is, you'll have to defend your assumption if you want this to be a real debate. Empirically, in real-world experience that is, we find that capitalist theory when applied permits the development of an economic system characterized by the tendency of individual capitalists and business entities to garner sufficient economic power and political influence to make much about the capitalist way of life less than "voluntary" for working people. Yes, private ownership is the cornerstone of capitalism, in both theory and practice, but in practice unregulated private ownership of the economy by those whose strong sense of self-interest has driven them to the top of the socio-economic food chain hurts the self-interest of everyone else. If you want evidence of this, well, we are living through a recession right now, read the newspaper. If you do you'll note how the greed of bankers and Wall Streeters precipitated a global "financial crisis". Need I say more? If you're someone who's been personally affected by the recession I shouldn't need to say any more, but of course there's ample evidence of the undesirable consequences that private ownership leads to. Just a few random examples. How about businesses that cheat their employees out of their hard-earned pensions, because they can, because the private owners and CEOs of these companies have the power to give themselves golden parachutes and to give a royal screwing to their workers. Or what about the appalling way the ethos of private ownership is allowing the divide, both nationally and globally, between haves and have-nots to widen into a gaping chasm. According to the World Institute for Development Economics Research 1% of the world's population now owns 40% of its wealth, and the most affluent 10% own a whopping 85%! How is this state of economic affairs in the "self-interest" of the majority of human individuals in the world? Private ownership inexorably degenerates into the ownership of way too much by way too few people to be a system that the majority of self-interested people should want to live under. The only reason that many self-interested individuals don't recognize this and oppose capitalism is that they prefer to identify with the winners of the system rather than its victims, and they're under the illusion that there's a good prospect of any hard-working person such as themselves joining the ranks of the winners. Thanks to these two psychological factors, denial about being a member of the routinely shafted working class, and wishful thinking, people fail to appreciate how much private ownership is not in their best interest. Add on all the societal propaganda and programming we're subject to from the cradle to the grave and it's no wonder that most of us don't realize how much private ownership harms our private interests. Ironically, and life is full of ironies, a system that limits or does away with private ownership, and replaces it with more people's ownership would be more in each individual's private interest. Or perhaps this isn't so ironic or counterintuitive at all, we've just been conditioned to think that it is. It's really just common sense that if we the people jointly owned and were in charge of our own livelihoods then economic conditions would start to favor rather than work against our happiness. As for the capitalist system prohibiting force, fraud, and coercion, it only does so in the idealized, ivory-tower version of capitalism. Outside of Milton Friedman's classroom capitalism functions very much through heavy-handed and dishonest methods of making money and protecting the interests of capitalist fat cats. This is not a fluke, it's a fundamental flaw of the system. The capitalist system is of course one in which alpha capitalists and business firms, being free to do so, acquire a disproportionate amount of money and money-power, and use it to exert more and more control, and to begin making the rules of the system so they're easier to bend and break with impunity. This, BTW, is why capitalism is so incompatible with democracy, and why as long as we live under a system of private ownership we'll never have properly functioning public institutions. Sorry if all of the above flies in the face of the definition of capitalism commonly preferred by libertarians, but I'm not interested in debating about the castles that libertarians and other free-marketeers build in the sky, I'm interested in what capitalism turns out to be more down to earth. You next define the term humanitarian, I'll accept your definition and point out that, again, off the pages of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and in the real world, capitalism conduces to the welfare of the few at the expense of the many. The economic success of the First World would have been impossible without its exploitation of Third World resources and peoples during the age of colonialism, and without the continuation of that exploitation in the form of "neo-colonialism" and "globalization". And domestically, well, go survey the millions of working poor in America and ask them how "humanitarian" they find our system, how well it's working to promote their welfare and happiness. Or is theory all you care about, and the real impact of that theory on real people's lives matters not at all to you? Now on to "individual rights". Granting individuals the right to enrich and empower themselves out of all proportion to the rest of society leads to a few individuals setting themselves up in a position to abridge and violate everyone else's individual rights. Eventually, when capitalists and corporations have enough hooks in enough politicians they can pretty much override our vaunted democracy and have things their way, so how well then does capitalism really serve and protect our interests in terms of our individual rights? Not much, alas. As for rational self-interest, if we were more rational and less culturally brainwashed we'd probably profoundly revamp or reject capitalism, since it's a system that hurts the interest of too many of us too much of the time. You then proffer what you consider to be a logically airtight argument for "self-ownership" and private property. Well, socialism would simply be the joint voluntary ownership of the means of production and of society's GDP. It would be people, not that political entity called the state but rather people democratically owning their economic system the way they're supposed to own their political system. In your argument you take the leap of saying that appropriating property for personal use is de rigueur for self-ownership and personal freedom, but this is a leap and where you land in the real world is, once again, a society in which a few alpha owners use their wealth and clout to infringe on everyone else's rights. Ownership by everyone together is what's necessary to guarantee a fair and free society. As for the role of government, it should be to represent the people and their interests, it should be the means by which the people exercise control over both their political and economic life. There's more to life in a society than politics, you can't have a truly democratic society unless democratic values are extended from the public sphere of politics into the private sphere of economics, i.e., socialism! Running low on characters here, so I'll close by saying that communism is not inherently coercive, only certain inauthentic distortions of it. I'll pick up here in the next round.

