Thread: UA for Public Assistance?

So why not impose a drugs test for being a person in any capacity whatever? Why not try and punish everyone who provides this certain evidence of being a drug user? This is not just a vague, uncertain way of tackling the pettiest end of the drug problem: the drug addict who will sponge off himself by buying small quantities of drugs with his food entitlement. It is about winning political sympathy from others.

Many would consider it practically treasonable for welfare recipients to turn down a chance of becoming really rich, merely because it risked the waste of several uncomfortable years. With a difference in the sort of enterprise - difference which may not mean much to them - some do just that. My own opinion is that as long as customers will pay enough to make it worth a dealer's or courier's while to take a great risk of being caught, the war on drugs is lost. Legalising and regulating the inexpensive supply of unadulterated drugs of predictable strength would avoid much of the drug-induced death and property crime, and virtually all of the gangland murders. It worked with the Volstead Act.

That is just opinion, but I saw quoted, above, the words Hemingway lifted and added to, from the seventeenth-century Graham of Claverhouse, persecutor of the Covenanters: "There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those that have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never care for anything else thereafter." The amount "wasted" on misused food stamps (though food presumably ends up grown, sold and eaten, by people who are unlikely to be rich) is a drop in the ocean compared with that spent on giving the drug enforcement organisations their fix on the above.

The usual thing in developed nations is for the unemployed poor to receive rather more than they do in the US, for them to receive it in money rather than anything as freaky and stigmatising as food stamps or cards, and for a more sympathetic line to be taken by the employed and successful. Or should that be the unemployed or successful? For am I not right in thinking that plenty of more than 40 million Americans who receive it are doing socially useful, demanding jobs? Of course other nations experience abuses, but it isn't as if they don't get anything worth having in exchange. It reduces the feeling that those at different levels in the social pyramid are different species, entitled to prey one upon another.

This issue is about the political capital to be gained by persecuting two widely resented targets: drug users and welfare recipients, whether it has any beneficial effect or not. Of course someone of a different political complexion may have to look for his political capital elsewhere, by doing the same to a different target group. But if it were about the prevention of crime, I know a particularly revolting form of crime, committed by a few, which could be prevented by depriving the innocent of a right which nobody desperately needs. Make everyone use cartridge razors.

I had to submit to a drug test before being employed and randoms while I EARN MY PAYCHECK, I'm glad they are making everyone (even if I get down on my luck and need help) test for drugs. Finally some tax money well spent!

Originally Posted by shooter74743

I had to submit to a drug test before being employed and randoms while I EARN MY PAYCHECK, I'm glad they are making everyone (even if I get down on my luck and need help) test for drugs. Finally some tax money well spent!

I don't think you (and apparently many of the previous posters) understand what the bill does. They are not making everyone, just a small fraction of people, take the test. This is simply cheap populist politics to capitalize on the gullibility of those who're better at following than at critical thinking.

When the governor, the legislature, the judges, etc. start peeing in a cup before voting or signing anything, and the results of the tests are made public afterwards, then things like this may become meaningful.

Athletes do it, a lot of the decent private sector jobs do it, now that it's supposed to enter the public sector, why restrict the great benefits of this system to only the ones on welfare?

I care way way more whether the governor, the president, the judge, the congressman, etc. is a crackhead than whether the bum on the street corner is. The decisions the last one makes are next to irrelevant for my well being, while the decisions of the former can have effect on my grandchildren.

Originally Posted by gugi

I care way way more whether the governor, the president, the judge, the congressman, etc. is a crackhead than whether the bum on the street corner is. The decisions the last one makes are next to irrelevant for my well being, while the decisions of the former can have effect on my grandchildren.

Agreed. However, there are constitutional (both federal and state) measures to remove these people from office. Not the case with the welfare recipient. Additionally, we as taxpayers are paying these officials to perform a job, whereas to the welfare recipient it has been shown that is not often enough the case. I think what people are looking for here is some small measure of control over out-of-control spending, especially on those which a majority of us can agree do not deserve it.

