Mo. bill ties drug testing to welfare

[npor]

Your thoughts? Should drug tests become a required part of applying for welfare?

"JEFFERSON CITY — Welfare recipients in Missouri would have to undergo drug testing under legislation expected to hit the state House floor this week.

Supporters of the proposal say the state shouldn't subsidize drug use. But critics say the law targets the poor and that the state's drug treatment programs already have lengthy waiting lists, leaving few options for people who want to get clean.

Applicants for the state's welfare program who tested positive for drug use would be ineligible to receive benefits for some time under the proposal, at most three years. However, other family members would still be eligible for assistance through a third-party provider.

Proponents of HB1377, sponsored by Rep. Ellen Brandom, R-Sikeston, say the state needs to protect taxpayers, who might be unintentionally giving drug users money to feed their addictions, not their families.
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"If they're doing drugs, I want them off the program," said Rep. Casey Guernsey, R-Bethany.

This isn't the first time Missouri's Republican lawmakers have proposed drug testing for welfare beneficiaries. Brandom proposed nearly identical bills about drug screening in 2009 and 2008. Last year, a proposal passed in the House but was held up in the Senate.

Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, has proposed legislation to require drug testing for the state's welfare recipients for the last four years. He said such measures would push welfare recipients to get clean or face losing their funding. "You can't work if you're doing meth," he said.

However, some question the fairness of testing poor people when others who get government subsidies are not tested.

"If we're honest, anyone who gets state funding should be put through the screening," said former state Sen. Patrick Dougherty, D-St. Louis. "If we only do this one population, the end result is that we're only focusing on the poor."

In previous years, drug-testing bills were amended to include drug testing for elected officials and their staffs. This year, drug testing for elected officials already has been proposed as a separate bill by Rep. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City.

"We're in a time period in which we need to restore trust," she said as she presented her bill to the House Ethics Committee.

Every elected official would be tested before taking office and every two years thereafter under Chappelle-Nadal's measure. If an elected official tested positive twice, he or she would be required to vacate the position.

Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, who chairs the House Ethics Committee, raised the question of privacy for elected officials but said he fundamentally supports the idea of drug testing. Other lawmakers wanted to know who would fund drug tests. Chappelle-Nadal's bill calls for elected officials or their staffs to pay for the tests.

Chappelle-Nadal said she supports broadening drug testing even further, to all those who receive some type of public aid payout, a number that has grown as the economy faltered.

Before the recession began, the number of Missouri residents receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families had been decreasing. But since September 2008, the number of TANF recipients has risen 12 percent.

Bills calling for drug testing as a condition of receiving public assistance have been proposed in other states, with mixed legal results.

Michigan was one of the earliest states to experiment with requiring mandatory drug tests for welfare recipients. The state passed the law in 1999, but it was struck down by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003. The court ruled that drug testing welfare recipients violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Since then, lawmakers in other states have submitted similar proposals, and some have been successfully implemented.

In November, Arizona began to require drug testing for the more than 22,000 residents receiving TANF benefits. Citing budgetary concerns, Arizona's adult recipients now must fill out a survey about illegal drug use in order to apply for cash assistance. Officials estimated Arizona could save $1.7 million a year by requiring drug testing.

Arizona state Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said Arizona's lawmakers modeled their law after proposals introduced in Missouri in previous years.

Kavanagh said testing has added what he termed nominal expenses since Arizona began screening welfare recipients several months ago.

In Missouri, Sen. Bill Stouffer, R-Napton, said that most employees are drug tested as a condition of employment and that the state's welfare system should work the same way.

That's an area one state lawmaker hopes to target by requiring additional drug testing in public schools.

In the House, Rep. Chuck Gatschenberger, R-Lake Saint Louis, has introduced a bill that would require Missouri teachers and some administrative staff to undergo random drug testing, citing safety concerns by superintendents in his district.

Gatschenberger said drug use by school employees hasn't been a widespread problem, but he wants to crack down on it now, before things get worse."

[turbomaxx]

I didn't read the whole thing but drug testing should definitely be part of getting welfare. Don't get me wrong I smoked weed and I miss it everyday now that I've been clean for roughly 5 months. But still, If you need help paying for groceries and shit, you don't need to be buying bud.

[tresexohcb]

WOOT! It's about god damn time, that's all I can say. I hope this passes and it spreads through out the US like goddamn wildfire. Imagine a budget deficit without the welfare sponges..... Oh wait there wouldn't be one.