I still believe that FDR was a socialist and Bush was a real American. That is all.

At this time I will rebut Pro's case. P1. SOCIAL FREEDOM Pro describes how much our freedom may increase under a SOL system; yet, he fails to justify how this is a good thing. It seems to me that giving people the freedom to "own a pet tiger and let it maul you" is actually a bad thing--while this may maximize your right freedom, it undermines your right to life. Life seems, on face, like a much more desirable thing to retain than the near-absolute freedom Pro is forced to advocate for. Surely, the type of restrictions we have in our current system still allow us the necessary space and liberty to self-actualize, while ensuring that our own foolhardiness doesn't jeopardize our right to life. P2. ECONOMIC FREEDOM Pro says that taxes would plummet--in fact, under SOL, taxes would be illegal. SOL states that we own the products of our labor, and taking away those products by force is theft. Therefore, all taxation is theft. The government could only be run through voluntary donations; so, it is completely possible that the government might not have the money to run its police, military, and judicial arms due to a lack of voluntary donations by the public it serves. This is definitely going to undermine Pro's first argument about social freedom. It also derails Pro's flat tax plan as being Con, not Pro, ground. In other words, I could implement Pro's plan, but Pro can't. Moreover, since government cannot regulate the markets, America would likely see a repeat of the industrial horrors of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, where companies put out unsafe products, grossly underpaid their workforce, and accrued monopolies to extort exorbitant fees out of consumers. This would lower quality of life in America. With no one able to check against abuses, companies are free to abuse. For example, if companies in the food industry decide they want to massively underpay their workers to increase profits, they could do it. If they then decided to increase the prices of food, they could also do it because, like OPEC and oil, the cartel has an effective monopoly that prevents competition from driving down prices. There is no reason this wouldn't occur in every single industry, making it virtually impossible to find good paying jobs, or cheap products. The income gap would skyrocket, and upward mobility would freeze (the rich save money for themselves, vice giving back to their workers). Adam Smith himself wrote, "The landlords' role in the economic process is passive. Their ability to reap a revenue solely from ownership of land tends to make them indolent and inept, and so they tend to be unable to even look after their own economic interests." [1] Companies are wholly self-interested, profit-motivated entities. There has to be a separate entity out there balancing the scales in favor of the public welfare. 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org...


Question: Should Social Security Be Transformed into Private Accounts?

Private Social Security accounts should be a choice for individuals.

Andrew Roth, in his article "Privatize Social Security? Absolutely!" for the Club for Growth on September 21, 2010, addresses the concerns that proponents of personal accounts expose retirement plans to the stock market's volatility. However, he argues that such claims are merely political rhetoric. Roth emphasizes that personal accounts would be voluntary. Those who prefer the existing system, despite its vulnerability to political manipulation and decreasing returns as Social Security approaches insolvency, can remain in it. Conversely, individuals who wish to shield their funds from political interference and have the chance to invest in the same diversified long-term financial instruments that politicians utilize for their own retirement savings should have the freedom to do so.

