Aff - Basic Income - Michigan 7 2023 STARTER

BI AFF – STARTER PACKET
Notes
Purpose – The purpose of this file is to provide debaters with a small, manageable case for practice debates at the start of the camp. This is not a comprehensive file. In fact, almost as much time was spent cutting things out as putting them in. So, if your favorite argument is not represented, that is probably why. There is a more complete file that your lab leaders have that they may give you later in the camp, but this is the starter packet, so there you go.
I’ve tried to focus on case specific CPs and a case specific DA in the starter packet to encourage more specific, clashing debates at camp. I’ve also included links to some of the starter packet generic negatives, but some of those I have just left to the negative files themselves. So, I’ve put in some links to Capitalism or to Economics Disads, or the IRS Disad. On the other hand, not for all of them.
Credits – while I cut almost all of the cards here, there are a few exceptions. I used some generic impact cards from backfiles – 5-6 cards in total for that. And I did get a lot of cites from the 2017 Premier Debate Camp UBI file, although in fairness, I led the lab that wrote that file, so can you really plagiarize yourself? Thank you to JMP for comments.
Three versions – The file is written with three advantages – Race, Gender, and Poverty. All pretty straightforward. There is no way you could run all three – it would be too much and you are not as fast and clear as you think. So choose two, or maybe just one, based on what you prefer. The Race version has a slightly different plan text, and the Gender version has a slightly different framework, so keep that in mind when mixing and matching, but they are all consistent. I haven’t put a lot of focus on case extensions, and instead have focused on ATs the generic and specific neg arguments.
What is a Basic Income? - Well …. So that is a Really Good question. Essentially, a basic income is a regular, unconditional cash transfer to individuals in a society. Beyond that, anything goes. No – I mean that literally. If you read 20 different articles about a basic income, they will be talking about 20 different basic income proposals. There are a lot of questions and details that will make a big substantive difference in the debate. Here are some of those questions:
Is the program targeted? At whom? Not all basic incomes are Universal, although the affirmatives in the starter packet are geared toward that. Kinda. Some are designed to goto those in poverty. This is usually referred to as a Means Tested basic income – which means that you have to apply for it and prove that you are in poverty/qualified, and the government will require proof. For the packet affs, you should say “Universal.” Kinda.
Is the program conditional? A targeted basic income applies to everyone within the target population. A Conditional benefit would require you do something to earn it, like have a job, be looking for a job, or pass a drug test. Targeted programs are still basic incomes. Conditional programs are not basic incomes, because all basic incomes must be unconditional. There are also no conditions on what you spend it on, which should be obvious because cash is fungible. That line is Much more blurry in reality, but it exists in Definition World.
How do you pay for it? Most proposals would pay through increasing taxes, but even that contains diversity – “progressive taxation, wealth taxes, taxes on financial transactions, consumption taxes and even carbon taxes and a divestment from the prison system,” “eliminating tax expenditures – think mortgage deductions,” commons-based revenue, and “simplifying the tax code through the replacement of all the many credits, deductions, and subsidies it could also replace.” Some of those taxes are progressive, but some, like a consumption tax, would be regressive, offsetting the reductions in poverty. If you specify one of these, you obviously open yourselves to PICs, but if you don’t specify, can you use them benefit solvency or avoid $pending or Interest DAs?
The most important funding question is “Will current social programs be replaced to pay for the basic income?” If the plan is paid for by cutting existing social programs, that is called “UBI Minus.” That will Severely hurt your ability to solve/win. You DO NOT want to answer that question “Yes.” You don’t want to Fiat the link to the disad. You may still have to debate whether that is a Consequence of the plan, but DO NOT be so worried about $pending/Interest Rates DA links that you concede this round loser in CX.
How big is it? The bigger it is, the more “fiscally expansive” your policy is – meaning you link more to $pending. But if it is too small, you can’t solve, and might even make it worse. If you don’t specify an amount, can the neg argue that normal means would be too small to solve? Legit question. I would answer at least $1,000 / month – lots of people seem to like that.
Do you include everyone? Undocumented workers? Ex Felons? Incarcerated felons? Babies? Minors who leave home? Does the check goto the children themselves or to their parents? You should answer yes to all of those to avoid negative solvency turns. Sure, you are now vulnerable to PICs, but the Immigrants PIC is something that you would MUCH rather the debate come down to, and it isn’t in the packet anyway. I think the core here is “If the plan doesn’t specify it, does the 1NC get to determine the answer with evidence, or can the 2AC decide? And do you have to ask in CX?”
Is it paid monthly or yearly? You should say monthly, although that is a PIC in the extended file.
Is it paid to individuals or households? You should say individuals if you are running the gender version – it is key to the “escape domestic violence” argument.
Do you need to apply or are you auto enrolled? How do you auto enroll the homeless? How do they receive checks? Not sure how to answers those.
Are the benefits taxable?
Is it sent as a check, a direct deposit, or a card?
