Drug tests for welfare recipients

Pye

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But it does further humiliate and drag down the morale of people who are already experiencing social and financial hardships. You're essentially kicking them when they're down just for your sense of well being. Whether you like it or not, you are proposing that we place special stipulations on people underneath you just for your own mental well being.



And the majority of it is. Unless you can prove the majority of people on Welfare are indeed abusing the system, or think that our government will be saving a huge, substantial amount of money by prying into the lives of other people to see if they're using drugs, then there's no reason why this discussion should be even be happening. And if you're a drug user or have used drugs in the past, that makes it even more hypocritical.

Your sole tax contribution to Welfare related programs is insignificant to the person you want to piss in a cup. You can stop paying your taxes today, and not a single one of them will feel it. Neither will you. So mind your business.

Oh give me a break!

They are getting a handout and that should come with conditions...if they don't like it then they can refuse the handout...very simple. If you need the $$ then take the conditions of a possible drug test and keep yourself clean.
 

midlifebear

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Oh give me a break!

They are getting a handout and that should come with conditions...if they don't like it then they can refuse the handout...very simple. If you need the $$ then take the conditions of a possible drug test and keep yourself clean.

And let's not forget "morally straight!" :smile:
 

B_VinylBoy

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Oh give me a break!

Nope. :rolleyes:

They are getting a handout and that should come with conditions...if they don't like it then they can refuse the handout...very simple. If you need the $$ then take the conditions of a possible drug test and keep yourself clean.

Like I said before, and I'll say it again.
PLEASE spare me your exaggerated sense of entitlement. Keep your nose out of the business of others. Your "concern citizen" routine is tired and isn't fooling anyone. As if I lost everything and needed Welfare tomorrow, why the fuck should I be worried about passing any kind of test so that YOU can be assured that YOUR tax dollars are being spent wisely?

Who died and made you the status quo? :rolleyes:
 
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Pye

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Nope. :rolleyes:



Like I said before, and I'll say it again.
PLEASE spare me your exaggerated sense of entitlement. Keep your nose out of the business of others. Your "concern citizen" routine is tired and isn't fooling anyone. As if I lost everything and needed Welfare tomorrow, why the fuck should I be worried about passing any kind of test so that YOU can be assured that YOUR tax dollars are being spent wisely?

Who died and made you the status quo? :rolleyes:

Entitlement?

Dude-- YOU have issues!
 

FuzzyKen

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The problem is not if we agree or disagree with the concept. The problem is the financial and legal quagmire it can create. There can also be differences between state and federal laws on this issue and it creates a databank that could make something which is legal in once place documented as illegal in another.

Understand that there are some standard OTC cough and cold medications that can cause a positive reading on some drug tests. It also places your government in a position to dictate who can or cannot be a recipient of benefits based on what could even be a data entry error.

This kind of thing can be like finding errors on a credit report. In addition it could be self defeating in that a databank of this kind of information could get into the hands of the wrong people and be "sold" to employers preventing employment rather than encouraging it. Can you imagine what insurance companies would do with information like this?

The ACLU would be right to go to Court to strike this one down, again not because the concept is bad but because policing it and keeping it and the data it generates from being misused is a far bigger problem.

Banks say that they have perfect security and how many suffer from identity theft?

The computers in various State D.M.V. offices have been hacked and information mined from these many times.

Social Security Records have also been hacked and this has created incredible problems when again the information was placed into the hands of people with less than honorable motives.

Sounds good and I agree in principle, but, unless technology changes with regards to computer hacking I would never agree with it in reality.

Look at who would want this data:
Health Insurance Companies
Car Insurance Carriers
Potential Employers
Individuals interested in Blackmail
The Tabloid Press
Workman's Comp Insurance Providers
Credit Agencies
Banks for Assessing Credit

Too much data and too easily tampered with for the safety of the American People!
 

B_VinylBoy

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'Excessive welfare' now that's a new one. Please define it.

Just as good a "predatory borrowing", right?

