Drug testing welfare recipients

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how about instead of criminalizing those that need help, we investigate the causes of poverty and try to address those?

we have investigated the causes of poverty for hundreds of years. here is an idea, get married, don't have kids until you are married, and graduate from high school. sound hard? do those three things and you will not be poor.

That analysis is so smug and simplistic as to be idiotic.

Personally I think if we are going to drug test TANF recipients we should drug test the executives of any company that takes state or federal tax dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how about instead of criminalizing those that need help, we investigate the causes of poverty and try to address those?

we have investigated the causes of poverty for hundreds of years. here is an idea, get married, don't have kids until you are married, and graduate from high school. sound hard? do those three things and you will not be poor.

That analysis is so smug and simplistic as to be idiotic.

Personally I think if we are going to drug test TANF recipients we should drug test the executives of any company that takes state or federal tax dollars.

so you deny that married couples who graduate high school, and wait until marriage to have kids, have very little chance to be poor? do you think any of those three things are especially hard to achieve? of course it is simple, that is the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how about instead of criminalizing those that need help, we investigate the causes of poverty and try to address those?

we have investigated the causes of poverty for hundreds of years. here is an idea, get married, don't have kids until you are married, and graduate from high school. sound hard? do those three things and you will not be poor.

That analysis is so smug and simplistic as to be idiotic.

Personally I think if we are going to drug test TANF recipients we should drug test the executives of any company that takes state or federal tax dollars.

so you deny that married couples who graduate high school, and wait until marriage to have kids, have very little chance to be poor? do you think any of those three things are especially hard to achieve? of course it is simple, that is the point.

6% of married families are poor. Most of them are high school graduates and didn't have kids until after they were out of school. I don't think that's "very little chance". On top of it, poverty is itself typically a barrier to getting married. Few people want to marry a guy whose income is below the poverty level. So there is a selection problem in your criteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how about instead of criminalizing those that need help, we investigate the causes of poverty and try to address those?

we have investigated the causes of poverty for hundreds of years. here is an idea, get married, don't have kids until you are married, and graduate from high school. sound hard? do those three things and you will not be poor.

It's obvious from this (and your followup response that married couples who have graduated high school have very little chance to be poor) that you haven't read any such studies yourself.

The lowest poverty and divorce rates are actually reported for couples who married after completing college. There are no awesome stats just for graduating high school.

[Anonymous]

deny if you like, but look up the statistics for all three criteria - don't have kids until you get married, get married, and graduate from high school. compare that to people from similar backgrounds who don't follow the three steps, and the difference in poverty level is huge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:how about instead of criminalizing those that need help, we investigate the causes of poverty and try to address those?

we have investigated the causes of poverty for hundreds of years. here is an idea, get married, don't have kids until you are married, and graduate from high school. sound hard? do those three things and you will not be poor.

hundrends of years?
Last I checked it was not that long ago that there were slaves.
Come to think of it, why are their descendants the ones more likely to suffer from poverty? Has nobody thought of paying reparations, or even improving the ghetto schools?
Now that I am thinking about it, why does DC not have the best public schools in the country?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:deny if you like, but look up the statistics for all three criteria - don't have kids until you get married, get married, and graduate from high school. compare that to people from similar backgrounds who don't follow the three steps, and the difference in poverty level is huge.

I do not know where you get your statistics from. But families are vulnerable to illness, disease, unemployment, disability, death etc. Marriage is no magical bullet. Some marriages have domestic violence, problems with alchohol, unemployed spouses, disabled spouces, some even declare bankrupcy

Or is someone suggesting that only married people could get welfare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:deny if you like, but look up the statistics for all three criteria - don't have kids until you get married, get married, and graduate from high school. compare that to people from similar backgrounds who don't follow the three steps, and the difference in poverty level is huge.

I do not know where you get your statistics from. But families are vulnerable to illness, disease, unemployment, disability, death etc. Marriage is no magical bullet. Some marriages have domestic violence, problems with alchohol, unemployed spouses, disabled spouces, some even declare bankrupcy

Or is someone suggesting that only married people could get welfare

of course there are problems in marriage, but financially it is a difference maker -especially with respect to african americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:deny if you like, but look up the statistics for all three criteria - don't have kids until you get married, get married, and graduate from high school. compare that to people from similar backgrounds who don't follow the three steps, and the difference in poverty level is huge.

That's great, but there are still millions of people who fit that and are still poor. And millions more who are single and poor without kids. So while waiting until you are married and stable to have kids is a good bit of advice, it is not a cure for poverty. And therefore your observation is not proof that poverty is solely the result of bad family planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:deny if you like, but look up the statistics for all three criteria - don't have kids until you get married, get married, and graduate from high school. compare that to people from similar backgrounds who don't follow the three steps, and the difference in poverty level is huge.

That's great, but there are still millions of people who fit that and are still poor. And millions more who are single and poor without kids. So while waiting until you are married and stable to have kids is a good bit of advice, it is not a cure for poverty. And therefore your observation is not proof that poverty is solely the result of bad family planning.

I think we are talking about some rich mans morals.
i.e. the stupid suffer so they must deserve it.

Don't do to others what you do not want done to you. i.e. it is enough you do not do bad. Not do unto others, i.e. you must do something good.
What I do not get is how some large corporations that employ low income wage earners get away with not giving their workers things like health insurance, overtime pay etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:...
What I do not get is how some large corporations that employ low income wage earners get away with not giving their workers things like health insurance, overtime pay etc.

Their contributions to politicians pay off.

[Anonymous]

This is America. The government only has the right to search you when they have a reasonable suspicion that you have broken the law.

Honest citizens do not need to surrender their rights under the Constitution just because you feel entitled to be their nanny.

Unemployment is insurance that working people and companies pay to provide support of they lose their jobs. Your money covers them only in the same sense that your homeowner's insurance premiums pay to rebuild your neighbor's home when it burns down in a fire.

Unemployment compensation is not "the dole". It is not a permanent lifestyle. There are limits on the duration of an unemployment claim as well as a lifetime limit. Excepting the current crisis, unemployment claims have averaged 15 weeks.

[Anonymous]

One simple reason - it would be a total waste of resources. Can you imagine the fleet of people that it would take to conduct random drug tests not to mention the additional cost of monitoring the test takers themselves to make sure that they do take bribes or just not do their job in the first place. BTW, don't even suggest planned testing bc you and I both know that these do not work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:deny if you like, but look up the statistics for all three criteria - don't have kids until you get married, get married, and graduate from high school. compare that to people from similar backgrounds who don't follow the three steps, and the difference in poverty level is huge.

OK
Lets refuse to give welfare and aid to people who are married. Those do not need it

[Anonymous]

I'd also like to know what kind of "welfare" we are talking about. Housing assistance? Food stamps? Medicaid?

If a parent is using drugs, how does cutting off their housing and food help their kids?

The article I read recently said each participant would need to come up with the $40 for their test. $40!?! I wonder if the laboratory corporations had anything to do with this legislation.

It's bullshit!