Florida requires drug testing for welfare starting July 1st.

[Bill Mattocks]

you sure love throwing around that 45% number, and it really is a smoke job once again.. It does not really mean what you are implying it does. Lets remove out of that percentage the number of people who are being supported by someone else who does in fact pay taxes, lets take out of that number those that are earning a living and who pay sales tax, gax tax, or any other form of tax besides income tax, I might be missing something more here... like community service..but we will not include that, lets include the people who do not earn any money, and who do not pay any taxes of any kind, and who are given money by the government out of other peoples tax dollars, those are the only ones who are truely not paying any form of tax... so your 45% number... no good not by a long shot.

Yeah, it kind of is. And it's a conservative staple in arguments about taxation, so it's part of 'our side', you know. Are you not even familiar with the conservative point of view on taxation in the USA?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.
About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.
...
In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.
...
The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners -- households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 -- paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.
"We have 50 percent of people who are getting something for nothing," said Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

These are all conservative think tanks, by the way. Hardly a popular liberal position.

And again, simple proposition. If you're in favor of people who get taxpayer paid services for nothing being required to not be illegal drug users, then you should have no problem with nearly half the US population being forced to take drug tests before entering a national forest or driving on our highways. It's the same thing - they get something for nothing.

Unless you have a different motivation for wanting Welfare recipients to be drug tested.

umm in regards to the entitlement argument and the law... hello they are changing the law. they are including stipulations to qualifying for it... so adding the passed drug test by passing a law is doing exactly what you are saying.... changing the law.. so that argument is done...

The law they are 'changing' is a state law. Hello, the Welfare 'entitlement' is a federal law. That's why Michigan's attempt was struck down - it was found to be in conflict with the US Constitution.

oh ya your gun argument, also invalid and using smoke screen logic to muddy the waters..
the big difference is entitlements are not included in the constitution, there is however a very specific part that says.... "shall not be infringed" thats pretty damn clear. So ya none of your arguments you are using really hold any weight when looked at with how do you like to put it... oh ya logically.... thanks

Saying my argument is a 'smoke screen' does not invalidate it. Welfare is an entitlement. Period. Not my decision, and I'm not even in favor of it, but it is one. You can argue all day long that it should not be, or that I'm using a smokescreen, but the simple fact is that I'm right about this, and you are wrong. The courts say you're wrong too. Let me know when you gain the authority to overturn that.

 

[Sensei Payne]

I never said I was OK with that. I said I am OK with the Constitution. It's not theoretical, it's the real framework for our system of governance. If one person can say it's OK to ignore it when it involves Welfare users, then it's just as valid to ignore it when it involves gun owners. You can't just pick and choose what you like about it and ignore the rest. That's why I end up supporting the right of the KKK to march in the streets of downtown Skokie, Illinois, even though I hate the KKK. I support the right of the Phelps group to shout at military funerals even though I hate Phelps and all he stands for. I support the right, not the people involved. You could, I suppose, say that I'm "OK with the KKK," but that would be incorrect. I support the Constitution, even when it says things I do not like. That's not theory; that's the real world.

Well spoken

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

Yeah, it kind of is. And it's a conservative staple in arguments about taxation, so it's part of 'our side', you know. Are you not even familiar with the conservative point of view on taxation in the USA?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1



These are all conservative think tanks, by the way. Hardly a popular liberal position.

And again, simple proposition. If you're in favor of people who get taxpayer paid services for nothing being required to not be illegal drug users, then you should have no problem with nearly half the US population being forced to take drug tests before entering a national forest or driving on our highways. It's the same thing - they get something for nothing.

Unless you have a different motivation for wanting Welfare recipients to be drug tested.



The law they are 'changing' is a state law. Hello, the Welfare 'entitlement' is a federal law. That's why Michigan's attempt was struck down - it was found to be in conflict with the US Constitution.



