Texas advances bill to require drug screening for welfare

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

First off, the Fourth Amendment says the government can't search you without probable cause.

No violation of the 4th amendment as applying for welfare is not mandated by the government. It is done by choice, and thus its requirements fall under said choice.

Let's talk money and math. How many drug addicts do you think you're going to catch here out of all the welfare recipients tested? 20%? 10%? 1%?
Let's look at Florida, where a similar law was put into place:
Waste of my taxpayer dollars.

What the premise of "how many are you going to catch" fails to take into account is simple - how many people heard about the law, knew they would be tested - and knew they would fail? How many didn't even apply because of it? More than enough to make up that $118k for sure.

Something to think about.....

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

? How many didn't even apply because of it? More than enough to make up that $118k for sure.

Read the article:

(An analysis by the state showed that the drug testing requirement didn’t tamp down applications.)

As for it not being a violation - well, you're wrong. It's irrelevant whether someone is going to apply for welfare voluntarily or not. It's a government service that is provided to someone that's paid for by their tax dollars. The judge who blocked the law found the same:

"In October, a federal judge in Orlando temporarily blocked the state of Florida from conducting drug tests on welfare applicants. U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven wrote in her ruling that drug tests are “well established” as a means of search under the Fourth Amendment and that the state had not demonstrated a substantial need to justify “suspicionless” drug testing. "

The mere act of applying for welfare is not a crime worthy enough of a government search of your person.

[Onkel Neal]

Nothing in this country will ever be fixed or improved, we will always have people fighting against it.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Nothing in this country will ever be fixed or improved, we will always have people fighting against it.

Improving and fixing the welfare system is a great goal. This is not the way to do it, however. It's childish and simplistic thinking that wastes taxpayer dollars.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Improving and fixing the welfare system is a great goal. This is not the way to do it, however. It's childish and simplistic thinking that wastes taxpayer dollars.

Oh, sure, because we know 99% of welfare recipients would pass the drug test. People who work have to pass drug screening to pay taxes for those who take welfare.

[Tchocky]

97% for marijuana. At least in the Florida study.

[Herr-Berbunch]

10-drug instant result (5 mins) cup test - $6.95. Somebody, once again in government, needs to learn to write contracts/purchase orders - they could've been making a public profit.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Oh, sure, because we know 99% of welfare recipients would pass the drug test. People who work have to pass drug screening to pay taxes for those who take welfare.

A private employer is not the same as the government, though. And at least in Florida it was 97.6 percent of people who passed the test.

This is a classic boondoggle project thats entire premise rests on the perception that all public assistance recipients are a bunch of lazy minorities who spend every day doing drugs.

Apparently when we get down to the dollars and cents of it, that doesn't seem to be the case. The fact that people would defend wasting government money to try and prove this when it's already been disproven is a stupid idea. Of course thinking differently would involve people putting some thought into it and possibly changing their worldview, and that may be too much to ask of those unwilling or incapable of doing so.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

This is a classic boondoggle project thats entire premise rests on the perception that all public assistance recipients are a bunch of lazy minorities who spend every day doing drugs.

Not in my family(wife's side). These folks are white and largely alcoholics. No boondoggle. Just Boones Farm. Enjoy your day.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Improving and fixing the welfare system is a great goal. This is not the way to do it, however. It's childish and simplistic thinking that wastes taxpayer dollars.

Actually the Founding Fathers believed that Federal welfare was unconstitutional.

James Madison even believed that Federally funded schools were a subversion of what the U.S. Government was meant to do.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2903629/posts

"The Constitution allows only the means which are ‘necessary,’ not those which are merely ‘convenient,’ for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to every one, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience in some instance or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one power, as before observed" - Thomas Jefferson, 1791
Jefferson was arguing against the constitutionality of Alexander Hamilton's proposal for a National Bank, but his thoughts on other areas of Federal dabbling are obvious.

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." - Thomas Jefferson, 1798

And some later presidents:

"[I must question] the constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those … who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." - President Franklin Pierce, 1854

"I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit." - President Grover Cleveland, 1887

"We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money." - Congressman David Crockett, 1830.

All the above quotes are from this article:
http://gopcapitalist.tripod.com/constitution.html

A short article by a man for whom I have the utmost respect:
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/artic...detective.html

I believe that all public welfare and health care issues should be the provenance of the States, not the Federal Government.

[Skybird]

Governments are monopolists, monopolists in making laws that result in private property being declared public property and taking away form the former original owner ("taxes"). Like all monopolists, they have an inbuilt tendency for expansion, and must sooner or later collide with monopolists of the same type from other regions/nations. Therefore there is the tendency towards growing centralization and forming of fewer, increasingly powerful monopolists, and in the end only one monopolist will remain: the world government. Here people will have ended up in a society where they can no longer vote with their feet against their government, because this one government rules everywhere and the same law restrictions and taxes apply to everybody, everywhere. Such a state will be the implementation of the socialistic utopia, enforced by totalitarian control, not knowing private property or private responsibility, and thus demotivating against trying to improve, to do something out of initiative, to work for something better. Instead, since nobody can own anything anymore and all is public property of the collective instead, costs and deficits get socialised, nobody tries to counter that, and the society will degenerate in economic impotence, fatalism and laziness. We have seen that in the Eastern economies until the USSR collapsed. Not to own , not to produce and not to improve necessarily must be more attractive in such a society, than trying to gain something to own, to produce, to improve.

Socialism always must lead to cultural and social degeneration and political totalitarianism, since it appeals to the lowest in man, and defames and mercilessly supresses all quality that has the potential to ennoble him.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Governments are monopolists

And that's why every bit of government expansion must be fought tooth and nail even if it does cause certain Europeans to roll their eyes.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I believe that all public welfare and health care issues should be the provenance of the States, not the Federal Government.

And that's fine, and I would actually tend to agree with you. But putting an unwarranted search qualification on a social insurance program that (unlike the view of some of our mistaken posters here) requires mandatory participation is still protected by the Constitution, regardless if it's offered by the states or the Federal Government.

Everyone participates in the program. Every time money is deducted from your paycheck, or you pay property taxes or state income tax, you're paying your premiums for the social insurance. It's required by law. And that's where the "oh private employers make you take a drug test" analogy falls apart. So if you are in the position to have to make a claim on that insurance policy and apply for benefits, then why does that trigger a governmental search of your person?

It boggles my mind sometimes. They're against wasteful governmental spending, until they're not. They're against unwarranted government intrusion into your life, until they're not.

[Armistead]

Welfare isn't a right, it's a program with rules and regulations, most designed to prevent abuse, but we know the program is terribly abused.
I see no problem with drug testing as a qualifier for welfare.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

And that's fine, and I would actually tend to agree with you. But putting an unwarranted search qualification on a social insurance program that (unlike the view of some of our mistaken posters here) requires mandatory participation is still protected by the Constitution, regardless if it's offered by the states or the Federal Government.

Everyone participates in the program. Every time money is deducted from your paycheck, or you pay property taxes or state income tax, you're paying your premiums for the social insurance. It's required by law. And that's where the "oh private employers make you take a drug test" analogy falls apart. So if you are in the position to have to make a claim on that insurance policy and apply for benefits, then why does that trigger a governmental search of your person?

It boggles my mind sometimes. They're against wasteful governmental spending, until they're not. They're against unwarranted government intrusion into your life, until they're not.

Let's change the rules then. Why not, been going on for 4 years now. New rule, if you would like to participate in the welfare program you need to agree to a drug test. The other rule still stands. Everyone who takes home a paycheck pays into the welfare system. After all, one day you might need it. Welcome to the new America.