Welfare applicants decline to take drug test, fueling debate over new law

[Inthemiddle]

No one's right to privacy cancels out your duty as a citizen to be a productive and vital asset your life, your country and a parent to provide YOUR kids with the best YOU are able to provide for them.

Eh, this is a novel concept, that people's constitutional rights are predicated on first fulfilling some kind of duty to society. It's also an asinine concept. Do you think that murderers are fulfilling whatever duty to society you would propose? Yet is someone commits murder they still retain their constitutional rights to privacy, among others.

 

[Inthemiddle]

The government is not obligated to give anyone free money for the asking.

People requesting a hand out must prove their income is low enough that they cannot provide adequate food, clothing or shelter for them or their family.

If the government finds the person requesting help has been spending money on illegal drugs instead of providing the necessities, they no longer are obligated to help fund them as they have demonstrated they have enough money for their needs in addtions to drugs.

Is not biases or politics. It's common sense. Some people have it and some just don't. Perhaps its a result of the drugs.

None of that tolerates the government invading people's constitutional rights to privacy. None of that gives rise to any reasonable cause to suspect any given individual of doing drugs or is going to use benefits to fund drug use.

 

[Jarhead]

Explain to us again why hard working taxpaying American citizens should be forced to subsidize drug use?

Uhhh, no. I'm going to say no, I'm not going to explain that to you until you can prove that it's even happening on any meaningful scale. And class warfare rhetoric is not proof.

what do you deem a meaningful scale?

If your tax dollars was responsible for one person being able to afford a fix...and that fix killed them.....and they left behind children......would it not bother you?

Now, dont get me wrong...the more we debate this, the more I understand your position...and that of Care4all...and the more I am leaning in that direction....

But if you gave money to a charity and you found out that the charity, on a very small scale, was using that money to buy drugs for some people...would you stop donating money to them?

 

[Jarhead]

The government is not obligated to give anyone free money for the asking.

People requesting a hand out must prove their income is low enough that they cannot provide adequate food, clothing or shelter for them or their family.

If the government finds the person requesting help has been spending money on illegal drugs instead of providing the necessities, they no longer are obligated to help fund them as they have demonstrated they have enough money for their needs in addtions to drugs.

Is not biases or politics. It's common sense. Some people have it and some just don't. Perhaps its a result of the drugs.

None of that tolerates the government invading people's constitutional rights to privacy. None of that gives rise to any reasonable cause to suspect any given individual of doing drugs or is going to use benefits to fund drug use.

why is a lending institution allowed to invade your privacy in an effort to ensure you are a viable candidate for a loan, but the government is not allowed to invade your privacy in an effort to ensure you are a viable candidate for welfare?

 

[Rocko]

When you take money from the government, they'll find reasons to take away your dignity and freedom...whether your a Bank or an individual.

 

[lilbug]

Well, this is just insane...these folks aren't too concerned about their children in the first place or they wouldn't be doing drugs...and by providing this 'out' the system is it's own worst enemy, providing yet another avenue for abuse.

Truly, I don't get you're condoning folks taking from law abiding, hard working citizens, raising kids as impaired parents and condoning illegal activity. How does their right to that trump their right to not be subjected to drug testing?

i don't think kids should be taken away from their parents and given to the state to support under most cases, especially if there is no drug abuse or abuse of any kind....i don't think being poor is a reason to take them from the parents nor do i think having an occasional drink or joint is a reason to take someones kids away....which you suggested earlier....

a drug urine test is not accurate 10% of the time and up to 30% of the time....it also does not tell you anything of importance....sure they could test positive if a workplace tested them on a monday and they had smoked a joint with a friend a week ago, but at the same time another employee could snort a gram of coke monday morning on his way to the office, and made to take a urine test, and it would come out negative, because the coke had not metabolized in their system....so the cokehead keeps his job, while stoned at work and the person who smoked 1 jay a week earlier on his own time off, who is straight as an ace while working loses his job, or welfare or kids according to you....

that's just not right.

and you have no proof that the pot head paid for such with their welfare, a friend could have shared one, and no proof that even the coke head in my example purchased his coke with welfare money either.....your presumptions is what i have a problem with....

and IF the parent on welfare IS TRULY a drug ADDICT, who is unrecoverable, and they are harming their kids, then yes....their kids should be taken away, by social services....and you DO NOT need to subject them to a drug test to see that their kids are being harmed....

