Drug test for welfare recipients

[kathyinmo]

This thread makes me sick. I actually thought I would read more people concerned with the government taking more rights away from their citizens. I guess there's not a lot of outrage because it's those other people.

Why be so picky? If "they" get drug tested, then so should EVERYONE else.

The government is tooooooooooo involved in our lives already. Now this? When will we all have bar codes tatooed on us at birth? Then, they can know everything about us.... health issues, job, etc.

 

[chickened]

If the people using the welfare system would submit to drug testing wouldn't a negative test exonerate them?

did anyone see the Colbert Report where he interviewed the lawmaker who pushed to have this law in place./ The law make said if people wish access to tax payer money they should take a drug test.
Colbert pointed out the lawmaker was paid by the tax payers and asked him to take a drug test
The lawmaker refused and Colbert pointed out what the lawmaker said earlier.
The law maker then said if thy made a law requiring him to take a drug test to be tax payer paid he would, other wise he would refuse to take a drug test.
Colbert insisted that he could take it there and now, but the lawmaker still refused.

Should only the poor who are given tax payer money should be subject to invasive procedure?. should the lawmakers be exempt because they're rich and of course... make the laws?

BTW this new law would actually cost far more to enforce than it would save, and the same people pushing for this law are the same ones screaming that the other side is killing the budget

 

[berniezahm]

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.

Just a small point, medicare is paid for by the person receiving the care, currently almost $100.00 per month deducted from their Social Security check. Medicaid is the welfare version of Medicare
Oh by the way you have to be 65 years old to qualify for Medicare. That is why only senior citizens make use of it.

 

[ivan3]

chickened wrote: If the people using the welfare system would submit to drug testing wouldn't a negative test exonerate them?

Assuming they require exoneration, I expect it would. Testing for indivdual cause is perfectly reasonable and doesn't allow 4th Amendment cases to find their way into the hands of the Supremes. What starts out as a, at best, marginally effective screening method (drug testing was already tried in Florida once before and dropped not cost effective/as has been the case in several States over the past two decades) could well end up in the hands of `Right' whittling jurists with the often realized potential for impacting us all.

The 1996 welfare reform: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act lowered the National rate by 25%. Florida already has one of the better implementations of TANF. The number of people receiving welfare of any sort had been trending downward and then we were Tanked. The fact this particular issue `drug testing and welfare' has shown up in several State Legislatures over a brief period of time should give the skeptical observer pause. I grow weary of political posturing and pandering but it goes with the territory. I do object to the potential for further erosion of already worn down Constitutional protections in the furtherance of feeding red meat to any constituency.

If I was a Floridian, I'd be watching the Governor much more closely than any particular group of potential small time grifters on the dole: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article1161158.ece

rebelcowboysnb wrote: Lets throw away everything this country is suppose to stand for just to catch a few people smoking weed as opposed to getting drunk

Not to put too fine a point on it but the deal has been done and we're in for a rough ride. Every time a thread, here on BYC, gets going about the big evil government and how it moves without our being involved, I'll continue to post up Justice Thomas' dissent in Ashcroft-Gonzales v. Raich (he is a 4th Amendment whittler, but he hits this one out of the park with an unmarked bat). What makes me despair for the Republic is the continued appeal of sentiment over reason in the majority of the `electorate' (usually constituting less than 50% of the citizenry - another bit of rot in the timbers). In a land of hard-eyed, skeptical individualists Cannabis Sativa L. would be no more than another choice in the Thompson Morgan Catalog, i.e., `a handsome, reseeding, annual ornamental possessing mild intoxicant effects (do not feed to pets and children). Instead, it has been elevated to a poison worthy of the Hemlock imbibed by Socrates. And, in the effort to suppress its availability, liberty itself (for user and abstainer alike) has been throttled. And, to be sure, the suppression was DEMANDED by the the majority of the electorate - not some secret cabal of Federal Regulators and bureaucrats. Drugs? Drug Testing? Terrorism? You asked for it, citizen, and here it is:

“ In Lopez, I argued that allowing Congress to regulate intrastate, noncommercial activity under the Commerce Clause would confer on Congress a general “police power” over the Nation. This is no less the case if Congress ties its power to the Necessary and Proper Clause rather than the Commerce Clause. When agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided Monson’s home, they seized six cannabis plants. If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress’ Article I powers, as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause, have no meaningful limits. Whether Congress aims at the possession of drugs, guns, or any number of other items, it may continue to appropriate state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce.”

