Welfare recipients to be drug tested

It's not prohibitively expensive and it detects the ones we want to detect. What IS prohibitively expensive is allowing people doing drugs, and unable to except employment, to be on welfare.

 

We were at 10.8 % and yes we have been OVER 9% for over two and half years except of a brief month of 8.8% and the trend is back up. No other period compares except the Great Depression.

 

Of course neither Reagan or Obama saw the 25% unemployment rate that was estimated for the time of the great depression.

The greatest depression we have had since then was the 10%+ streak that Reagan gave us. Obama isn't much better as far as managing unemployment goes. That was a rough period and so was this one.

Unemployment in this country has only reached 10% under those 2 administrations.

But of course, we all know that the president doesn't have a magic lever that makes unemployment go up or down.

 

Thank you for restating the tax exemption.

 

And as I said no other period even compares to the sustained high unemployment we are experiencing except the Great Depression.

Actually it is now, the both inherited growing unemployment but under Reagan it peak 82-83 the year his tax decrease went into effect the then steadily fell. With Obama it peak and has stayed there.

That's a gross understatement, he isn't much better because he is far worse.

No but his policies certainly can influence it. Go listen to the Steve Wynn conference call excerpt that is floating around.

 

I would be willing to vote a straight democrat ticket if our current administration would merely execute faithfully, our already existing laws and doctrines and which could solve for the phenomena of a "natural" unemployment rate.

 

I think it would be a wonderful idea, the amount of money saved on unnecessary subsidies would be incredible.

 

I would only agree with you if we could actually solve poverty with a simple drug test.

 

Who said this measure was intended to solve poverty?

It is supposed to cut welfare abuse.

 

The only reason for welfare is to help solve poverty.

 

Nothing will ever "solve poverty".

Welfare is intended to be a temporary measure to help people survive until they get a job. Anyone who can't pass a drug test is unemployable in most cases and therefore isn't the person that welfare is supposed to help.

 

So if something that would be helpful doesn't solve the problem completely then we should not do it.

What kind of folly is that?

 

Depends on whose reason you are talking about. For some the reason for welfare is so they don't have to work a real job.

 

The reason that is important, is the one that causes people to provide it.

 

I can't imagine how it would be helpful.

Drug tests are expensive, inaccurate and easy to fake. This would be like spending 30 minutes of your time to save 15 minutes of our time.

 

*shrug* Radar guns are expensive, inaccurate, and easy to elude... we still catch speeders.

 

As I already pointed out, the 80's is comparable. The Great depression was much much worse, and therefore, not comparable.

You are viewing history selectively.

Not as far as unemployment is concerned. They are right on par with each other, no matter how much you have been tricked into thinking the rich deserve lower taxes.

 

I agree to disagree. Why have a War on poverty Poverty instead of "foreign aid" for individuals if not to defeat the evil Poverty empire. Official poverty can easily be solved through existing infrastructure and existing laws.

We could be improving our infrastructure, the efficiency of our economy, and our standard of living at the same time; why are those of the opposing view so fiscally irresponsible and without a just Cause.

 

You may have missed the concept. I would agree with you if we could solve poverty with a simple drug test.

Otherwise, why do you believe administering a drug test to deny and disparage that form of individual liberty would be helpful to a person or our economy?

 

Why would that be an issue if it were easier to find a job than to buy illegal drugs? It seems institutional to me, that we even have an unemployment rate, natural or not, while having mostly abandoned the free trade rhetoric of a previous decade.

 

Why is it that alleged conservatives are perfectly willing to trample individual liberty and States' rights, in the name of nationalism and socialism via public policy decisions; but are unwilling to bear true witness to our own federal Constitution and use only sufficient Socialism to promote and provide for the general welfare and common defense of the United States.

 

You said that since it would not solve the problem of poverty then we should not do it, that is utter nonsense.

No they aren't, whenever I had to take one for work or to get safety certified to do work in a plant it cost about $25 bucks.

No they are quite accurate.

Not if they are random, not for a hard core drug user.

We should require people on welfare to actively be seeking employment or being enrolled in school, both negatively impacted by drug use, so the more quickly they can stop taking other peoples money to live off of.

 

I think I got it, so if a tool or a program by itself will not solve the problem entirely then we should not use that tool or engage that program. What nonsense.

Free birth control is not going to solve poverty either, should we end those programs and not use that tool? It is expense too and doesn't work all the time. Well that settles end stop it now.

What "form of individual liberty"?

 

It depends on the whether the ends justify the means or whether the ends are to be sacrificed to the means. Why sacrifice the end of solving for official poverty, which we have been paying for over thirty years; when we could simply solve poverty with existing laws and existing infrastructure?

Free birth control is another option or choice made available to a woman; how is that the same as denying or disparaging individual liberty by requiring a drug test test which does nothing to solve for poverty but only will contribute to forms of poverty in our republic?

 

That was someone else, not me.

30 million Americans claim part or full welfare benefits every year. What is $25 * 30 Million? 3/4 of a billion dollars.

That is if you tested them once. That doesn't include the people you have to pay to administer the tests or the facilities you have to set up to perform the tests.

FYI Drinking lots of water can make a drug addict pass a urine test.

You just take a condom full of synthetic pee with you when you go to the welfare office. Problem solved. I am a drug user and I have passed dozens of pee tests that way, for jobs and probation.

While I do agree that people on welfare should be required to actively seek employment or be enrolled in school, that is hard to legislate.

What you are saying makes sense on paper but I do not think your ideas would survive the trials of the real world.