Romanii (PRO)My case is simple: if having people buy locally benefits society as a whole, then the state should provide incentives for people to buy locally because promoting general welfare is one of the state's most essential roles. Thus, if I can show that having people buy locally provides significant benefits, I will have affirmed the resolution. Please forgive my extensive use of direct quotation; paraphrasing is simply unnecessary when each of the points are already put so succinctly in the original source itself.
- Support community groups: Non-profit organizations receive an average 250% more support from smaller business owners than they do from large businesses.
- Keep our community unique: Where we shop, where we eat and have fun -- all of it makes our community home. Our one-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of the distinctive character of this place. Our tourism businesses also benefit. “When people go on vacation they generally seek out destinations that offer them the sense of being someplace, not just anyplace.” ~ Richard Moe, President, National Historic Preservation Trust
- Reduce environmental impact: Locally owned businesses can make more local purchases requiring less transportation and generally set up shop in town or city centers as opposed to developing on the fringe. This generally means contributing less to sprawl, congestion, habitat loss and pollution.
- Create more good jobs: Small local businesses are the largest employer nationally and in our community, provide the most jobs to residents.
- Get better service: Local businesses often hire people with a better understanding of the products they are selling and take more time to get to know customers.
- Invest in community: Local businesses are owned by people who live in this community, are less likely to leave, and are more invested in the community’s future.
- Put your taxes to good use: Local businesses in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure investment and make more efficient use of public services as compared to nationally owned stores entering the community.
- Buy what you want, not what someone wants you to buy: A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term. A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based not on a national sales plan but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.
- Encourage local prosperity: A growing body of economic research shows that in an increasingly homogenized world, entrepreneurs and skilled workers are more likely to invest and settle in communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses and distinctive character." [2].
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9spaceking (CON)The big problem with Romanii's arguments is that he fails to examine the full resolution. He makes a good case, a pretty-much unbeatable case for the resolution... "That incentives should be provided for individuals to buy local". However, this is not the true resolution. The real resolution is why the state should provide incentives, instead of the nation government, or some other government/businesses.
States don't need to provide incentives. Enough ads are provided by the companies already. As stated by source [1], "The National Federation of Independent Business informs that "most" businesses allocate between 2 and 5 percent of sales specifically for advertising."
This shows that businesses already advertise, and that there is no need for states to provide extra incentives.
In addition, people are already complaining about how much advertisement there is for the businesses. With the invention of the internet, businesses can now put pop-up ads, walls of ads, ads ads ads, everywhere, every site. There is simply too much advertisements, no need for extra incentives. [4]
If the state was able to provide incentives, they could be bribed. Think about it. Companies everywhere are competing to earn the most money, and they could create some political bias to those who managed the state finances. Not only that, labor unions could potentially not only ask their boss in their working fields for gigantic raises, they could also complain to the state and force these "incentives" to be much larger than usual, or much larger than those not in labor unions.
The State already spends way too much money. The state is overspending already. No need to spend more money on useless incentives. Just in prison, spends, just counting one state, "Michigan pays about $34,000 for every prisoner and about $11,000 for a student (Callahan)." [2]
Not only that, source [3] shows that D.C. spent 100%--more than 100 million dollars per year-- of its budget on road maintenance from 2009 to 2011, and Maryland spent 68%--257 million dollars-- on road expansion, and 32% on maintenance, and Virginia also spending 68% on road expansion or construction. If the State needs to provide incentives, then it will lead to more taxes on the items, countering the incentives for the people anyway. People will not change how often they buy items if the incentives and the taxes balance out to nothing.
As you can see our life is perfectly fine the way it is. There is no reason the State should be playing around with people's private corporations and businesses. It should continue doing its state duties instead of spending extra unnecessary money to provide incentives for people to buy locally.
[1] http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/much-money-average-company-spend-advertising-6766.html
[3] http://wamu.org/news/14/03/18/states_spend_too_much_on_new_roads_neglecting_maintenance_report_says
[4] http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/the-marketing-problem-is-simple-there-are-too-many-ads/
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Romanii (PRO)Return To Top | Posted:
9spaceking (CON)Opponent makes error in that the flaw within his source is only from one island, and even then it's the islanders' opinion.
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Romanii (PRO)Round Forfeited
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fair enough...Posted 2015-02-10 13:10:41
The more I learn about real debating, the more flaws I see in everyone's approach at it. I do not think 9space's paragraph long rebuttal is any better or worse than some of the things I see on DDO debates. Posted 2015-02-10 10:50:37
I think he did too. Until round 2 with that paragraph-long "rebuttal"Posted 2015-02-10 09:48:00
9space argued just fine if you ask me Posted 2015-02-10 09:08:05
The auto loss forfeit is an option when setting the debate up. It's turned on by default because it's a good rule.
Another cool feature is that the debate moves to judging automatically if both sides forfeit consecutively.Posted 2015-02-10 06:18:57
wanna debate something?Posted 2015-02-09 11:12:07
oh they have an auto-loss penalty for that? I guess that's not too bad of an idea...Posted 2015-02-09 11:11:45
you forfeited. XDPosted 2015-02-09 11:10:58
how did I lose this... 9space barely gave any rebuttal at all >.>Posted 2015-02-09 11:08:51
the state means nation? Then why does it not say "the states"? And besides, countries may not all be "States".Posted 2014-09-26 09:09:08
9space, the state means nation, not state government. Posted 2014-09-25 13:16:00
I would of liked to have taken this debatePosted 2014-09-20 03:48:36
What, you get one whole week to post?? Whoa, that's a long long time, along with an incredibly long debate. It's a good thing they have a character limit on such big time frame.Posted 2014-09-19 10:08:42
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ITSSSSSSS ROMANIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII NOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTT ROMANIIIIIIII AHHHHHHHHHHPosted 2014-09-18 10:00:49
Just testing out edeb8 to see how it is... it's nice to be debating a DDO user for my first (and possibly only) debate on here