Why drug testing of welfare recipients is a bad idea

Originally posted by wardk28
reply to post by LDragonFire

 

Now drug testing should be illegal all together but if the one has to take a drug test to work, then one should have to take a drug test to collect welfare. Its either got to be no test or everyone. Personally I think drugs should be legalized. We have gotten farther and father away from personal accountability. If one wants to gamble or do drugs then have at it but don't come to the governement for financial help if you can't pay your bills. As far as corporate aid, the country's biggest problem is companys are moving their operations overseas because of regulations. Aid from the government is the only incentive to keep them in this country and hiring. Even then, companys still don't want to deal with the headache and red tape.

So your logic says that because you might be treated unfairly, poor people should be treated unfairly. You disagree with drug testing at all, but since it is allowed by private companies, then the government should be doing it too.

Originally posted by lbndhr
reply to post by CobraCommander

 

My addition differs from the article. Let us assume each test is$75.00. The welfare recipients are receiving aide every month (which is paying for their drug habit) plus the recipient is receiving hundreds in food stamps every month, (which can be traded for drugs). If 30% fail. (Which the # thar will faill will probably be way higher) within at least 2 years the abusers are off the system, the system will have already gained money. It is a win-win situation.
(How do I know all this you ask I personally know many many people abusing welfare) years back i tried to reveal them, but the system had no desire to listen.

edit on 8-6-2011 by lbndhr because: (no reason given)

The article clearly states that they can expect about a 3% fail rate, not 30%. Arizona considered doing this, but only projected a savings of $1.7 million dollars in welfare payouts, FAR less than the tens, maybe hundreds of millions for the cost of the program.

You are perpetuating the myths about welfare with biased personal anecdotes.

Originally posted by macman
reply to post by CobraCommander

 

I understand your cost of service VS. drug screening cost. But what is not factored in is the amount of those that use illegal drugs that will drop out of the welfare program and those that will test anyways and will be dropped as well.

This is very plain and simple. If you want someone to take care of you, you must abide by their rules.
Either don't use drugs and get welfare, or use drugs and don't get welfare.

No one is going to just drop out of welfare to avoid a pee test. Welfare is not some take it or leave it program like a school loan. When a person is so far broken down that they are willing to go grovel to the state, be humiliated by social workers and society at large, to go jump through all the hoops of paperwork and red tape, you can bet your bottom dollar that it has become a necessity. Welfare is the only thing that keeps people from dieing, literally, from starvation and exposure.

Now aside from that, I don't see why someone who has an addiction problem should be kicked off of welfare anyway. In fact, I see the addict as being even LESS able to care of themselves and therefore MORE qualified for assistance.

Morality We as a society have seen fit to put money aside to help our fellow countrymen in their time of need. “Blame” is something that can be thrown around all the livelong day, but at the end of the day we still see a person in dire need of assistance for the basic necessities of life, regardless of the reasons why or how they got there, which more often than not is the result of our nation's terminally flawed economic policy, rather than personal choices. Does that need simply disappear because someone is battling with addiction? Or was their drug addiction necessarily the cause of their economic straits in the first place? Certainly not. As we just noted above, the stigma attached to the poor in regards to drug use is false.

Regardless, it is probably the addict who is most in need of assistance, as much as anyone else suffering from some debilitating disease. Should we kick a homeless vet off of welfare because he chose to join the Army and go to Afghanistan where his legs got blown off? Absolutely not. So we see that choices, mistakes, or anything of the sort is actually irrelevant to the moral question of whether or not a drug user should be given welfare benefits. We do in fact, have a moral obligation to help even the most wretched creatures among us, and the most destitute, regardless of how they got there or what their condition is today.

First they came for the sick, the so-called incurables And I did not speak out – because I was not ill. Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists And I did not speak out – because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. And there was no one left To speak out for me. Pastor Niemoeller

Originally posted by macman

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
reply to post by macman

 

This is very plain and simple. If you want someone to take care of you, you must abide by their rules.
Either don't use drugs and get welfare, or use drugs and don't get welfare.

