Drug tests for welfare advances

[jkfletcher]

Bill to drug test Indiana welfare recipients advances - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

So they get to take a WRITTEN test and only take the actual drug test if they are flagged as potential users/abusers? I am sure that nobody would lie on the written test at all.

 

[ZombieApocolypse]

Beings there are ways to pass the actual drug test if one uses .... this is a waste of time and money. Wonder how much drug test companies had to pay to lobby for this or whose bright idea this is

 

[LPMan59]

it is a waste of time.

There are plenty of doctors to provide "legal" drugs to abuse. There will always be Phillip Foley's and William Hedrick's out there to keep you on disability and intoxicated.

Instead, let's ban welfare.

 

[rocketscience]

so what happens when someone tests positive? stop the aid? then you knowingly have "x" children in a home that no longer can provide the minimum standard of living. the case then has to be refferred to childrens service as im sure the agency providing the test will fall under the mandatory reporting. the children are then removed and placed in foster care. im not sure of the amount paid per child in foster care but im sure it would be greater than the food stipend. health care and other services will be available in either setting thus being a wash cost wise. im sure mandatory rehab will be in order on the taxpayers dime.

i am in no way against testing and removal but the program needs evaluated fiscally as a whole. testing with no teeth is simply another cost. if they are prepaired to take the children the cost of that also needs addressed.

 

[BogWalker]

it is a waste of time.

There are plenty of doctors to provide "legal" drugs to abuse. There will always be Phillip Foley's and William Hedrick's out there to keep you on disability and intoxicated.

Instead, let's ban welfare.

I think banning welfare is a much better idea as well.

 

[Designer99]

This experiment was already tried in Florida. Of the 4086 people tested, only 108 were positive - 2.6%

It cost the state $118,140. This is more than would have been paid out in benefits to the people who failed the test.

At the end of the day, this "cost saving" program cost the government an extra $45,780

Result: FAILED

 

[MikeDVB]

Admittedly I am not informed on the welfare system having thankfully never found the need for it myself personally... That said, I know that my mom did receive some assistance when I was 17 and my father passed away. Some SSI, a little TANF I think, and maybe something else.

Is there a limit in time or total funds that one can use in welfare, or can they literally continue to perpetually live off of the state/others?

 

[HoughMade]

If the point is to get people help to get the monkey off their back, I'm all for it.

If the point is to take away what benefits to plunge a person further into poverty and make them even more desperate, no I'm not for that.

I am all for welfare reform, but then what happens to the people who are on drugs, can't get off them, and now have no ability to pay for a section 8 apartment or food?

 

[MikeDVB]

I am all for welfare reform, but then what happens to the people who are on drugs, can't get off them, and now have no ability to pay for a section 8 apartment or food?

Priorities? Food and shelter or drugs? Choose drugs at your own peril.

 

[level.eleven]

This experiment was already tried in Florida. Of the 4086 people tested, only 108 were positive - 2.6%

It cost the state $118,140. This is more than would have been paid out in benefits to the people who failed the test.

At the end of the day, this "cost saving" program cost the government an extra $45,780

Result: FAILED

The far right has done an excellent job of convincing their base that welfare recipients sit in their leather recliner all day, playing X-Box on their 60 inch television while getting high. These bills are red meat and allow candidates to accuse the opposition of coddling drug users. Quite a few have popped up after the Tea Party movement.

 

[HoughMade]

Priorities? Food and shelter or drugs? Choose drugs at your own peril.

Of course, you're right. They should have better priorities. However, I am unwilling to force more people onto the streets and have them starve to death while we sit around judging them for their weaknesses and sentencing them to homelessness and starvation.

I am thoroughly in favor of reducing assistance to subsistence levels....which is where welfare should be to begin with, but I would not agree to removing altogether unless there is some other means to sustain life.

 

[j706]

I think we need a good solid law on welfare recipients. Admittedly the ones I deal with almost daily are not the best examples. But these kind of people are a PITA for the most part. What I see is people gaming the system because they are lazy worthless human being's. Welfare as it was intended isn't necessarily a bad thing IMO. There are no doubt good people drawing it that need it and use it as intended. But there are a VERY LARGE number of people where it has become a way of life. They don't want to work and they will not work as long as they get the free ride.

These same people we deal with have the mindset that everyone owes them. How about 911 calls for us to jump start their car, take them places or fix water leaks in their free housing? Don't laugh I have been dispatched to all three!! ( and many more)

IMO if your are getting a free ride from the taxpayers you should be required to submit to any reasonable investigation into how and where the person is spending OUR money. I guarantee that if a no BS drug screen law was passed that kicked deadbeat druggies off the system we would see a HUGE amount of folks lose their payout. This freeloading welfare crap makes me sick!!