The country shoud not be only all public but it musn't be all private also. Imagine that you will have to pay everywhere you go, to the park, walk on the street. Public bathrooms would still be unclean even paying for companys to use. Another thing is that if you put a country in a private way the counpanies will control the money of that country, meaning that government would loose control, because they will not have the power to control things inside something private. Saying this the poor countries would brake because the money will be controled by private companies. But in this kind of country the companies are foreign usually from USA meaning that USA would control the money and that country.

Explain your argument to me, please. Than I'll post my argument.

Well, I must accept my opponent's point that the majority of United States citizens have an irrational fear of socialist principles – it seems to me that many Americans have come to associate socialism with tyranny and poverty. Indeed, some right-wingers disingenuously link socialism with fascism, pointing out that "nazi" is an acronym for "national socialist". In fact, socialists are diametrically opposed to political parties such as the BNP who have adopted Hitler's ideological mantle. http://www.socialistparty.org.uk... Neither do socialists want to oppress the people or inhibit creativity and private enterprise, but that is for another debate. Moving on, it is difficult, to say the least, to credit my opponent's claim that only 40% of Americans accept the theory of evolution. Come on, America is the most scientifically advanced country in the world, who does my opponent think he's kidding? What do the remaining 60% think then? That the Earth and all it's fauna and flora came into existence as if by magic a few thousand years ago? Ha-ha-ha-ha! Still, my opponent provided a link in order to support his outrageous slur on the people of America. However, when I clicked it the page read: "Sorry, couldn't find a resource with id ThgcEsOtha6wUUnJ_hkE2" Hmmm, thought so! Regarding my opponent's assertion that revolutions are achievable with the active support of a minority of the population, provided they employ guile and cunning and enlist the support of a treacherous truffle-munching, wine-guzzling, Citroen-driving militia. This is probably accurate, but it assumes the remainder of the population would remain passive. In the United States, the people have the constitutional right to bear arms (by which I mean keep a gun at home, not roll up their sleeves) and it is likely that many would exercise this right. The net result of this would be civil war, not revolution.

