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Universal Basic Income

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