mandatory drug testing for welfare.

[PepperElf]

so the only "viable" answer is ... support drug users and let tax payers pay for the drug use.

lovely.

Hell i should just quit my shitty job and go on welfare and do drugs instead. why should i pay for what i want when i can get society to pay my way. why work when i can get what i want for free and it'll "cost too much" to stop me from abusing the system.

[Andara Bledin]

Ah, yes, we've moved on to the "putting words in my mouth" portion of the show.

What I actually said is that this is a worse that useless solution to what amounts to a minuscule problem that should be a lot farther down the priorities list.

We've got people starving to death in the streets because we don't have the resources to take care of everybody, but we have the wherewithal to toss hundreds of millions of dollars out of the system entirely on a program that was suspect before it even got started.

Currently, the best option is to let the few drug users out there go for now. We don't have the right conditions to chase them down without it being a classic example of a Pyrrhic victory.

This "solution" should only make sense to the self-righteous who don't actually need to work with the system and those who are bad at math.

^-.-^

[PepperElf]

did i put something in your mouth?

i was just relaying my sarcasm at the whole notion that drug testing is going to hurt the kids.

although.... perhaps not. the entire goal of the idea is to stop people from milking welfare for personal gain. and by personal gain i don't mean "staying alive' but sucking off of the government's tits while they support drug habits etc or resell g'ment food for profit.


Then again as for the cost there's ways around that.

1) How often it's done - I say twice a year. And that if you fail you can't get back on to welfare until the next testing period.

2) Why do you assume every single bottle has to get tested individually? You can easily take a batch of bottles, take a sample from each and then run ONE test. If everyone's clear then it's good to go. You only do individual tests if the batch test pops positive.


and then it's good for the children too. you keep the costs down, cut off the druggies so then there's more money to feed the children.


i mean yes i was being very sarcastic above but it's NOT an invalid point.
The way things are going .... people who are in dire poverty and need food, fine... but the ones who feel they're ENTITLED to live high on the hog and not pay for what they take? fuck them. cut them off without a single tear.



you know it's weird really.

Society has decided that if you're rich you somehow gained this wealth wrongfully. You don't deserve it. if you pay for what you use, you're wrong.

But if you suck on the government's tits and do drugs or do nothing to advance yourself... that's your "right"

[Andara Bledin]

The way things are going .... people who are in dire poverty and need food, fine... but the ones who feel they're ENTITLED to live high on the hog and not pay for what they take? fuck them. cut them off without a single tear.

Great idea.

Now find a way to do that that doesn't cost more to run than it stops going out, because this isn't it.

Once you've spent a dime more than you would have lost, you've spent too much, and this is a case of spending more than 1000 times as much as has been retained. Anyone who has the figures and still argues in favor of it is either stupid or getting something from it.

^-.-^

[tropicsgoddess]

I'm all for mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients. I don't want my tax dollars going to support and/or enable somebody to sit on their ass, continue their drug habit(s) and not get a job. If I have to take drug tests to get a job, so should they.

[linguist]

I'm all for mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients. I don't want my tax dollars going to support and/or enable somebody to sit on their ass, continue their drug habit(s) and not get a job.

so you're ok with spending millions of tax dollars in order to potentially save a few thousand tax dollars?

If I have to take drug tests to get a job, so should they.

the day your job forces you to pay for your own drug test is the day this analogy becomes valid. until then, it's meaningless.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm all for mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients. I don't want my tax dollars going to support and/or enable somebody to sit on their ass, continue their drug habit(s) and not get a job. If I have to take drug tests to get a job, so should they.

So, if you had $80,000 to use to feed hungry people, you'd be ok with handing $2,000 of that over to some unrelated third party and taking it away from 100 other people who now can't even try to get into the program so some person who happened to test positive for drugs couldn't walk off with $20?

Really?

Because, honestly, that's just stupid.