“The substantial effects test is easily manipulated for another reason. This Court has never held that Congress can regulate noneconomic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce… To evade even that modest restriction on federal power, the majority defines economic activity in the broadest possible terms… This carves out a vast swath of activities that are subject to federal regulation.”

“If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison’s assurance to the people of New York that the “powers delegated” to the Federal Government are “few and defined”, while those of the States are “numerous and indefinite”. “

excerpted from the Opinion: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/04pdf/03-1454.pdf

“We take one thing for another in every field of thought and in every mode of action… We do not see our hand in what happens, so we call certain events melancholy accidents when they are the inevitabilities of our projects, and we call other events necessities because we will not change our minds.”

Stanley Cavell

 

[newfoundland]

We have 'working tax credits', that allow people who would be otherwise unemployed and receiving full benefits, to take poorly paid and part time jobs, and have their money made up to the amount they would have received on full unemployment. They do not lose their other benefits either. So for example, if I was entitled to £100 a week on Social Security benefits and I found a job that paid £50 a week, Social Security would make up the other £50. This has reduced the Social Security bill, and is popular because it enables people to take what work they can.

 

[chickened]

Enable;

1. provide somebody with means: to provide somebody with the resources, authority, or opportunity to do something

I would love to pump gas at minimum wage and have the government make it pay twice the wage.

Entitled;

1. grant somebody right: to give somebody the right to have or to do something

What happens when I am entitled to more that 100 euros?

That may work in your country but that would never work here.

I do like the idea of no work no eat though for those able to work. And sloth and obesity is not a reason to not work.

We have 'working tax credits', that allow people who would be otherwise unemployed and receiving full benefits, to take poorly paid and part time jobs, and have their money made up to the amount they would have received on full unemployment. They do not lose their other benefits either. So for example, if I was entitled to £100 a week on Social Security benefits and I found a job that paid £50 a week, Social Security would make up the other £50. This has reduced the Social Security bill, and is popular because it enables people to take what work they can.

 

[Oregon Blues]

It's looking suspiciously like the opposition here doesn't want the government interfering with their right to smoke marijuana.

Me, I am thinking I resent it when I work hard in order to pay the rent , food, and medical of someone who spends their day laying on the couch, watching TV, stoned on meth, or heroin, or whatever, and I will include booze here. As far as I am concerned, if they don't want to be drug tested, they can go and get a job and pay for their own rent, food, and medical.

I also resent it when the dopers sell their food stamps and buy dope instead of feeding their kids with the money they were given to feed their kids. Because that is money that the government has taken away from me so that I no longer have it to feed my own children.

I consider it a violation of my rights, to take money away from my family to support lazy slugs who ought to be capable of working, but would just rather not.

I do not resent the assistance given to people who really need it, but I would be quite happy to see the cheats removed from the welfare rolls.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

So fight to fix or get rid of welfare but don't fight to destroy the Constitution for the sake of protecting welfare...


I hate to see good people coming home to find that they have been robbed blind but I don't think throwing out the due proses part or our legal system is an ok thing to do to combat it.

 

[Capvin]

I may have missed something or I am just uniformed, but I can not for the life of me see how people on welfare or food stamps have any effect on how much money you have to feed you own family. If you believe that the elimination of welfare and/or food stamps will increase your take home pay, then you live in a different country then I do.

 

[RHRanch]

Enable;

1. provide somebody with means: to provide somebody with the resources, authority, or opportunity to do something

I would love to pump gas at minimum wage and have the government make it pay twice the wage.

Entitled;

1. grant somebody right: to give somebody the right to have or to do something

What happens when I am entitled to more that 100 euros?

That may work in your country but that would never work here.

I do like the idea of no work no eat though for those able to work. And sloth and obesity is not a reason to not work.

Why would that not work here? If it works in other places, it could work here. Just because it has not been done here does not mean that some form of this could not be done here. It seems to me that aside from letting the poor live in the streets and get nothing, you are unhappy with just about any other solutions that are presented to you. If you want them to work, it makes sense to supplement their (underemployment) like part time work so they can have a roof over their head verses not helping them until they get more $ from not working at all, which is the current system we have here. Lots of people are underemployed, meaning part time work at lower wages - underemployment is a way for employers to avoid the additional cost of benefits, but it does not pay enough for most to live one. I know people working 2 or 3 of these part time jobs and they can barely afford to rent a room. If you have kids and are a single mom, how are you supposed to care for your kids and support them in a job like that? If you work 2 or 3 of these jobs, you couldn't afford even the childcare in most cases to cover your time at work. I mean, the struggles that people who get welfare or assistance are dealing with are often a bit more complex than "just get a job".