 

[j706]

Of course, you're right. They should have better priorities. However, I am unwilling to force more people onto the streets and have them starve to death while we sit around judging them for their weaknesses and sentencing them to homelessness and starvation.

I am thoroughly in favor of reducing assistance to subsistence levels....which is where welfare should be to begin with, but I would not agree to removing altogether unless there is some other means to sustain life.

When free rides are taken away a large percentage of those effected will take their sorry a--'s to work. Until then they will continue to be a drain on society. I have no problem with putting those types on the street. If I stopped paying my bills that is where I would be. They aren't nobody special. The problem is is that people can make their daily poor drug induced choices and feel no ramification's because of it.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I think we need a good solid law on welfare recipients. Admittedly the ones I deal with almost daily are not the best examples. But these kind of people are a PITA for the most part. What I see is people gaming the system because they are lazy worthless human being's. Welfare as it was intended isn't necessarily a bad thing IMO. There are no doubt good people drawing it that need it and use it as intended. But there are a VERY LARGE number of people where it has become a way of life. They don't want to work and they will not work as long as they get the free ride.

These same people we deal with have the mindset that everyone owes them. How about 911 calls for us to jump start their car, take them places or fix water leaks in their free housing? Don't laugh I have been dispatched to all three!! ( and many more)

IMO if your are getting a free ride from the taxpayers you should be required to submit to any reasonable investigation into how and where the person is spending OUR money. I guarantee that if a no BS drug screen law was passed that kicked deadbeat druggies off the system we would see a HUGE amount of folks lose their payout. This freeloading welfare crap makes me sick!!

You're just posting this red meat to fire up all us tea partiers, aren't you?

Seriously though, I'm sure you could thoroughly nauseate us with your experiences. I agree with your last paragraph: If you're going to put your hand out and accept somebody else's money, you shouldn't be surprised when they put conditions on it. Shoot, even when you take out a loan from a bank, before the bank will write you that check, you agree to fulfill certain conditions and you are even expected to pay it back.

If you don't like the rules, don't play the game.

 

[SaintsNSinners]

I see it at work... people standing around smoking and irate becausr their early SSI check is late.... Standing for 4 hrs.....

 

[88GT]

I am all for welfare reform, but then what happens to the people who are on drugs, can't get off them, and now have no ability to pay for a section 8 apartment or food?

They get up off their lazy asses and work for a living like the rest of us. One of the inherent problems with entitlement welfare spending is that it is an economically better choice for many people. They CAN get jobs, but they make more in the long run by not working (or working under the table) and taking the entitlement check.

Of course, you're right. They should have better priorities. However, I am unwilling to force more people onto the streets and have them starve to death while we sit around judging them for their weaknesses and sentencing them to homelessness and starvation.

Lucky you. You wouldn't be forcing anybody to do anything. I would have thought someone of your education and background would have been able to tell the different between the consequences of choices and being compelled to behave a particular way through the threat of force.

I am thoroughly in favor of reducing assistance to subsistence levels....which is where welfare should be to begin with, but I would not agree to removing altogether unless there is some other means to sustain life.

Then start up a private charitable organization to feed, clothe, house, and educate them. Why does your weak stomach/soft heart get to take money from my pocketbook? /rhetorical

The far right has done an excellent job of convincing their base that welfare recipients sit in their leather recliner all day, playing X-Box on their 60 inch television while getting high.

I've never met one yet who didn't meet 2 of the 4 characteristics you just described, one of which is either the first or the last. The libs (on both sides) have done an excellent job of trying to convince the rest of us that the demonization of the welfare recipients is just the same ol' badgering of people with brown skin by old people with white skin.

 

[HoughMade]

I agree that private charities should provide assistance, certainly not the federal government, the state level is not much better- perhaps local communities that choose to do so.

But we can talk theory all day long. The reality is here and now and real hurting people need help today....not at some point in the future when we have set up a better system. So, I am all for moving to a more local and more private system of subsistence level welfare. However, what I am not willing to do cut off the weakest among us....the "least of these" and try to forget they exist....or look down upon them, proclaiming my superiority.

 

[Indy 1911]

You should not be able to collect wefare or other entitlements for more than 1 year in your lifetime. Why do they lump SS and Medicare in with all the give aways? People payed into these and should get what they paid in. Tooooo many people on SS for there lifetime for "disability". I bet if you set a pit bull loose most of the "disabled" would find out that maybe they are not quite as infirmed as they claim.

 

[slowG]

Feel it would cost to much to test everyone. Sucks but its better then nothing at all.

 

[slowG]

. You should not be able to collect wefare or other entitlements for more than 1 year in your lifetime

I like that idea