Here's an article about the pilot program Florida tried out back in 1998. You know what they found out when they ran it? It cost more to try to weed out the few drug users than to just let them have the money. And, their kids would still get the money, so it's not like the drug users were actually losing anything. They'd have a proxy get the funds, then they could spend it however they wanted.

So they axed it for being wasteful and counterproductive and not doing a damn thing to stop people from getting drugs with the money.

But, hey, why bother to learn from history when you can make the same stupid mistakes your predecessors did, instead. After all, you're smarter than they were, so you won't fail as badly as they did, right?

Oh, wait...

^-.-^

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

As with anything, it is about money.

The toll booths on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey was (last time I was living there) costing 80 cents out of each dollar collected to collect that said dollar. Meaning that for every dollar collected, only 20 cents went to road maintenance.

Some of the less honest charities are the same way. Only 10 to 30 cents out of each dollar collected actually goes to help the target of the charity.

In this case, best case scenario of the $60,000 saved, for every dollar "saved" costs $2,966.67 to save it. That's a bit worse than Andara's estimate of 1,000 to 1, that's almost 3,000 to 1.

Would I have a problem with drug testing to keep people off of welfare that were abusing the system? Not if the situation were reversed. If it cost $1 to save the aforementioned $3,000 (or even as low as $100) it would be a good thing.

But I like others have a problem with spending $3,000 just so you can brag that you're saving a scrummy buck.

And also one needs to remember that for every one person or family that abuses the welfare system, there are more people who use it as it was intended. People like me and my family. I was on food assistance when my wife and I were working the only jobs that were left in our area. Rural New Hampshire is a nice place to retire if you have money and don't need to work, but the jobs are not there. So when my company dried up and closed its doors (and the Doctor that my wife was working for retired) we had to take minimum wage jobs. With three kids to boot we were in a pickle.

We could do three of the four.

Feed ourselves
Clothe ourselves
Keep a roof over our heads
Keep the house warm in the winter.

Going on food assistance kept us afloat until I was able to same some money for the moving expenses and could find a job out of state in an area that was better off economically.

I was on that for a year and I got off of it. For us, it was what it was designed for. It was a little help when we needed it, a hand to pull us onto our feet, dust us off, and send us on our way.

I'm not the only family that does that. You have to remember that the media loves a disaster story. It loves train wrecks. This is why you always hear of the crack addicted mother who cranks out babies just so she can have more money in her welfare check.

You rarely hear of the family that lost their means of support and their house, goes on welfare, gets a cheap place to live, finds a job and pulls themselves up by their bootstraps unless it's a glurge piece to blow sunshine up our asses when the ratings dip because they're being too depressing.

Or when Will Smith wants to make a "Feel-Good" movie.

[PepperElf]

again people keep forgetting that you don't test every single person individually.

seriously. the military does it all the time - you test one multi-sample and then only test individual bottles IF someone pops positive.

but hey why let logic spoil the fun right? i mean sure... let's say it costs $10 to run a single test and you have 100 people to test. so you assume you'll spend $1000.

wrong. wrong. wrong. wrong. wrong. You only spend that much if you test every single sample.
let's pretend the piss test box holds 10 each. o look then you only test 10 times cos you have 10 boxes. that's just $100, one tenth of the costs.

but hey sure, test every single bottle if you want. me i'd rather be efficient

[tropicsgoddess]

So, if you had $80,000 to use to feed hungry people, you'd be ok with handing $2,000 of that over to some unrelated third party and taking it away from 100 other people who now can't even try to get into the program so some person who happened to test positive for drugs couldn't walk off with $20?

Really?

Because, honestly, that's just stupid.

Here's an article about the pilot program Florida tried out back in 1998. You know what they found out when they ran it? It cost more to try to weed out the few drug users than to just let them have the money. And, their kids would still get the money, so it's not like the drug users were actually losing anything. They'd have a proxy get the funds, then they could spend it however they wanted.

So they axed it for being wasteful and counterproductive and not doing a damn thing to stop people from getting drugs with the money.

