Debater Resources
John Goodman grew up in Waco, TX and participated in high school debate competitions around the state of Texas. John was quite successful and won several statewide tournaments. He attended college at the University of Texas in Austin, where he became involved in campus politics and was elected vice president of the student body. All of this experience served him later in life when he became a TV debating partner of conservative polemicist William F. Buckley.PLEASE NOTE
Click on the + icon to open the toggle directly below, where you will find the primary debater resource in the form of an 18-page PDF document, followed by another toggle containing a major 10-page PDF update to the original. (Those visiting on mobile devices will see 2 buttons to view/download the PDF using your prefered app.)
Considering the ongoing information and responses that become available to our posted resources, we publish fairly regular updates in the form of posts below the two toggles containing the PDF docs.
View/Download our general topic review (18 pgs)
High School Debate on Inequality
Major Update: The Relationship Between Inequality, Economic Systems and Economic Growth (10 pgs)
High School Debate on Inequality
Affirmative Cases
Social Security Reform
The current system is in trouble. If nothing is done, in just ten years, 66 million Social Security beneficiaries will see their monthly benefit checks cut by 23 percent. That would be financially devastating for retirees at the bottom of the income ladder – who depend on Social Security for their entire income.
Looking indefinitely into the future, the Social Security Trustees report that the system has an unfunded liability of $65.9 trillion. That’s the difference between the promises we are making and the expected revenues that will be available to keep those promises. In current dollar figures, it is equal to 2½ times the size of our entire economy.
Boston University professor Laurance Kotlikoff has proposed a solution. Going forward, workers would be required to pay 10 percent of their wages into an investment fund to secure future benefits that are currently unfunded.
Although the 10% contribution is proportional to income, it is made progressive by government’s matching the contributions of low-income workers and making contributions on behalf of the disabled and the unemployed. Another progressive feature is requiring ownership of the contributions to be split equally between spouses. This protects homemakers who get nothing from their spouse’s payroll taxes under the current system if they get divorced within ten years.
The payment of benefits during the retirement years is dependent on the financial success of the investment fund. But retirees will do no worse than under the current system’s promised benefits, and the proposal maintains and even enhances the progressivity of the current benefit structure.
This proposal (1) saves Social Security – which is itself a progressive income transfer system and (2) does so in a way that further redistributes wealth from the top to the bottom of the income ladder.
Sources:
Welfare Reform
Premise: Most poverty is caused by avoidable behavior
Taking three steps — (1) getting at least a high school degree, (2) working full-time in your 20s, and (3) marrying before having children — will give young adults an unparalleled shot at realizing the American Dream. Research indicates that the vast majority (86%) of young adults who take these three steps reach the middle class or higher in their 30s and that 97% avoid poverty at this stage in life.
Problems: (1) low-income kids get trapped in schools that do not meet their needs and have no alternative educational opportunities; (2) our tax and welfare programs discourage work; and (3) our tax and welfare programs discourage marriage with a “marriage tax.”
Solution 1: Reform public programs that encourage dysfunctional behavior
Remove penalties for working in current welfare programs.
Remove penalties for marriage in current welfare programs
Solution 2: Convert cash entitlements into programs that encourage work and marriage
To strengthen the financial foundations of working families, Congress should pass legislation advancing a permanent, generous family benefit that reinforces work and marriage, loosely modeled on the Family Security Act (2.0), from Senators Mitt Romney and Steve Daines. Under that proposal, families with at least $10,000 in earned income in the last year would receive $4,200 per child per year for children aged zero to five and $3,000 per child for those aged six to 17, paid in monthly installments of $350 and $250, respectively. Families whose income fell below the $10,000 threshold would receive a fraction of the benefit commensurate with their earned income. Such a policy could further support family formation by adding a 20% supplement to the credit per child for married households.
Important: recipients only get this tax credit if they work and have labor income.
Financing option 1: The cost to the federal govenrmtn of enacting these changes should be funded by raising across-the-board rates, if necessary, in the current income tax – which is already the most progressive tax structure in the developed world.
Financing option 2: Since economic growth is the most effective anti-poverty program the world has ever seen [PV: supply link to our update on this], ideal taxation is taxation that does not reduce saving and investment. Replace the income tax with a progressive consumption tax so that people are taxed on what they take out of the system rather than on what they put into the system. A national sales tax, a value added tax and a flat tax are three forms of consumption taxation.
Reduce Taxes on the Poor
One way to reduce inequality is by reducing taxes on low-income families and replace them with the far more progressive income tax.