Saying my argument is a 'smoke screen' does not invalidate it. Welfare is an entitlement. Period. Not my decision, and I'm not even in favor of it, but it is one. You can argue all day long that it should not be, or that I'm using a smokescreen, but the simple fact is that I'm right about this, and you are wrong. The courts say you're wrong too. Let me know when you gain the authority to overturn that.

lol I never have used that argument, just because its a conservative argument does not mean its my argument. Besides it is apples and oranges the way you are using it. The fact is most of those people are wither paying some form of taxes, and or are being partly supported by other people who are, so your argument holds no water. I have never said anything ever about those people needing to pay more in taxes, ever. I have only simply stated that taxing the rich more because they are rich is wrong. so once agian smoke screen logic, does not apply at all to this argument. Personally I think anyone who can not take care of themselves and needs public assistance is in fact doing something wrong, not necessarily nefarious and purposefully, it quite possibly can be out of ignorance, stupidity, or even by no fault of their own. But In a time when the economy is in the *******, the government is ransoming our kids future, and people are flocking to get what they can from any source possible, I want as many safeguards as possible to prevent abuse of a system, and to ensure that any money used for welfare is going where it will have the most chance of helping someone get off of assistance.

btw the law they are changing is a state law because the form of welfare they are applying it to is state funded. HELLO...

 

[MJS]

Just following this to its logical conclusion. If the goal of Welfare is to identify and shame them by forcing them to pick up trash by the side of the road like prisoners, we should probably go the extra step of providing them signs to wear so passing motorists know the difference between them and convicts laboring in similar conditions.

I get the concept of wanting to encourage people to get off Welfare. I doubt if forcing them to perform menial public tasks in public view so that they can be 'named and shamed' is going to accomplish that, but I'm sure it makes a lot of angry people very happy.

I'm simply saying to limit it. Unemployment benefits are limited. Once they run out, you're eiher SOL or ya gotta get a job...somewhere. Instead of these people sitting on their ***, collecting free money, getting everything paid for, give something back. IMO, I dont think that giving back a few hours of your day at the local soup kitchen or doing some other community service based thing, is too much to ask, nor do I feel that it makes them prisoners.

This is a long thread and I havent read every single post, so you may/may not have already said this, but it seems that you're not keen on suggestions like mine. That being said, what is your solution?

 

[WC_lun]

there was mention they had worked out a deal that would make the tests no more expensive then $42. I feel that number is so low that virtually anyone could come up with the payment for it. I find it a non factor

This tells me you have not had any experience or known anyone that have been in "desperate straits." $42 can feel like a fortune when every cent you have is going to required expenses, such as food, housing, and utilities. Now if Florida does something like having recepients pay for the test at $42 after they have already recieved some assistance then that isn't as much an issue.

 

[Blade96]

But, all they have to do is, not do drugs and obey the law to pass.

That can't be that hard can it?

Spoken like someone who doesnt seem to know a whole lot about addictions and how hard they can be to break.

But I notice that most of those in this thread who are in favor of drug testing for Welfare recipients also make other statements, and I believe that goes to motive. They note that people on Welfare sit around and smoke Newports and watch Maury on TV. This would tend to make me think that they are under the assumption that Welfare recipients are all lazy abusers of the system who have no interest in getting jobs. They seem to be in favor of Welfare reforms such as Welfare-to-Work (Workfare) but not aware that this already exists. They seem to be in favor of lifetime caps on Welfare use, but seem to be unaware that those caps already exist. They seem to be in favor of putting Welfare recipients to work - one suggestion was that they clean up highways. This makes an assumption that Welfare recipients are all able-bodied, healthy, and young enough to go stand on the side of the road and pick up trash, which demonstrates a lack of understanding of the sometimes debilitating physical illnesses that some on Welfare suffer from. In other words, they have a firm picture in mind of the average Welfare recipient, and that mental image is a negative one. It would appear to me that their motive, then, is one of punishment; regardless of what they say, their published opinions betray them.

Thank you!!

glad someone said that.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

This tells me you have not had any experience or known anyone that have been in "desperate straits." $42 can feel like a fortune when every cent you have is going to required expenses, such as food, housing, and utilities. Now if Florida does something like having recepients pay for the test at $42 after they have already recieved some assistance then that isn't as much an issue.