There are more, but what I am trying to say here is that almost certainly none of these details will be in the plan text, because y’all don’t do that anymore for some reason, so this is going to make the cross-examination Really important to locking down details that may moot your Neg arguments or give you something to PIC out of. I also think that it means that debating about how the plan would Normally be passed can be controlled with evidence, so there is a lot of that on both sides, and this is a significant argument on the Negative Solvency frontline.
Synonyms – A basic income (BI) has also been called a guaranteed income, a guaranteed basic income, a basic income guarantee (BIG), a partial basic income (if it is targeted), an unconditional cash transfer, an income floor, and more names. If it goes to everyone in the US, it would be a UBI – a universal basic income. If someone says “you don’t assume our evidence/aff/cp,” be skeptical and make them explain the difference.
A Word on UBI+ - So this is going to be a bit confusing or frustrating, but here we go. Remember how I kept saying “Kinda” about whether the file packet is universal? That is because the Race version plan is a bit different. It is still universal – everyone in the US will still get a basic income. But African Americans will get a bonus – a bit More basic income. Dorian Warren sometimes calls this a UBI+, and sometimes he spells it out, but moves the plus – Universal PLUS Basic Income. Other authors, when referring to Warren’s plan use the same names, although sometimes they move the + or Plus around. Easy so far. Here is the tricky part – When Machin writes his article, he refers to a UBI where the plan replaces existing social programs as “UBI-“ or “UBI Minus.” Which OF COURSE meant that he referred to the opposite – a UBI that adds onto rather than replaces existing programs, as “UBI+”. So don’t confuse Machin’s UBI+ with the Warren version. To make matters worse, Machin is also talking about Warren’s article, so he is saying that Warren’s UBI+ (adding extra income for African Americans) would be a good way to implement Machin’s UBI+ (supplementing rather than replacing). Just be careful out there.
1AC – Plan
Text – The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal redistribution in the United States by providing a universal basic income.
1AC - Poverty
Contention One – Poverty
The gap is widening. Economic inequality in the US is growing, worsened by the pandemic and soaring inflation.
Orchard, 2022 - PhD Candidate in Economics, University of California, San Diego [Jacob, Jan 13, The Conversation “Inflation inequality: Poorest Americans are hit hardest by soaring prices on necessities” https://theconversation.com/inflation-inequality-poorest-americans-are-hit-hardest-by-soaring-prices-on-necessities-174853 TA]
The fastest rate of inflation in 40 years is hurting families across the U.S. who are seeing ever-higher prices for everything from meat and potatoes to housing and gasoline. But behind the headline number that’s been widely reported is something that often gets overlooked: Inflation affects different households in different ways – and sometimes hurts those with the least, the most. Inflation, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is designed to track the price increases in a typical U.S. household’s basket of goods. The problem is spending bundles differ across households. For example, a family in the lowest 20% of income typically spends around 15% of their budget on groceries – this is nearly 60% more than households in the top 20% of the income distribution, according to my calculations. The widening inflation gap On Jan. 12, 2022, the BLS released figures showing that inflation jumped by 7% in December from a year earlier – the fastest pace since 1982. To see how this varied across households, I used the bureau’s own price data and factored in the typical spending habits of different income groups. I calculate that inflation is running at 7.2% for the lowest income households – higher than for any other group. For the highest income families, the rate of change was 6.6%. The difference between the two income groups steadily increased throughout 2021, starting the year at just 0.16 percentage point but ending at 0.6 percentage point – near the highest it has been since 2010. The reason for this widening rich-poor inflation gap, known by economists as inflation inequality, comes down to the typical spending habits of people in each income group. In times of economic uncertainty and recession, most households tend to hold back on buying luxury goods. But by and large, people can’t cut down on necessities such as groceries and heating – although wealthier consumers are better placed to stock up on these necessities when prices are cheap. This shift of spending away from luxury items like vacations and new cars, and toward necessities, pushes inflation up for poorer families more than richer ones. This is because lower-income households dedicate a higher percentage of their income on necessities. My data shows that this inflation gap tends to be widest in times of recession or in the early stages of economic recovery. In the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the gap in inflation rates between the lowest and highest income groups was close to 1 percentage point – higher than it is now.
Soaring income inequality in the US is a matter of life and death for millions of workers and their families – this perpetuates structural violence in the form of poverty, inequality and powerlessness.