Your arguments against the entire privatization of police forces is plainly ridiculous, with all due respect. I do not see how a high school diploma is anyhow relevant. I have a high school diploma but there are countless of better-suited individuals that have dropped out of high school that could become security providers. A certificate showing that you know how to Spark Note a book and do your homework 15 minutes before class has nothing to do with one's capacity to protect people. Maybe police officers are subjected to psychological tests now and then, so what? Police brutality is a daily thing, even in the United States, where pregnant women can be tased and old men beaten to death with little or no consequence on guilty officers. On the other hand, private security officers are automatically taught to be more respectful, more helpful, more trustworthy, and much nicer to people in general. Why? Because of the same profit-seeking interest that you oppose. Mall and shop owners have an interest in bringing in more clients, which means they have to provide a safe and relaxing environment. Private road and land owners could offer the exact same protection with the same level of effectiveness and efficiency. After all, where do most crimes happen? In the privately-secured stores or in public streets? In the streets, and I doubt this is just a coincidence. Now it is true that many opponents of the abolition of the State like to dubb the ensuing system as "anarcho-feudal". But this does not mean they are right. Clearly, you are misconceiving the very concept of feudalism. Feudalism, as even your Wikipedia article points out, was a "decentralized dictatorship" with national laws and rules to be applied on the local scale by lords, counts, dukes, princes, etc. In a sense, feudalism is the ultimate result of pure socialism, which seeks for a decentralized socialist state. But it is not the representation of stateless society. In a feudal society, one lives on a lord's land and has no right to leave this land to change masters. Such peasants that would dare to leave their homes would be pursued and severely punished in medieval France. In a free society, people would either own the land they live on or rent it from an actual owner. Obviously, since you would have the choice to pick which owner you'd like to rent your land from, most people will look for someone who does not try to control every aspect of their lives. I mean if you had the choice, would you look for a rent money-seeking owner or a freak that forcefully takes away 3/4's of everything you earn every day? In a feudal society, the central state makes rules about the ownership of land. In France, for instance, lords would be prohibited from passing their land onto females unless authorized by the King. In Great Britain, the sale of feudal land was authorized only if made to the King or if no family member remained alive. In a free society, such restrictions would not exist, allowing a wider marketplace of land to be established with competitive owners deciding to improve their properties and attract clients as if they were entrepreneurs. The lack of a State will not somehow awaken a dark aspect of humankind. Most likely, since the economic status of the stateless society would be capitalistic, deeper entrepreneurial and social cooperation will lead to a more peaceful environment. But I am not trying to give you one of those soft anarcho-communist arguments that mankind will be different so I'll rather use a realistic argument for my rebuttal. In a private country, the goal of the military would be to do its initial intent: protect people. Condominums will keep their current private protection apparatus, while oil fields could hire private militias to defend themselves. Now, remember that everything has a cost. People cannot buy everything for the very reason that everything is more or less scarce and price fixing is applied