PROBLEM AREA V: POVERTY
Resolved: The United States federal government should
substantially increase social services for persons living in poverty in the
United States.
Unfortunately,
more than four decades after Michael Harrington identified those living in
poverty as “The Other America,” poverty is still an endemic problem in the
United States. In 2005, close to 13 percent of the total U.S. population—about
37 million people—were counted as living below the poverty line, a number that
essentially remained unchanged from 2004. Of these, 12.3 million were children.
Poverty is associated with many harmful outcomes, including poor health, crime,
educational difficulties and other social problems. Poverty continues to plague
our society despite over four decades of national effort and trillions of
dollars in federal spending to combat it.
In a nation as wealthy as the United States, such a high level of
poverty is certainly appropriate for the examination and reflection provided by
a variety of debates on the topic.
Affirmatives advocating this topic will be
able to defend a wide range of social services designed to both ameliorate the
harms of poverty and to reduce the number of people living in poverty. These
services would include expanding child care, health care, Food Stamps, housing
assistance, mental health care, educational assistance, early Head Start and
job training, among others.
Negatives would be able debate against the harms of
poverty, the ability of various plans to solve the problems identified and many
disadvantages, including spending, politics, federalism and net widening. They
would also be able to counterplan many of the affirmative plans with the state
counterplan. The negative would also have several critical options, including
objectivism, statism, dependency and even critiquing the use of the term
poverty.
Author: Chuck Ballingall, California