Drug Testing Welfare and Other Public Assistance Recipients

Testing people who receive various public benefits like welfare is very controversial. Of course like most things it has two sides to it and racism is always cried by groups who think it is wrong to do anything like testing welfare recipients for drugs. Even among advocates there is debate about which benefits should result in someone taking tests. Some people think any benefit including unemployment insurance should mean someone can be tested in order to continue receiving benefits. Others, myself included, believe only welfare, WIC, food stamps, and things of that nature should result in someone having to take drug tests. I don't agree with using drugs, but people do pay into unemployment. It can be argued that people pay into welfare and food stamps as well, but there are people who get those benefits who never pay into them. No one has ever gotten unemployment who did not pay into it themselves or through and employer. This idea first started to get some attention in the 1990s when then President Bill Clinton instituted several welfare reforms. This was a good idea and one of the better things he did during his Presidency. Barack Obama or course is trying to undue this although indirectly.

Now there are a variety of reasons that people would want to do this. For one thing drugs are illegal and people should not be using them to begin with. In addition to that if someone is pregnant they are greatly harming their baby and this might be a way to get a baby out of an unfit situation before waiting years and years to find out the parent has no reason to be a parent. There are plenty of people who want kids and some dope addict has no reason raising a child. in addition to the moral and legal aspects of drug use there is also the fact that many state governments are facing record financial deficits and taking people who should not be on these types of benefits off of it is one way to save money. There are arguments that will raise the crime rate, but if someone is on dope they are probably involved in crime anyway or their kids are. Even look around a housing project at some of the activities the kids are up to. While everyone who is poor and lives in a housing project is not a criminal when you look at kids and grandkids there are enough criminals especially in the cities. I have no doubt that if most housing project and inhabitants were vaporized the crime rate in the areas would significantly go down. I am not saying to vaporize them, nor am I saying everyone who gets public assistance is a bad person. Many people need it. When a kid's mom is on welfare and lives in a housing project yet the kid has the most expensive clothes, sneakers, and sells drugs there is a problem. The most important reason that drug testing of public assistance recipients is reasonable is that these programs are not a right and not a privilege. I am sure there are many groups who think welfare is a right. Some people look at it as a form of reparations. Many of them had a grandmother who was on public assistance, then the mother was and now the daughter is on it and has a child and is also not married. They also still keep having kids and liberals keep saying "take all you want. We will pay for it" yet we want to cut programs for our seniors like the cuts to Medicare that Obamacare is going to cause. I have done work counseling in housing projects and I will say there are good people there, but more than 80% are scum from what I have seen. In some cases the parents might be ok but the kid is so obvious they will be in prison before they hit 18 and that is pathetic.

As you can imagine many arguments are raise as to why this is wrong. For one thing you have the point that people still are poor and need the help. There are also people who say they really are not hurting anyone but themselves by doing the drugs. Many people also claim that it is racist and is an attack on blacks and other minorities. I find it funny that people claim that because those same people say it is unfair to stereotype blacks as being on welfare and other benefits. I agree that is an unfair stereotype. The ACLU is probably one of the biggest critics of this. I have always felt the ACLU was an anti-American organization and especially do not appreciate the way they attack the Christian religion, which helped shape many laws in this country and was a reason that many things wrong were corrected. These communists have done everything they could to take God out of our schools in the name of political correctness. In case you have not noticed, schools have been going to hell since God was taken out of schools. You can't even have a Christmas party now. The ACLU makes many claims as to why this is wrong "It's an example of where you could cut costs at the expense of a segment of society that's least able to defend themselves," said Frank Crabtree, executive director of the West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union." In addition to trying to play the race card, they also feel it is unconstitutional and not cost effective. They further point to studies from Michigan, ( they did have drug testing for welfare recipients until a liberal judge said it was wrong, said they could not do it) that found only about 3-10% of the welfare recipients were on dope and that is just slightly higher than the population at large.

I have mixed feelings about this. I do see the need for social safety nets like welfare, food stamps, WIC, and Medicaid. I do think everyone receiving them needs to understand that they are a privilege and not a right or entitlement, but there are politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Hussein Obama that would have you think otherwise. It is true that taking money from these people could cause them to result in crime to support themselves and jails are already overflowing, but if they were not on dope they could probably get a job or buy more food and things that they need and not be on the program anyway. Another thing is that if they are involved in drugs they are probably already involved in other crimes. If they are the typical welfare mother living in a housing project with four kids by four fathers the kids the kids are probably involved in various crimes as well. That is not always the case, but enough to make it alarming. I see the argument about it not being cost effective, but the people who test positive get booted and that saves hard working people money. Some say it's not fair to pick on poor people. I agree, but it is not fair to pick the pocket of hard working people so they can buy dope, commit crimes, and continue to have morals of an alley cat in heat and keep bringing kids in the world that they can't take care of. I will write an article on this later, but I think after one child on public assistance women should be told no more money or given the choice of sterilization (or birth control implant) to cut down on the surplus population. I am staunchly against abortion and don't want to see it come to that, but I don't think people should be able to be a baby factory to continue living on the tax payer dime. The charge of this type of policy being racist is completely unfounded. For one anyone on drugs could lose their benefit regardless of color. A white woman could lose her hand outs just as easy as a black woman. Also the groups claiming racism are the same groups who say that it's not fair to same more blacks (as a percentage of the population) are on welfare than whites. By making that argument they are giving credibility to that stereotype.

Ultimately I don't think this will change very much. For one thing the United States has gotten very politically correct and evident by the downward trend in our country. Another thing is that I am sure that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and other liberals get much more welfare votes than conservative candidates like John McCain, Richard Shelby, or Jeff Sessions. There is not doubt in my mind that people who want hand outs vote Democrat overwhelmingly. That is not to say everyone who votes Democrat wants hand outs, but I will say most people who want hand outs vote democrat. It is almost like a bumper sticker that I had seen. It said "why work? Vote Democrat". That is sadly very true today.

Sources.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510707,00.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wellington-ennis/drug-testing-for-welfare_b_180188.html

http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform/drug-testing-public-assistance-recipients-condition-eligibility

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/11/25/20091125urinetesting1125.html

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2009/03/26/drug-testing-for-welfare-recipients-is-stupid.html