Peeing for welfare
by Joshua • Dec 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 pm • 13 comments
Today I talked to my cousin Brent, a no-nonsense former Marine with a generally conservative perspective. We had a spirited political discussion, where we both tossed out some unconventional ideas. I told him I’d post one of them on the blog and send him your reactions, so please react.
Brent thinks that anyone on welfare who wants to keep getting a welfare check should have to consent to a drug test, and random future drug tests. He is confident the cost savings would pay for the testing several times over. It would reduce drug use in the ghettos and keep some tax payer dollars from going to drug dealers.
Comment by Melissa on 22 December 2008 at 7:39 pm:
This suggestion is too ignorant to warrant a response. Your cousin obviously knows nothing about welfare, ghettos or drug abuse.
Comment by kofi the pass to the left on 22 December 2008 at 8:17 pm:
Melissa – WTF? Seriously. I can think of nothing more ignorant and narrow minded that such an immediate unthinking dismissal of an idea. Not atypical of liberals, but still surprising. If Brent’s apparent hunch is wrong, if he truly is ignorant, why oppose the initiative? And if the testing exposed a real problem, wouldn’t that be a good thing?
In other news, George Bush is a class act (as opposed to Illinois state democrats).
Comment by Kevin on 22 December 2008 at 9:11 pm:
Melissa, that was a well thought-out response that really highlighted the inadequacies of Brent’s proposed plan. I was able to really grasp your comprehensive knowledge of welfare, ghettos, and drug abuse, and see now that “peeing for welfare” is facially unworkable. Keep up the great work.
Comment by Ryan on 22 December 2008 at 10:44 pm:
Melissa’s response is typical of a liberal. Shoot down the idea as ignorant, or they call it racist. Deep down she knows it will reduce welfare which in turn, will reduce the size of government. The Liberals can’t handle having lower taxes, so they dismiss all logic and reasoning. Good job, Melissa, lets just keep paying the way for the deadbeats of the world.
Comment by Segen on 22 December 2008 at 11:26 pm:
does this mean we have to drug test anyone receiving government assistance? how ’bout asking wall street and detroit to piss in a cup…see what turns up.
Comment by chrism on 22 December 2008 at 11:33 pm:
I think the difference is that Wall Street and Detroit actually contribute something to society.
Comment by kofi the waiting for tom explain to us how urinating in plastic cups will cause a run on polyurethane that will disable the economy and lead to a violent depression the only solution to which is communal living on 23 December 2008 at 1:09 am:
Detroit and Wall Street? Most conservatives or libertarians won’t defend the bailout of those disasters, so I fail to see the relevancy of your argument, Segen. As for whatever tangentil parallelism there may be, many employers drug test employees, and those employees earn their wage. Why should the standard for sitting on your ass and collecting a check be any less stringent?
Comment by Joshua on 23 December 2008 at 8:43 am:
BTW, this “Melissa” is not the Melissa many of you know who occasionally comments here.
As to the race issue, there are a whole lot of whiteys sitting around collecting a check too. The ratio of black to white on welfare may be higher than the general population, but I think the total # of whites on welfare is higher, and I have no reason to think that one racial group receiving welfare more likely to be using drugs/ smoking pot, than any other.
Anyone have data on this?
Comment by Joshua on 23 December 2008 at 9:32 am:
One argument another family member of mine made when I mentioned this idea was that there tends to be a staggering lack of ambition in the ghetto and marijuana is a grade-A ambition inhibitor.
One argument I would make against this, is that children suffer unnecessarily when their parents lose their checks.
Comment by Brandon on 23 December 2008 at 9:41 am:
I got food stamps for a few months once. I’m a social parasite and should probably go jump off a cliff in contrition.
Comment by chrism on 23 December 2008 at 9:54 am:
Brandon, I don’t see where anyone here said people on welfare should go jump off cliffs; this would simply require you to pee in a cup to collect a check. I don’t think we’re arguing the viability of welfare as a whole, we’re only talking about a way to regulate it. Josh, I think the children suffer as it is, whether their parents have checks or not. Living in the ghetto is bad enough, and children are simply extremely likely to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Maybe if the parents have incentive to clean up their acts, the kids will be better off in the long run after a few months of really hard times.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 23 December 2008 at 10:16 am:
Wow, for once it looks like I’m going to be the most reasonable person commenting on a topic. This blog is sounding like a Bill O’Reilly-Keith Olberman cage match.
First of all, what do you mean by welfare, anyway? Are you talking about Social Security? How about Aid to Dependent Children? Food Stamps? Medicaid? Federal Bailout of Banks? Student Loans? There is a plethora of government programs designed to move money from the producing sector to the receiving sector and I imagine the specific program would change the opinions of many commentors.
Secondly, we need to examine the purpose of “welfare” before we can go any further. Is it designed to be a required charity–a way of dealing with the poor that the system seems to ignore? Is it a bribe to keep the inner cities from being burned down in frustration? Is it a safety net designed as an interim mechanism to enable those who’ve had a bit of bad luck to get back up on their feet again?
Joshua is right in that marijuana has a tendency to make you both stupid and lazy over the long term. On the other hand, amphetamines cause your production output to skyrocket, alcohol allows you to put up with lousy, high-pressure jobs like policing for years, and cigarettes and caffeine enable people with ADHD to function on a day-to-day basis. A person who gets a regular dose of methadone or heroin is indistinguishable from the man-on-the-street.
Personally, I figure the best way to solve the drug problem is to legalize them and then make citizens responsible for not being “unfit for duty.” This is the US Navy’s policy, for example. For some people, marijuana is a lot less dangerous than alcohol (speaking in this case of alcoholics with no cross-over addiction for weed).
Now, in an ideal world, there would be no welfare. The government would have minimal taxes, so the number of poor who have their checks stolen would be trivial, businesses would prosper, and there would be ponies and cookies for everyone.
We live in a far from ideal world, however. If the purpose of welfare is to provide a safety net–and this purpose has been shown to be beneficial in our current financial state, then anything which impedes this distribution is wrong. (Compare the photos of the last Great Depression to this one–government interference in guaranteeing deposits, unemployment insurance, and food stamps and medicaid have kept us from having bread lines and has been so effective that people like Bambinek are still convinced there isn’t a real depression.)
If the money is designed to provide a transition between jobs lost for no personal fault, then a drug test would be ludicrous. The individual was shown to have been capable of holding a previous job in whatever moral state they live in. I doubt that there are too many drug-using job applicants who couldn’t stop using drugs long enough to get a new one, therefore they wouldn’t be smoking dope or smoking crack anyway and it would be a waste of the taxpayers’ money and find nothing.
In other words, this proposed program is just another way to intrude on individuals’ personal lives and spend the money the government has stolen from me.
Comment by Brandon on 23 December 2008 at 11:57 am:
Wow Tom. That was amazing. I’m speechless.