Drug Testing Welfare Recipents

Bingo Bango Whisky Tango

Imagine what 3,297,500 teachers could do. They could do so much good for so many little kids, future lawyers, doctors, and politicians. A great teacher may even inspire of those children to be the next president of the United States. That giant number of 3 million plus teachers is what we could hire if the government wasn’t spending 131.9 billion dollars being spent on welfare that we could statistically be saving if we were drug testing welfare recipients. That number also doesn’t include people getting food stamps, or the people who qualify for unemployment. Or, we spent that money on the future we could send over 6 million students through public colleges to improve our economy, and stimulate innovation. All welfare recipients should have to undergo drug testing before receiving any sort of help financial from the government. There is one big issue that brings up a lot of controversy on this topic and it is that the drug testing of welfare recipients is a violation of privacy and that it is unconstitutional. People are saying that the government shouldn’t be that intrusive on their lives, and that it is none of the governments business. People say that it is a violation of the fourth amendment that states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (US History) Which so this is saying is “which protects citizens against unreasonable government search and seizure, and requires a warrant for all searches that aren’t supported by probable cause.” People on the other side of this issue say, “If I have to pass a drug test to earn money at my job, why shouldn’t they have to pass one to receive taxpayer dollars from the government? That can just be simply rebutted by pointing out that some people work for a corporation, which is a privately owned company, and not subject to Fourth Amendment limitations. The government, however, is not a corporation, and does have to abide by the Fourth Amendment. But to me in this case the government could be considered a corporation in this sense because a corporation’s job is to make a profit. But the government is giving people money and their job is to turn themselves around and get a job. Which would be benefiting the government in the sense that they would have to pay taxes, plus that would stimulation the economy. One more person at work means that the government would be receiving more tax dollars. There are also a lot of people who think that a drug testing welfare recipient promotes a stereotype when it doesn’t. Not many people just say that person is poor so they do drugs. I think the point of welfare is to give people money to live on. People should get the things they need for them and their families to survive, and not to spend money on things that aren’t necessities like drugs, and alcohol. But the fact is that if people get drug tested before working its not going to hurt someone who is basically being given free money. Members of our military are regularly drug tested. Drug testing does not promote a stereotype, it just help the government control what needs to happen to taxpayer dollars. Drug testing will reveal recipients who are wasting taxpayers’ money on drugs. In Utah they are making drug testing mandatory. They believe that 5 to 10 percent of the people who are receiving welfare will fail the test. ( Mckitrick ) They have 21,800 people on welfare. (Statemaster) If only lets say 5 percent of those people fail that would be total of 1090 people who failed the test. The average amount of money a family receives a month is about $503 dollars. (Fredman) That would save $548,270 a month and $6,579,240 a year just alone in the state of Utah, and that is only on the low end of the scale. If we go to the higher end of the scale at 10 percent, that would be $1,096,540 a month and $13,158,480 a year. If cannabis goes for $1,200 a pound that could easily look to be 10,965 pounds of the illegal substance. That’s only factoring in marijuana, there are several other drugs that that haven’t been taken into account. That is still in the state of Utah alone, which is one of the lowest states in the list of welfare recipients. In California, which is the state with the largest number of welfare recipients, with 1,085,627 people, if 5 percent were disqualified, it would be 54,281 people (49 times the amount of people in Utah). That would save the state $27,303,343 in a single month. It would save $327,640,116 in a single year just for the state of California. That money could be going to 400,000 people who applied for financial aid in college in the last year. In the winter of 2006 Chris Riddell and Rosemarie Riddell released an article in The Journal of Human Resources where they went St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver and figured out how many people were admitted into hospitals after they received their welfare checks on what was known as, “Welfare Wednesdays” which was the last Wednesday of every month. They also recorded the people that came into the hospital on these days and the number of people who were receiving welfare from the government. They figured out that on “Welfare Wednesdays” and the next couple of days after that the admission of welfare recipients because of drug related issues skyrocketed. The week before on a normal Friday they had 3 people admitted into the hospital, on “Welfare Wednesday” they had 12 people admitted and up to 16 on “Welfare Saturday” this is a prime example that we do have people who spend their government welfare checks on other things than necessities, people are spending it on drugs and alcohol. Not everyone but there is a big portion of people who are not using it wisely which is part of the reason why this should be looked at more than it has been. Drug testing will require recipients to stay drug free. In the long run, this could make them more employable, and motivate them to return to work. Most jobs require a drug test. Even such a small job as working at McDonalds, barista at Starbucks, and even stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart requires a drug test. One fact that keeps popping up everywhere in the job market is you are required to pass a drug test to get work even with the smallest of jobs. People who do drugs are normally less stable than the average sober American. David Vitters article helps support this when he states “One provision in every renewed welfare reform effort should be to require recipients to undergo random drug tests as a condition of receiving benefits. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported in 2007 that approximately 20 percent of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients reported having used an illicit drug at least once in the past year, and at least 5 percent admitted that they had a substance addiction.” (Vitter 14-14) David also says “Requiring screenings would give addicts a key incentive to seek help so that they can once again be healthy, support their own families, and make positive contributions to our society. Screenings would identify cases of dependency and would be paired with treatment programs to directly address the single biggest problem in their lives.” Passing a bill like this could minimize the purchase of illegal drugs, making our society a safer place for all of our children and us. By doing this, we could be taking out a huge chunk of drug dealers profits, because people on welfare would have to find another way to get money for their drugs. Taking away that could make the amount of drug dealers smaller because less of them could stay in business. Doing this would make it a safer place for all of our children and us, because the number of cases of drug related violence, drug dealing to not make for a safe environment for everyone. “The FBI says there is one drug related arrest every 19 seconds, making that 1.6 million narcotics arrest last year alone.” (Smith) “Even the strongest supporters of welfare would have to agree that government programs should not encourage lifelong dependency, but should instead provide a limited safety net that still encourages people to return to a self-sufficient way of life. Of course there's a second reason to do this--our responsibility to the taxpayer. Every welfare dollar that goes toward one recipient's drug habit is one less dollar that goes toward a child in need or a family that would spend that money on real needs.” (Vitter 14-14) Another big thing about this topic is that paying for every person to get drug tested would be big financial gamble, and that it would cost way too much money. Derek Newton, Communications Director of American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said, “Many states are considering following Florida’s example, and the new data from the state shows they shouldn’t… Not only is it unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy, but it doesn’t save money, as was proposed.” ( LIZETTE) But I believe that if we have the 2.6 percent of the people fail their drug test (continuing from the numbers that Florida collected) 15,000,000 people on welfare would be about 3,450,000 people would fail. If each one of those people is given the $503 dollars a month we take that and multiply them together we get $1,735,350,000 dollars of total savings if each drug test roughly cost $20 we could buy 86,767,500 drug test that’s 5.7 times more than the number of people we have on welfare as of right now. We could have each person tested once every 4 months and still have enough left over for some of the people. So that would still be saving us money. Even if we went to an extremely high number for each test, lets say $50 per test we could still buy 34,707,000 tests and that’s a little more than 2 times the amount of people that we have. This could easily be saving us money in the long run. If we make our recipients pay for the test themselves it would only save us even more money. I am sure you are thinking, “Why in the hell would we make people with financial problems buy their own test?” but I have your answer. Would you rather have to spend an extra 20 bucks and get around $500 dollars a month about $6,000 dollars a year or not have anything at all and still have a very hard time financially? I feel like a bunch of people would find it ok just because of the amount of money they are getting back. Plus we could always give those in extreme cases a little more help than we would other people.
People who are trying to get financial help from the government should undergo a series of drug tests that helps ensure that the taxpayers’ money isn’t being spent on alcohol or illegal drugs. Overall it could help society as a whole by minimizing the amount of public funds being used to purchase of illegal drugs. In Florida 2.6% of welfare recipients failed their drug test, which seems like a small number with only 108 failing, but if we make that the percentage that goes throughout our nation 3,450,000 of the 15,000,000 would fail. The first test was small, but if we make this a bigger sample we might have an even higher number, which of course will save us only more money. Narrowing down the number of recipients to those who legitimately need and deserve aid would help save the taxpayers’ money, and as a society, we could redirect those funds to more productive programs, like hiring teachers, supplying low interest student loans, and countless other programs that benefit all of us. “America is facing a national debt of more than $14 trillion. We simply can't afford for government agencies to be careless in how they spend our tax dollars. And with potentially billions of dollars of welfare funds ending up in the wrong places or being spent on illegal drugs, the least we can do is make sure that money is going where it's actually supposed to go. No one doubts that many of our fellow Americans is facing some incredible challenges. With an economy on life support, debt at crisis levels, and a staggering number of unemployed, we must all collectively do a better job of helping our neighbors in need and being good stewards with limited means. Common-sense welfare reform, including drug testing for recipients, is a vital step in the right direction.” (Vitter 14-14)