But, hey, why bother to learn from history when you can make the same stupid mistakes your predecessors did, instead. After all, you're smarter than they were, so you won't fail as badly as they did, right?

Oh, wait...

^-.-^

When Florida mandated that welfare recipients take drug tests to qualify for and keep their welfare benefits, they had a provision where if the recipient didn't pass their drug test, the benefits can go to a qualified relative. I'm all for helping people don't get me wrong but really all this is about is helping those who help themselves.

[DrFaroohk]

I still say before any of this goes down they need to establish the difference between doing drugs and buying drugs. Huge difference.

[Andara Bledin]

again people keep forgetting that you don't test every single person individually.

Wrong.

They test every single person that enters the system. That's what the whole "Mandatory" part in the title means.

And every one that passes gets that money reimbursed by the state out of the fund that should be going to helping people not starve.

but hey sure, test every single bottle if you want. me i'd rather be efficient

Are we having the same conversation? This thread is about the state requiring people to get tested before they can get welfare. Where do bottles enter into it?

I still say before any of this goes down they need to establish the difference between doing drugs and buying drugs. Huge difference.

Oh, yeah, and my favorite part is that if you take something that isn't legal that someone gives you, you can't get on the program, but if you buy prescription drugs off the black market, you're a-ok, 'cause they won't be testing for those.

It's a half-assed feel-good measure to pander to the raving anti-drug-use people who can't stop frothing at the mouth long enough to do the math.

^-.-^

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

again people keep forgetting that you don't test every single person individually.

Funny, everyone who works at Advance Auto Parts gets tested before being hired. There is no random sampling there.

The Hospitals I have worked at in the past (Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Peninsula Regional, St Mary's) have all had all applicants piss in a cup before working there. No random sampling there...everyone

And the gist of the thing is that you have to be tested before going on welfare. Again no random sampling.

And even if this was a random sample then it still is a waste of money as the projected costs for this project is 178 million with an expected savings of 60,000.

So random or not, you're still spending three grand to save one @#$%ing buck.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

[Rageaholic]

you know it's weird really.

Society has decided that if you're rich you somehow gained this wealth wrongfully. You don't deserve it. if you pay for what you use, you're wrong.

But if you suck on the government's tits and do drugs or do nothing to advance yourself... that's your "right"

And that is a strawman.

The problem with the rich is that they pay less taxes than the poor and middle class. THEY get the tax breaks while the middle class pays the most just for trying to get buy. That is not only unfair, but incredibly stupid. Who needs a break more, the million and billionaires, or the average Joe?

As for the poor "sucking on the governments tits", what else are they supposed to do when they can't find work and any work they can find pays barely enough to get buy? Remember, we're still in a recession so it's not as if everyone can find a job easily. I don't support the drug users using tax money, but if it comes down to supporting a few bad apples and making the others pay, I would rather support the few bad apples.

And I really really hate the "entitlement" arguement.

[FArchivist]

Welfare is suppose to be a hand-up to get yourself OUT of the situation. But people are using it as a means of life. We need to STOP ignoring that truth just because it might not be "politically correct."

Then perhaps we need to outlaw welfare. The courts do not recognize it as a right in accordance with the Constitution. All you need to do to get rid of welfare is have the legislature repeal it. Then get it signed by your Governor.

Personally, I don't begrudge the $3-400 a welfare recipient gets per month in my state. Yes, that's with 3 children.

The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual. Nobody preached duty to these kids in a way they could understand - that is, with a spanking. But the society they were in told them endlessly about their 'rights'.

You are aware that Starship Troopers was satirical and wasn't meant to be taken seriously?

But really what's the biggest entitlement issue out there? People who expect to have whatever luxury they want, drugs, booze ... on OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. THAT'S entitlement. Expecting to keep your lifestyle the same, expecting to hold on to your right to get stoned... and have everyone else chip in to cover your expenses and bills.

Then it's a good thing you can't use welfare money to buy drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol, isn't it?

it's all about "their rights" herp derp.

For me, it's about being charitable. And recognizing that private charities aren't very good at it.