Question: Does Reducing the Federal Corporate Income Tax Rate Lead to Job Creation?

The Reduction of the Federal Corporate Income Tax Rate and its Impact on Job Creation

In my view, the notion that lowering the federal corporate income tax rate would result in job creation is a flawed approach. While the American Jobs Act, proposed by President Obama, aimed to stimulate employment through various measures, it failed to address the root cause of job scarcity. Instead of implementing the Act, I propose a different strategy that would yield better results.

1. Eliminating the Corporate Income Tax: Instead of cutting and suspending payroll taxes for qualifying employers and medium to low-income employees, which would cost $245 billion, we should focus on eliminating the corporate income tax. This would only cost $191 billion, and the long-term impact on economic growth would be substantial. The elimination of the corporate income tax would attract businesses to the United States due to the low tax environment.

2. Investing in Charter Schools: Rather than spending $62 billion on a Pathways Back to Work program for low-income youth and adults, we should invest in charter schools to provide opportunities for these individuals. An expensive jobs-training program is inefficient and prone to abuse, whereas charter schools can offer a better education and escape from failing public schools.

3. Streamlining Regulations for Construction Projects: Instead of spending $50 billion on new and pre-existing infrastructure projects, we should streamline regulations to make it easier for construction projects to be approved. This would create jobs immediately, as opposed to waiting years for projects to be authorized due to the current litigation system.

4. Capping Unemployment Benefits: Extending unemployment benefits for up to 6 million long-term beneficiaries would do more harm than good. Unemployment benefits should not be extended beyond a certain time period, as they encourage laziness and violate the dignity of individuals. Capping the time period for unemployment benefits at 1 year or less would motivate people to find a job.

5. Protecting Private Investment: Spending $35 billion to protect the jobs of teachers, police officers, and firefighters is counterproductive. While these individuals serve an important purpose, having too many government employees crowds out private investment. It is essential to prioritize the private sector to foster economic growth.

6. Modernizing Public Schools and Community Colleges: Instead of spending $30 billion on modernizing public schools and community colleges, we should focus on lowering taxes to create jobs immediately. Modernization projects would take place in the future, whereas lowering taxes would have an immediate impact on job creation.

7. Rehabilitating Foreclosed Homes and Businesses: Instead of

Gimme dat supply side. The Pareto Principle The Pareto Principle is frequently employed by economists to determine whether or not certain policies are considered good. The principle simply states that if a policy increases the wealth of one group with no negative effects on other groups, the policy was worthwhile [1]. This applies here for the simple reason that this debate is specifically about tax reductions for one group: the wealthy. Reducing their tax burden, which allows them to use their income as they see fit, increases their wellbeing. If we assume no negative consequences, the policy is deemed ‘good’. That, in and of itself, means that society as a whole improves, and trickle down theory fulfills the goal outlined in R1 to “help society as a whole.” I assume that my opponent accepts the notion that decreasing taxes on the top of society would benefit those already at the top, or those who will eventually make it there. He must demonstrate, in order to win this debate, that tax cuts for the rich reduce the wealth of different parts of society or have enough negative consequences to outweigh the benefits given to the rich. My opponent must show on balance that these policies hurt as many (or more) people in some groups compared to the number of people benefited in other groups, or that the wealth lost in some groups is much larger than the wealth gained in others. Income tax reductions increase economic growth, Income tax increases reduce economic growth A country with no taxation would have problems offering goods and services--like a social safety net, infrastructure, education, and national defense--and is not desirable. It does not follow, however, that excessively high taxes on the wealthy or any group of people is desirable. Once said goods are being provided, excessively taxing the wealthy would have negative effects. It should be noted that the impact of taxes is pretty straightforward in theory: if you increase the cost of something, you get less of it. It is as simple as that. In the world of soft drinks, a 10% increase in the cost of a soda decreases consumption about 8%, making the elasticity around 0.7-0.8 [2]. The same should occur when we increase the cost of being wealthy--activities that they do, like investment or saving, would decrease if the marginal returns fell due to increased costs through taxation. Taxation has been demonstrated to affect human behavior as described above. Increasing the cost of activities--like work--decrease the amount that people partake in such an activity. A tax increase that decreases wages by 10% decreases labor force participation by 36% [3]. There is no reason this effect would significantly differ between wealthy businessmen or hardworking middle class earners; those in the top echelon of society in many ways work longer and harder than those in the lower classes [4]. Decreasing the returns for that work would disincentivize those activities and not only make them worse off, but reduce productivity, economic growth, and harm everyone. N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University backs this up with anecdotal evidence: himself. He admits that he can afford to pay extra taxes, and that it wouldn’t make him go broke. “Paying an extra few percent in taxes wouldn’t create a lot of hardship,” he writes. But there is a caveat: an increase in his taxes would reduce the amount he is willing to work as the returns for that work would decrease significantly. “Suppose that some editor offered me $1,000 to write an article. If there were no taxes of any kind, this $1,000 of income would translate into $1,000 in extra saving. If I invested it in the stock of a company that earned, say, 8 percent a year on its capital, then 30 years from now, when I pass on, my children would inherit about $10,000. That is simply the miracle of compounding. With taxes, it yields only $1,000. … without the tax increases advocated by the Obama administration, the numbers would look quite different. I would face a lower income tax rate, a lower Medicare tax rate, and no deduction phaseout or estate tax. Taking that writing assignment would yield my kids about $2,000. I would have twice the incentive to keep working.” [6] This personal story merely demonstrates how taxes can negatively affect the economy and wealthy individuals without necessarily making them go broke. Mankiw can afford higher taxes, but if his taxes are increased or decreased, the incentives to produce change dramatically. One of the best studies testing this theory has been done by President Obama’s own advisers--Christina and David Romer. They find that for every one percent increase in the marginal tax rate, growth decreases 1-3%, and that lower taxation fosters economic expansion [5]. Another study by John Gruber and Emmanuel Saez--Saez tends to oppose tax cuts--finds that high income earners are actually more responsive to taxes than those with low incomes [7]. Taxing the wealthy has a disproportionately negative effect on economic growth. Research on austerity is an important place to look to see whether or not income tax hikes or cuts are good for economic growth. IMF research, praised by liberal economist Paul Krugman [8], has demonstrated that tax increases are detrimental for economic growth. The research [9] provides an interesting graphic on the relative differences between reducing debt-to-GDP ratios through tax hikes versus spending cuts. Neither are pretty, but the former is significantly worse. This analysis confirms the theory that taxes influence behavior, and that tax changes can positively or negatively affect economic growth. Both private consumption and GDP are affected by tax changes. This is a similar conclusion to that reached in Gemmel et al., “taxes have more damaging effects on growth than deficits so that simultaneously reducing the latter and raising these taxes is bad for growth in net terms.”[10] Research by both the Ways and Means Committee and the Mercatus center confirm the findings above--tax increases are bad, tax cuts increase growth [11][12]. To quote the congressional report, “[t]his report finds that these higher marginal tax rates result in a smaller economy, fewer jobs, less investment, and lower wages.”Tax progressivity is another way to determine whether or not tax changes at the top will affect overall economic preformance. One study found that “tax progressivity has a strong negative effect on the annual growth rate of real gross state product.”[20] The results can be seen below (X axis = progressivity). Corporate tax reductions increase growth The corporate tax burden falls on the shoulders of the workers, despite being geared towards the wealthy. According to the CBO, as much as 70% of the corporate tax burden trickles down to the worker via wage reductions and price increases [13]. The National Bureau of Economic Research corroborates this, finding that 56% of the corporate tax burden falls upon the backs of the workers [14]. Reducing the corporate tax rate would translate into higher earnings, more spending, and more economic growth. Indeed, research focusing only on the growth effects, and not just the distributional impacts, agrees with ‘trickle down’ theory. A 1% shift of revenues from income taxes and corporate taxes to consumption taxes--which are seen as ‘regressive’--increase growth by 0.25-1% [15]. OECD economist Jens Arnold argues that corporate taxes “have the most negative effect on GDP per capita.”[16] Economists Young Lee and Roger Gordon, using a dataset with 70 countries and a timespan of 27 years, have found that a ten percent cut in the corporate tax rate would increase economic growth by one to two percent [17]. On top of all of this, the revenue maximizing point of the corporate tax is around 26% [18]. The current corporate tax rate is 39.1%, much higher than the revenue maximizing point of 26% [19]. If we were to reduce the corporate tax to 26%, using Lee and Gordon’s numbers, we would increase growth by 1.31-2.61%, and increase revenue to boot! Conclusion High income and corporate taxes disincentivize beneficial behavior by making it more costly to perform said behavior. By reducing the returns for work and investment, you reduce those kinds of activity. In the case of the corporate tax, you directly harm the worker by causing the company to reduce wages in order to make up for the higher cost of doing business inside this country. Reducing both income and corporate tax rates would increase economic growth and increase wages, making the economic pie larger. Further, using the philosophical Pareto principle, unless my opponent can demonstrate tangible harm (through wage depressant or another form of malice) from reducing taxes on the wealthy, we are forced to support the negative in this situation as society would ‘benefit’ by default. 1. http://www.nber.org... 2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 3. http://cepar.edu.au.tmp.anchor.net.au... 4. http://blogs.wsj.com... 5. http://tinyurl.com... 6. http://www.nytimes.com... 7. http://www.nber.org... 8. http://www.nytimes.com... 9. http://www.imf.org... 10. http://papers.ssrn.com... 11. http://tinyurl.com...; 12. http://mercatus.org... 13. https://www.cbo.gov... 14. http://www.nber.org... 15. http://www.oecd.org... 16. http://www.ecn.ulaval.ca... 17. https://www.sba.muohio.edu... 18. https://www.aei.org... 19. http://www.heritage.org...