I am a realist....if you were to take the kids away from all parents that have used an illegal drug, then there would not be enough orphanages to take care of them all....more than 50% of our country is estimated to have done illegal drugs at one time or another from the last thing i read on it...

i see it, as none of your business....or the gvt's business.

the government making a citizen who does not even work for them in a dangerous job, be subjected to this kind of search and seizure is unacceptable, and a gvt over reach imo....and it is like the gvt making them testify against themselves too imo...so that's a double whammie, breaking the 4th amendment and the 5th amendment, again, in my opinion.

No one here has condoned or even mentioned talking kids away from their parents, and certainly not based on the fact that they are poor...that's a ridiculous conclusion you've come to on your own to justify your opinion. You are mixing apples and oranges here, but I will say, if you're doing drugs, absolutely you're kids deserve better, you have no right to subject your kids to the shortcomings as a parent that inevitably come as a result of being an impaired parent. If these parents are truly concerned about being separated from their children, they would not be engaging in illegal activities that put themselves in danger of being incarcerated and their kids being taken away to begin with.

I disagree, you do have to substantiate, at least on paper, they they are indeed using drugs, a mere accusation or hunch is not enough legally.

I also disgaree with your statistics, if the test was that inaccurate, it's implementation and continued use would be highly challengeable, subject to massive lawsuits, and in that case deemed ineffective and not used.

Government over reach is just another phrase folks use to justify being irresponsible morons. What about the rights of those folks who are paying for that lifestyle? Does your right to use drugs and rape of us our tax dollors override our rights to demand that you conduct yourself lawfully and do something to better your situation, or do you just expect us to bend over and just take it?

You wanna smoke a joint, use cocaine...be my guest, but do it with YOUR money and don't ask me to say hey, it's a-okay with me if you subject your kids to all the ramifications that come from it, not to mention sending a big fat message it's okay to be dishonest, irresponsible, and as long as your getting away with it, engage in illegal activities, while you get high, don't work and don't pay taxes...basically just a total waste of oxygen.

 

[Care4all]

Care4all does not deserve the spin.

What she is saying is "liberty" trumps all.....she sees it as a loss of liberty

and it is.....but only if you OPT to take welfare.

So it is no more a loss of liberty than offering a lending institution your w-2 in an effort to get a loan.

It's also a lack of liberty to toil your ass off all day then have to come home and hand over 30% of what you made so a drug user can abuse his children. They just take what you have earned and then want to hold the children hostage. NO one to date on this thread has ever held a drug abusing welfare receipent responsible for the welfare of his or her child. that's what demonRats do.. they make the hard working taxpayer shoulder that responsibility and then whine about their loss of liberty. I think it street shitter mentality myself.

first off, you do not pay 30% in federal income taxes, those making over a million only end up paying 19% like terresa Heinz to 24%.

And secondly, TANF which is welfare, only spends 0.005% of the total federal budget....your supposed 30% in federal income taxes paid is going towards Defense spending to the tune of $900 billion a year, in total....drug test the Military industrial complex, why dontcha?

when the hubby and I were pulling in $160k a year, we only paid about 14% in federal income taxes, once we took all of our right offs/deductions....(he worked out of our home at the time so there was lots and lots of stuff we were able to deduct,) even a portion of our lawn maintenance, mortgage, snow removal, repainting the house, his car etc....

 

[Inthemiddle]

I'll tell you what, Onthefarleft

This just goes to show how much of an extremist nut-job you really are. If you think I'm on the far left, then you must be about a half inch away from terrorism.

next time you are in an airport, refuse to go through the metal detector and use that argument.

Get back to us with the results.

We've already discussed airport security. I recognize that you're ignorant and uneducated on how 4th amendment rights work, so I'll explain it again. There are levels, or degrees if you will, of invasion to a person's privacy and liberty of movement. And under certain circumstances these levels can be constitutionally satisfied with varying degrees of legitimate government/public interest. For example, in certain areas of the country random traffic stops can be permissible for the sake of checking for legal status, yet impermissible in others. A cop can at times develop a "reasonable suspicion" that might warrant a pat down. But cannot use that reasonable suspicion to justify a strip search. At other times, similar circumstances might not amount to a "reasonable" suspicion.

There are several factors that go into weighing the reasonableness of a search, though the basic goal is to weigh the infringement of individual liberty against the public interest. In the case of airport security checks, the infringement of liberty is overall minimal. But the public interest is very high. Therefore, airport security screenings tend to be constitutional. I'll make one exception, which is the new body x-ray devices which I think are quite possibly unconstitutional, as they would most likely fail to remain within the narrow field of permissible infringement of liberty, when weighed against the public interest.

