Here's a speech I typed up for school arguing the neg of this argument.
President John F Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
Every citizen of the United States has the ability to fairly earn their living, while contributing to the development of the country, however, there are those that don’t contribute to the development of the US through paying taxes, and are provided for by those that do, so, with this in mind, I seek negation of the resolution, resolved, that the US ought to guarantee the right to housing.
For the purpose of the debate I’ll give the following definitions from Dictionary.com
Ought: Used to indicate duty or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions.
(According to Dictionary.com)
To Guarantee: A promise or assurance, especially one in writing, that something is of specified quality, content, benefit, etc., or that it will perform satisfactorily for a given length of time.
(According to Dictionary.com)
The Right/Rights: That which is due to anyone by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principles, etc.
(According to Dictionary.com)
Housing: The providing of houses for a group or community.
(According to Dictionary.com)
The value I wish to uphold in this debate is “justice.” Aristotle defined justice as giving each man what he is due. When Aristotle defined justicre, he used the phrase, “Giving each man what he is due” to show that each man should deserve what they get, whether it be a punishment or a reward. As an example, those that work to pay for their own housing, and all other necessities, should not have to pay taxes to provide these same necessities for those that don’t work to provide for themselves, as, with Aristotle’s definition in mind, they don’t deserve this support, while those that work to provide for themselves, shouldn’t be punished by paying for non deserving citizens. My value criterion is that we must ensure that all money collected from US taxpayers is not used to support those that don’t contribute to the country to the same, or a similar degree, such as the 13.2 percentage of UNEMPLOYED people in the United States on Welfare.
My first contention to support that the US ought not to guarantee the right to housing is that if the US government heavily supports those unable to provide for their own housing, it will only be taken advantage of, meaning that the almost 5,000,000 US citizens (coldwell banker prime) using federal rental assistance will only continue to rise, as well as US citizens living off of government subsidies.
My second contention is that if needs, such as housing, are provided to someone that is unemployed or unable to work, they will become dependent upon their provisions, and will need continued support from the government, while they are unable to provide anything. This would mean that those working to pay government taxes, are, in a big way, paying for the non-working, non-providing, government-subsidy dependent, citizens of the United States.
My third contention is that the US is already twenty-trillion dollars in debt, and a total of more than one trillion dollars has been used for welfare spending. To guarantee the right to housing would massively increase the amount of people that received this same money from the government.
In summary… If the right to housing isn’t guaranteed to non-abiding citizens of the United States, the amount of people heavily-dependent upon government support will not increase, while the latter would happen if the right to housing was guaranteed by the US. There will always be people that take advantage when they feel that they can, so why would we continue to open up that opportunity?