You Want to Drug Test Welfare Recipients?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Demanding that we show "evidence" is ridiculous when you take the side of the argument that resists collecting the evidence in the first place.

The old guilty until proven innocent chestnut that is the hallmark of a free and open society.

[DrYouth]

Lefties defending a free an open society in the house.

Righties regulating and limiting freedoms... promoting government spending and burocracy.

Got it... yep that is how it can go.

Slaughter the sacred cows!

Butcher the drug testing. Hang 'em from the lampposts.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Lefties defending a free an open society in the house.

Righties regulating and limiting freedoms... promoting government spending and burocracy.

Got it... yep that is how it can go.

Slaughter the sacred cows!

Butcher the drug testing.

It's all about which side can tickle your sense of Justice harder.

[Dand]

Lefties defending a free an open society in the house.

Righties regulating and limiting freedoms... promoting government spending and burocracy.

Got it... yep that is how it can go.

Slaughter the sacred cows!

Butcher the drug testing. Hang 'em from the lampposts.

Reducing welfare isn't promoting government spending though. Drug testing would cost money but there is no need to test everyone. You could test a very small percentage and lock their asses up if they violate whatever they agreed to in exchange for money from the government.

If we, the taxpayers, are giving some people money I think it would be reasonable to require something in exchange. Encouraging financial responsibilty by preventing some kinds of irresponsible behavior (drug testing, or bar them from winning the lottery) could encourge recipients to improve their lives.

Personally I would most prefer a contract that exchanges the right to vote for food stamps. Leave drugs out of it and let people make their own decision between being a citizen or being reliant on the government for food. Welfare and democracy will lead to problems when voters are too reliant on the government and can be easily controlled.

[K@th]

Blind... you guys refuse to see. These tests are all over the place. I have yet to see a single study that shows the state saves money by doing this testing.

https://thinkprogress.org/what-7-states ... .kndm2gb2h



You think 48 people being cut from welfare saves the state more than $336,297?

The ROI just doesn't exist. So, yes, we have the right wing proposing huge spending increases to save almost no money.

[K@th]

The testing is meant to assure taxpayers their money isn’t being “wasted” on the less desirable, those who would somehow manage to buy drugs with the assistance. But in Tennessee, where drug testing was enacted for welfare recipients last month, only one person in the 800 who applied for help tested positive. In Florida, during the four months the state tested for drug use, only 2.6% of applicants tested positive. Meanwhile, Florida has an illegal drug use rate of 8%, meaning far fewer people on services are using drugs than their better-off counterparts. The drug testing cost taxpayers more money than it saved, and was ruled unconstitutional last year.

http://time.com/3117361/welfare-recipie ... g-testing/

[SuburbanFarmer]

[Speaker to Animals]

Demanding that we show "evidence" is ridiculous when you take the side of the argument that resists collecting the evidence in the first place.

The old guilty until proven innocent chestnut that is the hallmark of a free and open society.

No. You just posted more straw man nonsense.

I argued that we ought to implement some random drug testing of some kinds of welfare recipients. The only way we truly can know the extent of drug abuse in this population is to test them. You and Kath vehemently disagree with random drug testing these people. Then Kath goes on to claim we shouldn't random drug test them because there exists no evidence of prevalent drug abuse among them (which drug testing would determine).

It's like saying women shouldn't get breast exams because there exists no evidence that any individual woman has breast cancer. But in order to know if she has breast cancer, she needs a breast exam.

Do you not see the problem with that reasoning (and that's a charitable framing of it).

[K@th]

Just 65 of 39,121 people applying for a cash assistance program known as Families First in Tennessee tested positive for illegal substances or drugs for which they had no prescription since the law was implemented July 1, 2014, according to data provided by the Department of Human Services to The Tennessean.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/po ... /79776756/

[K@th]

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services told Vox that they screened 7,600 applicants to the Work First Program between August 3 and December 31, 2015. Among them, 150 were referred for drug testing and 21 tested positive — that's "0.3 percent of the approximate 7,600 applicants and recipients screened for drug abuse," the DHHS confirmed to Vox via email on Tuesday (though that number is not necessarily reflective of the total aid population).

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/11021826/n ... gs-welfare