The income tax is highly progressive. It takes a higher portion of the income of the rich than the poor. But federal, state and local governments raise revenues in a number of ways that are regressive, taking a greater portion of the incomes of the poor than the rich. In some cases, the total dollar amounts paid by the poor are higher than the amounts paid by the rich.
One popular way of raising state revenue is through a state-run lottery (coupled with a prohibition on competing private lotteries). This way of raising funds is highly regressive:
- The dollar amount spent on the lottery by the lowest-income individuals (earning less than $10,000 annually) is twice as much as the highest earners (earning more than $100,000 annually).
- But lotteries have worse odds than other forms of gambling; in fact, states retain some 33 cents of each dollar of lottery revenue — whereas privately owned casinos keep just 4.4 percent ofthe take.
Another popular revenue source is taxes on tobacco. Yet:
- One-third of lower-income adults smoke versus one-fifth of middle- and high-income earners, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- High school graduates who smoke spend some $1,453 on tobacco products each year, versus just $1,248 for smokers with professional degrees.
- High school dropouts who smoke spend three to four times as much of their income on tobacco products as professionals who smoke (4.47 percent and 1.27 percent, respectively).
In addition to direct taxation, state governments have imposed indirect costs on tobacco users through litigation. The Master Settlement Agreement between the major tobacco companies and 46 states requires the tobacco companies to pay the states $200 billion over 25 years to compensate for state health care costs attributed to smoking. More than 90 percent of the settlement costs are passed on to consumers. In fact, the settlement raised the price of cigarettes about 45 cents per pack.
Taxes on beer, wine and liquor also burden the poor disproportionately. Consider:
- The portion of income spent on alcoholic beverages by the lowest fifth of earners is double that of middle earners and more than three times that of the highest earners, on the average.
- Lower-income earners who actually purchase alcohol spend an average of $1,158 a year —more than the $1,092 spent by
- middle earners — and 10 times the portion of their total income as the highest earners
Some advocates claim taxes on harmful behaviors — like smoking and excessive drinking — are justified to recoup the costs those activities impose on others, such as secondhand smoke and drunk driving. Although the evidence is mixed, it appears that taxes on tobacco already more than compensate for the social costs of smoking. Even though alcohol consumers as a group do not pay for all the costs imposed on society by alcoholism, there is no reason to punish moderate drinkers for the behavior of alcoholics.
Advocates also claim these taxes encourage people to change their behaviors in socially desirable ways, because the taxes are almost entirely passed on to consumers. However, when prices for tobacco and alcohol products rise due to tax increases, demand for these products does not go down much. A few consumers will quit and many will substitute lower-cost brands, but most lower-income smokers and drinkers will continue to use tobacco and alcohol. Thus, raising taxes on these products makes the tax burden even more regressive.
Furthermore, the evidence indicates that these taxes are designed to raise revenue, rather than discourage unhealthy behavior. For example, if the true purpose of taxes on tobacco products is to recoup the external costs to society, states should levy lower taxes on smokeless products. While smokeless tobacco is not safe, studies suggest it is safer than smoking cigarettes. Yet, about a fifth of the states charge higher taxes on smokeless tobacco than cigarettes:
- Per $1 of wholesale price, taxes in Massachusetts are 90 cents for smokeless products versus 68 cents for cigarettes; in Minnesota, 70 cents versus 55.4 cents; and in Oklahoma, 60 cents versus 46.4 cents.
- In Texas, smokeless tobacco taxes are nearly twice as high as cigarette taxes, 35 cents versus 18 cents.
Poorer taxpayers are also disproportionately burdened by excise taxes imposed on “necessities,” such as gasoline, utilities and telephone services. Since lower-income households spend more of their incomes on these items, they pay a greater share of these taxes. For instance:
- People making $24,000 a year spend more than twice as much of their income on gasoline as those earning five times as much.
- People making less than $10,000 a year spend nearly one-fifth of their incomes (18.8 percent) on necessities subject to excise taxes, including utilities and public services, and they pay almost six times as much of their incomes on these taxes as the highest earners.
The lowest fifth of income earners spend nearly one-third of their income on alcohol, tobacco, utilities and gasoline, on the average. By contrast, the highest earners spend just 6 percent of their income
on these items. Thus, taxes on these products are especially burdensome to the poor.
[Note: this is a 2007 study and the numbers should be updated]
Updates
The posts displayed below all offer updated information and responses to the primary debater resources offered here.
Why Two Parents Matter
Families headed by single mothers are five times as likely to live in poverty as married-couple families. Children in single-mother homes are less likely to graduate from high school or earn a college degree. They are more likely to...
More on Economic Growth
If no policies are changed, in just ten years 66 million Social Security beneficiaries will see their monthly benefit checks cut by 23 percent. That will be financially devastating for retirees at the bottom of the income ladder – who depend on Social Security for their entire income – and it will double the number of seniors in poverty.