Or...you just work and earn your own money, and spend it on drugs if that's what you desire...oh, wait a minute...

I agree. I think that most drugs should be legal, as people are responsible for themselves. I think hard narcotics like Meth is just an evil on the earth.
Cannabis should be legal, sold and taxed.

But, don't expect the tax payer to fund it.

You are jumping to the conclusion that the taxpayer is funding it, and that is not the case. If you are on welfare, there is no "extra" in your check to go buy drugs with. Addicts turn to selling drugs to people who are not on welfare in order to support their own habits.

But I suppose that maybe tax payers shouldn't be finding things a birthday cake for a kid on a food stamp card. Or a new pair of sneakers to go jogging in the park. As I have said before, people of your ilk would still complain if every welfare recipient sat staring at the walls of a dorm all day, drinking and eating nothing but warm tap water and ramen.

I think it may be important to define "welfare". There's many different kinds of assistance out there. Food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance utility assistance and the good old welfare CHECK. If I'm understanding correctly, the "welfare check" is what is being targeted here. Changes in the system were made a handful of years ago to the welfare check recipients beginning in New Jersey and followed closely by Wisconsin that banned increasing of a welfare recipients cash assistance if more children were born after the date of that law being passed. In other words, your check isn't getting bigger despite you making a decision to have more kids. Many other states have since followed suit. They didn't STOP getting a check, they just had to take some personal responsibility for their circumstances and, well, basically follow the rules. Nobody mandated the size of their family, the law simply said that you will not get additional assistance in the form of CASH, if you keep popping them out.
I don't see why it's a bad thing to require recipients to adhere to some laws if they want to get assistance. It doesn't mean we're stopping you from your God-given right to use drugs till the cows come home, but NOT at taxpayers expense. Since when is receiving assistance a RIGHT for life with absolutely no strings attached? It can be, and was designed to be a great help to get people over a hump or a batch patch of luck or whatever, but it was never designed to be a lifetime source of income. If welfare recipients feel as if this law is a gross infringement on their privacy, they certainly can refuse to take the test. Nobody is handcuffing them to the toilet. Each individual still has the choice to pee in the cup or not.

wow what a # topic
if you think thats a bad idea. ha
its funny they value the cost in '1996' dollars
and really 77,000$ for each test? bs in 1996 value USD mind you (is that like 10-15,000 now?)
you always hear the oppistion bring up the cost when theyre desperate
theres no reason welfare shouldnt already be like this
ive seen to many crackheads go pickup their check cash it and buy drugs in the same parkinglot to much.

If your on my dime I feel that you should loose privileges.....

If you don't like it..... GET A JOB....

If you put ZERO into the pot why should you get anything back.....

I have taken multiple drug test, I would say more than 30 to pay into the POT.

Man it must be nice to get the freebies and have more freedoms.....

Originally posted by wildoracle13
I don't think people on welfare should be watching porn on my tax paying dollars either. I mean, if they save money on food, they have more money for x rated materials. I think the government should test them for porn too.

There are all kinds of stipulations we could tag on to a welfare check now that you mention it. How about no entertainment? After all, if you have money to rent a movie once a week or buy toys for your children, you obviously don't need welfare. In fact, no children at all. All pregnancies of welfare recipients must be aborted. You should also not be allowed to purchase any food that is not at least as cheap as ten-for-a-dollar Ramen noodles. You also may not keep the temperature in your home above 45 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. If you live in the south, no air conditioning. If you can survive without it, you don't "need" it, and "We the Taxpayers" should not be giving you all of our money. If you are found to have more than one set of clothing during your weekly state home inspection (one shirt, one pair of pants and one pair of shoes; no socks, as they are frivolous and unnecessary and I don't want to cough up MY hard earned pay just so you can have a cushy layer between your foot skin and the inside of your shoe) then you are KICKED THE FOCK OFF. You may not sleep for more than 5 hours in any 24 hour period. The rest of the time you should be either filling out job applications, interviewing for a job or panhandling.