accordingly to the scarcity of the good. A private security or private militia group will be costly to take care of if it carries the duties of a defending army on a smaller-scale. So what do you think will happen if anyone dares to attack a neighboring oil field? Costs will be astonishing as one will have to pay for the extra weapons, the medical assistance, the food and clothing of the soldiers or fighters, etc. Those that have such adventurous minds as to conquer a neighboring field might as well see the military insurance premiums go up in a sharp way to cover the possible deaths that might ensue from an attack. The price incentive for not fighting will simply be too large for a feudal-like society to arise. I'll remind you that feudal armies were afforded by the forceful taxation of lords and churches. In the absence of this forceful taxation, who exactly will be able to afford a standing army? This reminds me of one libertarian scholar, Ludwig Von Mises, who said that in today's world, virtually nobody could be able to afford the construction of the Versailles Palce and that it took the forceful hand of government taxation to build it. Now, let us look at your case for a government-provided law. The first argument against my case is more of an argument against private courts that the concept of private law itself. You ask, "What if the people involved in the litigation cannot afford the judge"? To begin with, why would the people in a legal conflict want to hire a judge they can't afford? One cannot pretend all judges will be expensive. It is like claiming that without the government, all shoes, all clothing, or all housing would be too expensive for the poor to afford them. This is not true. The market adjusts itself to all the demands of society. Unreachable, over expensive judges would be a luxury service, not a general one. Now, is it fair or just to allow judges to rule without an universal standard? Not considering the fact that this system is the one already in use in the United States without problems, I would like to ask you a similar question. Is it fair to allow a few central planners, union bureaucrats, and powerful technocrats to decide what competent and educated judges should do? Central planning never works, so don't expect litigation to be any different. Another case against private litigation resolution you pointed out is corruption. You agreed that corruption already exists. The difference is that in today's monopolized system, the customer (you or I) have no choice. We have to remain with the same government judges all the time. If private companies were in charge of conflict resolution, wouldn't you choose the least corrupted company? You know, thanks to the transparency of the free market, when a corporation is corrupted or breaks a contract, so the rational goes that if a company dares to adventure itself into contract-breaking, people will leave it and it will start a long road toward decline or reform. In short, private companies would be less corrupted than the government monopoly of courts. When it comes to the polycentric theory of law of David Friedman, I can tell that you had the heaviest problems with this system (while it is probably my favorite one). You, to a weak extent, correctly pointed out that bad laws might lead to chaos and violence. If one allows rape on his land, those that would visit this land would soon be raped. Violence right there. But to begin with, why would you even consider going somewhere where rape is allowed. That would just plain stupid, or daring. And this would be a very isolated case. I don't see the domino theory that you pointed out ("bad for the whole country") even possible. Let's assume you have two neighbors: one with a good yard and one with a ugly one. Would you be more influenced by the first or the second one? So I think the domino theory would go the other way around. Space limits me. Your turn

