Tennessee had nearly 30,000 people apply for welfare and was able to deny benefits to 32 of them because of their drug use and subsequent inability to complete a state-mandated rehabilitation program. In total, only 55 people took and failed the drug test. So, they did at least get 23 people to go to and complete a drug rehab program. Of course, it cost the state $11,000 for the drug tests alone, and it doesn’t look like they saved much money by denying some children’s mothers some TANF money. Who knows how much it cost the state to administer the program.
Once again, the GOP went searching for a solution to a virtually nonexistent problem that they falsely claimed was costing taxpayers their hard-earned money, and once again they wound up costing the taxpayers more money than if they had done nothing.
The important thing, though, is fairness, and it just isn’t fair for the child of a drug user to get some temporary assistance when they should be going hungry as part of some collective punishment ethic that makes sense only to conservatives.
This is exactly like disenfranchising thousands of legitimately registered-to-vote people who don’t have a state-issued photo identification card in order to prevent one hypothetical person from casting two votes instead of one. Better to make sure you’re in charge of doling out the unfairness rather than risk that someone else might do something bad.
if you didn’t read it on dkos yesterday, go check out this story of a state doing things right, that we might not expect… Utah has decided instead of spending more on prisons they will work hard to lock up fewer people, and it sounds like the main beneficiaries (besides taxpayers) will be nonviolent drug offenders.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/06/1428422/-Utah-is-reforming-their-criminal-justice-system-an
d-it-s-amazing
the comments in that diary include a fascinating discussion of something I’d never thought about, the difference between Mormon conservatives and evangelical conservatives, which is NOT just that some evangelicals think mormonism is weird.
Agree with the comments wrt to differences between Mormons and evangelicals. In ordinary, everyday life settings, Mormons a most pleasant and ready to help others. Wouldn’t have a clue as to their religion unless they were asked to identify it. When not on their formal mission, they live the “attraction” model of religious promulgation; whereas, evangelicals practice the “promotion” model.
WRT to drug addiction, found this.
As prescription opiates have been seen to be a gateway to heroin, the Mormon religion is less protective than it once was. For many medicine = good and is unrelated to drugs which are bad. Utah still has very low rates of consumption for marijuana, cocaine, and meth, but it is next door to CO.
Classic bad science methodology; entering into research (or legislation) that starts with a foregone conclusion and can’t find a way to work itself back when the facts start arguing.
No wonder science doesn’t make sense to this mindset, it must seem bassackwards to them.
Another thing about the punitive right wing mind is that cost doesn’t factor into the equation unless or until being mean costs some multiple of being nice and the being mean costs are significant. Thus, if benefits not paid cost X and cost to administer also cost X, that’s fine with them.
$11,000 isn’t a large number for a state budget and is also a fraction of what those unpaid benefits for 32 people would cost on an annual basis. So, on this one, the cost argument for administration of drug testing is weak.
My sister remarried a fellow who earns a very good living and now she stays at home with her kids and leads a really nice life. Lately I have heard her talk about testing welfare recipients, denying additional funds to women who have more children while on assistance, etc.
She never said this BS when she was a struggling, single mom. I’m sure they have a fairly hefty tax bill–which means they are winning at life. She has taken her new found economic status as a reason to resent the “moochers her taxes support”. There is actual anger in her voice when she discusses these issues.
I have no idea how this happened. Is there some kind of camp that all newly successful people must attend that teaches them to lose all empathy and reason?
Well as a kid my mother and I were on welfare, albeit briefly, and in addition to her conservative and authoritarian nature (evangelical right wing), she talks about how she saw lots of “abuse”.
Conservative authoritarians, regardless of religion, always claim to be witnesses to the abuse of government safety net programs and charitable distributions to the needy. They’re like Republicans on alert for that one in ten million fraudulent voter. Most of what they believe they see (assuming it’s not visual hallucinations) are false positives or stories they’ve heard from others that they’ve appropriated and convinced themselves that they actually observed.
She earned her “really nice life” and when she was struggling and in need of assistance she was worthy and it wasn’t her fault that she needed help.
Empathy declines as the amount of money in one’s pocketbook increases. No special school or study course required — neighborhood class takes care of it.
I’m going to take a guess about your sister’s new empathy deficit:
She loves her husband. She has things in common with him, he’s successful, and he has a lot of baloney stuffed in his noggin about poor people sponging off his hard-earned money. She tucked his belief system into her own.
You may or may not have knowledge about whether this could or is the case. I just know that I’ve witnessed this happening to people in new relationships or new marriages.
Unneccessary, and a pity.
I don’t understand it. Of all the things we can spend money on, making sure people have housing, food, medical care, and education seem to me to be the most worthwhile.
Republicans only disagree with the we can spend money on part. Liberals/progressive (but not all Democrats) consider governments as the “we” that does the spending. Conservatives want the “we” that spends to be private charitable organizations that can evaluate the worthiness of the one seeking aid.
I never quite get why people think that the poor have more money to spend on drugs than the middle class, and therefore must be whooping it up somewhere with cocaine in one hand and oxycontin in the other.
Yes, drug trafficking often flows through poor neighborhoods – though the prescription drug abuse trend is clouding that a bit – but fundamentally, it’s the middle class who have the cash and the painkiller addiction.
Why were poor women involved in the Temperance movement? Their men had less money to spend on alcohol than middle and upper class men and therefore, may have been drinking less.
Those without substance abuse issues think of alcohol and drugs as an option after all other financial obligations and other options have been satisfied. For addicts, drug money comes off the top. For poor women, one hundred to near two hundred years ago with too many mouths to feed, many were only given whatever paycheck money their husbands had left after first satisfying their “thirst.” Prohibition didn’t work out so well, and we sort of learned that it was better not to ask questions of those seeking assistance because the potential aggregate number of “freeloaders” is small and smaller than the number of those that qualify for aid but are too proud to ask for it.
Should add that RWNJs never learned that and the Republican party found a way to exploit that ignorance with the language of “welfare queens.”
When do we get to drug-test legislators and members of Congress?
The dittoheads have been very carefully taught over decades to Kiss Up & Kick Down. That’s all this boils down to. Deflects attention from have much more massively we’re all being ripped off by the 1%, especially the corporations.
Much easier to drum up hatred for those swarthy “others” who are ruining everything for white supremacists.