House votes to let states run drug tests on food stamp applicants

[cali]

The House late Wednesday voted to give states the authority to conduct drug testing on people applying for food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

By voice vote, members approved the idea as an amendment to the farm bill that was proposed by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.). Hudson said the proposal would help ensure SNAP benefits go to needy families and children.

"If adopted, this amendment would join a list of good-government reforms contained in the farm bill to save taxpayer money and ensure integrity and accountability within our nutrition system," Hudson said.

"From preventing lottery winners from receiving food stamps, to closing loopholes and preventing illegal immigrants from receiving benefits, I commend the chairman and ranking member on the work done to reform the food stamps program in the farm bill."

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/306709-house-votes-to-let-states-run-drug-tests-on-food-stamp-applicants#ixzz2Wkw4lEe3

[Atman]

1. How's that jobs bill coming?

Assholes.

[hobbit709]

2. Notice how these clowns never want themselves tested.

[safeinOhio]

3. I demand IQ test for

Reps.

[handmade34]

5. unfortunately...

IQ does not equate to MQ

Moral Intelligence

MQ directly follows EQ as it deals with your integrity, responsibility, sympathy, and forgiveness. The way you treat yourself is the way other people will treat you. Keeping commitments, maintaining your integrity, and being honest are crucial to moral intelligence.

[LuvNewcastle]

18. I'd settle for a drug test for them.

I guarantee that plenty of them would piss rainbows.

[handmade34]

4. this...

"It costs a lot of public money just to humiliate people," she (Rep. Gwen Moore D-Wis.) said. "It'll cost $75 for one of these drug tests, and for what purpose? Just to criminalize and humiliate poor people."

"This is about demeaning poor people," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) added. "And we've been doing this time and time again on this House floor."

@##%&&*##@#$ asshole republicans!!!

[HappyMe]

7. They just love to humiliate the poor.

Vicious assholes.

[atreides1]

26. Neo-Christians

A brand new way to deal with the poor and the weak...make it easier to humiliate them! And sit by and laugh while the hungry suffer...because it's believed that if you're poor you do drugs...how else do you explain where the money went!!!

[Trillo]

6. The biggest welfare recipients are corporations, its called corporate welfare.

How does the House intend to test a corporation, a paper entity, for drug use?

[Vietnameravet]

8. Well since i know people that are on drugs and collecting food stamps and a

bunch of other government benefits, and who stubbornly refuse to work, unless there is more to this than meets the eye, I think its a good idea.
People who are on drugs and those that abuse the system need to be cut off..its unfair to the truly needy and it only give them a bad name

[Orrex]

12. No, it's a terrible idea.

For every system-abusing asshole that this idiotic policy will catch, there are dozens and dozens of honest people who will now have to prove their innocence before they can receive their monthly pittance.

And why the heck should the state starve someone's children just because that person suffers a drug addiction?


This is a program specifically intended to punish and degrade the poor. We see much greater fraud and abuse of corporate welfare, yet no one is proposing that we forcibly drug-test oil executives before we hand them their multi-billion dollar subsidies.

[MindPilot]

14. The Reagan Campaign called...

they want their stereotype back.

[JustAnotherGen]

32. It's alive and well

It never went away. Unfortunately - it never went away.

[handmade34]

17. hmmm

I must disagree with you (although I wanted to start with are you fucking kidding me??!! )

I also happen to know a few people on food stamps and "other government benefits"... a couple maybe could work?? but to drug test everybody because there are a few who abuse the system is outrageous... it is merely a way to stigmatize those less fortunate (and it cost the taxpayers much more than they would save).

I think a better way to weed out those who refuse to work, is to create honest, livable wage jobs to offer people on food stamps and "other government benefits"... then if they refuse to work we can talk about what to do about it!!

[LuvNewcastle]

19. ^^^^This^^^

Most of the people who "refuse to work" don't work because any job they get would not pay enough to support themselves and their families. Plenty of people on food stamps DO work, they just don't make enough to provide the basic necessities of life, so they're forced to get assistance. It's about survival.

[duffyduff]

21. There are something like 11.7 million unemployed and only 3.8 million jobs

You tell me where people are "refusing" to work when there is no work to be found, thanks to Washington politicians refusing to do one thing about joblessness.

