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Drug Screening Required for Welfare

WakeandBake said:
How much does Florida spend each year policing, prosecuting, and incarcerating their drug users? why not just leave them alone and save the money that way? The drug hysteria in America is the stupidest aspect of our culture. Republicans gripe endlessly about inefficient gov programs and then blindly throw billions away on draconian drug laws and then want to spend a few million more drug testing welfare recipients - only to have to throw more money at them in other forms on the back end when they fail the test. think, people.

require a high school diploma to get a welfare check? are you serious? what happens when they can't pass? die of hunger?
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Let me just ask you this, if crack were legal and potentially even cheaper as a consequence, how would this change this particular situtation? Frankly, I could care less if you or Ron White or Sir Paul McCartney want to smoke grass. But I think the point that some children are shorted on support because its burned up in a crack house is a point that should not be ignored. What really matters here is what you do about it after you identify the problem.
 
What about the rich Tampa businessman receiving tax breaks and subsidies from Scott's government who's snorting blow off strippers' asses every night since we're dealing with stereotypes?

Why makes your welfare recipient on crack worse than him?
 
PhDeac said:
A few thoughts. I wish your logic applied to the private sector, especially the banks.

Second, are you including prison and criminal justice in your entitlement programs? It seems crazy to me that we're reluctant to spend money to help drug users but we'll spend much more than that incarcerating drug users and providing for their food, shelter, and basic health care needs.
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1. I wish it applied to the private sector as well. It certainly applies there more than it does to entitlement programs.

2. This is crazy to me as well. As mentioned above, we have lost the War on Drugs. Ridiculous prison sentences and the costs incurred by others are a blight that needs to be corrected.

3. You didn't ask this, and it is not on point in this thread really, but prison should involve hard, manual labor for the most part. Prisoners should be paid for their work (some number significantly below minimum wage, but sufficient to create savings upon their release, thereby decreasing recidivism out of necessity).
 
PhDeac said:
What about the rich Tampa businessman receiving tax breaks and subsidies from Scott's government who's snorting blow off strippers' asses every night since we're dealing with stereotypes?

Why makes your welfare recipient on crack worse than him?
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The businessman gets up and goes to work every day?
 
DirkTheDeac said:
Let me just ask you this, if crack were legal and potentially even cheaper as a consequence, how would this change this particular situtation? Frankly, I could care less if you or Ron White or Sir Paul McCartney want to smoke grass. But I think the point that some children are shorted on support because its burned up in a crack house is a point that should not be ignored. What really matters here is what you do about it after you identify the problem.
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Fine, but this law isn't going to save 1 penny but is going to penalize and demonize average Americans.

I agree with PH. If we are going to start holding people accountable for gov assistance, we could get a lot more revenue holding some bankers and financial sector people accountable instead of demonizing the poor and their meager assistance programs. This is transparent bullshit. The wealthy have blamed the poor for American's financial trouble for a long time now, and the facts are not there to back it up. But you guys go ahead and feel better about yourselves for sticking it to those wretched welfare recipients while you coddle the bankers who don't do anything except make money and are of little benefit to American society.
 
Some of you really need to take a long look at this country's financial problems and their causes, and then reconsider blaming welfare recipients who smoke weed. This is classic class warfare - blaming the poor for society's ills is as old as dirt, and has never been proven to be correct.

If your support of this kind of crap is to "help" these people stop using drugs - you are barking up the wrong tree.
 
PhDeac said:
What about the rich Tampa businessman receiving tax breaks and subsidies from Scott's government who's snorting blow off strippers' asses every night since we're dealing with stereotypes?

Why makes your welfare recipient on crack worse than him?
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It's b/c your phantom rich Tampa businessman who doesn't pay taxes doesn't exist. The productive shoulder the tax burden in this country. There's no evidence otherwise.

You might argue they pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes, but it's not even close in gross figures. When they are paying a supermajority of the taxes, an exemption here and there hardly qualifies as a "break."
 
So jhmd, it's not about making sure taxpayer money isn't going to drug users? Just making sure you're clear about that. It's ok to take government money and use drugs if you're rich.
 
RJKarl said:
As has been known for YEARS, I see nothing PH posts. So I know nothing about the article he posted.

But don't let common knowledge get in the way of your BS.
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Only an extremely arrogant person would expect others to follow a petty little pissfest between you and phdeac.
 
