Drug tests for Welfare? I agree! Prolly wont happen.

Orneryolfart357

New member
Florida to charge welfare applicants to take drug test
By: CNN's John Couwels


Orlando, Florida (CNN) - Starting on July 1 in Florida, anyone who applies for welfare must first pass a drug test.

Some welfare recipients say it's a good idea, for the most part.

"I'm for it because I know people who misuse the funds," said unemployed Kennley Grant outside a central Florida welfare office where he is applying for government assistance.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the Republican-sponsored bill into law last week, adding Florida to a list of states trying to drug-test welfare recipients.

Michigan passed a similar law that the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found unconstitutional in 2003 since it violated the U.S. Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable search. The court said the law would set a dangerous precedent by allowing the government to conduct drug searches for the safety of the public without prior suspicion.

Like Kennley Grant, most people CNN asked outside the office of the Florida Department of Children and Family agreed with the state's new law.

"I think it's good," said Lissie Bryant, who has an adult son who gets benefits. "There are so many people walking around here that are getting welfare that really don't deserve it and they're taking the money and buying drugs."

Several mothers who would not give their names disagreed with the law. Two women used expletives to describe their displeasure with it.

ACLU of Florida, which opposes the law, says it is not surprised welfare recipients agree with drug testing.

"You do what you have to do get the help," said Berek Newton with the ACLU.

Scott recently told CNN's TJ Holmes, "I want to make sure our taxpayers are not subsidizing drug addiction.

"Studies show people who are on welfare are higher users of drugs than people not on welfare," he said.

On CNN's request, the governor's office supplied several studies that showed drug use was higher among welfare recipients.

One document from a public policy brief on substance abuse had statistics from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health: A self-reported survey in 2007 found 20% of women ages 18-49 on welfare reported using illicit drugs compared to 10.3% of women of the same ages not on welfare.

The ACLU of Florida disagrees and cites a 2001 Florida pilot study that looked at drug use among welfare recipients.

Newton said the study was stopped after only a year because it failed. The study found drug use among welfare recipients was equal or less than the general public's drug use, Newton said.

The ACLU said the study found the drug testing program would cost more to run than the state could possibly save by eliminating drug users on welfare.

Florida's ACLU executive director Howard Simon said, ""Once again, this governor has demonstrated his dismissal of both the law and the right of Floridians to personal privacy by signing into law a bill that treats those who have lost their jobs like suspected criminals."

The ACLU has filed suit against the state for requiring all state workers to take a drug and is considering suing the state for drug testing welfare applicants.

Five Florida state Democratic legislatures joined to voice their outrage at the governor for insulting families who have fallen on hard times thanks to the bad economy and for what they called an unconstitutional law.

Welfare recipients who supported the drug test strongly disagreed that welfare applicants should have to pay out of pocket for the test.

The law says those who pass the drug test would be refunded the test cost but those who fail or test positive for drugs would be out the drug tests cost - $10 to $70.

"You can't have a struggling family pay for something they can't afford already – they're asking for your assistance," Kennley Grant said. He believes the state should pay for the drug test.

James S., who receives benefits and asked that his last name not be used, said, "I would ask the state or the governor to reconsider." Not everyone can afford it, he said.

Bryant, however, said," If they got to pay for it out of their own pocket and they really need it, then they will do the right thing."

The ACLU says that's irrelevant, it's illegal.

Newton said, "It's like the government sending you a bill to violate your rights."
 
ACLU is ran by educated retards. How is it we the working class have to be checked for drugs, but yet the deadbeats of America dont? Kinda azz backwards if you ask me!
 
The ACLU is a communist outfit of lawyers that will push any end to the means that will chip away at our American values. Roger Baldwin, the founder of the ACLU said " World communism was his goal". Not an exact quote but close. That is still the main objective of the ACLU.
 
"Five Florida state Democratic legislatures joined to voice their outrage at the governor for insulting families who have fallen on hard times thanks to the bad economy and for what they called an unconstitutional law."

Most welfare recipients are not "families" who have fallen on hard times, they are single women who opt to breed at our expense. What's more, they are typically part of mutli-generational strings of fatherless welfare recipients.

We have gotten to the point that ~75% of black and mulatto children born in the US are illegitimate. For the most part, the black man as a father has ceased to exist. Prior to LBJ expanding AFDC programs in the 1960s black illegitimacy was NOTHING like today.

Welfare has created far, FAR more problems than it has solved. Drug test away and cut the $$$ to those on dope!
 
My State Representative plans to support an effort to do this In Tennessee next year, so I am sure people around here will be watching how this goes in court.
 
Any job I've had in the last 30yrs I've been regularly pizz tested. If I have to get tested in order to get my money, they should have to get tested in order to get my money too.
 
