Drug test for welfare recipients

[chickened]

There is also the greater unknown factor that should take in to effect the people that will not apply because of the possibility of being denied. I would rather see the money spent on drug testing than free money to buy cigarettes or the other crap they do with the money.http://www.examiner.com/county-poli...used-to-buy-alcohol-and-cigarettes-california

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2010/02/no_booze_cigarettes_or_fancy_c.php

 

[redhen]

In order for this to.work... they NEED to do the hair testing..
They KNOW how to trick the drug testing system...so many wont get caught with urine testing.
It will cost more at first, but will save them money in the end.

 

[Nitrous]

Are you ready for your weekly test? If they are given the right to test them the that also gives them the right to force everyone to be tested...

They already do that with breathalyzer tests. You can refuse them as well. The penalty for refusing a pee tests, for welfare recipients, is having to get a job or be homeless.

 

[Nitrous]

I don't' stereotype the recipients as drug users.

I feel I have no interest in giving any share of my tax dollars to someone who will spend some of it on drugs. I am happy testing all of them in exchange for catching the 1-2% of people who are using.

Some of the problem is like dreadlocks (I know... you are dying to see the reference/analogy here). Not everyone with dreadlocks has lice, fleas and vermin, living in their homeless hair, under the bridge, with them.

However, every lazy, unwashed hobo, living under the bridge, with lice, fleas and vermin, has dreadlocks. That's where the stereotype comes from. NOT every person who lives in a trailer is "trailer trash". It's just that all trailer-trash, lives in trailers (except for Kid Rock who is so rich he can live in a trailer monster truck).

 

[Matthew3590]

all of the numbers given don't even include overhead for the testing program. The extra caseworkers that have been hired. The cost of the appeals process in case of false positives. The numbers released so far are ONLY for the cost of the tests vs benefits of those kicked out of the program.
Even if the welfare crowd has a rate equal to the national population, the program is going to cost a lot more than it saves.
In the meantime, I know about 20 "hard working" Americans that not only couldn't pass a drug test but are probably high at this very moment. I have no problem with a program that tests welfare receipents. I DO have a problem with the promotion of the stereotype that they are all drug users. I also have a problem with the"save money" sell on a program that is going to cost much more than it saves. Promote the program HONESTLY and let people decide to support it or not based on the facts.

I don't think anyone is stereotyping them that they use drugs. Its they do not want drug users living off of their tax money. I do not care if you are doing drugs all day long as long as you are working for a private company that is not the government.

 

[dainerra]

but the promotion of the program is that there are large numbers of people on welfare, using our tax dollars to buy drugs.

if you are using drugs all day long, you are going to be a drain on the tax dollars, privately employed or not.

 

[ivan3]

rebelcowboysnb wrote: Do you really want to give the government the power to drug test "the people" at will?

Thoughty notion, cuz.

Yeah, EVERYONE, who receives ANY tax money, should be tested. I'd start with anyone receiving government backed student loans (no bigger group of dopers and gropers). All Social Security recipients: hey, the `drugs' might be by prescription but, without oversight of the possible dangerous syngergistic effects... well, the first thing you know they'll be driving through Farmer's Markets and killing innocent children! On my dime? I think not... Medicare/Medicaid???

How about those folks with their mortgage exemptions? Isn't that worthy of some attention? Maybe they're growing dope in their basements and we can catch them and clear them out. All the investment bankers that received all that money, let's not forget them. All members of Congress, All Corp. execs (write-offs and subsidies).

Let's not stop there. Let's work through the Mortality and Morbidity stats and test everyone whose lifestyle (and the majority of Americans die from conditions related to their lifestyles) might cost tax dollars - drug test and weigh `em, I say!

Our testing methods are ever more exacting (trillionths of a gram) and `lab on a chip' technology ever more sophisticated. Let's just outfit each `citizen' with a chip under their skin and install `reader' kiosks all over - just wave your forearm over the reader, `citizen'...

I think I've solved the budget debt crisis!

(read Swift's, A Modest Proposal before concluding I want to eat your babies....)

 

[KrisH]

for welfare, I would include alcohol and tobacco. For unemployment, just Illegal drugs.
Theory being, if you can afford alcohol drugs, ot tobacco, you have too much disposable income. yeah, they could get it from friends etc, but I can be mean and unreasonable. Too bad. give it up and I will help.

RobertH

 

[chickened]

Employment is the key to breaking the welfare cycle. If these folks would be required to work at the minimum for their welfare and I do not care if it is digging a hole and then filling it in if they were forced to do some sort of work most would figure out since they have to work anyhow they might as well get a real paying job and then voila the welfare is no longer needed.

 

[RHRanch]

Employment is the key to breaking the welfare cycle. If these folks would be required to work at the minimum for their welfare and I do not care if it is digging a hole and then filling it in if they were forced to do some sort of work most would figure out since they have to work anyhow they might as well get a real paying job and then voila the welfare is no longer needed.

They usually can't work to supplement their welfare because doing so would result in the loss of the welfare funds, even if what they are making is not equivalent to the (small) amount that welfare pays. What they should do is not automatically cut off payments if a person starts to work. Most studies and tracking show that people on welfare usually only use it for short time period, especially when children are small in the case of single (divorced, widowed or never married) mothers. If men payed more to support their children, we also might have less women and children on welfare, they (women and children) are overrepresented as a group, and its not because they use drugs. By and far the largest group of welfare recipients in this country (in the form of welfare, disability and medicare) are senior citizens.