A lot of people will clean their system before a job interview. If a company really wanted to screen them then they should test them again a week after they pass the initial test. Same would happen to the people wanting welfare. What about the women that keep having one kid after another to stay on assistance? Some people have been born on welfare and die on welfare never having worked! There is other things they should do besides drug tests. Setting a time limit on how long a person can be on welfare?

There are people that truly need assistance, but can't get it because of the backlog. I am 60 years old and worked all of my life. I had to have knee surgery, but was told that I didn't qualify for any kind of assistance. In some instances I was literally told I did not qualify because I DIDN'T HAVE A JOB! I was unemployed only a short time before I needed the surgery. I am a widow and had no income and was living with a friend at the time. So what does it really take to get help?

I'm for the drug testing.

Originally posted by lazydaisy67
I think it may be important to define "welfare". There's many different kinds of assistance out there. Food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance utility assistance and the good old welfare CHECK. If I'm understanding correctly, the "welfare check" is what is being targeted here. Changes in the system were made a handful of years ago to the welfare check recipients beginning in New Jersey and followed closely by Wisconsin that banned increasing of a welfare recipients cash assistance if more children were born after the date of that law being passed. In other words, your check isn't getting bigger despite you making a decision to have more kids. Many other states have since followed suit. They didn't STOP getting a check, they just had to take some personal responsibility for their circumstances and, well, basically follow the rules. Nobody mandated the size of their family, the law simply said that you will not get additional assistance in the form of CASH, if you keep popping them out.
I don't see why it's a bad thing to require recipients to adhere to some laws if they want to get assistance. It doesn't mean we're stopping you from your God-given right to use drugs till the cows come home, but NOT at taxpayers expense. Since when is receiving assistance a RIGHT for life with absolutely no strings attached? It can be, and was designed to be a great help to get people over a hump or a batch patch of luck or whatever, but it was never designed to be a lifetime source of income. If welfare recipients feel as if this law is a gross infringement on their privacy, they certainly can refuse to take the test. Nobody is handcuffing them to the toilet. Each individual still has the choice to pee in the cup or not.

A lot of different areas to cover in your post there. But let me give it a # here.

As far as differentiating what sort of welfare is subject to drug testing, I really don't see your point. Why should someone who is only getting food stamps not also be drug tested? That is actually one issue that could be brouhgt up against this law, the discrimination. Because, it only does in fact apply to people getting full welfare. (Largely because food stamps is a federal program, and the state knows it's unconstitutional.) Therefore, only the very poorest people are being targeted.

But on the other hand, it also sets the precedent. A precedent outlined in the OP under the heading "Constitutionality" toward the end. If welfare recipients are to be tested, why not people who get student financial aid, business loans, a driver's license? Now you have set the precedent for ALL Americans to be drug tested, because in one form or another, we are beholden to the government.

As far as not granting extra cash for extra kids, that is something I tend to agree with on the one hand. Especially if a person had those kids while they were already on welfare. Seems pretty irresponsible for a person to willingly have children they know they can't afford. But again, another slippery slope where the government is telling us who can and who cannot have kids. What are you going to do, let those kids starve to death because the parent is an idiot? Well, maybe. I would sooner go along with that law than the drug testing I think.

But the last part of your argument, about being handcuffed to the toilet. Actually, they are. Since you yourself have never had to get welfare, you have no idea how bad life is to get to the point where you would even qualify for it in the first place. People don't go on welfare because they want to. They go on welfare because they are, in the most literal way, staring death in the face from exposure or starvation. So no, as a matter of fact, they CANNOT choose to not take the drug test. It is literally, a gun to their head.

Try it for yourself...

