Should Welfare Applicants Be Drug Tested Before Receiving Assistance?
I’m not a huge fan of the let’s-drug-test-everybody-because-we-can line of thinking.
It seems, though, that a local lawmaker here in the New Orleans area wants anyone applying for welfare to be drug tested and come up clean before they can get assistance. From this morning’s Times Picayune, the liberal rag that passes for a newspaper down here:
Rep. John LaBruzzo wants the state to require drug tests of all new applicants for the state’s primary welfare program, with those who fail denied benefits until they complete a required counseling program.
The state currently screens applicants through interviews and questionnaires, with only those suspected of drug activity being tested. Those applicants can still get Temporary Assistance for Needy Families immediately, as long as they comply with the state-paid treatment program. They are denied benefits only if they refuse the counseling-treatment program or when they fail to meet its requirements.
Sounds good, eh? I mean, we all know that welfare is a huge burden on the taxpayer, and that welfare fraud is rampant. And the fact is that many of the folks on welfare are also drug users. A politically incorrect fact, but a fact nonetheless. BUT – here’s my problem with this.
In order to save money we’re creating a program and an agency to test our potential welfare recipients for drugs. Okay, that’s another government agency created, which will no doubt be run with the razor sharp efficiency we all know our government utilizes in just about everything they do. And then – if they don’t pass, they have to go to a treatment program. Which means the creation – or at least the expansion of – yet another government entity to monitor their progress.
I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like we’ve had about all of the government efficiency we can stand lately.
Tell you what, though…..let’s start drug testing our lawmakers. You know, the guys who just got us into trillions of dollars of debt that will last for generations. We’re worried whether or not someone who gets a few hundred bucks a month may be on drugs. Why not worry whether or not the fools on the Hill who have their hands on the entire future of this country are clean and sober as well because I tell you what – it sure as hell doesn’t look like it to me.
And, yeah, that includes state lawmakers as well. When all of the above start peeing in little cups to show us how honorable and trustworthy they are, then it can, if you’ll pardon the expression, trickle down to the welfare mom who needs to put food on the table.
I’m not really against drug screening for welfare applicants although the whole seach-without-cause thing makes me uneasy. BUT – don’t want screened, don’t apply. Simple, really. But before we test the first one, I want to see our politicians tested.
I’d like to see just how many of them really just say no to drugs.
What say you?