So PH - what is your solution? It is clear that drug addiction harms an individual at the bottom of the food chain's ability to better themselves. Hopefully you can agree with that. So what do we do as a society to disincentify that sort of behavior? I have no problem with their being different rules for different people. The 'Its Not Fair' argument is pointless. Life isn't fair, and it never will be. Complex solutions are rarely fair. It is not fair that that football and basketball support every single other sport in college athletics, but that is the best solution that we have so it works.

You seem to have a problem with the fairness of a rich cocaine user getting some sort of government benefit when a poor crack user would be banned from that benefit. Both people receiving aid are receiving that aid because of grace from our government. If removing the incentive to live in a world of government checks and meth means that we are instituting a system that is not level across the board, then I have no problem with it.

If preventing welfare recipients from receiving government cash (not food stamps) because they have a drug habit is effective I am all for it. In my opinion, an investment in drug habilitation would be a wise move to couple with this idea. Otherwise you are punishing without offering hope for rehabilitation. Drug addiction stunts if not eliminates a welfare recipients ability to overcome their poverty. Drug addiction often makes no difference in the life of a wealthy CEO. They are still contributing members of society, and the government assistance they receive still has the same effect whether they are an addict or whether they are not.
 
Solution to what? Drugs use and abuse are a problem that isn't confined to one social class or another.
 
Yes, but drug use by welfare recipients increases the likelihood of further assistance. Drug use by a CEO does not increase the likelihood that he will need more tax breaks. We perpetuate our own money pit when we don't disincentify this sort of behavior from welfare recipients.
 
Wrangor said:
Yes, but drug use by welfare recipients increases the likelihood of further assistance. Drug use by a CEO does not increase the likelihood that he will need more tax breaks. We perpetuate our own money pit when we don't disincentify this sort of behavior from welfare recipients.
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How do you figure that?

Regardless, isn't the problem giving money to people that they will use for drugs?

“While there are certainly legitimate needs for public assistance, it is unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction,” Governor Scott said. “This new law will encourage personal accountability and will help to prevent the misuse of tax dollars.”

Florida Republicans are doing a good job of going after problems that don't exist to further their goals of pushing those they believe tend to vote Democrat. This drug law is going after a drug problem among welfare recipients that isn't any worse than for anybody else. The new voter law is tackling voter fraud that doesn't exist to make it more difficult for renters, students, and women to vote.
 
Wrangor said:
Yes, but drug use by welfare recipients increases the likelihood of further assistance. Drug use by a CEO does not increase the likelihood that he will need more tax breaks. We perpetuate our own money pit when we don't disincentify this sort of behavior from welfare recipients.
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How about for every employee of every company that has any government contracts or gets government subsidies?
 
RJKarl said:
How about for every employee of every company that has any government contracts or gets government subsidies?
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That's a far more attenuated relationship that person X going to the welfare office, cashing his check, and going directly to his not so friendly neighborhood crack dealer.
 
PhDeac said:
Solution to what? Drugs use and abuse are a problem that isn't confined to one social class or another.
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People using the drugs aren't the societal problem, it is that drug use often leads to crime, child abuse/neglect, etc. If some rich dude is using his own money to snort blow off a stripper's ass, but it is his money and his kids are doing fine in school, then he can snort up all day long, I really don't care. If, on the other hand, somebody is out robbing his neighbors house to get cash to buy drugs, not making sure his kids go to school, etc., such that the problem directly affects others in society, then we have a problem and society needs to address it. Is that a socioeconomic disparity, sure, but as Wrangor pointed out, that's life. If you can do drugs all day and still manage to support yourself and not infringe on anyone else, have at it. If you do drugs all day long and want to infringe on other people's rights to do so, then you can't.
 
So how is not getting welfare money going to keep someone off drugs? Seems like taking away welfare money would lead to more crime and child abuse/neglect.

Come up with a straight story and then we can debate the issue.
 
So if a child's parent is on drugs, the solution is to not give them assistance? Why would the children's suffer more because their parents are on drugs?

-PhDeac, exposing the core and obvious flaw of this approach
 
The whole goal is to give taxpayer money to drug testing companies and punish poor drug users without helping them.

Any stated goal besides that is so comically bad it doesn't make sense.
 
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