This is most certainly true, there are measures to remove them from office if they break the law, but they're not tested for drugs on a consistent basis if at all, so this really makes it a bit toothless. It's the same principle that the republicans argue the existence of big voting fraud due to photoID not being required.

The welfare recipients are paid to perform a job as well. That job is is to not engage en masse in violent crime. If this had anything to do with money we'll be seing the actual fiscal motivation of such policy with serious data and models that can be verified. But presenting to the public truthful estimates of the cost of such policy including expenses and crime increases is probably a political suicide.

If my rather hard-earned tax dollars are paying someone to simply not engage in violent crime then I need to get my butt out there and commit some felony batteries, because I haven't seen a dime of that money, myself.

We are paying people out of our own pocket simply out of a fear that they will commit violent crimes if we don't? I cannot agree with the theory or the logic behind that. Violent criminals ought to get cells and bars, not cash.

I read today that if the testees (I love that word) fail the test they, not the state, foot the bill. The fiscal motivation is that many numbers of drug tests are cheaper than throwing money away month after month on someone who has no intention on improving his situation. I do agree, though, I too would like to see the predicted numbers and how they play out. This needs more "oomph" behind it to look justified.

Welfare has its place, I suppose. But I think recently it's entered dark territory in that it's becoming a permanent entitlement, rather than a temporary boost. I like the initiative here in trying to re-steer that ship.

You know, on second thought, maybe I do agree that it's more than fiscally-motivated. I'll boil it down to my opinion, then bow out.

Drugs are illegal, but that's mostly besides the point. In my opinion, you are free to put whatever you want in your body. If you want to have a drink, go ahead. If you want a sandwich, go nuts. If you want to smoke some crack, be my guest. Sky's the limit.

What you are not free to do, under any circumstances, is force me to pay for you to do any of that. That is, to me, a fundamental difference in opinion.

Well, I'm sorry to be the one to bust your bubble, but a lot of economically motivated policy is sold to the public as nothing more than 'value' or 'principle' based. This is possible to large extent because most people have blind spot to the 'values' and the 'principles' when those go contrary with their political and/or economic biases.

And then there's the inverse too, 'value' based policy is being presented as economically motivated, especially these days.

It's a pretty perverse system, but it's one of the costs of a democracy, I suppose.

I think the society will be quite different if people are actually given honest assessment of the cost of the 'value' based policies, so instead of blindly rallying behind their politics of choice they could involve a little more rational thinking whether their 'principles' are worth the money it'll cost them.


If you want you can read some basic books on economics, or if those are too boring try some freakonomics-type articles.

Originally Posted by gugi

I don't think you (and apparently many of the previous posters) understand what the bill does. They are not making everyone, just a small fraction of people, take the test. This is simply cheap populist politics to capitalize on the gullibility of those who're better at following than at critical thinking.

When the governor, the legislature, the judges, etc. start peeing in a cup before voting or signing anything, and the results of the tests are made public afterwards, then things like this may become meaningful.

Athletes do it, a lot of the decent private sector jobs do it, now that it's supposed to enter the public sector, why restrict the great benefits of this system to only the ones on welfare?

I care way way more whether the governor, the president, the judge, the congressman, etc. is a crackhead than whether the bum on the street corner is. The decisions the last one makes are next to irrelevant for my well being, while the decisions of the former can have effect on my grandchildren.

I may not understand the full extent of the bill & it's possible you may not either & may be swayed by reasons of your own. I may not be the "critical thinker" that you are, but we are all entitled to our own opinion and I fully stand by my own. It would be fiscally difficult to gather a sample before a "check" is handed out for a welfare recipient, but random's is something that I would fully support and will support.

Originally Posted by gugi

If you want you can read some basic books on economics, or if those are too boring try some freakonomics-type articles.

I would, but I have no idea how to read. ;(