At the same time Medicare payments to hospitals will be automatically cut by 10 percent. That will make seniors, especially low-income seniors, less attractive as patients and lead to rationing of medical care.
As time passes, these financial problems will become increasingly worse. They will spill over and affect every social insurance program – Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies, etc.
A Short Primer on Economic Growth
It is an economic truism that capital is needed to make investments which are a prerequisite for increasing worker productivity, which is a prerequisite for raising the average income of workers. That is to say, capital is essential for economic growth. Economic growth is the most powerful anti-poverty weapon ever discovered. So consuming capital today makes poor people poorer in future years. Some might question whether economic growth is unambiguously good. This post contains two short videos explaining why growth is unquestionably good – everywhere in the world.
Welfare without Work
The most contentious issue regarding income support for the bottom of the income ladder has to do with work.
As previously noted, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, although largely Republican creations, have broad support in Congress from both political parties.
A Goodman Institute study shows that by 2018, if a mother worked full time at the minimum wage, it was impossible for the family to be poor – regardless of the number of children. That conclusion is even more true today, since the average wage for unskilled (and moderately skilled) workers is more than twice the minimum wage, nationwide.
How Lotteries Create Inequality
There is no single act of government that creates more inequality in a shorter amount of time than the lottery. Tickets are mainly purchased by below-average income buyers, and then the winner becomes fabulously wealthy.
Surprisingly, this activity is rarely criticized by “progressives.”
The largest lottery winner in history walked away with an estimated $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot.
How Progressive is the Income Tax?
The latest IRS statistics tell the story. The richest one out of 100 Americans now pay more in federal income taxes than the bottom 95 out of 100. There is almost no country in the world that relies on the top 1% to pay a larger share of the tax burden than the United States. Notice that the tax share of the top 1% went UP after the Trump tax cuts.
Why are Some Nations Rich and Others Poor?
The Heritage Foundation has just issued its indispensable international Index of Economic Freedom for 2023. This chart shows the powerful correlation between freedom and growth.
Countries that are mostly free are 10 times richer per person than the most socialistic nations and three times richer than nations with average freedom. Economic freedom had been trending upward over the last two decades, but since COVID hit, freedom has fallen – and so has economic growth.
Economic Growth is the Most powerful Anti-Poverty Program Ever Discovered
For the last 50 years real income per person in the United States has grown at a rate of about 2.3% per year. If that 2.3% growth rate continues, then in fewer than 400 years, your descendants will earn about $1 million per day on the average — a little less than Bill Gates’ current income, but at least in the ballpark.
What about poverty? If we roughly define the poverty level as a family with 50% of the average income, then the level for the great-grandchildren of today’s poor will be $200,000. In other words, if tomorrow’s poor have a poverty-level income, they’ll be rich. And, of course, 400 years from now they’ll be fabulously wealthy. More
Why Two Parents Matter
Families headed by single mothers are five times as likely to live in poverty as married-couple families. Children in single-mother homes are less likely to graduate from high school or earn a college degree. They are more likely to...
More on Economic Growth
If no policies are changed, in just ten years 66 million Social Security beneficiaries will see their monthly benefit checks cut by 23 percent. That will be financially devastating for retirees at the bottom of the income ladder – who...
A Short Primer on Economic Growth
Unless affirmative teams advocate a consumption tax, virtually all proposals to redistribute income from the top of the income ladder to the bottom will involve taxing (and therefore reducing) capital. It is an economic truism that...
Welfare without Work
The most contentious issue regarding income support for the bottom of the income ladder has to do with work. As previously noted, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, although largely Republican creations, have broad...
How Lotteries Create Inequality
There is no single act of government that creates more inequality in a shorter amount of time than the lottery. Tickets are mainly purchased by below-average income buyers, and then the winner becomes fabulously wealthy. Surprisingly,...
How Progressive is the Income Tax?
The latest IRS statistics tell the story. The richest one out of 100 Americans now pay more in federal income taxes than the bottom 95 out of 100. There is almost no country in the world that relies on the top 1% to pay a larger...
Why are Some Nations Rich and Others Poor?
The Heritage Foundation has just issued its indispensable international Index of Economic Freedom for 2023. This chart shows the powerful correlation between freedom and growth. Countries that are mostly free are 10 times richer per...
Economic Growth is the Most powerful Anti-Poverty Program Ever Discovered
When it comes to what ails the economy, there is a miracle cure. It’s called growth. For the last 50 years real income per person in the United States has grown at a rate of about 2.3% per year. That may not sound like such a big deal,...