Thank you for joining this debate, I will rebutt my opponents points and move on to mine My opponent stated that "While you may be correct in stating that Wal-Mart offers low wages and poor benefits, this is an issue with employment. Remember that Wal-Mart is not obligated to provide the country with jobs. Wal-Mart is obligated to provide the country with goods and services in exchange for profit. In addition, people seeking employment do not necessarily have to choose Wal-Mart. They may seek employment elsewhere. " My rebuttal is that there is limited space in other stores and if you are an american who needs a job you have to go to Wal-Mart who then can afford to pay low wages because that person has no where else to go and he needs this job. So they actually have to seek employment here in Wal-Mart. Second "Your point about the poverty line rising seems to be a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Do you have any information that shows a legitimate and indisputable correlation?" First can you explain to me what hoc is and my point was a statistic so even if something else had something to do with this Wal-Mart still had an impact considering I said when Wal-Mart stores were built so Wal-Mart had something to do with this. Third "I'm not quite sure where Huntington is, but if Wal-mart built a new store outside Huntington, it is probably still within the jurisdiction of some other county. It still pays taxes, just not the same taxes, and not to Huntington." Wal-Mart would not be within the jurisdiction of some other county because as I said, Wal-Mart was placed right outside Huntington so that it would not have to contribute to the tax-base of the city. What kind of neighbor is it being? Why doesn't it want to contribute to our economy? Because that would cost more money. Fourth "Capitalism is a fairly simple economic system. A free market in which appealing to the public will earn profit. The fact that Wal-Mart is doing well as a business in and of itself shows that the American public is benefiting from it. Otherwise, the damage would be reflected in the stock market and sales figures." Wal-Mart is doing good because of several reasons, First Wal-Mart has so much money by ripping off their employees, giving them bad benefits and selling goods at higher prices. If all other stores were doing this they would be good in the stock market and sales figures to. Fifth " Wal-mart generates money, and that money doesn't simply sit in a vault. The money is used to enhance the corporation in order to provide better service so that they can make even *more* money. In this case, everyone wins except the people who, as you say, work at Wal-mart. But as I have responded, those people are more than welcome to work elsewhere." As my opponent agreed with me saying that everyone wins except the people, who as you say, work at Wal-Mart. So my opponent does agree that working at Wal-Mart is a bad idea and you don't gain anything you only lose. Also I already stated above that Wal-Mart is the only place left to work at so the people have to go their which is why Wal-Mart can pay low. My opponent also said that the "money doesn't simply sit in a vault. The money is used to enhance the corporation in order to provide better service so that they can make even *more* money. " Again my opponent has agreed with me by saying that Wal-Mart keeps on making money because of their cheap labor and expensive goods, and yes maybe a small part goes to enhancing the store but the bigger parts are actually either stored in a vault or used to build another Wal-Mart which leads to overpopulating America and making it have a lower economy. Now to my points: First •WAL MART EMPLOYEES MAKE HALF THE MONEY THEN OTHER JOBS SUCH AS COSTCO AND SAMS JOBS It is a proven research that Wal-Mart gives their employees made an average of $8.23 an hour ($13,861 a year). they make $800 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. Costco's workers make an average of $15.97 per hour; Sam's Club pays $11.52 per hour. As you see Wal-Mart employees can barely live off their salary just mantaining enough to support a very poor life while Costco workers make double the money per hour and have a good amount of money each year. Second •WAL-MART DOES NOT GIVE GOOD BENEFITS Wal-Mart does not give good benefits. Part-time Wal-Mart workers are not eligible for family medical coverage. They become eligible for individual coverage only after two years with the company which means they have to stay with Wal-Mart and if one of their family members got hurt or sick they couldn't afford the doctor's bill. Also Overall, Wal-Mart covers 48 percent of its workers with company health insurance. Costco covers 82 percent of its workers. Also, Costco's workers are able to get health insurance in six months, they receive thousands more dollars in health and retirement plans from their employer and far more of Costco's employees are included in its 401(k) and profit-sharing plans. Wal-Mart pays 66 percent of the healthcare premiums for those happy few covered employees Costco pays 92 percent. Employee turnover is 6 percent for Costco. For Sam's Club, it's 21 percent. Wal-Mart's turnover is a whopping 50 percent. Which shows that Wal-Mart gives terrible benefits compared to others and overall. Third EMPLOYEES AT WAL-MART HAVE VERY BAD LIVES They get low wages bad benefits; they barely can survive in any place if they have a family, or even in that case are living by themselves. Wal-Mart gives such bad opportunities that employees can do nothing but live a bad life. : 4 wal-mart employees spoke out and said that "My paycheck never reflected overtime pay" –Liberty Serna another was "Forced to return to work one day after severing part of his hand on the job"-Paul Moser, another one said "no help from Wal-Mart after she was injured on the job"- Latasha Barker and lastly "Managers work off the clock to get the job done" –Robbin Franklin. Wal-Mart is so unfair to the employees even after severing his hand on the JOB he has to return the next day despite the pain, despite he can't work as hard or as fast which means Wal-Mart would make him work overtime. Thank you for this debate and I hope we can debate again sometime soon, It has been really fun.

What you are saying is that the government needs to take more from the rich and give to the poor. What needs to happen is keep what you earn instead of giving it to someone else. That will have less productivity, and more government. The private sector needs to grow to get more money to the government. More government jobs is going to lose social, and economic structures. More government equals less freedoms.

Welcome to debate.org! Can you present yourself? You have nothing in your profile. How old are you? By the way, you are suppose to watch the video I post in my last round. I will keep debating anyway: If you want to live in a country where the taxes are very low for the rich, be my guess, take your stuff and move to russia which people live in even worse conditions than in the states. I don't know if it will be more fair to charge a flat income tax ration, what I'm sure is that 25% flat income tax will lead to great misery. Do you think unequal tax are unfair? I'm going to explain what is unfair: To be born with a genetic illness. To be born in a conflictive area. To not have enough money to pay a doctor. To be willing to work and not being able to find a job. To not be able to get proper scientific education. To have to go to the war when others do not. ... But if you want to argue in favor of a 80% flat tax percentage with a government that guaranties that every one will be able to have food, will page 80% of the rent of the house, unlimited health care, a proper army to make sure our security, free education like in europe, and guaranties jobs for everyone. Then in that case I will support your proposition and I will be the first one to emigrate to USA. You could also charge 0% tax and just print more money as you need it, but it is likely that people will stop using that currency very quickly. The idea that an entrepreneur will fire workers to save money is absurd, if you fire your workers you factory or restaurant or whatever will reduce its productivity and you will lose your clients and your income. And if your business goes well you only hire more people if you really need it. If you don't need it you just put your money in your pocket. Check it out, it is on my last video. Humanity needs to remember that money is just a tool, a piece of paper and if it doesn't serve its purpose you can use it in the toilet. For european people it is difficult to imagine a government as dysfunctional as the USA one, no other develop country has a health care system or educational system as bad as that, and now you want to reduce that taxes to the very reach people reducing the income of the government and making it even more dysfunctional. Really, it is a huge mistake to cut the taxes to the reach, if you become a president of the government don't do it. Do not base your decision in a funny feeling of fairness, base your decision in the consequences. by the way, I'm delighted to hear that you would exempt of paying taxes to the people how earn very little. I left you here a lecture on economic philosophy, I hope you will conclude that charging unequal taxes (%) if something good. http://www.youtube.com...