Ya and you would be dead wrong wouldn't you. The whole point is to weed out abusers of the system before they participate, giving assistance first would be a FAIL.
no I hope they hold to their guns, and I hope the nation follows, I am tired of failures, I am tired of failures getting babied, accepted, and supported. Its time they step up. I am not interested in hand holding people, they need to take responsibility for themselves. Its time we toughen up as a nation.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Spoken like someone who doesnt seem to know a whole lot about addictions and how hard they can be to break.

I'll admit I don't know much about them. See, my whole life I've avoided smoking. I rarely drink. I've never so much as tried an illegal drug. I went to school surrounded by them, but never gave in.

So, I'm afraid I don't know how hard it is to kick them.
I do know how hard it is to avoid starting them...being in pain pretty much all the time right now, it's easy to think "just pop an extra pill".
But I don't.

See, I'm the only non-smoker in my family.
Last august I buried my uncle. Lung Cancer.
Some years earlier, my grandmother. Same thing.
A few before, an aunt and an uncle. Same.
Buried a friend of mine who wrapped his motorcycle around a signpost while ripped.
I went to highschool where you could get high in gym class...the teachers looked the other way. Some of my peers...never made it out. Lead Poisoning as it were.

So, no....I avoided it all. I'm rabid anti-tobacco.
Never mind 'harder' stuff.
Ironically, I support medical use of pot. There's your contradiction.

I've had plenty of opportunity to try. Used to admin a BBS back in the 90's. Owner was always doing coke parties with his staff. I stuck to the carbonated version.


So I stick to my position that -my- tax dollars shouldn't be going to support someone elses -illegal- habit. Test em, get them clean, lock em up, but don't give em my hard earned money to snort, smoke or shoot. Or else legalize the drugs and make it a non issue.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I'm simply saying to limit it. Unemployment benefits are limited. Once they run out, you're eiher SOL or ya gotta get a job...somewhere. Instead of these people sitting on their ***, collecting free money, getting everything paid for, give something back. IMO, I dont think that giving back a few hours of your day at the local soup kitchen or doing some other community service based thing, is too much to ask, nor do I feel that it makes them prisoners.

This is a long thread and I havent read every single post, so you may/may not have already said this, but it seems that you're not keen on suggestions like mine. That being said, what is your solution?

Welfare is limited already. Most states implement lifetimes caps. Most states have Welfare-to-Work requirements that require people who are capable of doing work (medical and physical conditions permitting) to find work, and help provide training while they do so, but cut off assistance if they do not.

It seems most in this thread say they want those things - they already exist.

But again, your words show that you believe what most seem to believe; that Welfare recipients are dishonest, lazy, and don't want to work.

You talk about what is 'too much to ask for' but I don't disagree with the basic concept. I reply that a) they have that now (Welfare to work) and b) you don't get to decide what is too much to ask for (neither do I). When we're talking about a legal 'entitlement', which Welfare is, then the courts get to decide what is too much to ask. That is my point.

As to my solution, it's much more complex than I can lay out here. First, as I pointed out, most waste, fraud, and abuse of Welfare and social programs occurs at a much higher level than the recipient. I'd want to address that. Second, I'd consider what my motivation was as well as my intended end-result. If the goal is to get people off Welfare and back to work, do drug tests do that? If not, then other concepts should be explored.

However, it seems to me that the actual goal for many in this thread is not about getting Welfare recipients back to work. It's about resentment over the thought that they get free money and services without having to work for it, on our taxpayer dime, and we don't like it, so anything we can legally do to prevent them from getting it, humiliating them for taking it, or ending their access to it, is what we want. This I believe from simply reading the comments about what people are saying in this thread about Welfare recipients. They "sit on their asses" and they "smoke Newports" and the "watch Maury." Do they? Is that an accurate picture? And even if it was, I'm not hearing "I want them to get jobs," I am hearing "I want them to pick up trash by the roadside in exchange for the money we gvie them." Sounds to me like it's about humiliation and punishment.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Bill. My position is simple.
End -ALL- social programs. welfare, wic, medicare, medicade, social security, unemployment, and so on. All of em.

Baring that, make sure the money spent is going to law abiding American's.

Put in criteria that rather than allow them to sit home doing nothing, some time is spend helping the community.

If that's considered demeaning, then TFB in my opinion.

I've picked up enough trash, cleaned enough toilets, hosed out enough septics and so on. Not asking anyone to do anything I my self personally haven't.