* Summoning snotty, valley girl accent *
Like Ohmigod... those damn poor people. Begging for change all the time. Going to banks and mooching everyone for money. Don't they have a job? And OMG, one of them is smoking a joint! How unethical!!! Someone make 'em all piss in a cup!!!

Funny how you only need 44 words to summarize 7+ pages of rhetoric. :biggrin:
 
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tripod

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All of you smug conservatives don't know the first thing about being born into a family that has NO FUCKING MONEY! Now did that child ask to be born? Hell no, they are stuck here on this earth without any of advantages that you conservatives had and have to make a life for themselves in our society which is NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE.

For a poor person to make it in this society, they have to accomplish the impossible. Some people do accomplish the impossible, but they are complete exceptions to the rule. Most of you fuckers can't do the improbable let alone the impossible.

So, to wrap it up, poor people are poor because they cannot accomplish the impossible task of making it for themselves in our society? You conservatives were born into the right families that offered you all of the advantages that our society has to offer and you have the goddamn gall to think that you are successful because you are superior to these poor people. YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE YOU HAD THE UPPER HAND. ARE YOU THAT FUCKING THICK TO IGNORE THE ADVANTAGES THAT YOUR PARENTS GAVE YOU?

Or maybe you had a bit of a struggle to get where you are and that is fucking NORMAL! Everyone struggles to make it here on earth, it's just that your struggle was perceived as being more difficult than you wanted it to be. Now you are adults and have re-written your lives to feature all of the blood, sweat and tears that you think that you expended, but really just went through the average shit that this society dishes out for everyone.

You think that you have struggles, but you haven't when compared to the hardship and inertia that poor people experience in their lives.

Do you not understand the concept of inertia? Poor people experience this to a MASSIVE degree, you fuckers just slide on in without much opposition from our capitalist system because your families gave you ADVANTAGES that paved your way to the middle or upper classes.

Yet, you conveniently leave those advantages out and just wanna talk about all of the effort that you have put into your career, so you can seem like you have struggled and henceforth attain your smug sense of accomplishment.

You are not middle or lower class because you are better than poor people, you are middle or upper class because you were born into it.

FUCK YOU!!!!!!
 

D_Cateryke Cheesysmell

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I prefer to think of myself as well informed, motivated and discerning. :biggrin1:

How can you say that drug testing (which I'm against) can cost more money than it will save in preventing fraud and then ask someone to crunch the numbers to see if you are actually right in the same sentence?

I'm all for a cost-benefit analysis on this one. If drug testing is clearly and explicitly explained in a welfare contract, and it saves money... I could be persuaded to support it, depending on the severity of the penalties. I'd rather have illegal drugs decriminalized, but I'm opportunistic when it comes to public policy. Baby steps.

Going by the assumption that hair-sample drug testing kits sold here are competitively priced; A basic kit capable of testing for THC, amphetimines, opiates costs $95. So from a welfare check of $400 you get. $400 - 95 = $305. ($495 total investment, assuming you don't get a bulk rate on the test kits.)

That's a fair margin to work with in paying for someone to do the test, collecting samples, etc. Then you have to average the cost of tests that return negative results, but you get $400 of wiggle room every month when another check goes out,since you don't have to buy a new kit every month. If the tests were done on a quarterly basis at random dates, the average case would show $1,105 of savings (money not given out in the next quarter) to calculate against a positive result before breaking even. Cost of the kit ammortized quarterly is about 8.5% of the total expenditure. That can be brought down with competitive bids on kits/facilities and savings from checks not sent to addicts. (Money can be spent on getting them treatment instead.) So yeah, it's possible to do it for less than $400/month.
 
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80deezel

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Anyone should want to quit drugs in exchange for a welfare check.Thats a fair deal.
 

B_VinylBoy

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How can you say that drug testing (which I'm against) can cost more money than it will save in preventing fraud and then ask someone to crunch the numbers to see if you are actually right in the same sentence?