As I understand the President's position correctly, he objects to people whose annual income is $1,000,000+ using loopholes in order to avoid payment of their "Fair Share". That said, I propose that Obama, if he truly is interested in fairness, will shift his position from increasing the tax rate to pushing for modification or abolition of the loopholes.

Rebuttal: Sorry I thought the common sense behind my math would was an attack on your 3 points, no matter let me clarify. In short I. Tax breaks II. How it works III. Long term effect First – I just showed how the tax breaks would work, turns out their not very sufficient. Second – It has been shown, everything you buy (that's new) has a 23% sales tax. Third – Long-term effect, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. About the middle class: Yes they shop they most, that means this sales tax would affect them the most, so your claim about how the middle class pays the most taxes would still be true under the Fair Tax system. Furthermore, I would argue that if measured by amount, the wealthiest actually pay more in taxes. Since taxes are now determined by the size of your income and your property, the rich end up paying more. Remember it is done by percentages, so as shown above, someone making $1,000,000 gives more than someone making $50,000 for a 2% income tax. The same math would apply to property. However under the fair tax, a $100 item that is being purchased my 2 people who make the above two incomes becomes less fair. An extra $23 out of a middle class pocket is more than the same amount taken out of a millionaire's. Ok, my opponent has made several comments now about how he doesn't like how my math works out. How about we see some of your math. About voodoo economics (that's what I call supply-side economics) it has been proven to do three things 1 – It bankrupts the government 2 – increases income stratification 3 – fails to promote economic growth. Point one – During Reagan's reelection, was considered a great triumph because it was the first time a president won a re-election after creating a deficit. This was also the first time voodoo economics were used by a president as well. The second time was papa Bush, and the third time is the current administration. As shown by all three economies – they create deficits. Point two – Most of the tax cuts under this economic theory go to the rich. This money was predicted to then "trickle down" to the rest of the nation. Question for my opponent – how is the middle class supposed to get most of the tax benefits AND how's the rich supposed to get tax cuts as well for the trickle down theory to work. Secondly, as shown by the economy today, even though the economy was growing and stock prices were growing (only until recently) I would contend that the growth didn't affect the middle class. Most Americans can't afford to invest in stock or bonds, they need the money now. Now we are on the brink of recession. Under the Reagan administration, it was shown that while taxes were cut by 50% for the rich (Bush only cut them by 10%) they didn't let that money trickle-down. Wages rose to about $4,000 over eight years (1982 to 1989) for a middle class family, roughly 36,000 to 40,000. Inflation ran an average of about 4% over these years as well, so lets do some of that math again (sorry). 36,000 x .04% + 36,000 = 37,440 37,440 x .04% + 37,440 = 38,983 38,983 x .04% + 38,983 = 40,540 What this pattern basically shows is that even though income rose, it didn't rise nearly as fast as inflation. This means that even though a person had more money, they had less spending power because everything cost so much more. Meantime, the riches tax expenditures were cut by 50%; I don't want to bore you with more math but lets just say they got a better deal. So to refute your earlier points 1) Is in cohesion with the trickle-down effect, which has been proven true. 2) The Fair Tax includes tax breaks for the middle class. 3) The Fair Tax promotes a more healthy market, which leads to the Middle Class. 4) The Tax eliminates all the other taxes which hinder the middle class. I.e. estate, clothing, etc. 5) The Fair tax helps the family owned businesses. I.e. businesses owned by middle class people. 6) It stimulates corporations which hire middle class people. My points: 1) It does compliment the voodoo effect, it increases the income gap 2) Not as many tax breaks as does the rich 3) Promotes a healthier market, but excludes the middle and lower classes from taking part in that market because they don't have the money to "ante up" 4) Eliminates all other taxes with one outrageous one that eventually takes more money from them. 5) The Fair tax helps corporations 6) It stimulates corporations which higher middle class people, but doesn't stimulate the middle class economy

The war on poverty follows the same time line as the "Reaganomics" so there is no real way to know which policy was the failure. I've have been trying to find information on how tax policies helped the Russian Federation, but I have a life to live as well. I'm not sure what your trying to defend. I can only assume you think government spending is necessary based on your arguments. I also see some equality issues. The government consumes large quantities of money in order to provide any sort of service. Business have to pay large sums of money to comply with any form of regulation. All business pass the cost on to the consumer. They have to or they would not exist. I think anyone that thinks the role of the government is to create wealth is nuts. The government might want to increase it's revenue, but it sole purpose is to hold us back. That really is the whole point of any economic model. It was to decide who gets use of limited resources.

Since this is topic 3 of my points your responding to, I will use that number to represent it. 3. Con's theory here is that if businesses can pay less, they will. I'm sure they'd like to, but that is not the way it works. As I said in the first round, about 2 million people in the United States are on minimum wage, less than one percent of the population. The reason there aren't more is competition. Businesses want employees, namely the best employees, to come to work at their place instead of a competitor, and they will attempt to do this by raising the pay. Competition drives prices upward. The limit to how much an employee can be paid is how much wealth they produce. If a grape-picker is making their manager 8.00 and hour, but they cost 9.00, then your losing money, and it's not economical to keep that job. But if you eliminated the minimum wage, new jobs could open up for the unemployed, even if they payed a lot less. For the next round, were posting our questions, and then in round four we answer them. Thanks!

I had never previously looked into the FairTax system, but after extensive research, I have concluded that it is not a very effective or well-thought out tax reform system. I believe it would not work, not even getting close to providing the kind of money the Government needs, as well as hurting businesses and the economy. Refutes: 1. Simpler Yes, it's simpler. 2. Everyone Pays Yes, everyone pays. 3. Increased Revenue These calculations are based on the amount spent in the country last year. It is assuming that people would spend the same amount under the FairTax system. With such a high sales tax, people would not spend nearly as much, and instead invest and save their money. 4. Lowers unemployment Your argument here makes little sense. First off, you do realize the tax does not go to the business, right? The business would pay tax on its purchases and get no bonus from the extra sales tax. Even if they did, they would have no obligation to pay their employees more. 5. Deflation Again, what? The business will have to pay more to purchase their inventory from the vendor, forcing them to raise their prices, forcing even higher amounts on the sales tax. 6. People can choose how much taxes to pay Yes, people can and will cut back on purchases, meaning less money for the government, and for the business. All around pain. Arguments against FairTax: 1. The system will drive spending into the ground: With such a high sales tax, even if people have more money, they would not be willing spend with that kind of tax, while they could be saving and investing. People will buy necessities, but nothing else. As said above, this hurts the Government and businesses. 2. Who would pay for those checks? I assume the Government would be paying the necessity checks. This is rather counter intuitive. The consumer cost of necessities is about or more than 25% of the total non-necessities. In other words, the Government would be losing money on this deal, and as there is no other tax, the Government would actually net an annual loss. Feel free to calculate it yourself. URL: http://www.investopedia.com... 3. Discourage American businesses Due to the greatly reduced spending on non-necessary inventory, or at least the threat of it, many American corporations would be forced to make cutbacks, including layoffs and pay reductions. Also, many of the enterprises would be moved out of the country to pursue other, more charitable overseas markets. My conclusion is that FairTax is very flawed, and would not work if implemented in the United States.

1)So far I am the only one who has posted research showing that the budget control act would destroy jobs. You saying it won't destroy jobs does not make it so. Also the reasons you stated that it would not destroy jobs were thoroughly debunked by the fact that the things you said would occur have not occurred in the past and have not occurred despite people saying they will for years and years. 2)The Cut cap and balance would make it harder to reduce the impact of recessions meaning it would cause future recession to be deeper with more job loses. C) And the reason all those problems are occurring in the Eurozone is because they are restricted. The cut cap and balance bill would restrict the US moving us closer to haveing the problems that are occurring in the Eurozone. D) Incorrect the fact still remains that the cut cap and balance act that forces the government to only spend at a certain level would result in massive cuts to SS and Medicare, or would result in no more environmental protections, food safety, Pell grants, roads, or infrastructure spending. This is because capping spending at a certain GDP makes it impossible to finance all current programs because SS and Medicare spending set to increase due to increases in senior citizens. E) My source links to a report by Zandi who is a conservative economist who did the math and he concluded that it would kill 700,000 jobs. Your sources are just random people saying the same thing you're saying. http://ourfuture.org... F) See above (section e) 3)A) There is no example of a single government dollar currently going to abortion. Meaning banning federal dollars going to abortion doesn't change a single thing. The executive order wasn't Obama deciding to extend the law it was him recognizing the Hyde amendment and other laws banning federal money from going to abortions. B) So basically you think banning government abortion is good because makes it so only half of America gets what it wants while the other half doesn't. 4)Here is what you wrote, "Ill drop this one" The reason you dropped it was because you were using a bill that had not passed the house. 5)The Autism bill continued current funding; that is keeping the status quo . Even the bills language says it. http://www.gpo.gov... 6)According to the summary of the Child family services act there isn't any significant changes The modifications are just semantic changes. Such as referring to drugs as abusive chemicals. http://www.gpo.gov... 7)Yep you double posted it. 8)HR2715 extends the authority to mandate that child products do not have lead; however it creates a loophole that allows some products to contain lead -Budget control act isn't good because it increases unemployment. -Cut cap and balance isn't good because it restricts Americas ability to fight recessions and it also results in the government either slashing SS and Medicare spending or eliminating environmental laws, food safety, infrastructure spending etc. -No taxpayer funding for abortion act doesn't change a thing given that no federal money goes to abortions currently. -Combating autism act just maintains current measures already implemented meaning it doesn't count. -Child and family services act just maintains the states quo again. -HR 2715 allows some child's products to have lead in them; I repeat poisoning kids is not a good idea. Being at the end of this post me and my opponent will have the same amount of posts with arguments the debate ends here. Also I believe that I should win the conduct point given that I did not curse and insult my opponent and my opponent did just that to me.