Now, all that being said, requiring a drug test to apply for entitlement benefits does not serve a legitimate public interest and does not give rise to a reasonable concern. There is no evidence present that there is a significant or meaningful amount of welfare funding that is being spent on illegal drugs. There is no reasonable basis to connect potential drug use being potentially funded by potential benefits, but to excise other equally possible abuses of benefit funds, such as alcohol use or prostitution, or even less repugnant abuses, like frequent sharing of excess food stamps with other people. A demand for bodily fluids is a relatively high infringement of personal liberty, and based on all evidence the public interest is at best a hypothetical concern. Accordingly, this drug testing policy does not come anywhere close to passing constitutional muster.

 

[Jarhead]

It's also a lack of liberty to toil your ass off all day then have to come home and hand over 30% of what you made so a drug user can abuse his children. They just take what you have earned and then want to hold the children hostage. NO one to date on this thread has ever held a drug abusing welfare receipent responsible for the welfare of his or her child. that's what demonRats do.. they make the hard working taxpayer shoulder that responsibility and then whine about their loss of liberty. I think it street shitter mentality myself.

first off, you do not pay 30% in federal income taxes, those making over a million only end up paying 19% like terresa Heinz to 24%.

And secondly, TANF which is welfare, only spends 0.005% of the total federal budget....your supposed 30% in federal income taxes paid is going towards Defense spending to the tune of $900 billion a year, in total....drug test the Military industrial complex,why dontcha?

when the hubby and I were pulling in $160k a year, we only paid about 14% in federal income taxes, once we took all of our right offs/deductions....(he worked out of our home at the time so there was lots and lots of stuff we were able to deduct,) even a portion of our lawn maintenance, mortgage, snow removal, repainting the house, his car etc....

whatthe hell?

I did not write that. How the hell??????

 

[Inthemiddle]

Onthefarleft....

If you are going to continue to insist that I'm somehow on the far left, I'm going to decide that you must be of such radical right wing extremism that you are in line with the Tim McVeighs of the world, wanting to overthrow the government, and accordingly I'll simply add you to my ignore list. On the other hand, if you want to actually start contributing something more than throwing accusations simply because someone disagrees with you, then must maybe we can have a discussion worth having.

are you equally incensed that government requires people to detail where they live, whom they live with, how much they earn, how much they have in the bank, who they have sex with, the results of the sex act, how much they spend on education, how much they invest with the failure to do so resulting in long prison terms?

You leftists always scream about privacy, yet the most glaring and intrusive invasion of privacy most of you would fight to the death to keep.

That is of course, the IRS 1040 form where every person must detail every intimate part of their life to the government.

Again, this is a radically extremist view to take. First of all, the constitution authorizes collection of the income tax, so your complains are irrelevant. Second of all, your complains are, at best, marginally honest. The 1040 does not demand to know with whom I have sex. I simply asks my marital status. When you become an adult, you'll understand how silly it is to think that asking my marital status is like asking with whom I have sex.

Now, if you don't like the constitution, I invite you to move to Canada or some other place outside of US jurisdiction and leave us in peace. There's no reason to try overthrowing our government or trying to trample upon our constitution over nothing more than your personal preferences or feelings. You can leave any time you like. If you think that the people's will is sufficient to change the constitution, then I suggest you write your Congressperson to ask them to propose an amendment.

 

[Care4all]

first off, you do not pay 30% in federal income taxes, those making over a million only end up paying 19% like terresa Heinz to 24%.

And secondly, TANF which is welfare, only spends 0.005% of the total federal budget....your supposed 30% in federal income taxes paid is going towards Defense spending to the tune of $900 billion a year, in total....drug test the Military industrial complex,why dontcha?

when the hubby and I were pulling in $160k a year, we only paid about 14% in federal income taxes, once we took all of our right offs/deductions....(he worked out of our home at the time so there was lots and lots of stuff we were able to deduct,) even a portion of our lawn maintenance, mortgage, snow removal, repainting the house, his car etc....

whatthe hell?

I did not write that. How the hell??????

it's a "quote " problem Jarhead...no one is messing with ya....I will try to see if I can fix the quote from willow....i could have erased one of the quote enclosures and this is why it did this....

 

[Jarhead]

whatthe hell?

I did not write that. How the hell??????

it's a "quote " problem Jarhead...no one is messing with ya....I will try to see if I can fix the quote from willow....i could have erased one of the quote enclosures and this is why it did this....

lol...
YOU screwed up with a quote?
you?
Miss perfect super moderator?
You?
Miss "Im always right "?
You?

OK...I forgive you.

