Intro:
Imagine this, everyone in this room receives a grade to an essay they wrote. A few of you were
given A’s, some don't do so well and get D’s, others B- and so forth. Now a couple people aren’t
gonna get into college because they didn't have good grades, the solution to this the teachers
decide is taking some points off the couple students with A’s and give them to the students who
didn't do so well. Now everyone has a C-, its fair now, right? This is the same idea the
affirmative team is proposing, but with our economic system.
In order for the government to ‘lessen’ the gap, they must control the distribution of wealth.
Once you make it the governments place, they have complete control of what you get and
increasing the taxes on who they decide is the rich, soon everyone even slightly above middle
class is considered rich and are taxed until they are middle class too.
Good morning, my name is Lina Hupp and i am for the resolution that the government should
not have the obligation to lessen the economic gap between its rich and poor citizens.
Definitions:
Government- ​the governing body of a nation, state, or community.
Obligation- ​an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or
commitment.
Economic gap- ​Economic inequality is the difference found in various measures of economic
well-being among individuals in a group, among groups in a population, or among countries.
Value:
With the government controlling our wages, we are actually losing our f​ reedom​. We’re losing our
individuality, and turning into a more socialistic society.
We become less independent as individuals and more dependant on big government.
[quote 1]
How the affirmative side is actually socialism
Capitalism is when production and control of wealth is determined by the individual or private
corporations, socialism is when production and wealth is controlled and distributed by the state or
government. The government controlling the economic gap and where money is distributed among
individuals (a.k.a the rich and poor) is in fact an act of socialism.
“When someone works hard their entire life and builds a company, put their blood, sweat,
and tears into it and turns a good profit, why should they be punished? Why should others
get their earnings? They shouldn’t. When you take money from the more successful people
it creates less successful people and it encourages people to be failures. So when there are
more people in need of help from the State, the more they tax others? This means that the
wealth gets concentrated into fewer hands, and this is why you see such a monopoly on the
money as it is.” ​What about the future large companies who don’t exist yet? If socialism was in
place in 1995 would we have Google today? If we were socialist in 1975 would we have Apple
today?
This is stopping the creation of wealth and societal progression by saying that what we have
now is all we need to get and only focusing on the redistribution of current wealth. When you
redistribute wealth, you are taking from success, and giving to non-success.
[quote 2]
When it comes down to it, this wouldn't really help the poor
If anyone who’s poor will receive money from the government, what motivation is there to work
hard at all? Why don't we all just rely on the government because even if you do work hard to be
more successful, the government will just raise your taxes because now they consider you as
rich. Soon everyone will realize there is no reward in working hard and see that we all might as
well rely on the government where no one can be any more successful than anyone else. A
totally equal society, downfall is, the government has complete regulation over everything you
do, and you’re no longer free. ​“This tyranny of good intentions disables citizens'
self-determination and undermines their values, especially personal responsibility. Ultimately, it
devalues their inherent worth as created in God's image. We risk, as Ronald Reagan warned,
"treating them as helpless children to be forever dependent." Our guiding principles should be to
help people by building their capabilities so that they exercise their rights to choose a life that
they value.” -Jim DeMint
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/the-coming-crisis-how-government-dependency
-threatens-americas-freedom
[quote 3]
Here’s how I propose a solution to this issue without falling into a socialistic economy,
as my opponents plan does. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him
how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, however,
some passages in the Bible generally convey the same ideology. This is the same
approach we should be taking with people with economic issues, giving money to those
who don't know how to hold onto it or handle it isn’t really helping them, they’re just
gonna lose it again buying from the people who do know how to handle/make it. If you
truly want to help the poor, then you should be enforcing public schools to teach about
finances, because currently students are not being taught how to support themselves
and are left shocked when they graduate. In a 2015 survey, it was found that 21% of the
poverty rate is to people under the age of 18. ​“Most people are broke because they
don’t learn about personal finance, I think the psychology should shift from ‘How
can I spend money to make me happy now?’ to ‘How can I use this money to buy
me financial freedom in the future?’” If we move in the direction the affirmative team is proposing, we put ourselves in the begining of
a downward slope to socialism. Capitalism is based on creativity and new ideas, socialism is
based on control and the force of keeping an equal distribution of wealth in a society; which as
it’s shown time and time again, always leads to tyranny. I hope you can agree that government
control over the economic gap will only lead to harsh consequenses. Thank you.