Absolutely!! 100% Behind Governor Scott on this one... If they want to be on welfare, then they have to be tested. If they fail the the test, no free ride! They should also be required to get out of bed and report to the welfare office by 8 a.m. at least 4 times a week, and they should have to submit at least 10 job contacts per month. If they aren't educated, then they need to be in school pursuing their GED or learning a trade.

If they have to get up in the morning anyhow, they might as well be at work. If they don't have a job, and they're up anyhow, they might as well be looking for one or learning one. Aren't very many of them that are absolutely unemployable, just a bunch of them that don't want to work.

And, if they're female, aren't married and they apply, they need to have their tubes tied after one! It's a reversible procedure, and that would eliminate the unwed mother with 15 children on welfare situation.
 
Originally Posted By: Rocky1Absolutely!! 100% Behind Governor Scott on this one... If they want to be on welfare, then they have to be tested. If they fail the the test, no free ride! They should also be required to get out of bed and report to the welfare office by 8 a.m. at least 4 times a week, and they should have to submit at least 10 job contacts per month. If they aren't educated, then they need to be in school pursuing their GED or learning a trade.

If they have to get up in the morning anyhow, they might as well be at work. If they don't have a job, and they're up anyhow, they might as well be looking for one or learning one. Aren't very many of them that are absolutely unemployable, just a bunch of them that don't want to work.

And, if they're female, aren't married and they apply, they need to have their tubes tied after one! It's a reversible procedure, and that would eliminate the unwed mother with 15 children on welfare situation.

Rocky, I think I'm gonna write you in for president!
thumbup.gif
 
Ya I agree 100%. And I awalys thought they should have to pick up trash along the roads and clean up parks etc. We ought to get something for our money
 
Ya don't have to be real bright to flip burgers at McDonalds. No education required aside from being intelligent enough to fill out an application. Yet fast food joints all over the country cannot find workers even when paying considerably more than minimum wage. With the oil boom in ND they were offering as much as a $1000 sign-on bonus, and $14/hour and could not fill positions. But we still have a whole bunch of people on welfare here in the state!

Maybe we need to link the job service and welfare databanks. The state could use welfare and unemployment recipients to temporarily fill positions while they live on the tax payer's dollar. And when you get a job that requires an IQ of 3, like flipping burgers in a fast food joint, put an uneducated welfare recipient in it and they'll learn a trade in the process. Then when they say they are unemployable, you can always say, "Well it says you have experience flipping burgers... You a cook!!"

As long as it is more profitable for them to sit at home and draw welfare, than it is for them to go out and find a job, they're going to sit at home!
 
My dad tells a story about trying to round up driller's helpers in Nevada. They routinely tried to offer jobs to panhandlers, who, to a man, replied, "Pshaw, I can make more than that on this street corner." Welfare's easy, why work?

Rather than drug tests, just make it temporary like unemployment. After 6 months or so, you have to tell a good tale to continue receiving benefits. Basically just take your idea from above and go with it.
 
Originally Posted By: coyotexIm for it,,,but if it ever happens,75% will become thieves.


X
And 75% of them will be put in prison or dead and still on the tax ticket....So either way were still paying for them... Its a never ending circle aint it ?
 
I worked at a place called Water beds and Stuff. When the checks were issued, I had welfare recipients in the store buying glass pot pipes and other dope using crap so I like the idea. Test to recieve benefits and then random testing there after. That way they can't take a break from using to obtain welfare and then start back up. I also like the idea of keeping the offspring to a limit. You have 2 kids you can't take care of now, so don't have any more.

Welfare [beeep] me off. Every time I go to wal mart or any store in the beginning of the month "they" are there with carts full of everything and I am going off a list to make sure im getting what I have money for. Politicians need to quit cutting education and other greatly needed programs and reform welfare.
 
Average cost of taking care of an inmate is roughly 24g's a year (last I seen). It can very according to health care and all. So what is cheaper? Welfare or being a ward of the state??? At least if they are inmates they are creating more jobs.....that in the end, end up paying taxes to support others still on welfare.

Longbarrel is def right.....never ending circle.
 
Bring back the chain gangs... NO Air Conditioning, NO Television, NO playtime. If they want to lift weights, let them load rock by hand. Make them grow and can their own food for the prison. If they don't work, they don't eat. Force them to conform and work as a societal unit or starve. If they don't cooperate and fall in line, toss them in solitary with bread and water 3 meals a day.

When the ACLU shows up, lock them up too! Our soldiers all forfeit their rights to serve in the military, our prisoners can certainly forfeit theirs.
 
"The ACLU said the study found the drug testing program would cost more to run than the state could possibly save by eliminating drug users on welfare."

Assuming that that statement is true, you know what they say about [beeep]-u-me and everyone turning into a donkey That is about their best reason for not doing it, and I would be more willing to pay taxes to keep druggies off welfare than I would be to pay for their habit!
 
Back
Top