 

[Inthemiddle]

I found the the last sentence of this article interesting:

Those who fail the required drug testing may designate another individual to receive the benefits on behalf of their children.

So there goes the "what about the children" argument.

Just goes to show that this was nothing but a political stunt designed to fan the flames of class warfare.

 

[Jarhead]

When you take money from the government, they'll find reasons to take away your dignity and freedom...whether your a Bank or an individual.

No one is taking what is not offered.

 

[Care4all]

it's a "quote " problem Jarhead...no one is messing with ya....I will try to see if I can fix the quote from willow....i could have erased one of the quote enclosures and this is why it did this....

lol...
YOU screwed up with a quote?
you?
Miss perfect super moderator?
You?
Miss "Im always right "?
You?

OK...I forgive you.

I am a super duper moderator! I am just lousy with computers and typing....so, cross your fingers that i can figure out what the heck I did to mess up the quote...if i can't correct it, i'll just delete it....maybe I'll just delete it, it will be easier, (for me)

 

[Care4all]

lol...
YOU screwed up with a quote?
you?
Miss perfect super moderator?
You?
Miss "Im always right "?
You?

OK...I forgive you.

I am a super duper moderator! I am just lousy with computers and typing....so, cross your fingers that i can figure out what the heck I did to mess up the quote...if i can't correct it, i'll just delete it....maybe I'll just delete it, it will be easier, (for me)

CRAP it did it again...i did not do this, i swear...it must be a system problem, with ME?????

 

[Inthemiddle]

what do you deem a meaningful scale?

If your tax dollars was responsible for one person being able to afford a fix...and that fix killed them.....and they left behind children......would it not bother you?

Now, dont get me wrong...the more we debate this, the more I understand your position...and that of Care4all...and the more I am leaning in that direction....

But if you gave money to a charity and you found out that the charity, on a very small scale, was using that money to buy drugs for some people...would you stop donating money to them?

What I mean is that, based on the numbers available, only 0.005% of people who apply for benefits have used drugs recently before they applied. That's not a "meaningful" amount of applicants, it's a negligible amount. I'm sure I could find more police officers who are doing drugs on a regular basis. We could probably find more waste than that in the cost of paperwork that has to be repeated because the state lost it the first time. The point is, that until Willow can prove that entitlement funds are being spent on drugs on any meaningful scale, then the question has no relevance here. It's nothing but a tangent that is mean tot be a distraction from the real issue.

 

[Jarhead]

I found the the last sentence of this article interesting:

Those who fail the required drug testing may designate another individual to receive the benefits on behalf of their children.

So there goes the "what about the children" argument.

Just goes to show that this was nothing but a political stunt designed to fan the flames of class warfare.

A stunt by who?

A state legislative body that wanted to ensure tax dollars were not abused....

or

opponents who used the old "what about the kids" argument....when, in fact, the kids arent affected.

To me, the only argument that holds water to oppose this is "invasion of privacy."...and even that one I am not sold on as I keep on asking on not getting a response...

why is it OK for a lending institution to invade your privacy to enusre you are a viable candidate for a loan, but the government can not invade your privacy to ensure you are a viable candidate for welfare?

 

[Mr.Nick]

No one's right to privacy cancels out your duty as a citizen to be a productive and vital asset your life, your country and a parent to provide YOUR kids with the best YOU are able to provide for them.

Eh, this is a novel concept, that people's constitutional rights are predicated on first fulfilling some kind of duty to society. It's also an asinine concept. Do you think that murderers are fulfilling whatever duty to society you would propose? Yet is someone commits murder they still retain their constitutional rights to privacy, among others.

You think those in prison have privacy??

Being stripped searched daily is privacy? having every piece of your mail opened and read is privacy?? having your items searched once a week is privacy??

There is absolutely NOTHING wrong or unconstitutional about expecting those living off the taxpayers to meet a a standard....

If they don't want to be drug tested then they can either a) get off welfare or b) not use drugs...

I mean those who believe its wrong to drug test these welfare fucks may as well just say - those on welfare can use drugs if they want and that the taxpayer should foot the bill for it...

I mean you may as well say its unconstitutional to expect a person to respect the rules of your household...

 

[Jarhead]

I am a super duper moderator! I am just lousy with computers and typing....so, cross your fingers that i can figure out what the heck I did to mess up the quote...if i can't correct it, i'll just delete it....maybe I'll just delete it, it will be easier, (for me)

CRAP it did it again...i did not do this, i swear...it must be a system problem, with ME?????

and you expect us to goive credence to your opinoins?