wkfan;787618 wrote:Slow down there, sparky.
Let's not forget that many (most?) people receiving Medicare and Social Security have paid into that fund during thjir working years and, therfore, are just getting their own money back. (yea, I know that they are, in most cases, receiving more than they paid in....)
BTW....I am very much in favor of this legislation.
Why assume that somebody on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families...especially when we've had >10% unemployment for 3 long years haven't paid any type of tax dollars that they might now be getting back...if we apply your reasoning and that people shouldn't be drug tested for spending your own dollars than most people on TANF should not be drug tested either.
I agree with it in principle but largely this is grounded in zombie lies about the people on TANF who are assumed to be worthless scum spitting out babies doing drugs all day. The CBPP has estimated that states who have instituted such policies (and other states have and have scrapped them because they aren't cost-efficient) spend on average around $20,000 before they find a Beneficiary that is using and kick him off despite drug tests being relatively cheap because, oh wait...MOST TANF BENEFICIARIES CAN PASS A DRUG TEST. But then, they have the option of getting tax payer funded drug rehab in the Florida law (at one of Rick Scott's clinics I'm sure) if they want to get their benefits back.
Most TANF users, just like most private workers will gladly take a drug test if they can keep their benefits or their job...but that doesn't mean it's efficient to do so.
Never mind that Michigan's law was ruled to violate an individual's reasonable expectation's of privacy under the Fourth Amendment by a Federal Appellate court...
I mean, since 1996 people have only been able to be on "welfare" for 60 months for their entire life. It really does what it was meant to do now...help people out temporarily. If people want to reform they welfare state they need to look at SSI.
Nevermind that it would be much more efficient to do EBT to payment cards that can only be used for certain purchases. Then the taxpayer money couldn't be used for drugs (at least directly). If they want to use it to by groceries and then quid pro quo for meth...at least somebody is getting food off of them. But either way that isn't happening and is largely a myth that will not die.
But it's just another day and Republican's are expanding government and invading reasonable expectations of privacy despite their claims that such type of action is always wrong. I agree in principle but it's an impractical waste of time that doesn't do anything to solve the long-term problem of people who aren't contributing to economic growth and end the suffocatingly high unemployment that has haunted us for three years.