Question: Does Reducing the Federal Corporate Income Tax Rate Lead to Job Creation?

The reduction of federal corporate income tax can indeed create jobs. The primary argument here is that the current corporate tax rate is too high, and it should be lowered. By simplifying the tax code and ensuring that no company can avoid paying taxes, a more effective system can be achieved. Ultimately, a nation that prioritizes free trade would eliminate the corporate tax rate altogether, maintaining it at a steady 0%. If the government also reduces its spending, this would be feasible for the United States.

Lowering the corporate tax rate would make the country more competitive globally, as it currently has the highest corporate tax rate among industrialized nations. Although some companies may not pay this full amount due to loopholes, the fact remains that the rate is the highest. Closing these loopholes should be a priority, but in conjunction with a reduced tax rate, as these loopholes are what keep many corporations in the nation.

A lower corporate tax rate would have several benefits, such as promoting long-term economic growth, improving competitiveness, leading to higher wages and living standards, boosting entrepreneurship, investment, and productivity, lowering the tax burden on low-income taxpayers and seniors, reducing taxes on capital, attracting foreign direct investment, reducing corporate debt, and decreasing compliance costs.

It's true that corporations benefit from publicly funded services like roads, education systems, and police officers. However, the argument is that people cannot move to other nations where corporations could operate. For corporations to function and be safe, the government must allocate funds to public services, which aligns with corporate interests.

A high tax rate drives corporations to relocate jobs and capital to countries with lower tax rates and easier loopholes, such as China or India. A comprehensive tax system that eliminates deception and encourages corporate investment should be implemented. As a Libertarian, I oppose all taxation, but I acknowledge that some taxes are necessary for government operations. For businesses, there should be minimal or no taxes, including income and corporate taxes.

The three main expenses for a corporation are wages, taxes, and supplies. Since wages and supplies are essential for company operations and employee satisfaction, removing them is unrealistic. However, reducing taxes based on net revenue or net profit would significantly impact corporate interest and operational scale.

Your argument that many corporations do not require a higher level of education is incorrect. According to sources, the job sector's need for education has increased significantly over the past 40 years. While state-funded education may be necessary for corporations to function globally, in the context of the United States, state-funded education benefits the people more than the

1)tax the Rich Rich people do make this country run, they are the risk takers and they are the entrepreneurs that make jobs. And the economy is a very easy equation, You need a job to get money, you need money to pay your bills, you need to pay your bills so you can eat. See therefore the rich make this country run and besides their tax rate is like 200 times the normal rate so that is why our economy is in the toilet rich now. And a side note, I watch CNN and WIBW not Fox news, haven't watched it since Geo. 2) Gun Control Of course guns are leading the cause of gun related deaths cause it's guns, duh. That's like saying we need to kill all sharks because they are the leading cause of shark attacks. If we ban guns it will kill people jobs in the Gun Making Factories like the NRA and if we do that then a lot of people won't be able to pay their bills and they will be homeless and they won't be able to feed their kids because of it. See as our founding fathers once said an armed society is a happy society and that is key to stand up against tyranny. If we lose our right to bear arms then we lose our right to stand up for our selves. 3) Abortion Lets look at the facts again in order to be alive you have to consume energy (eating), produce waste (peeing), and have a heart beat. The baby has all of these things and the last time I checked, you get put in jail for murder and then you go to h e double tooth picks. Second I don't watch Fox News I watch CNN and WIBW. 4) Education We were number one because we were best in the world, and heck schools didn't get a dime even before the Great War and many schools were private and America was number and was able to function well with out it, now the federal government want our kids to be stupid because they are giving schools money and telling them to spend them on staplers when the schools need text books. America needs reform and needs to quit listening to those pushy liberals. 5) End the Wars We would have enter World War 2 sooner and Germany would have never occupied France, and we would have stopped Communism in USSR and their evil purge of their citizens. They were purging them because they were what ever color or that they were right winged or left winged. The death toll in the USSR was 10 times worse then the Holocaust! And what happened, those dumb Democrats didn’t lift a figure to help out those poor Soviet. If that happened we wouldn't’t have entered the Cold War and the failure at Vietnam wouldn't’t have happened. You see if we had a great Republican leader during the late 1930s, WW2 would have only been until 1941 and we could have prevented Pearl Harbor and saved those poor Chinese people.6) ImigrationWhen we gave over from Europe we took land that wasn't being used so it wasn't stealing. We even gave the Natives gifts and medicine and we even had Thanksgiving with them, but after that they turned on us and started killing our settlers and raping our women. Then we slaughtered them in the French and Indian War ensuring peace in our lands untill those dang Canadians encouraged Tonto to get out of his Tent and shoot bows at us. Then our great president showed them kindness and gave them reservations were they get drunk and gamble at their casinos. If you want to get technical Democratic President Andrew Jackson made the Natives move from all over and put them in Kansas