[Pandemic]

Welfare applicants should also be subject to strict investigation. Drug dealers usually don't use their product, make shite loads of cash, don't pay taxes and still collect welfare. By drug testing, some adicts will severly suffer. It's easy to say they shouldn't do it but some of these people are hooked. They need help or they will resort to crime to get their fix. I suppose jail would get them clean but at what cost?

I agree with this but also disagree. There's a fine line... as usual :P

[wherm]

you should have to take, and pass, a drug test to get any kind of government hand-outs.

[fatboy1185]

Yes.

[ChIoVnIdCa]

you should have to take, and pass, a drug test to get any kind of government hand-outs.

Home buyers tax credit?

[ChIoVnIdCa]

College financial aid?

[ChIoVnIdCa]

Upper management at GM ? Banks?.

[Gemini]

Upper management at GM ? Banks?.

I love this guy

[owequitit]

Yes, they should.

I have to undergo random drug testing, so they can take my money to get welfare, they should have to undergo random drug testing to receive my hard earned money. I don't mind giving a little to help people out in hard times, but I have a severe problem with the system suckers, especially when everything is sold to me as "helping the poor" even though in many cases, the people I am helping are doing better than me. Unofficially of course.

Same with lawmakers. Of course the testing every two years is B.S. In order for it to be effective, it must be random. And not "random," but actually random.

The same goes for state, federal and other government employees. They are a liability to the system, much as a regular non-government employee is.

[quakerjoe]

Well, living in Missouri, I would like to say, that recently some statistics about drug use (meth in particularly) were published. Missouri was the number one state with the most users of meth and it wasn't by a marginal percentage either. Missouri’s number of users was around 3 times the number of users of the state, who came in second. (Missouri has been pretty high on the list for a good long while. And I will say, it did not list what percentages of these users were on welfare, but I would hazard a guess that it's a fair majority of them.) For Missouri law makers and enforcers, I would say this is a pretty big black eye. How do you think their constitutions feel about their job in office thus far? And now they're taking action to show diligence. It's all politics to fulfill their campaign promises.

Honestly, I welcome this change. I've always been an avid supporter of helping people that are down on their luck, but this if a very difficult situation to get right. On one hand, you want to be sure to help the people that really need it and not make too difficult for them to receive the help they need, but at the same time you don't want to make it easy for someone who is feeding an illegal behavior, addiction or abusing the system. Frankly, this drives me nuts. I believe that every able citizen has the responsibility to make a positive contribution to society. Instead we are blessed with a number of free loaders and drug addicts. What is society to do?

I agree with the statement there towards the end saying, "In Missouri, Sen. Bill Stouffer, R-Napton, said that most employees are drug tested as a condition of employment and that the state's welfare system should work the same way." If these people are paying the taxes to pay for welfare, shouldn't the people accepting their money be tested, if this what they wish? How fair is it to demand that they pay taxes so that when they work hard for what they have, so someone else can use it in a way that goes against the tax payers morals? It doesn't sound fair.

I understand that many people have very big hearts and enjoy giving their money away to anyone no questions asked. I also understand that they may believe that it would be unethical to, “let anyone starve because they were denied welfare.” Where there’s a will there is a way. Someone mentioned that crime rates would climb higher, because addicts would begin to steal more to get their fix. This is an example of where there is a will there is a way. The issue is that they simply have the wrong will.

Anyways, if this is implemented there will be repercussions, such as a higher crime rate (as stated before). Period. For every action there is an equal or opposite reaction. Unfortunately, the only reactions it seems the politicians are looking for are simply political image reactions. (This goes for the opposition that is declaring the purposed policy is an attack on the poor. They are stereotyping drug users. You don't have to be poor to use drugs. They are trying to maintain a humanitarian image. “See, poor people, I am the one looking out for you. Re-elect me.”) I think you'd be hard pressed to find a politician that's truly in sync with the reality of the citizen’s lives. They get the luxury of implementing laws to try and fix problems, but really the only way to see what really works versus what looks good on paper is to get down and dirty and see the policy in action. The repercussions are only temporary until society adjusts. It's like the new TV show called Undercover Boss. The owners of those companies really get an eye opening experience when they realize most of the "looks good on paper ideas" don't actually work out in reality.

I would love to see similar policies implemented for all, who receive government aid/subsidiaries. ***cough student aid cough*** Sorry for the rant, but this topic just really irritates me. And tell me if I’m out of touch with my thoughts versus reality. If you do, I just ask that you be prepared to discuss and not argue your point.

[owequitit]

We are distorting reality a little bit here.

Home buyers tax credit?