I think b.c. did an excellent job illustrating many of the expenses necessary to create such a program designed with the sole intention to prevent governmental assistant fraud on Page 7. When you realizes just how much manpower is necessary to focus on just one potential Welfare cheat, there's no way you can actually think that the money spent to find him/her is going to be less than the money you'll be seizing. Common sense applies here.

I'm all for a cost-benefit analysis on this one. If drug testing is clearly and explicitly explained in a welfare contract, and it saves money... I could be persuaded to support it, depending on the severity of the penalties. I'd rather have illegal drugs decriminalized, but I'm opportunistic when it comes to public policy. Baby steps.

Think of it this way... the average Welfare check for a mom with one child is somewhere around $400-$450, give or take a few extra dollars. You can't even find a medical lab to process one cup of piss at that rate. Kinda makes you wish we were having real Health Care Debates last year instead of arguing over "death panels", doesn't it? But I digress...

Going by the assumption that hair-sample drug testing kits sold here are competitively priced; A basic kit capable of testing for THC, amphetimines, opiates costs $95. So from a welfare check of $400 you get. $400 - 95 = $305. ($495 total investment, assuming you don't get a bulk rate on the test kits.)

When you factor in that about 11.3% of our Nation, or roughly more than 33 Million people, are on Welfare as of April of last year (with numbers expected to grow), how many of them do you expect to actually fail the test? Even if 1 million people failed that test, the amount you'd seize back from them wouldn't even compare to the amount you would have spent to find them. ALL of the money spent... not just for a bunch of medical kits.

U.S. food stamp tally up 1.2 million in two months | Reuters

That's a fair margin to work with in paying for someone to do the test, collecting samples, etc. Then you have to average the cost of tests that return negative results, but you get $400 of wiggle room every month when another check goes out,since you don't have to buy a new kit every month. If the tests were done on a quarterly basis at random dates, the average case would show $1,105 of savings (money not given out in the next quarter) to calculate against a positive result before breaking even. Cost of the kit ammortized quarterly is about 8.5% of the total expenditure. That can be brought down with competitive bids on kits/facilities and savings from checks not sent to addicts. (Money can be spent on getting them treatment instead.) So yeah, it's possible to do it for less than $400/month.

You haven't factored in the salary of one doctor or nurse to administer the test. Not one truck or delivery service to transport any of these materials to staff and patients. Not one medical lab that has to actually double check findings. Not a single person who has to process paperwork for all the millions of people who have to take the test yearly. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. That is, unless, you think everyone is just going to voluntarily donate hours of their time each week at no pay? :rolleyes:

Sorry... your synopsis fails miserably.
 

D_Cateryke Cheesysmell

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Well, we are on the cusp of socializing medicine. I assumed they wouldn't have much choice. And when you consider the ammount of money and time spent by the IRS to detect cheats vs the rate of return, or the DEA and the drug war, or the TSA and airport security... it seems to me that government programs of this type are not really concerned with staying in the black. Why should this one be any different? It's a terrible idea, of course, but no worse than some of the crap we already put up with....

If you would stop hyperventilating for a moment you will see that nobody on the board is in fact trying to wage a clandestine war on poor people from the comfy confines of their computer desks.
 

B_VinylBoy

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If you would stop hyperventilating for a moment you will see that nobody on the board is in fact trying to wage a clandestine war on poor people from the comfy confines of their computer desks.

Bullshit. It always has, and it always will be a financial class issue. People who truly have no concept of the word "struggle" telling those who can't even be assured to see another day how they should be living their lives. You have to be very naive to think otherwise.

The arguments we see now, are exactly the same ones we seen for decades. Not a damn thing has changed, except for the fact that we can now debate it on a penis site. Unless you've grown up poor and found a way out of it, you can't honestly give anyone advice on how to deal with it. They'll just tell them a bunch of moral, ideological bullshit about working harder. Oh, and they'll sit on a thread discussing how beneficial it would be for our country to create a federal program to make 33 million people piss in a cup to make sure they're not smoking a joint. :rolleyes:

Create more affordable housing, adequate jobs with job training & child care in the areas that need it the most. THAT is how you get people off of Welfare. That's how you cut down on that fringe of potential cheats that have some of you hyperventilating about your "tax dollars" at work. Everything else is disingenuous bullshit, geared to demonize others on no other basis beyond someone having less than you.