My opponents argument seems to be centereed around privitizing the U.S. postal service. This would be disatrous and would not work. This would not work for many reasons. "I would say two things to this. The first is that the competition between companies to compete for customers would keep the price down. Second I would propose that perhaps the U.S. government could put a price limit to keep this from happening. One or both of these null the quoted point." This would not happen. The buisnesses would problably agree on a price that is higher than the one we currently have then they would keep it in that general area. Another reason that the price would go up is that the buisness would need to make a proft. "To this I would say that the U.S. government could still pose laws and even insure it. Although I would think that private companies could still insure the goods perhaps even better than the government because of competition." This is absolutly bogus. Rather than the quality of the U.S. postal service that we currently have, if privitized the quality would go down for a number of reasons. 1)the buisnessees would have to cover costs by cutting down on quality. 2)the system would not be held up by government spending. Now, my opponent has pointed out how the U.S. poistal service consumes more money than it returns. This is true. But it also provides a quality that would not be had if this whole thing where privitized. Also, what would happen to all the current U.S. postal employees? They would be fired which would add to an already troubled economy. What would happen to the buildings and the trucks and the tools? They would rot away into nothing. The moeny we already put into them would be wasted. I will offer a final reason as to why we should keep the U.S. postal service. Interaction with other countries. Our postal service official delivers and recieves mail from other countries. The postal service is so entertwined with our interactions with other countries that to privitize it would be repugnant because it would require foriwghn countires to use a privite buisness rather than government buisness. In conclusion. The U.S. postal service should nto be shut down. It should still stand as an effieiecnt system and as a service to the people of the United States of America.

You bring up the point of hunger and starvation. To dive into this issue we must go back to pre industrial France. Before Capitalism, before industrialization. During this time, hunger was a real problem. It was one of the highest, if not the highest cause of death- a great deal of children did not even reach adulthood. Then, slowly, over the years- a change swept over Europe- the industrial revolution. The Industrial Revolution brought prosperity to European countries that accepted it though Capitalism. This raised the standards of living of the average person up drastically. Only later did people decide that what they had was just not quite enough, and decide to move on toward more socialistic policies. Industrialization and capitalism is what brings people out of starvation and hunger, not socialism. Compare Pre-Industrialized countries with developed countries. In the United States, hardly anybody dies of starvation. In parts of Africa, starvation is the leading cause of death. Hunger is not heard of in modern capitalistic countries. Look at the USSR- a socialist country which, while providing welfare for all of their citizens failed to do so terribly and caused the deaths of millions of people- from starvation. You say we need welfare programs as if welfare programs are the only ways of obtaining food. How are people supposed to make money anyways? Well- most people make their money by contributing to the economy, becoming laborers. There are jobs out there- not ideal jobs, but jobs so long as you wish to take them. If hunger were really an issue, you would have strong incentive to get a job- especially if you had a child. Even the 'poor' in the US are comparably rich. Poor people in the US have great luxuries not shared by peoples separated by generations of time or by oceans. The poor in the US today have a home or apartment, they have air conditioning, they have refrigerators, microwaves, color television sets and VCR's. The poor are not building mud huts, hoping someday for food- food is an afterthought, on welfare or not. Do the current welfare programs even work? Current welfare programs always give a person an incentive to stay where they are. It's not that they are lazy, so much as that they are stuck. If you could get free money from the government, or the same amount (or less) money from going out to work what would you do? You might choose to get the job, but the incentive is to stay in the system. Once you are in the system- it is hard to get out. Children of welfare recipients tend to stay in the system, as it is all they have learned. Public housing systems generally suffer from flaws. Why? Because they do not own them. You have less incentive to take care of things that are yours than things that are not yours. Crime is often found in the public housing projects more so than in communities where ownership is the rule of law. I need to also quickly address the issue of minimum wage. Minimum wage is a idea brought out by people who claim to be in support of the poor. After all, this money sounds great! In reality, it hurts the poor. Where does this money come from, this extra money? Out of the pockets of the businesses? Well, often small businesses can not afford such overhead. Large businesses, who lobby for minimum wage increases such as WalMart like it because it helps eliminate their competition. When you establish minimum wage laws, you force employers to either hire less employees- as the employees are being over paid, you help inflate the economy, as prices will be passed along to consumers, or you get the poor fired- "I can't afford you for 9 dollars an hour, sorry." You try to bring up the issue of starvation in proof of the need of public welfare programs, but what about private welfare programs? If we were to support a capitalist policy, cut taxes by incredible amounts people would have more money to spend. Money to spend on what they choose, including charities. While everybody might not donate to charities, the charities that will not only come up but are already here are more than enough to deal with the few cases of actual need. To close, I will readdress an issue you brought up in your argument. If a situation were to occur when a woman could not even feed her child, who's fault would that be? Clearly it would not be the child's responsibility- he is a child. But then who's responsibility is it to feed children? Societies? Is it my responsibility to feed that child though tax money? No- it is the mothers responsibility to feed her children. If she is so desperately poor to the point where she can not even feed her own children she should have had second thoughts by having children. People should have the absolute right to have children, but with rights come responsibilities. If she shamelessly kills her own child by her own neglect, her own inability to find a job, and inability to find private welfare then it his her fault.