Re1: Labour Costs is Indeed 25-30% However, Pro Commits a Straw man Here Con claims I didn't contest his assertion that labour costs are 25-30%. I agree, I did not. Because objectively it is true, but what I did refute what that labour costs would increase as a result of an increase in MW. And if we have two similar companies (such as Walmart and Costco) and compare the two, we see that Costco saves a substantial amount of money due to a lack of turnover caused by paying more for labour. “Turnover is unusually low, at 17% overall and just 6% after one year’s employment. In contrast, turnover at Wal-Mart is 44% a year, close to the industry average...let’s assume that the total cost of replacing an hourly employee at Costco or Sam’s Club is only 60% of his or her annual salary. If a Costco employee quits, the cost of replacing him or her is therefore $21,216. If a Sam’s Club employee leaves, the cost is $12,617. At first glance, it may seem that the low-wage approach at Sam’s Club would result in lower turnover costs...total annual cost to Costco of employee churn is $244 million, whereas the total annual cost to Sam’s Club is $612 million” Thus, when MW increases, we notice turnover dropping and costs saved. Which means in the short run it might be more expensive, however in the long run these firms do save money as a result, which means MW decreases labour costs, not increase them. That was my whole point, to which my opponent obviously missed. [http://hbr.org...] The committee lead by Warren noted only an 8 cent increase was supported by the Card and Kruger studies which noted prices did increase but only cents at a time (about 5). Both the study and the increase we're debating about increased wages about 18% found the same numbers. They have been consistent even with my opponents own numbers (20% is reasonable as he stated) so claiming it's more like $1.25 is outrageous and unsupported. That's only if his math is correct, but it again does not account for all variables (such as staff workers buying into McDonald’s themselves when they have more disposable income due to MW increases) I agree prices will rise, I disagree with how much they will rise. [http://davidcard.berkeley.edu...] Re2: MW Increases Do Not Eliminate Jobs No error in his source because the model in which he examines MW call for what we would generally predict in the economy, which again is not what we precisely see. This is only using the supply and demand model, which generalizes the economy, it does not precisely predict what happens. Just because there is no error in his source does not mean the methodology isn't flawed, and indeed as I showed it was made to find that MW would cost jobs. When we drop this model and go strictly on the basis of observation, we find this is simply untrue. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] In fact, my opponent cites the Newmark papers, which are heavily flawed. Originally, my opponents study actually agreed with the results of Card and Kruger before contradicting them. Card and Krugers (C&K) later studies were not only verified by T.D Stanley in 2005, but Meta-analysis of MW studies also verify C&K's studies as showing more employment increases with studies on increases of MW, and that the studies my opponent cite had heavy publication bias, and failed to meet the statistical reliability needed to justify their model and results (to be reliable studies have to have a 0.05 rating in the T-stat, opponents of MW had a score of 2, meaning they're junk science). [http://en.wikipedia.org...] Finally, one thing my opponent completely dropped was that when MW increases, more people will look for a job. Let's not forget to be considered unemployed you must meet the following conditions: 1) you must be actively looking for a job and 2) you must not have a job. So someone like a stay-at-home mother is not considered “unemployed” because she is not actively looking. Whereas someone fired and looking for work is considered. So, if labour force participation increases with increases in MW, then it's entirely possible under my opponents model to show increases of unemployed, yet MW increases still create more jobs; it's just that more people are encouraged to actively look for a job as a result, which is why his studies using supply and demand do not work, they cannot tell if it's more people entering the labour force or if firms are no longer hiring. [http://www.oecd.org...] Finally, my opponent claims that MW increase cannot stimulate the economy, this is nonsense, the poorest people in this country spend their money the most, if they have more disposable income and continue to spend they way they do, then increases of MW will in fact act like a stimulus for the economy. [http://www.ksl.com...] And no McDonald's will not automate everything even though MW increases because in the short run, those investments in tech are too costly, whereas people have the distinct advantage of having more skill in more than one area of work (promotions for example, or cooking more than one good, etc...) Besides, McDonald's when they were first founded were already automated to a certain degree, if MW increases have already happened and automation hasn't taken over completely, then this is an absurd argument by appealing to fear. They've been around since the 1940's and have seen numerous MW hikes, and yet they went from a self-serving type fast-food chain to an “assembly line” as my source notes. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] Finally, my opponent states “no one knows more about the McDonald's trade offs than McDonald's” which is true, but we have to look at this policy from the economy as a whole and evaluate it, we're not debating if it ought to be implemented, thus we have to go by economists, and the C&K studies, not McDonald's, last time I checked, they're not experts on Macroeconomics, economists are. Also, I cited the Costco vs Walmart for a “controlled experiment” on the impacts of wage hikes. Which is why Roy doesn't want that to be considered; it shows without question the superiority of MW increases. Re3: MW is NOT Welfare My opponent concedes that MW is here to stay for at least some positive reason, he just doesn't want it to get “worse”, besides I already showed through MPL in a monopsonistic competition that wages are below, thus my opponent concedes here. My opponent then goes on to say we have to talk about advantages versus disadvantages, which is true, but it's been around since the 1800's internationally, and is still in 90% of the world. If we want to weight in the +/- consequences of this policy, then to empirically test it's soundness we must see what it's impacts are, and assume the government is involved with MW and violating the right to contract, otherwise his whole case around the empirical of MW losing jobs has to be tossed out as irrelevant, because he simply has no data to show, and concedes that his model is a bunch of generalities, not preciseness. The Gini coefficient is important, when inequality is reduced, crime decrease, social cohesion improves, quality of life improves, and economic incentives develop, all this by increasing MW, to which my opponent didn't contest and just claimed “it's a measure” yet the two are correlated, and show the "spin-off" effect of increases. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] Drops: My opponent drops that MW has been around for years due to it's effectiveness, and it has been internationally accepted in other parts of the world. In fact, some parts it's socially employed not legally My opponent drops my monopsonistic argument favouring businesses unfairly My opponent drops that MW may cause tech improvements, and his contradicting claims in RD2(prices)Thank You

You assume that a true democracy exists in the US? Please, the US is just as corrupt and has simply bastardized the democratic process in a way acceptable enough for the US populace not to do anything about it. Modern politics is about placating the masses, lying, deception, all in order to serve the interests of oneself and the donors aka, the ones doing the bribing. The US is no different than Russia or any country, except that the corruption used to be better hidden. As for your two form system. I read the article. And at the end it acknowledges that the reason the filing system became so complicated is because of 97 of meddling by politicians. Given time the same will happen to your flat tax. Also, I take it you have never lived and worked overseas because filing my US taxes from Korea has always required special consideration. I don't fill out W2 forms my income is also taxed by the Korean government. Your two form system isn't going to cut it for everyone, it's not as simple as you think because most people don't account for the lesser known circumstances of other citizens nor does it account for the tax laws of other countries. It's a lie that people pushing for a flat tax use to sell the idea. Your claims that the progressive tax is killing economic drive is ridiculous. There is no proof of that. In fact the US is still leading when it comes to economic strength worldwide. The flat tax won't make it more difficult to create loop holes because the people making the law are corrupt. I mentioned Russia earlier because it shows that the flat tax is just as susceptible to corruption. Anyone who thinks the US is some sort of bastion of justice and democracy is fooling themselves. The US has legalized bribery of government officials! How am I wrong about the idiocy of the general public and their being affected by what they will perceive as unfair. It's not just the US the world is full of oafs. Most people the world over don't really have the attention span to really figure out what is going with the government. If Americans really took an active consideration to what the government did then C-span would be the most watched network. It isn't. There a shows that interview random people on the street and demonstrate how little they know about anything. This happens in every country because people just don't care enough to figure out what's going on. This is part of the reason the media is the way it is and why sensationalism sells. The progressive tax panders to the basic feelings of the growing poor and much of the shrinking middle-class. If there's one thing people notice is that the rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer and you aren't going to sell these people on a flat tax. It won't be a minority that will be angry. The other part to this idiot people observation has to do with the two parties. Democrats and Republicans. Both are idiots. Typically it's republicans that support the flat tax and Democrats who oppose it. Partisan politics are like two religions with both sides often blindly pledging loyalty to one side. It's an idiot fight that changes nothing and this flat tax is just another example of some nonsense fight. The current progressive tax was recently "reformed" by the republicans and it's a mess full of corruption enabling loopholes that many people are upset about with many saying that it overwhelming benefits the richest in the country while placing a huge debt on the country. The Republicans did that and yet it's the Republicans that want a flat tax? How's that gonna work out? It's like hiring the thief who broke into your house to change your locks. A republican wanting his party to change the tax code his party help break is idiocy. Changing the tax code will further piss off the Democrats and when the new flat tax fails in it's promises like every promise by any politician then its gonna piss off more people too. The rich are going to take advantage of everyone else because they have the means to do so. The progressive tax gives the illusion that the government is trying to do something about it. And even if you manage to get rid of all the corrupt lawmakers in some revolution the growing poor and the disgruntled shrinking middle class people are going to want reparations, they will want justice, they are going to want the progressive tax. And the upper class is going to give it to them because they know what's what and that it will pacify them.

