States battle over drug tests for welfare recipients
We’re all living President Obama’s socialist dream (which I’m positive is going to end up being America’s nightmare). Federal money is being tossed about in ways that would embarrass the most drunken of sailors.
Believe it or not, some states have shot down bills that would require drug tests for people on the welfare rolls.
As if it’s not bad enough that we have 20 million illegal citizens of Mexico getting health benefits from the U.S. taxpayers, now it seems that it’s just fine to be paying people to sit around and take drugs instead of taking a job and contributing to society. Where does it end?
As you probably have guessed, the argument over these welfare drug testing bills follow party lines closely: Republicans support it … Democrats are against it.
Republican West Virginia State Delegate Craig Blair sponsored the bill that put this debate in the national limelight, and has spread the word about his theories on the website NotWithMyTaxDollars.com. And though he recently saw his bill get voted down, he vows it will be back.
Critics of Blair’s idea claim that it takes aim at the poor. “That is false,” Blair says. This is trying to make sure that we’re going to have the resources for those that are truly in need.”
Blair says the idea has gained popular support – in my opinion, that’s because it makes sense. So far, he’s received more than 5,000 emails and countless phone calls from people who are rallying to his cause.
Blair’s idea was to put a “two strikes and your out” plan in place: two failed drug tests, no more public assistance funds. Incredibly, he met resistance.
But while the bill died in West Virginia, it’s gotten the nod from the Kansas State House, where State Rep. Kasha Kelley said the ultimate motive of the bill was to encourage drug abusers to seek treatment. The added bonus of the law would of course be that good tax dollars aren’t used to support bad habits.
According to Kansas State Rep. Tom Sawyer, a Democrat from Witichita, “We do not have the right to assume that poor people are more likely to take illegal drugs.”
There is, of course, a problem with Sawyer’s rhetoric (as there often tends to be with most liberal rhetoric). If what Sawyer says is true, then “we” also don’t have the right to assume that police officers, bus drivers, airline pilots, or train operators are more likely to take illegal drugs. And yet those and many other jobs have drug testing as a perquisite of employment.
Think about that: it’s OK to require drug testing for people who want to work, but drug testing people who want to get free money is a no-no. It’s asinine.
Programs like this are actually nothing new. Michigan had a random drug testing program in place for welfare applicants 10 years ago, but that was stopped because it was deemed “unconstitutional” in by a 2003 Federal court. Of course, the court neglected to point out that there’s actually nothing in the Constitution that authorizes that tax dollars be spent on public assistance, either … but I digress.
And with that, the concept of personal responsibility in America puts another foot into the grave.