Socialism is a bad idea: Private Property: People should have a right to own and do anything that isn't illegal on their property. Otherwise, people would feel deprived. Means of Production: The government telling other companies what to do would plunge them in to the ground. Distribution of goods: The distribution of goods. You might get it, but the problem is you have to wait FOREVER to get the services or goods. For example, I have a friend in England that had a broken jaw from a bar fight and he had to drive from hospital to hospital waiting to get surgery. Is that how you want it? Socialism is Bad: Prosperity is good, I admit it. But would you like severely reduced rights? Yes or No? China is a fascist-state capitalist country. They just say their Communist. Otherwise, why would their economy be booming? Your rebuttal?

I. Opposition TacticsMy opponent is not defending himself this debate. He is taking all the points I make about NIT's, and saying they also exist in welfare (whch they don't), before delving into a emotionally charged statement, which is called appealling to emotion. He is not arguing from a practical or logical sense. I just wanted to state this to the audience, in case they did not notice this last round.II. EITC means welfare fails, because of NIT liabillity pocketsThis made no sense whatsoever. First of all, the earned income taxation credit has nothing to do with welfare. It is something designed for negative taxation. Second, how can welfare have negative taxation liabillitys, if it isn't negatively taxing. My opponent is not making sense, and it's confusing me greatly. Honestly, his statements make it sound like he doesn't know what liabillity pockets are. III. Government does not pay into the debt lineUnbelievable. Con doesn't seem to know what he's arguing. Yes, negative taxation pays into a persons debt. The government will pay your taxes directly, and push that back farther than your expense was worth. IE, your tax return will consist of money you didn't make. This is fine, but one must consider both the collateral expenses and the liabillity pockets that develop.IV. Social Security Liablillity This has nothing to do with the debate. You should not of brought this up. Yes, I support social security, but that is another time and place, and another example of trying to make this a liberal or conservative debate. (Although negative taxation is a left wing movement).V. Welfare also discourages work My opponent completly misunderstood my argument. The US ran two federal studies, with both concluding that people work less under the NIT system compared to welfare. My opponent is trying to cover these studies by scapegoating welfare again. This is the tactic I reffered to in the beggining. He can either address the fact I have gave him, or he can keep trying to change the subject.VI. Upset over 10,000 incomeI quote this, because me and my opponent need to get on the same page. This is not a government aid vs no government aid debate. This is a government aid vs government aid debate, which means, he is only hurting himself by making these arguments. Not to mention, contradicting himself. He keeps stating that government aid is bad, but then goes on to defend the NIT, which also gives citizens 10,000 dollars. It just uses a different system.VII. Welfare causes collateral expensesAt this point, I highly doubt the opposition is reading my arguments. Welfare does not cause collateral damage in the same way the NIT does. With negative taxation, you have to push back every tax in a persons bill. This means that the government is actually paying more than the persons needed income. If someone were to be raised to the 10,000 line, on welfare they would directly hit the mark. On NIT, they might go over 1000 -2000. This is a true collateral expense.VIII. The EITC proves welfare is ineptThis contention is extremely silly, and once again, the EITC has nothing to do with welfare. He states that since we put the EITC into effect after welfare, it somehow proves that welfare doesn't work. Lets get something clear. The EITC has a completely different function. It is a minor credit (Meaning it doesn't fullfill all your expenses), for people who earn income. Most of the people on it also get welfare.What I was actually saying, which my opponent didn't understand, is that if you make NIT's the predominant system, then people with earned income would just recieve a welfare check. My opponent must either support removing earned income credits, which will come with a BOP for that premise, or be in favor of having both welfare and NIT's, which does practically nothing.IX. NIT's are not welfareReally? You are paying poor people money they don't have. That is known as welfare. Both systems accomplish the same goal, just with different methods. If my opponent truly understood what he's advocating for, then he would stop making arguments about giving poor people money, because that's exactly what negative taxes do. X. Welfare costs moneyWow, so does negative taxation. I am going to define it for him, as he doesn't seem to know how you negate taxes.Definition of 'Negative Income Tax - NIT' A guaranteed minimum income plan advocated by economist Milton Friedman in 1962 where federal income subsidies are provided to persons or families whose income falls below a certain level. Negative income tax (NIT) would allow claimants to receive income through the simple filing of tax returns rather than through the claiming of welfare benefits, ideally eliminating the need for a complex welfare bureaucracy. They do the exact same thing. Welfare pays all money below 10,000, and negative taxation pays all money below 10,000. The difference, is that one actually spends above 10,000 because it is also paying for people's taxes.XI. NIT's are more efficientMy opponent argues that welfare creates a complex beauracracy, that complicates the system. You don't think that NIT's do that as well? You need to increase the IRS budget, because they have to negate all of your taxes, which is just as complex as welfare checks. Even if this were true, which it is not, it hardly weighs against the cons.XII. Welfare and budgetsThis makes little sense. Welfare makes you budget just as much as NIT's. The difference is that with welfare you are are budgeting for a month, and with NIT's, you are litteraly giving someone 10,000 for a year. That is not a good thing. It means that circumstances will drain nearly half of the people of their money by the end of the year, and they wont be given more money until the next year.While this seems fiscally responcible in a way, their will be a lot of dead and starved children and adults.XIII. War on poverty is pointlessHow are NIT's different. You are still giving people money they don't have. That is also a war on poverty. He is giving emotionally charged rhetoric, although his system does the exact same thing. If this turns into a conservative vs liberal debate, I will be very dissapointed.This contention should be regarded as holding little to no weight whatsoever.