This round I will respond to all of my opponent's arguments as there are a few things that I feel need to be addressed. R1: PovertyThis debate argument was put together in interlocking argument in a premise structure to where all I simply have to do is defeat one argument and then the entire contention falls. P1: The 'Increased' MW reduces poverty. My opponent's first piece of evidence is irrelivant as it speaks of the $8 dollar minimum wage. The reason that this evidence is irelivant is due to the fact that the debate revolves around a $15 minimum wage (MW from this point forward) which is $7 above the evidence my opponent has. My opponent brings up that 4.6 million would be lifted out of the poverty line in the US if the minimum wage is raised. That's nice, but there are a few factors that he is ignoring. At a $15 MW only 19% would go to and benefit those at or bellow the poverty line where as the rest goes to 3 times that of the poverty line according to a report by the CBO. [1] To show further affects it has been shown that raising the MW would create a 0% increase in income for those in the Lower Class. [2] While the Top Tier gains 20%, this shows that it is not having any of the effects my opponent is purposing. To add to that the National Bureau of Economic Research has found that at best a $15 MW would create 3.2 million jobs, but would have a net LOSS of 6.6 million jobs. I'm not sure about you, but that's worsening the situation instead of improving it. [3][2] Here we can see that this worsens the poverty issue in America. This point is negated. P2: The Increased MW helps the poor. Here my opponent's own source (source 5) states that it would have no impact [gain wise] on the middle class. It would only affect the 30th Percentile. My opponent also brings up MW Elasticity, so let me explain what that means here. From the graph above we can see that despite there's an increase in demand for Labor we have an increase in unskilled labor. [5] The reason for the increase in demand for Labor is what I like to call the 'WalMart Effect. ' What this means is that jobs look for an increase in part time jobs and cut down on full time workers so that they could get away with not paying for their benefits. This is something Walmart did in California when they raised their MW nationwide. Walmart eventually had to cave in to strikes, but that goes to show you what businesses will do. [4] This shows that we aren't helping the poor, but harming them and everyone else significantly. P3: Current MW Violates Human RightsWith P3, my opponent states that if poverty is against Human Rights then increasing it is also violating Human Rights which I have shown above. Thus this argument and entire Contention goes in my favor. R2: Productivity My opponent makes an interesting argument, but we can see that this graph above causes Pro's argument to come crashing down. Simple Macroeconomics shows that if you increase the Money Supply that not only would price level's increase, but the deman for money would decrease due to simple inflation. This simply shows that if you raise the MW nation wide you will see we would be back at the first point. My opponent's "less likely to leave" argument is flawed as all wages would rise we would still see things at the status quo. R3: Religion My opponent's entire argument is flawed as it refurs to a Living Wage, not a MW. These are two completely different topic areas and I have shown in R2 that increasing the MW will increase the Living Wage which would be against what Christians want working against my opponent flowing this argument to my side. When it addresses a MW increase I did back research and found that there was several extremely Blue States polled making it completely biased. That would be like if I found a poll that only included the nation's reddest states. Not to mention that his source shortfalled the resolution by nearly $5. Source 12 should be thrown out of the debate. With that out of the way let's move on to my own arguments. C1: MW leads to job loss. My opponent attempts to link my argument to Globalization, but this is completely incorrect as I had brought up nothing in regards to Globalization as my argument involved internal competition and had nothing to do with competiting with foreign imports or having to move business overseas. With that you should discard my opponent's argument here and I extend across my own. Let's just say I buy the fact that my source is debunk. I still have several other scholary sources on the matter. The simple fact is that my argument still stands even if my opponent launches a simple Ad Hom attack against it, but has yet to actually refute the actual against. I, thus, extend across my arguments. C2: InflationI find it funny that my opponent sites John Schmitt's article. The reason I state this is that in my source 3 he had co-authored the study with Jared Bernstein to show the MW increase to $15 would harm more than hurt America. So here we have a conflict of sources. Next my opponent's source only refers to a $9.80 MW, nowhere close to $15. Which thus negates his own argument. So despite how thorough it is, it still fails in comparison to my own evidence provided. It's more important that when we look at the source that his 10% was exceded in the last MW raise and under this one purposed in the resolution it is doubled. This is outside of what my opponent's source speaks on. Please refer to R2 for more inflation related arguments. My opponent confuses that there's an interlinking between Contentions. One can see that there's a clear linkage of evidence and relitivity across the board, but that does not mean if you defeat one contention that you refute the entire set. That's like saying if I refute my opponent's first Contention then his Second Contention fails. My opponent completely ignores the inflationary argument. Though he is not advocating this he is supporting the doubling of wages and hence by simple Macroeconomics, the Quanity Theory of Money states that increases thus princes would also increase as well as the cost of Living. By my opponent's own standard's in R1 he would advocate for continuious MW raising. [6]C3: Inflation and Global TradeMy opponent, once again, is mistaken here. He is ignoring simple Macroeconomics when you apply simple Quantity Theory of Money you can see that with the increase of the Money supply then the costs of goods and other things would go up. This harms US exports as they become more expensive to other nations who, with lower MWs, wouldn't be able to afford as much of American goods vs. that of goods produced in their own nation or that of Asian nations. My own opponent's argument ignores inflation's affect's to the US dollar and ignores the fact that in 1912 the Federal Reserve was created and given the authority over US Monetary policy which can explain my opponent's "Something happened" source. ConclusionTo conclude we can see that despite the increasing of the MW may look tempting it is filled with many vices that causes harm to everyone across the board by harming our worst off citizens and harming future generations by creating more unskilled labor and high school droppouts. We will continue to see inflation skyrocket as we will see the cost of living move with it to be that unreachable goal that many attempt to aim for, but will never achieve. Sources are in the comments section.

Many doubted the economy would ever be strong under President Trump; some still deny that the economy is strong under President Trump. If you are one of those that denies the economy is strong under President Trump, accept this challenge and make your case. And btw, if anybody wants to debate other issues involving President Trump, make a debate and challenge me. I am interested in having more debates about the job President Trump is doing, and I'm open to many different subjects. My case: The economy is strong under President Trump. 1) Unemployment Rate: The unemployment rate is down to 3.9%.[1] The last time the unemployment rate was lower was April of 2000, and if we can drop below that 3.8%, then we are in pre-1970's territory.[2] This advantage has spread out over the course of many groups, especially Blacks and Hispanics.[3] Many of these groups have the best unemployment numbers in decades. Long Term Unemployment Rate is way down.[7] Initial[8] and continuing[9] jobless claims are way down. 2) Full Time Jobs: The number of Full Time jobs are greater than they have ever been.[5] 3) Nonfarm Payroll Jobs: The number of nonfarm payroll jobs are the greatest they've been since at least 2008.[6] 4) Wages: Wage growth usually comes last, but we have seen them grow.[10] Living Wage Family is also at an all time high.[13] 5) GDP: GDP growth has been stable and growing (most easily seen in the 5Y).[11] 6) Productivity: Productivity is at an all time high.[12] 7) Confidence: The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), Business Confidence Index (BCI), and Composite Leading Indicator (CLI) are all positive.[14] 8) Capital Spending: According to David Brooks (no fan of President Trump) of the New York Times and citing Bloomberg, President Trump's tax cuts have resulted in a 39% capital spending increase, which is better than he was expecting.[15] 9) Interest Rates: Due to strong growth, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates, something that hadn't been done since 2006.[16] Historical interest rate levels[17] 10) Stock Market: The stock market has grown extensively under President Trump.[18][19] 11) Manufacturing: The manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) is way up, a sign of economic health through manufacturing.[20] PMI considers manufacturing activity, inventory, and many other categories.[21] 12) Retail Sales: Retail sales have been healthy since President Trump took office.[22] 14) Building Permits: Building permits are rising.[23] 15) Housing Prices: Housing prices rose in 2017,[25] and continue to rise.[24] Rising prices is a sign of strong demand, which shows a strong economy. 16) Trade Deficit: The trade deficit has been declining sharply in 2018.[26] Overall, you can slice this economy just about any way you want, these economic numbers are healthy. Sources I have cited include journalists from the New York Times and Bloomberg admitting ecomoic health. I have shown the hard data in many different categories that are considered important to economic health. I've shown that the Federal Reserve finds this economy to be healthy, and the result is rising interest rates. To tie this all together, I have an article from Money Crashers explaining 16 major leading indicators of a healthy (or not) economy.[27] My argument shows that the ecomonic numbers under President Trump are favorable indicators for a healthy economy. The economy is strong under President Trump. Disagree with me? Then accept the challenge and make your case! NOTE: Dukeofpanda was quick to refute me in the comments, but they refused to debate me. Sources: [1] https://data.bls.gov...... [2] https://www.google.com...... [3] https://www.bls.gov...... [4] https://data.bls.gov...... [5] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [6] https://data.bls.gov...... [7] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [8] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [9] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [10] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [11] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [12] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [13] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [14] https://data.oecd.org...... [15] https://twitter.com...... [16] https://www.washingtonpost.com...... [17] https://www.moneycafe.com...... [18] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [19] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [20] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [21] https://www.investopedia.com...... [22] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [23] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [24] https://www.globalpropertyguide.com...... [25] http://fortune.com...... [26] https://tradingeconomics.com...... [27] https://www.moneycrashers.com......

Again, this is all just assertion, without any evidence to back it up. I will not, either, dig through your sources to find out where (or if, as the one I clicked did not support anything you said) they support your argument. Your job, not mine.I. Prices will decrease (Or; How Pro does not understand economics) But, to go through your points, McDonald's labor costs are labor costs THROUGHOUT the system, from production of the patties to their sale to a hungry customer. External costs, like overhead from gasoline, etc., may well drop, but you literally ignored all of my analysis that this drop would not correspond to the massive drop in income. Lower prices do not mean anything if wages have dropped many times more than the prices. My opponent next talks about how prices have increased over the past fifty years, and so has the minimum wage, so AHA, he got me!Sarcasm, obviously here, as my opponent clearly is baffled by INFLATION. This is a magical concept whereby prices rise over the long term as a natural effect of market forces [1]. Interestingly, the minimum wage was HIGHER from its inception to the 1980s, when adjusted for inflation, than it is now [2]. My opponent just does not understand economics. II. New Point: Make the market more competitive for a higher wage!My opponent never, ever impacts how lowering the minimum wage will make the job market more competitive for higher wages. It already is incredibly competitive to get wages above the minimum wage; all you are doing is changing the floor, not the level of competitiveness. III. New Point: Bring Manufacturing Back to the US!Firstly, my opponent does not warrant why this is necessarily a good thing. The US has become a service and technology company, which happen to have higher wages, on average, than manufacturing does [3]. What my opponent is advocating here is a regression of the United States economy, whereby the masses produce cheap products for the profit of multimillionaires, as we saw throughout the early 1900s. Of course, we know where that got us. Conclusion: My opponent concludes by saying unemployment is the problem, but does not ever impact how this is the case or why lowering the minimum wage will solve for this in any meaningful way. This is more vague argument without reason or warrant. I apologize for the sarcasm in this round, but what my opponent is advocating is comical. The idea that anybody could POSSIBLY survive on $160 a month, when people cannot survive in the status quo with a much higher minimum wage, is absolutely nonsensical. My opponent has provided NO actual argument as to why lowering the minimum wage this drastically will be beneficial, and has NOT actually shown that prices will decrease proportionally to wage decreases. Instead, he has simply shown that he does not understand inflation. It's actually kind of funny that he references 1964, when, in 1964, the minimum wage relative to inflation was higher than present [see earlier source]. Pretty sure that sums up this round. Sources:1. http://www.forbes.com...2. http://www.pewresearch.org...3. http://www.forbes.com...