Linda Taylor was arrested back when I was 5. You don't have to worry about the bitch anymore. :rolleyes:
 
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vince

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It's amusing that many of the same people who wail about "big government", are very willing to have bureaucrats sampling the citizenry's blood. If you want to live in a police state, go to China. Or the UK.
 

Pye

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OK Vinylboy,

Do you have a idea how to keep welfare funds from being spent inappropriately?

Again, if people want to use drugs let them...but they shouldn't be spending WELFARE money on drugs.

You've come up with ideas to help people get off welfare but how about some ideas for stopping welfare abusers... and stop already with "stay out of other's business" and "nosy" and "entitled" crap. I don't care where you came from or what you think you know. State something that makes you sound less bitter and angry. Everything is a class issue to you. There are plans in place to help the poor out of their hole but they aren't effective due to abuses within the system. Address the abuses and there will be new abuses...where should it start? where is the line drawn?

Maybe drug testing welfare recipients wouldn't work because of monetary logistics...but don't try to claim that it's just another attack on the poor.

You yourself lived it as you say and you've gotten out but it seems that's perhaps because your mother was more responsible than most and that you took education seriously.
 

B_VinylBoy

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OK Vinylboy,

Do you have a idea how to keep welfare funds from being spent inappropriately?

Ummmmm... did you pay any attention to my last post? Let me repeat it for you. Create more affordable housing, adequate jobs with job training & child care in the areas that need it the most. THAT is how you get people off of Welfare. You improve the living conditions in their surrounding areas. You don't make them feel worthless, less than or inadequate.

Again, if people want to use drugs let them...but they shouldn't be spending WELFARE money on drugs.

How very "morally superior" of you to suggest that. :rolleyes:

You've come up with ideas to help people get off welfare but how about some ideas for stopping welfare abusers...

No. I don't find "welfare abusers" to be a problem because the amount of them are insignificant to the number of people who need it. Eliminating a handful of people doesn't do ANYTHING to fix the problem, which is helping people get back on their feet quicker. Besides, more than 50% of people who get on Welfare are off of it in 2 years or less. Some as few as seven months.

and stop already with "stay out of other's business" and "nosy" and "entitled" crap.

Then stop this "concerned citizen" bullshit.

I don't care where you came from or what you think you know.

And there lays part of the problem. You'd think listening to someone who grew up poor and somehow found a way out of it would mean something? Apparently, hearing the views of someone that actually walked the path mean nothing to you.

State something that makes you sound less bitter and angry.

State something that makes you sound less selfish, socially ignorant and greedy first. :rolleyes:

Everything is a class issue to you.

Most issues surrounding politics have ALWAYS been a class related issue. Dig past the rhetoric and see where the roots lie.

There are plans in place to help the poor out of their hole but they aren't effective due to abuses within the system.

And considering that we now have 33 million people on Welfare and counting in this country, it's not helping much. But then again, you'll just think I'm being angry and bitter for bringing this fact up too.

Address the abuses and there will be new abuses...where should it start? where is the line drawn?

We have enough bureaucracy in place to address issues surrounding welfare cheats. Focus on getting people off of Welfare altogether and you kill two birds with one stone.

Maybe drug testing welfare recipients wouldn't work because of monetary logistics...but don't try to claim that it's just another attack on the poor.

Then really, what is it? Concern that they're doing better, based on your own superficial standards? Again, who died and made you the status quo?

You yourself lived it as you say and you've gotten out but it seems that's perhaps because your mother was more responsible than most and that you took education seriously.

It was a lot more than that. Ironically, I know my mom may have dabbled in the sauce in her past. Too bad in your world, she would have been kicked off of Welfare when she really needed it. :rolleyes:

Oh, and BTW... pay very close attention to the underlined. That's a MAJOR tell about your overall, discriminative viewpoint on Welfare recipients. Think twice before you respond again.
 
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