Thanks to my opponent for his timely response. I can offer you a reason for my short unorganized response. I am very passionate about the change that is coming and the change that is needed. I think I let my emotional side take over my finger tips instead of my intellectual side. I do apologize for this and in this round I will attempt to make my argument more structured. My opponent asks “Why should we believe that (A).-They want socialism and (B).-Socialism would work better?” To answer my opponents first question (A) According to Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. That leaves 47% or, 144,293,078 Americans, in which 20% of them agreeing socialism is better than capitalism. Another poll taken in February of 2011 said that about 36 percent of all Americans viewed Socialism positively. This is an indication that the American people are starting to see Socialism from a positive perspective. =sources= http://www.rasmussenreports.com... http://www.deborahcorey.com... I will answer my opponents 2nd question (B) in my BOP (1,& 2) BOP(1) Let us begin by looking at something absolutely basic: feeding people. The world is currently richer and more productive than it has ever been in history, yet, according to the United Nations, 963 million people live in hunger and fear of starvation, and about 25,000 people, mostly children, actually die of hunger, or causes related to hunger, every day. This includes 37 million Americans, including 14 million children. In America these numbers increased 46 percent from 2006 to 2010. I quote my opponent “one can see from the evidence that capitalistic societies (United States) typically have higher standards of living” 14 million children going hungry, Thousands dying every day is a better standard of living? =sources= http://www.fao.org... http://feedingamerica.org... Socialism would deal with this seemingly intractable problem of hunger in the easiest and most obvious way, by not treating food as a commodity and simply distributing enough of it to people to ensure that everyone has enough for a healthy diet. This is the only one remedy but governments cannot contemplate it because, as the executive of capitalism, it runs counter to the real interests they serve. The remedy involves abolishing the money system, freeing production from the artificial constraints of profit and establishing a world of free access to the benefits of civilization. Just think about what this would mean: no more starving children, no more distended bellies and vacant, staring eyes, no need for kids to work 12 hours a day in sweatshops or for old people to die in the gutter or beggars to crawl in the dirt; so much human suffering ended. Even if it achieved nothing else, this alone would be enough to justify socialism a thousand times over. BOP(2) Shelter is one of the basic requirements of human life. Yet even in the richest cities in the richest country in the world, the US, there are homeless people sleeping on the streets. In the mega-cities of the world's poorer countries, with their shanty towns, the problem is horrendous. Socialist planning would solve this problem very simply. Dealing with the immediate problem of homelessness would just involve requisitioning the empty properties, the mansions and second and third homes of the rich. But a permanent solution is easy to envision. Use the census to estimate the housing needs of the population and establish a public house building program, employing thousands of bricklayers, carpenters and other building workers to build slightly more houses than are needed. Then make the provision of a modest but decent residence for every family or individual citizen a basic right, in the same way that every child has a right to attend school, In other words, stop treating houses as a commodity and distribute them on the basis of need. My opponent asks “If socialism is more humanitarian than capitalism, where is the evidence?” Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, ending inequality and class divisions, democratic planning of the economy, establishing international peace and unity, and all the changes that socialism would bring describes the word humanitarian, [definition] /committed to improving the lives of other people./ My opponent asked “what makes charity better then selfishness” I will respond to this question with a few questions of my own. Let us look at this from a different perspective. Let’s say you graduate college with a 4.0 GPA, you acquire employment in your field, fall in love, get married, and have 2.5 children. You have purchased a beautiful home and you go on lavish vacations every year. Life is good! Then the corporate company you work for decides to send your job overseas to make their bottom line bigger. You in turn loose your job, it is selfish for your company to throw you away for more profits right? So you tell the wife, no worries, I am educated and have experience, I will find something new. Then 2 months goes by, nothing, 6 more months go by, still nothing, the economy is lacking and jobs are scarce. Your savings begins to shrink, your unemployment runs out, the foreclosure letter arrives in the mail. You now have 30 days to move out of your home. You see, the bank you borrowed money to purchase your home does not care about you, they only care about that $2,200 you used to send them every month. This is selfish right? Now you have no choice but to ask your parents if you, the wife and kids can stay with them until you can find some work and get back on your feet. Your parents are understanding and allow you to move back home no charge, this is charitable right? This scenario is happening all across our country right now and it is a direct result of our capitalist society. Big corporate banks screw up and get bail out money from the government to save them from bankruptcy. In this scenario you have done nothing wrong, yet there is no one to bail you out. I would think if you were ever in this position, you too would agree charity is batter then selfishness. Pro "So it is more humanitarian that 1% of our countries population owns 96% of its wealth" Con “I would like my opponent to bring some warrant for this assertion before I touch it.” I will leave you some sources on this to view. I will touch on it more in the next round. =sources= http://sociology.ucsc.edu... http://www.mybudget360.com...

Socialism is far better than capitalism. In fact, I like communism better than socialism. Socialism is communism for sissies. So, from now on, I will refer to the system as "Communism". Communism was invented by the greatest revolutionary genius of all time, Karl Marx. If Karl Marx was still alive today, I would be his biggest fan. I still am his biggest fan. He's a great guy. He was a nice, German Jewish guy, and he realized that rich people were monsters and they needed to go to hell. That's why he's very nice. I want to talk about why communism is good, then we can talk about other stuff. Communism is good because it takes money away from rich people and gives money to poor people. This makes a lot of sense. RICH people don't need money, and poor people do. In extreme communism, currency is abolished entirely, and the society functions on goods instead of money. This may be hard for an idiot mind to grasp, but easy for one with a high intellect to grasp. I like this system because rich people are the spawn of Hell, and poor people deserve things that they need. Communism rules! If you don't like communism, then you're a bad rich person. I also like Stalin. He's a nice guy to implement communism in Russia. Keep going.