Taxpayers have a moral obligation to financially support vulnerable members of the community.

My contention is twofold. Each of the following two points is separate and should be considered in isolation from the other. 1.There is no moral obligation to support vulnerable members of the community, except for those who have not made themselves vulnerable by choice. 2.Even if governments do have that obligation, taxpayers do not. I will now address my contentions in turn. 1. It is obvious that opponent's resolution was general in nature. He puts forward that, irrespective of the fact that some people appear to abuse the process, a moral obligation exists to support every vulnerable person. If a person chooses to not look for work or to quit their job or fake a disease simply so that they can derive benefits, that person is abusing a system that was put in place to provide support to those who genuinely have no other option but to rely on that support. Governments have a limited budget, mostly derived from resources obtained through taxation. The government's contractual duty is to promote social progress and social cohesion (references will be provided if this statement is challenged). Therefore, the limited funds obtained through taxation must be applied to a number of causes. These include infrastructure, health care, law enforcement and a host of others. It is therefore the government's duty to allocate the limited resources it has wisely, so as to ensure that all of these needs are met. In order for the government to be able to meet these needs, limited resources should not be wasted on supporting people whose position of vulnerability was reached by choice in order to obtain such support. There are exceptions. I do not propose to deal with them at this point. I will wait for my opponent to raise them as part of his argument. However, it is my contention that his broad proposition should be rejected. 2. The word "taxpayer" is not synonymous with the word "government". While indirectly most money spent by the government is money obtained from the taxpayer, any possible obligation lies with the former and not the latter. The taxpayer has no say in the government's spending. The Budget is passed by Congress (Parliament in some countries) and taxpayers have no input into the allocation of money. In fact, even voters (a concept quite distinct from taxpayers) do not decide on how money will be allocated. Given that the funds are not available for the taxpayer to distribute and the taxpayer has no power whatsoever to dictate to the government how the money is to be allocated, the taxpayer cannot have an obligation to apply it in any particular way. That is unless my opponent is proposing that people who pay tax (taxpayers) have a moral obligation to make a contribution for the sake of the vulnerable in addition to their already paid tax. However, if that were my opponent's argument, I would see no reason why he would limit the alleged obligation to taxpayers. Surely, an equal obligation would lie with those who (for one reason or another) do not pay tax. Furthermore, the amount of tax paid by an individual is dependent on the individual's financial position and not on the question of what the money will be ultimately spent on by the government in power. In conclusion, the taxpayer, having no control of how his/her taxed money is spent, cannot be held morally obliged in relation to any allocation of that money. I would like to conclude this section by saying that I have much respect for my opponent and that the broader issues of moral right and wrong are still open up for discussion, at least as part of the contest initiated by section (1) of my argument. However, I do contend that his proposition fails on the first, the second or both of the grounds I have outlined.