A tax credit is NOT a handout per se. It is actually more giving the tax payer their money back, in a round about and convoluted way.

If I had borrowed money from you, would you like it if I attached stipulations to the repayment of that money?

Also, this is a one time deal, not a perpetual income. Big difference. You get the tax credit, and you are done. There is no incentive to continue on the system, not to mention the direct economic benefit of this program.

College financial aid?

Most of these are not "handouts." They are loans. They are paid back with interest.

Again, not the same scenario.

You could also VERY effectively argue that education spending is absolutely vital to our economic health. Keeping people dependent on the system? Not so much.

Upper management at GM ? Banks?.

A) See above, as these were also interest bearing loans.

B) Also, for the record, the "upper management" didn't receive the loans. The corporations did. The "upper management" is not the corporation. A corporation is an entity of many thousands of diverse interests (employees, shareholders, creditors, etc.) American people always want to pretend that the only people who get paid or gainfully benefit from a "corporation" is the CEO, even though the employees as a group make many magintudes of money more than the upper management combined.

For instance. Obama "slayed" the banks on their bonuses just this last quarter. And of course he played it off as if the CEO's were taking home hundreds of millions of dollars. But the problem is that people like my mom, who is nothing more than a branch manager are beat on the head daily for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, to produce more sales, so that the bank remains healthy with the promise of a bonus at the end of the quarter. And a fairly meager one at that. If she grosses 10% of her normal salary in annual bonuses she is lucky. She doesn't get millions of dollars, and she depends on that money (in return for her hard work). But to save face politically, Obama taxes that money into oblivion. Never mind that she had ZERO to do with anything that happened. Never mind that she is solidly middle class, and never mind that she was depending on that money to catch up on her bills from having to help my sister who was in college. Also, nevermind that her bank paid everything back to the government, with interest, earlier than it was due. We won't talk about any of that, we are just going to perpetuate that CEO=bad and bank=bad and corporation= bad CEO. We will just brush the literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, if not MILLIONS of regular bank employees who just got screwed under the rug. And then to top it off, we are going to tax ALL banks, INCLUDING the ones that either A) already paid their loans back, or B) didn't borrow any money at all. It has become an unabashed political feeding frenzy among people who have no idea how it works. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that many bank employees were in favor of screwing themselves because they really didn't get it. That hundreds of millions was to be split among hundreds of thousands of people. If you do the math, it isn't that much per person.

Secondly, the "upper management" from the 2 automakers who received the loans didn't profit from it. They started working for absolutely nothing (both CEO's and many of the upper managers took $1 a year salaries, only to be canned a few months later). Also, now the government holds the largest stake in the companies (somewhat through roundabout dealings with Fiat), and stands to benefit greatly from the their potential success, much as the shareholders would have that they wiped out completely when they gave the loans.

The above situations are not one and the same with someone who goes in once a month to receive a check because they depend on the government for their vitality. Not only are those people not paying the money back, but there is no real incentive for them to improve and change, nor are their any real repercussions for bad behavior. Nor is there anywhere near the same level of scrutiny. At least the CEO's lost their jobs, as they rightfully should have. With many states and wellfare, you get a raise if you have more illegitimate children. I also know people personally that don't think twice about having kids and whether or not they should, or could afford them, because they KNOW the government will put them on Food Stamps, AHHCCS, and several other programs. Meanwhile, one of them that I know personally, smokes weed regularly, and I am having a hard time with food at the moment because work had been slow for about 2 months. Yet, I am told that I need to "give more to help those less fortunate" when the reality is that everyone I know who is "less fortunate" is actually MORE fortunate. Not only can I not afford to buy weed, but even if I could, I couldn't do anything with it for fear of failing a random drug test and losing MY income.

That is not the way the system was intended to be. It was intended to be short term help for people who need to get back on their feet. But like any entitlement system left unchecked, people's laziness kicks in and you breed dependence on the system. If you don't have mechanisms to limit that dependence, then the system spirals out of control. It is human nature to be lazy. It can be both a blessing and a curse.

We already spend well over $.50 of every single tax dollar (or deficit dollar, depending on how technical you want to be) on entitlement spending programs. In contrast, even WITH the current two wars, we spend about $.12 on the dollar for defense.

[turbomaxx]

We are distorting reality a little bit here...
...words and points...
...points and words...
...we spend about $.12 on the dollar for defense.

Kinda what I was thinking, but I'm not educated enough to put it into words

[owequitit]

P.S. I am just throwing it out now that I used that as a jumping off point.

It isn't an attack, an insult or any of the other number of things I get accused of.