 

[elder999]

Y'all do realize that this is just a screening for applicants-that there'll be no follow up screenings, no random urinalysis once applicants are accepted?

Nothing a really lazy hardcore junkie couldn't beat.

It'll only catch potheads.....

 

[Blade96]

I'll admit I don't know much about them. See, my whole life I've avoided smoking. I rarely drink. I've never so much as tried an illegal drug. I went to school surrounded by them, but never gave in.

So, I'm afraid I don't know how hard it is to kick them.
I do know how hard it is to avoid starting them...being in pain pretty much all the time right now, it's easy to think "just pop an extra pill".
But I don't.

See, I'm the only non-smoker in my family.
Last august I buried my uncle. Lung Cancer.
Some years earlier, my grandmother. Same thing.
A few before, an aunt and an uncle. Same.
Buried a friend of mine who wrapped his motorcycle around a signpost while ripped.
I went to highschool where you could get high in gym class...the teachers looked the other way. Some of my peers...never made it out. Lead Poisoning as it were.

So, no....I avoided it all. I'm rabid anti-tobacco.
Never mind 'harder' stuff.
Ironically, I support medical use of pot. There's your contradiction.

I've had plenty of opportunity to try. Used to admin a BBS back in the 90's. Owner was always doing coke parties with his staff. I stuck to the carbonated version.


So I stick to my position that -my- tax dollars shouldn't be going to support someone elses -illegal- habit. Test em, get them clean, lock em up, but don't give em my hard earned money to snort, smoke or shoot. Or else legalize the drugs and make it a non issue.

I drink sometimes, i tried a cigarette as a teen but never got addicted. I avoided all of it too. But i know for a fact that its not easy to quit. even if you give em incentives, 'i have to quit so i can pass a drug test and get on welfare' it won't be easy to do.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

Y'all do realize that this is just a screening for applicants-that there'll be no follow up screenings, no random urinalysis once applicants are accepted?

Nothing a really lazy hardcore junkie couldn't beat.

It'll only catch potheads.....

weeding out stupid ones is a good first step in my opinion.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Bill. My position is simple.
End -ALL- social programs. welfare, wic, medicare, medicade, social security, unemployment, and so on. All of em.

Military retirements? VA disability pensions? Police and fire? Workman's Comp?

Baring that, make sure the money spent is going to law abiding American's.

And you think Welfare recipients are not law abiding why?

Put in criteria that rather than allow them to sit home doing nothing, some time is spend helping the community.

Helping the community? I thought the idea was to get them trained and/or back to work and off Welfare?

As to that...

http://www.floridajobs.org/workforce/wel_trans.html

In October of 1996 two Acts (one Federal and one State) went into law that dramatically changed welfare programs in the State of Florida and around the country. The October 1996 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), Public Law 104-193, eliminated the open-ended federal entitlement program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and replaced it with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. The TANF legislation changed the nation’s welfare system from the receipt of cash assistance as an entitlement to one that requires work in exchange for time-limited assistance.
...
In October 1996, Florida enacted the Work and Gain Economic Self-Sufficiency (WAGES) Act. The Act was developed to implement the requirements of TANF and to emphasize work, self-sufficiency, and personal responsibility as well as time-limited assistance.

Everything you say you want, already exists. But you refuse to accept that it exists. You still seem to want to believe that Welfare recipients are not law-abiding, they're lazy, they 'sit around' doing nothing.

If that's considered demeaning, then TFB in my opinion.

I've picked up enough trash, cleaned enough toilets, hosed out enough septics and so on. Not asking anyone to do anything I my self personally haven't.

So getting their benefits lifetime-capped is not enough. Requiring training and/or work in exchange for benefits (as Florida law currently requires, posted above) is not enough. They also have to pick up trash by the highway or perform some other form of 'community service' as prisoners do in exchange for work-release programs.

I can see where your mind's at Bob. I don't understand why you can't.

 

[Cryozombie]

So your attitude is if one equally valid amendment is being crapped on, then you don't care if all of the amendments are being crapped on?

As I said before, the answer to injustice is to correct the injustice, not to perpetrate other injustices so that everything is equally unjust.