Sanders, 2021 - US senator [March 29th, 2021, Bernie Sanders, “The rich-poor gap in America is obscene. So let's fix it – here's how” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/29/rich-poor-gap-wealth-inequality-bernie-sanders]
The United States cannot prosper and remain a vigorous democracy when so few have so much and so many have so little. While many of my congressional colleagues choose to ignore it, the issue of income and wealth inequality is one of the great moral, economic and political crises that we face – and it must be dealt with. The unfortunate reality is that we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society, where a handful of billionaires have enormous wealth and power while working families have been struggling in a way we have not seen since the Great Depression. This situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Today, half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, 500,000 of the very poorest among us are homeless, millions are worried about evictions, 92 million are uninsured or underinsured, and families all across the country are worried about how they are going to feed their kids. Today, an entire generation of young people carry an outrageous level of student debt and face the reality that their standard of living will be lower than their parents’. And, most obscenely, low-income Americans now have a life expectancy that is about 15 years lower than the wealthy. Poverty in America has become a death sentence. Meanwhile, the people on top have never had it so good. The top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%, and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 165 million people. While millions of Americans have lost their jobs and incomes during the pandemic, over the past year 650 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $1.3tn. The growing gap between the very rich and everyone else is nothing new. Over the past 40 years there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class and working families to the very wealthiest people in America. In 1978, the top 0.1% owned about 7% of the nation’s wealth. In 2019, the latest year of data available, they own nearly 20%. Unbelievably, the two richest people in America, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, now own more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans combined. If income inequality had not skyrocketed over the past four decades and had simply stayed static, the average worker in America would be earning $42,000 more in income each year. Instead, as corporate chief executives now make over 300 times more than their average employees, the average American worker now earns $32 a week less than he or she did 48 years ago – after adjusting for inflation. In other words, despite huge increases in technology and productivity, ordinary workers are actually losing ground. Addressing income and wealth and inequality will not be easy, because we will be taking on some of the most powerful and well-financed entities in the country, including Wall Street, the health insurance industry, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry and the military-industrial-complex. But it must be done. Here is some of what Congress and the president can do in the very near future. We must raise the minimum wage from the current starvation wage of $7.25 an hour to a living wage of at least $15 an hour. A job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it. We need to make it easier, not harder, for workers to join unions. The massive increase in wealth and income inequality can be directly linked to the decline in union membership in America.
Poverty makes all other forms of conflict and violence more probable
Gilligan, 1996 - Director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard [James, Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and its Causes p. 191-196]
The deadliest form of violence is poverty. You cannot work for one day with the violent people who fill our prisons and mental hospitals for the criminally insane without being forcible and constantly reminded of the extreme poverty and discrimination that characterizes their lives. Hearing about their lives, and about their families and friends, you are forced to recognize the truth in Gandhi’s observation that the deadliest form of violence is poverty. Not a day goes by without realizing that trying to understand them and their violent behavior in purely individual terms is impossible and wrong-headed. Any theory of violence, especially a psychological theory, that evolves from the experience of men in maximum security prisons and hospitals for the criminally insane must begin with the recognition that these institutions are only microcosms. They are not where the major violence in our society takes place, and the perpetrators who fill them are far from being the main causes of most violent deaths. Any approach to a theory of violence needs to begin with a look at the structural violence in this country. Focusing merely on those relatively few men who commit what we define as murder could distract us from examining and learning from those structural causes of violent death that are far more significant from a numerical or public health, or human, standpoint. By “structural violence” I mean the increased rates of death, and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted with the relatively lower death rates experienced by those who are above them. Those excess deaths (or at least a demonstrably large proportion of them) are a function of class structure; and that structure is itself a product of society’s collective human choices, concerning how to distribute the collective wealth of the society. These are not acts of God. I am contrasting “structural” with “behavioral violence,” by which I mean the non-natural deaths and injuries that are caused by specific behavioral actions of individuals against individuals, such as the deaths we attribute to homicide, suicide, soldiers in warfare, capital punishment, and so on. Structural violence differs from behavioral violence in at least three major respects. *The lethal effects of structural violence operate continuously, rather than sporadically, whereas murders, suicides, executions, wars, and other forms of behavioral violence occur one at a time. *Structural violence operates more or less independently of individual acts; independent of individuals and groups (politicians, political parties, voters) whose decisions may nevertheless have lethal consequences for others. *Structural violence is normally invisible, because it may appear to have had other (natural or violent) causesThe finding that structural violence causes far more deaths than behavioral violence does is not limited to this country. Kohler and Alcock attempted to arrive at the number of excess deaths caused by socioeconomic inequities on a worldwide basis. Sweden was their model of the nation that had come closes to eliminating structural violence. It had the least inequity in income and living standards, and the lowest discrepancies in death rates and life expectancy; and the highest overall life expectancy in the world. When they compared the life expectancies of those living in the other socioeconomic systems against Sweden, they found that 18 million deaths a year could be attributed to the “structural violence” to which the citizens of all the other nations were being subjected. During the past decade, the discrepancies between the rich and poor nations have increased dramatically and alarmingly. The 14 to 18 million deaths a year caused by structural violence compare with about 100,000 deaths per year from armed conflict. Comparing this frequency of deaths from structural violence to the frequency of those caused by major military and political violence, such as World War II (an estimated 49 million military and civilian deaths, including those by genocide—or about eight million per year, 1939-1945), the Indonesian massacre of 1965-66 (perhaps 575,000) deaths), the Vietnam war (possibly two million, 1954-1973), and even a hypothetical nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. (232 million), it was clear that even war cannot begin to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year. In other words, every fifteen years, on the average, as ma

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