Rebuttals:
Hello again
Rebuttal 1:
The affirmative side tries to argue the unfairness of the rich being more privileged, but ​a recent
study shows that​ “the top 1 percent of taxpayers account for more income taxes paid
than the bottom ​90 percent​ combined.” -tax foundation. N
​ ow that doesn’t seem very fair.
Our country has avoided the socialistic approach for a long time and doesn’t even realize how
much better off we are than most countries because of it. For all the Wall Street talk about the
top "1%," ​if you make $34,000 a year after taxes, you are part of the worldwide 1%​ -- and
Americans make up half of the total 1%ers on the planet. You can thank the growth created by
capitalism for that. Even nations like China have figured this out and have seen their economies
lift off by moving towards capitalism. If China keeps at it long enough, eventually the hundreds
of millions of Chinese who're still living in huts and shacks will be able to have the sort of lives
and technology even the American poor take for granted.
Rebuttal 2:
America is benefitted and thrives because of the rich, b​ut there is a huge misrepresentation
of who the rich are. “The primary growth at the top is not in wages, salaries and benefits,
but in capital gains and the stock market. It is fundamentally because the United States
is the country where growth companies - Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, ​Walmart​ - are
nurtured and grow. Do we really want to discourage those companies from developing
and creating jobs in the United States? Heavy taxation and regulation will simply drive
them to operate elsewhere, with a huge net loss to the country.” -​David Davenport and
Gordon Lloyd
Rebuttal 3:
We need to keep the government where it belongs, ​The p
​ urpose​ of our Federal G
​ overnment​,
as found in the Preamble of the Constitution, is to "establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure
the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Nothing in there says anything
about lessening the economic gap. In fact it encourages us all to be independent
individuals in our liberty, giving everyone the ability to go where they want financially if
they’re determined enough. Yes, it becomes the government concern when it’s
absolutely necessary for a person’s life to be aided, but that should not be taken
advantage of and overused. That is not what our founding fathers intended.
Thank you everyone for hearing me today, i hope you can agree that making it the
government’s obligation to lessen the gap between the rich and poor will do more hurt than help
for america.
Government control:
“Government benefits--once concentrated on "the needy"--now extend into middle- and
upper-middle-class households, even as more and more Americans see their income tax
liabilities decrease. Today, the majority of Americans can vote themselves more generous
government benefits at little or no cost to themselves. As a result, most have little fiscal
incentive to restrain the continued growth of Big Government and the entitlements it dangles
before them.” -Jim DeMint
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/the-coming-crisis-how-government-dependency
-threatens-americas-freedom
Capitalism vs socialism
“ A government in a capitalist economy can quite easily give everyone equality of
opportunity with a few basic laws and regulations, but socialism strives to create
equality of results.” And that’s stumping our chances of growth. If you want the
government to do something about the poor, petition for public schools to teach kids
how to handle and earn money instead of lose it, that’s something that they do have
authority over.
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of
socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." -- Winston Churchill
-good ending quote: ​“If you incentivize success like capitalism does, you get more growth,
prosperity, and success. If you incentivize failure like socialism does, you get more sloth,
poverty, and failure.”
Questions:
Would you agree that heavier taxation or some kind of money restrictions must be enforced on
the rich or on companies in order to enact your plan? Or how would you produce this money?
You can’t pick and choose what poor people to decide to equalize and which ones not to, it’s the
poor community as whole, correct?
In order to keep people from abusing the money theyre given, they must be regulated on what
they buy, correct?
(if no) How can you really decide what poor people arent worthy of help?
Is it possible that over time the restrictions of what make someone poor can get more leniant
and begin to apply to the general poor?
Arguing for nations poverty rate increasing
Discrimination
Schools
Working the same, paid differently
In the end, everything is free, but you’re not free.