Poverty: The Game

Now as a sort of PS here, you may be right.Welfare was never meant to be anything more than emergency relief, a somewhat short-term helping hand. Bit the situation is far more complex than that, even if you don't want to accept the facts. If there are no jobs, real jobs that pay enough to live on, how is that the fault of the people? People who were, just a year or two ago, just like you and I. Middle class, blue-collar maybe, people who got up and went to work everyday, most of us college graduates even. Now today begging the government for a handout at the welfare office as the result of the government's own failed policies.

Policies that have not just suddenly failed us, but that have been failing us all along, as the goalsposts have been moved along, the frog has begun to boil, and more and more people have wound up on the welfare rolls. Communism is the agenda here folks, and even most people on welfare don't even realize it, much less can they be blamed for it. So you talk about generational poverty. Absolutely it is a problem. But blaming an ignorant person from the ghetto or a rural trailer park for it is like blaming a baby who was never taught any different that they are supposed to poop in a toilet and not their shorts.

I think maybe that is a good analogy actually. Welfare is a diaper. People who have grown up to be proud workers, don't want to wear a diaper. But suddenly they find themselves ill, and handicapped, at the hand of poor economic policy and political leadership. So they have no choice to put on the diaper. And now you want to humiliate them further with drug tests?!

Originally posted by P-M-H
wow what a # topic
if you think thats a bad idea. ha
its funny they value the cost in '1996' dollars
and really 77,000$ for each test? bs in 1996 value USD mind you (is that like 10-15,000 now?)
you always hear the oppistion bring up the cost when theyre desperate
theres no reason welfare shouldnt already be like this
ive seen to many crackheads go pickup their check cash it and buy drugs in the same parkinglot to much.

Hey pal, that was the Congressional study. Ignore the facts if you want to, but this program will cost the taxpayers tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions more than they will ever save by kicking a few pot-heads off welfare.

Oh, and BTW, if you had read the OP you would know that they can't catch crack heads with drug tests.

Originally posted by Zaanny
If your on my dime I feel that you should loose privileges.....

If you don't like it..... GET A JOB....

If you put ZERO into the pot why should you get anything back.....

I have taken multiple drug test, I would say more than 30 to pay into the POT.

Man it must be nice to get the freebies and have more freedoms.....

edit on 8-6-2011 by Zaanny because: (no reason given)

With unemployment running at near 10% officially, and growing, and the practical number close to 1 in 4 Americans who can't find work, how about you tell those millions of people where this job is that you are talking about.

Here's a job

Something needs to be done, because some of them are way out of touch and don't have a clue.

Aye Caramba!?!?!

Originally posted by Shystargazer
A lot of people will clean their system before a job interview. If a company really wanted to screen them then they should test them again a week after they pass the initial test. Same would happen to the people wanting welfare. What about the women that keep having one kid after another to stay on assistance? Some people have been born on welfare and die on welfare never having worked! There is other things they should do besides drug tests. Setting a time limit on how long a person can be on welfare?

There are people that truly need assistance, but can't get it because of the backlog. I am 60 years old and worked all of my life. I had to have knee surgery, but was told that I didn't qualify for any kind of assistance. In some instances I was literally told I did not qualify because I DIDN'T HAVE A JOB! I was unemployed only a short time before I needed the surgery. I am a widow and had no income and was living with a friend at the time. So what does it really take to get help?

I'm for the drug testing.

You were rejected because as bad as you think you have it, you are nowhere near as bad off as the people who get it. And yes, by Federal mandate, you must have a job or be in a job program to get welfare. Thank yourself for that, because I'm sure you voted for that too.

Under federal welfare law, New York State receives a block of money from the federal government to design and run its welfare program. ... New York requires every adult welfare recipient to participate in a work or training activity as a condition of receiving welfare

I have worked with many such folks, who's jobs amount to slave labor....

Recipients of unemployment benefits to work again cleaning subways

Unpaid Jobs: The new Normal?

reply to post by Alxandro


Now that's funny.