[LuvNewcastle]

23. There is widespread unemployment, to be sure,

but even a lot of the people who have jobs aren't making enough to support their families. Some people don't take certain jobs -- these are people that I know -- because their benefits will be cut or eliminated. They do the math and see that they'll come out with even less money than they're already barely scraping by on. You can't blame a person in such a situation for not working. They're not being lazy, they're just trying to survive, and they'll do what they have to do until they can find something that will support their family. It's not true in all cases, but it does happen a lot. Until the government passes a higher minimum wage and more jobs are created, that is going to be the reality.

[duffyduff]

20. People on food stamps can't afford to be on drugs. "Abuse" isn't widespread.

BTW, veterans who receive veterans benefits and retirees who receive Social Security should also be subject to drug testing by your "logic."

[frylock]

25. i think that you're lying..

straight up.

[HappyMe]

35. I agree.

Flat out lies.

RW talking points straight out of the playbook.

[kestrel91316]

28. So you want hard working people struggling to make ends meet that are also on medical cannabis for,

say, nerve damage from their war wounds to go hungry?

Awesome. We need more compassionate Americans just like you.

[kestrel91316]

30. Great RW talking points there. Enjoy your stay.

[xmas74]

34. I have family who agreed with this like you do

and thought what was done in Florida was a wonderful idea-until the saw the stats.

When less than two percent of those tested were found to be using they started questioning. When my family members then read that the state had to pay millions for the tests, millions that could have been used somewhere else, and that the tests actually increased the budget instead of helped save money, they flinched. When they read that the governor, who was one of the biggest backers, made millions off of the deal because of this ties with one of the drug testing companies, they were appalled.

When you are in desperate you want to find ways to escape. That's where drugs come in. It happens, it's a fact of life. The problem is that it's been found to be a much lower percentage than anyone thought and all charged back to us, the tax payer. Personally, I'd rather take that money spent on drug testing and use it in other places, such as education or mental health.

[MattBaggins]

37. Don't go away mad

[Chan790]

9. Do I need to send them the Florida statistics?

How it cost 3000x as much to test in FY2012 as the total savings from the handful of people they were able to rescind benefits to?

For those who haven't seen the handy chart:

A logical economic argument against drug-testing welfare recipients. One state's experience, one year. (Florida, FY 2012)
Total cost of conducting drug tests: $178,000,000
Total percentage passed/failed: 98%/2%
Total savings from dismissal of benefits for cause of failed drug-tests: $60,000.

Cost benefit analysis: It cost 3000x as much to conduct the tests than the recouped benefits.

Oh and most of that $178M went into the pocket of FL Gov. Rick Scott, he owns the largest drug-testing lab used.

[rusty fender]

24. Exactly!

I always think of this study when people call for drug testing of welfare or food stamp recipients.

[sorefeet]

10. How many of these GOD DAMNED politicians

use drugs. I would like to see what kind of drugs these spineless betrayers of the American people are using. We all know that Boner is a fucking drunk and how many more of those phony assed puppets are fucking drunks who sit in session with a fucking hangover or a drunk fog from the night before making decisions that affect millions of humans. It don't have a fucking thing to do about drugs, it's the money for all the drug testing that will be paid for by the government.
Because if you test negative the government has to pay for the test and Florida has already proved that most food stamp recipients DON'T use drugs.

[tjwash]

11. Slow week in con-gress...no ignoring the jobs bill or trying to repeal healthcare this week?

[bullwinkle428]

15. Damn...I miss "Bloom County".

[davidpdx]

13. Disgusting

Leaching off the poor is what it is. I hope the Senate has the good sense to slap that down.

[spanone]

16. let's drug test congress

[jwirr]

22. Oh, those poor little babies that get food stamps. The majority of people on food stamps are

Children.

[kestrel91316]

27. So now medical cannabis patients can't get Food Stamps?

I live in such an awesome country.

[shanti]

39. It remains to be seen

If this policy will fly in states where MM has been legalized...

[Catherina]

29. They have no other pressing concerns? What a double insult n/t

[Politicub]

31. I hate these people

It's not about food to them. All they seem to accomplish is bluster and general assholery.

[MindPilot]

33. Didn't they already pass a drug test

when they got hired at Wal-Mart?


Lottery winners getting food stamps? Now there is a huuuuge problem that obviously needs some congressional action!

[treestar]

36. How does conducting drug tests save the taxpayers' money?

By the time they pay for the tests, they may as well have given the food.

[avaistheone1]

38. The house should require drug tests of bankers and Wall Street

that is where the big drug use is going down, then establish mandatory drug tests on all house members.