1. Labor is now 25% to 35% of fast food costs Con did not contest my specific evidence that labor costs are 25% to 35% of costs in the fast food industry, that a $15 minimum would increase costs by 17% to 20%, Con cites Sen Warren's figure that doubling the minimum at McDonald's would only increase the price of a burger by eight cents. That's unsupported nonsense and probably part of the early mistakes confusing McDonald's Corporation with the franchises. I provided a thoroughly referenced derivation of a minimum of 17% increase in costs. The average McDonald's Big Mac Meal costs $6.74, so a straight increase would be $1.14. In practice, prices would rise less than that with employees being replaced by machines. 2. Increased costs cannot come out of profits Con concedes this point. Prices would rise. 3. A $15 minimum would eliminate about half the jobs Con showed no error in my source. Con referenced the Card and Kreuger (CK) paper (1994) claiming that employment actually increased in fast food restaurants when the minimum wage was raised in New Jersey. A later study by Neumark and Wascher (NW) (1995) [15. http://www.nber.org...] contradicted the result, showing a decrease in employment. NW discovered that CK had relied upon telephone survey data, whereas payroll data showed a different result. The two papers were considered by Roppenen [16. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...] Roppenen found that employment decreased in the large fast food chain restaurants, but increased in small independent fast food restaurants. Fast food restaurants outside of large chains have almost disappeared since 1994. I suspect that growth in independent restaurants has something to do with the economic recovery being different in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the too states compared. NW also pointed out that data variances were very large so the CK results were subject to statistical error. Con referenced the CK paper again with a second link. Con's reference after that is a bogus link. Con then sites a Forbes article that says, “Fifteen dollars an hour is a huge jump from $7.25. It’s outside the range of experience. If you’re an empiricist, you have to say you don’t know what the outcome will be. But it will create some problems with McDonald’s business model.” This is like saying “We have no experience with a large chemical weapons attack on a US city, so we have no empirical data on what would happen.” Nonetheless, we have good reasons to believe it would be bad. There have been many studies of the overall effect of raising the minimum wage. The Congressional Joint Economic Commission surveyed the literature published in the fifty years after World War II. They found only three studies out of 102 cited where a minimum wage increase had no negative effect. In all the others there was a negative effect. The Commission said, “These studies were exhaustively surveyed by the Minimum Wage Study Commission, which concluded that a 10% increase in the minimum wage reduced teenage employment by 1% to 3%.” [17. http://tinyurl.com...] We would expect a few more studies before 2009 to show no significant effect, because the minimum wage has fallen further below the prevailing wage. It's as if we had a minimum wage of $20 per hour for neurosurgeons and raised it to $25. There would be no significant effect because so few neurosurgeons work at such low wage. Before the 2009 recession, only about 2.5% of the population was working at the minimum wage. A study done in those years may show little effect. Most of the state minimum wage hikes were in states with high prevailing wages, making it even less likely for an impact to be observed. Con argued that in general wages are not subject to supply and demand and that any minimum wage increase would therefore have no effect. About a hundred studies contradict that. [Con's falsely generalizes small increases in the minimum to any increase in the minimum. In 1967 the minimum wage was 50% of average wages, now it is 39%. The minimum is now $7.25 and the average wage is $20.08. [18. http://tinyurl.com... ] That is why if raised to $9. countrywide it would have modest effect. At McDonald's workers are generally paid $9, so raising the wage to $15 is a different story. That's an increase from 80% of average to 166% of average. Even though she used the bogus McDonald's numbers, Sen. Warren's hearing was about a small increase, not the $15 proposed for McDonald's, The testimony was that a small raise in the minimum wage would have little effect on the economy as a whole. The studies cited of no impact were from years when only 2.5% worked at the minimum wage. Now 4.7% of workers are at the minimum wage, and most of those part time. [19. http://www.bls.gov...] Even if that group is hurt badly, it is too small a part of the whole economy to have a devastating effect on the nation as whole. Con argues that since full automation did not occur after the 2007 minimum wage increase, none will occur in the future. In fact, automation is incremental. After the comparatively modest 2007 wage increase, McDonald's installed automatic-shutoff drink machines and eliminated one job in twelve. Additional increments of automation are fully-automated drink dispensing, automatic burger flippers, touchscreen order taking, and factory preparation of menu items. Deliberately causing mass inefficiency with artificial increases in labor costs is a net loss of efficiency even there is remediation of part of it with automation. I didn't cite a McDonald's in Tokyo. I cited a competitor that is more easily automated. In Prof. Reich's video he is talking about a raise from $7.25 to $9, not close to what we are debating. He says jobs won't be lost because personal service jobs cannot be automated. In the specific case of fast food I have shown exactly how the jobs can be automated. The only issue is capital costs versus labor costs. If Con argues that supply and demand do not operate on labor. About a hundred studies contradict that. [17] He made the generic argument that the minimum wage has no effect on employment, regardless of the amount. I challenge Con to explain why, under his theory, we should not raise the minimum to $200 per hour. If Con agrees that the amount matters, then he needs to reference the actual numbers for McDonald's. A rise in the minimum cannot be stimulus, because it merely transfers wealth. Con argues that reducing turnover will compensate for increased wages. That depends on the industry, and no one knows more about the McDonald's tradeoffs than McDonald's. Costco is a warehouse store, that's not McDonald's. 4. Welfare should be done by government insofar as it's done at all Con supposes that if the government sets any minimum and if I don't oppose abolishing the minimum entirely, then I've accepted the principle that government is free to set any minimum. If something is bad, it's still valid to discuss an acute case of making it worse. If the minimum is set well below the prevailing wage, it has little effect and isn't worth debating. Con says questioning the role of government is irrelevant. No, the challenge only says that we are weighing advantages versus disadvantages. It is a disadvantage of the $15 per hour minimum that it transfers wealth away from lower and middle income groups to fast food workers, rather than transferring it from the wealthy. The Gini Coefficient is a measure of income equality. Total equality is achieved when all incomes are zero. It is a measure, but not a goal. I showed that fast food is not a monopoly industry. I never said or implied a minimum wage was a free lunch. I said it puts workers out of their jobs. Debate issues Con has the link to the Costco reference used erroneously three times. The CK link is duplicated. I need the real links. Con references Reich's arguments without making the arguments himself. They should be ignored.

