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The US ought to provide an universal basic income.

I'll deal with my opponent's arguments first and proceed to defending my own case. He says that a UBI is enormously expensive and as of now we can not afford such a program. Four responses to this. First, according to Matthew Ygleias of Vox in an exact rebuttal towards said New York Times article, UBI would put US spending to about where France and the Scandinavian social democracies are. Foreign nations easily do similar levels of welfare as the projected costs of a UBI. Additionally, the article my opponent cites is off on the projected cost by 600 billion dollars or so. Second, according to David Morris of Fortune, studies by the Roosevelt Institute indicate that a basic income would grow the economy by 12.5 % and shrink the federal deficit, meaning that a UBI would help the overall economy and goverment, not hurt it. Third, consider the cost of poverty on society, as children struggle through school as they work, as homeless people live on the streets, and many struggle to meet ends meet. Are they truly doing the best for our country impoverished. Millions who could be potential engineers, doctors, and scientists are currently wasting their potential, through no fault of their own, merely by the virtue of their social class. Forth, social programs in the status quo have spent billions of dollars with little to nil result. We could simply cut money from those programs in order to help fund a UBI. He says that people will become lazy and won't want to work. However, this is key to help mitigate the problems of climate change as proven by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, will nil adverse effects as countries throughout Western Europe have had similar levels of work for decades on end. Additionally, this isn't unique to UBI, as the status quo already does exactly that. He says that a job gurantee would solve the problem of unemployement, but I must ask; Where are these jobs? Where is the US going to magically sploof up several million jobs. How exactly is this a permanent solution, as at some point AI and automation will simply be better. It is incredibly unlikely that every single American will somehow find the time and money in order to better educated themselves in the new age of technology, meaning that we would likely have these problems regardless. He says that the dollar is key to political rights, however, it only takes one part in the overall goverment. There's democratic activities such as voting, running for office, protesting, civil disobidience and such which all allow nationals to take part in their goverment. I'll now deal with my opponents rebuttal. UBI gurantees that regardless of the circumstance, there will always be a net underneath you. If a business fails, the entrapener won't be sleeping on the streets. Same too applies for financial insecurity. If one wishes to quit their job, they have the ability to do so, as they have a source of income independent of their job. If my opponent needs to see the evidence where exactly this will occur, I simply suggest clicking on the article cited beforehand. If he needs further, may I suggest Scott Santeens' Medium article entitled Inequality and the Basic Income Guarantee. It goes both into entrepreneurship and education. On lower work hours, simply refer to what my opponent himself said in how he argued that a UBI would lower overall work hours. He's contradicting himself in saying there's no evidence to say UBI would lower work hours while only a few paragraphs above saying the exact opposite. Welfare programs lower the need to work, it's as simple as that. An UBI or NIT would bring forth the same basic effect, however, it would be greater under a UBI as it is provided to everyone, not simply those below the poverty line (or whatever thresehold one wishes to set it at). It wouldn't just be the poorest of the poor not working, many of the near and middle class would join in, guaranting that the intended effects would be brought forth. On inequality, I'll simply offer an anology. Envision a room full of 100 children (hopefully not locked up by ICE) where 1 has 101 candies and 99 have 1. If the 1 child had to give everyone else 1 candy, then everyone would have at 2 candies, and be a much more equal society. By the sheer virtue of the population size of the lower and middle class compared to the upper class, they will get a great deal more. Effectly, UBI is a great equallizer for a society, lowering overall inequallity. For these reasons I strongly urge voting for the motion.