It is amazing how ignorant, people who have never been on welfare are about the system.

All the myths.you guys keep perpetuating.

If you are on welfare and have additional kids YOU CAN NOT get more money for additional kids. Clinton signed that law in 1997.

If you see people driving around in new cars on welfare REPORT THEM. If you don't you have no right to complain about it. Welfare takes the blue book value of your vehicle and it counts against how much cash aid you get. If your car is valued at over $2000 you have to sell it and live on that money before you are allowed to apply again for any kind of assistance.

Help with electricity is rare, and it varies from county to county if it is even available. if it is, to apply there is a hot line open for 1/2 hour once a week, to get a application mailed to you. it is usually a one time emergency payment only. Most people never get through to the hot line because the line is consistently busy.

CPS collects welfare for every child in their care. That's right! On top of federal funding CPS can collect welfare benefits for every child. Every child is placed on Medicaid.
So, if you think less of your tax dollars will be going to welfare if children of parents who can't afford to take care of their kids, are taken away and placed in foster care think again!

It's been many years since I have been on welfare,but it still angers me how ignorant people can be. I would have had no problem taking a drug test for it. You already have to give up almost all your freedoms and any rights to privacy to get welfare anyways.

reply to post by calstorm


I have had a few brushes with welfare myself. The one that really blew my mind the most, was when I ran out of heating oil a few years ago, thanks to the 300% spike in fuel costs after Katrina. I had no choice, I was freezing, had a kid in the house, spent all day in the welfare office, only to be DENIED.

Not because I made too much money, not because I owned property. In fact, I was renting an apartment but still had to pay my own fuel. I was denied because I had missed the November deadline. This was the dead of NY January when I ran out and had no money for a tank of fuel.

Please, don't ask what I did to get fuel in that tank, but we actually had two pets die in the process. (Pets that had been taken in from the SPCA at the end of my street.)

Originally posted by CobraCommander
I quit my job when they told me I had to do a drug test and credit check. Now I'm on welfare.

Originally posted by CobraCommander

No one is going to just drop out of welfare to avoid a pee test. Welfare is not some take it or leave it program like a school loan. When a person is so far broken down that they are willing to go grovel to the state, be humiliated by social workers and society at large, to go jump through all the hoops of paperwork and red tape, you can bet your bottom dollar that it has become a necessity. Welfare is the only thing that keeps people from dieing, literally, from starvation and exposure.

pffft...It's people like you this is aimed at. I am tired of supporting able-bodied deadbeats that are too lazy and unwilling to give up their drug of choice to work and be contributing members of society.
It is people like you that are a drain on the system and I believe this Act is a good 1st step in eliminating the excess recipients from the system so the aid can go to those that truly need it.
Just my (taxpaying citizen's) opinion

reply to post by CobraCommander


That must have been rough.

People fall on into hard times. Even the people who think it could never happen to them. I certainly never expected it, but it happens. It took me a few excruciating years to pull out of it, but I know how easily it could happen again, if I was to encounter certain misfortunes, especially in the current state of the economy.

Originally posted by Elostone


pffft...It's people like you this is aimed at. I am tired of supporting able-bodied deadbeats that are too lazy and unwilling to give up their drug of choice to work and be contributing members of society.
It is people like you that are a drain on the system and I believe this Act is a good 1st step in eliminating the excess recipients from the system so the aid can go to those that truly need it.
Just my (taxpaying citizen's) opinion

edit on 9-6-2011 by Elostone because: (no reason given)

Number one, I was actually kidding about that.

But let's pretend for a minute that I wasn't. I never said I was a drug user. I said I refused to take a drug test. To by standing up for my Constitutional liberty, I wound up on welfare (hypothetically.) And you think that I am the problem? What is wrong with this picture folks?

That's like saying because I refused to fly and be submitted to unconstitutional x-rays and strip searches at the airport, that I must now submit to drug testing. Hmmmm. Fascist much?