In this round I will counter my opponents main arguments and conclude my argument. My opponent and the rest of the democrats seem to be failing the American people in terms of economics. Their new healthcare law, "Obamacare", is supposedly intended to make it easier for Americans to attain access to health insurance and to help alleviate the costs a little. However, we have witnessed the exact opposite. My opponent claims that "Another thing that you fail to mention is that the way Obamacare works people who earn more pay higher rates, while those who earn less pay less." If that were a fact then there wouldn't be countless incidents of patients that come from ordinary middle and working class families that end up paying hundreds more in medical costs than they would've under their original health plan. Those who made the law have had a very long time since its passage to ensure that everything is in working order and that there won't be problems however the roll out of the program was an utter and complete disaster. The website wasn't working, people couldn't sign up, some people's personal information wouldn't go through to the companies, and have i mentioned higher premiums yet? The law is also complete damaging small businesses and individuals as well. The law is essentially forcing everyone in the US to purchase health insurance whether they want to or not, whether they can afford to or not. If you refuse to participate then you will be forced to pay a fee anyways. Where is the liberty in that? How is that helping Americans get cheaper high quality healthcare? I don't think it is doing that at all. As to the progressive tax system. I do agree that everyone be paying fair taxes. However is a 70% tax rate fair? President Obama called on Congress to allow a tax hike on families and businesses making more than $250,000. New and higher taxes will not create jobs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, "higher marginal tax rates do reduce economic activity." President Obama"s tax hike plan will hurt the ability of small businesses to innovate, invest, and hire. " The Economy is Weaker than When All Tax Rates Were Extended: At the time of the 2010 tax rate extension, GDP growth was 3.1 percent and President Obama said that raising taxes "would have been a blow to our economy." GDP growth over the last four quarters has been 2.0 percent. " One Out of Four Employees Works at Businesses Hit: Businesses employing 25 percent of the American workforce would be hit with higher taxes. " Majority of Small Business Income Affected: An estimated 53 percent of all business income reported on individual tax returns will be affected by the President's tax increase. " One Million Small Businesses Caught: Approximately 940,000 small businesses would be hit by President Obama"s tax hike. " America"s Competitiveness Hurt. Raising the dividend and capital gains rates will result in a 68.6 percent integrated dividend tax rate (the highest among industrialized countries) and a 56.7 percent integrated capital gains tax rate, second highest among these nations (behind Italy). Such a high rate will drive investment and jobs overseas. In addition, Democrats continue creating expensive government funded programs that really don't help all that much even though the deficit is extremely high (one of the highest in all of American history) and the debt is spiraling out of control. What do they do about it? Simply raise the debt ceiling and hope that the debt will miraculously decrease. When ever the debt reaches the fiscal cliff Democrats simply eliminate that dilemma in raising the debt ceiling. Well, how is that supposed to lower the debt and increase the national economy and economic growth? The answer to that is that it won't. My opponent also claimed that the high deficit of 2009 was caused by Bush (typical statement by a Democrat) but my opponent failed to recognize that the Democratic party controlled both houses of congress from 2007 to 2011. And it is congress's job to make the budget and approve it, so the Democrats made the budget and approved it with their political power in 2008, Bush simply just signed it. The Republican plan is different. It will stop the losing of millions of jobs under the Democratic plan and create millions that have already been lost. It will lead families back on a path of family prosperity and self sustainability once more and get the US economy going again. Some Food For Thought in the posted you tube video: http://www.youtube.com...

FairTax, to provide background, is a twenty three percent sales tax rate and the elimination of all national taxes other than the national sales tax. In the plan, a check would be sent to each household at the beginning of each month to cover the estimated taxes on life's necessities like food and water. Furthermore, only new items would be taxed and only the final product would be taxed. This is why the plan works. 1.Simpler You get your pay check. The pay check is significantly larger because you keep all of the money that you earn. You go to the store. You pay your taxes just like you would when you pay for anything today. You go home. You do not have to worry about April 15th. No problems. 2. Everyone pays The hookers, drug dealers, and illegals, who do not pay income taxes, would pay taxes. 3. Increased revenue According to FairTax.org, the United States revenue would increase by 352 Billion dollars in the first year alone. 4. It would cause unemployment to decrease. Businesses will not have to pay taxes on their products but instead, tack on the tax when selling to the consumers. Thus, businesses have more money to pay employees. 5. Deflation Businesses will no longer have to pay more because the vendors have to sell for higher prices to cover the cost of taxes. 6. People can choose how much taxes to pay. Now, you make more, you pay more. You are punished for working hard. With this system, you don't want to pay, you don't have to pay. Just cut back on purchases. I am going to leave the debate at this for now to see where you want to take your argument. Go FairTax!

I. UnemploymentThe minimum wage drives up wage costs to employers, thus making it more prone to laying off, especially the less skilled workers like teens and minorities and low wage jobs in general. I. a. GeneralThrough a hypothesis, we can see generally why the minimum wage increases unemployment:1) There exists a marginal productivity (the amount of revenue that worker brings their employer per hour of work) for workers.2) Because companies compete with each other for workers, a worker's wage will be close to that marginal productivity. (if a worker is making significantly less than their marginal productivity, another person can make a profit by hiring them for slightly more than they're making, and so on until the wage is approximately the marginal productivity).3) A government declaration of a 'minimum wage' doesn't raise the productivity of workers.4) If a minimum wage is set above the marginal productivity of a worker, that worker's employer must either continue paying that worker, losing money, or fire that worker.5) Businesses aren't charities, they will not hire workers for a loss.6) So the minimum wage can only cause unemployment. Statistical and empirical evidence can support this theory. Economists have studied the job-destroying features of a higher minimum wage. Estimates of the job losses of raising the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 have ranged from 625,000 to 1,000,000 lost jobs. It is important to recognize that the jobs lost are mainly entry-level jobs. By destroying entry-level jobs, a higher minimum wage harms the lifetime earnings prospects of low-skilled workers. "[1] If you compare the average from the states (plus DC) with a minimum wage higher than the federal one to those who only obey the federal one, you get an average unemployment rate of 9.34% for the 1st group and an average of 7.88% for the 2nd group. [3][4]This can be seen in this graph: [2]"With all of this recessions significant labor market problems, and the expensive federal efforts to offset them, it's too bad that the minimum-wage law added so many people to the list of those who today cannot find jobs. "[5] As the minimum wage increases, unemployment increases. Why? Because with a minimum wage, companies have to pay more to employees. This means that they have to lay off employees to stay on budget. I. b. Low-Skill Workers I'll focus on teenage and young adult unemployment here. Again, another hypothesis: When the minimum wage kicks in and employers have to start laying off, who, by nature, are going to be laid off first? The workers they need the least or who produce the lowest marginal productivity or production at all. Why? Because their cost-to-benefit ratio (C/B) it higher than with other groups. Who does this tend to affect? The low-skilled and the people just entering the labor force (i. e. teens and young adults) because they have the highest C/B of all workers because their skill is the lowest. Evidence can also back up this claim. "Using data extended to 1999, they find that the effect of the minimum wage on employment has been fairly constant over time, and that there are statistically significant negative effects of the minimum wage on teenage employment, with an elasticity of −0.12 in the short-run and −0.27 in the longer-run. "[6]"A 2006 University of Georgia study found that every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage was associated with a 4.6 to 9.0 percent decline in teenage employment. This finding was corroborated last summer when the 12 percent hike in the minimum wage corresponded with a five percent unemployment spike for teens. "[7]And another graph can show this: [8]"Unemployment in 2006 (teenage) was 4.4%, there was a steady minimum wage. In 2009, after a few minimum wage increases, teenage unemployment was 10.2%. "[8] As the minimum wage increases, teenage employment decreases. Why? Because as the minimum wage eats into companies' profits, they can employ fewer people. And the first people they fire are the unskilled, young employees. Also, "Minimum wage laws affect ethnic minorities the most. "[9] The minimum wage hurts blacks generally. [10]A graph can show this too: [13] It affects minorities because of their low-skill status too. II. PricesThrough the first hypothesis I provided above, we can deduce that employers, in addition to lowering their costs (through laying off workers), would also want to increase revenue, thus they also raise prices. More evidence can back this up. "The federal increase from $4.25 to $5.15 costs California families an average of $133 more per year for the goods they normally purchase. Since higher-income families spend more, they would pay more in absolute terms than lower-income families: up to $234 per year compared to $84 per year. "[11]The minimum wage increases inflationary pressure. [12]"Artificially imposed wages, like those mandated by the government through implementation of minimum wage legislation, will cause prices to increase. "[14] As the minimum wage increases, not only do companies fire employees, they also raise prices to help the budget. And in the end, this will make it harder for people, especially poor people, to buy necessary things. That in turn reduces GDP growth because there is less buying, and this will plunge us into another recession. Sources:[1]: . http://web.archive.org...[2]: . http://www.foxbusiness.com...[3]: . http://en.wikipedia.org...[4]: . http://en.wikipedia.org...[5]: . http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com...[6]: . http://showmeinstitute.org...[7]: . http://epionline.org...[8]: . http://www.americanthinker.com...[9]: . http://mises.org...[10]: Behrman, Jere R. ; Sickles, Robin C. ; and Taubman, Paul. 1983. The Impact of Minimum Wages on the Distributions of Earnings for Major Race-Sex Groups: A Dynamic Analysis. American Economic Review, vol. 73 (September): 766-778. [11]: . http://www.ppic.org...[12]: Adams, F. Gerard. 1987. Increasing the Minimum Wage: The Macroeconomic Impacts. Briefing Paper, Economic Policy Institute (July). [13]: . http://online.wsj.com...[14]: . http://mitch-alan.hubpages.com...;