Nope, I PERSONALLY think they all need to be respected. But I'm sick and tired of Liberal *******s screaming about their rights while denying me mine. You want me to stand up for you, have the same common courtesy. If its ok for you (for clarification by you, I mean people in general, not you specifically EH) to pick and choose, then why shouldn't I be able to as well?

If that's wrong, then so is denying me my Second Amendment rights, so get on fixing that for me as well, thanks! Don't hide behind one while decrying the other, they either apply or they don't, as far as I am concerned.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Bill, I said work. I gave examples. Examples that -I- in fact have 'lowered' myself to do.
I see nothing dishonorable about insisting that a fair wage be paid for a fair labor, and saying 'no free handouts'.

I did not say 'all' welfare recipients were criminals.
But surely, if the use of narcotics is considered illegal, and if one who engages in illegal activities is a criminal, then there should be no problem insisting that benefits go to law abiding citizens, as opposed to criminals?

If they can comply with the law, give em their cheese.
Otherwise, hang em.

 

[Flea]

Ya and you would be dead wrong wouldn't you. The whole point is to weed out abusers of the system before they participate, giving assistance first would be a FAIL.
no I hope they hold to their guns, and I hope the nation follows, I am tired of failures, I am tired of failures getting babied, accepted, and supported. Its time they step up. I am not interested in hand holding people, they need to take responsibility for themselves. Its time we toughen up as a nation.

Just ... wow.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Bill, I said work. I gave examples. Examples that -I- in fact have 'lowered' myself to do.
I see nothing dishonorable about insisting that a fair wage be paid for a fair labor, and saying 'no free handouts'.

As I pointed out, the state of Florida requires work to be done by those on Welfare.

Is there something in that which you are failing to see?

I did not say 'all' welfare recipients were criminals.

You did not. But you described them as a class. As have others in this thread. Are we to pretend we do not know what you mean?

But surely, if the use of narcotics is considered illegal, and if one who engages in illegal activities is a criminal, then there should be no problem insisting that benefits go to law abiding citizens, as opposed to criminals?

Shall we make certain that they all registered for the draft when they turned 18, and that they all have their taxes paid up to date and filed on time? I mean, that's criminal activity too.

But as I have said, "there should be no problem" is meaningless, because there *is* a problem, and it's not me who is saying that; it's the federal circuit court (in the case of the similar law in Michigan). You can say "there is no problem with that" all you like, your words do not have the force of law, and the courts do.

If they can comply with the law, give em their cheese.
Otherwise, hang em.

Yeah, we're back to describing Welfare recipients in derogatory terms again. You didn't *say* they were all criminals, no. But you continue to imply it, and frankly, I know you are aware of it. Just like the person a few pages back to said they were all smoking Newports didn't *say* they were all black, he just implied it. It's a sad little game, Bob. Have the courage to say what you mean and not play weasel word games. I know what you mean and you know what you mean. Now find your stones and man up.

 

[hongkongfooey]

Military retirements? VA disability pensions? Police and fire? Workman's Comp?



And you think Welfare recipients are not law abiding why?



Helping the community? I thought the idea was to get them trained and/or back to work and off Welfare?

As to that...

http://www.floridajobs.org/workforce/wel_trans.html



Everything you say you want, already exists. But you refuse to accept that it exists. You still seem to want to believe that Welfare recipients are not law-abiding, they're lazy, they 'sit around' doing nothing.



So getting their benefits lifetime-capped is not enough. Requiring training and/or work in exchange for benefits (as Florida law currently requires, posted above) is not enough. They also have to pick up trash by the highway or perform some other form of 'community service' as prisoners do in exchange for work-release programs.

I can see where your mind's at Bob. I don't understand why you can't.

LOL. You whine more than a welfare recipient forced to pick up trash by the roadside.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Bill, I said what I mean, exactly how I mean it.
I'm afraid you are reading further into it that I have.

So please, tell me what I mean, because I'm afraid I don't see it.

Do I mean that welfare recipients are sub human?
That they are all the same?
All would be criminals?
All Lazy?
All child rapists?
All pigeon toed inbred Southern Red Necks?

Clarify for me as I apparently have no clue what I mean when I write precise wording here.