Our lab bid on a contract for state testing when Florida (yeah I know) started testing welfare recipients for drugs. We bid them at an excellent rate, based on our own internal metrics that low-income people in FL (determined by insurance payor type) tested dirty at a rate approximately half that of the normal population so our costs would be quite low. (It’s very cheap to do the reagent-based screening test; somewhat more expensive to use GC-MS for positive confirmations.)
One of our internal beancounters played around with the numbers and came to the conclusion that the testing would cost the state a lot more than they would save by denying benefits to drug users, even excluding legal fees and drug treatment programs. And indeed, that’s exactly what happened. When they evaluated after the first few months, the state came to the same conclusion, and they quietly abandoned the program.
Because it’s not a double standard. Its not the governments money. That’s why nobody will take her point seriously other than people who agree with her politics of distribution of wealth. It gets back to the old Elizabeth warren argument of “you didn’t build that”, which I don’t ascribe to and neither do a lot of other people. The majority of boing boing readers lean more to that warren spectrum of thinking while others don’t.
I didn’t miss the “point”, I just don’t agree with the thinking behind what she feels like she is pointing out. I don’t believe all people asking for welfare are drug abusers. Nor do I berate a homeless person when I give him money on how he intends to use it. But I can see where other people might have that concern.
Again, I was answering the persons question of “what’s she trying to accomplish”. Of which the answer was “not much, she’s just trying to be clever”. Most of the politicians on the opposite side who work with her already know how she feels about the topic and they probably don’t care. It’s just for her and the people here who agree with her politics that it’s intended for.
But the problem goes beyond the fact that it’s a hideous waste of money. What happens to those people who cease to receive welfare because they fail a drug test? They learn their lesson and become productive citizens, right?
I’d be willing to wager thousands of dollars that it costs more to stop giving someone using drugs welfare than to continue to do so. It would probably cost even less to give the more money than we do.
Again, you obviously didn’t read anything of what I wrote. I get the point. I just don’t agree with it. Please learn to understand the difference between the two.
I’ve got an even better idea. How about we don’t fucking drug test anyone.
“Most of the trouble in the world has been caused by ten to twenty percent of folks who can’t mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus.”
-William Burroughs
I’m going to say anyone who thinks they have any business drug-testing anyone else falls pretty squarely in this group.
So you think that someone who owns a factory actually did build the roads leading to it, and actually did pay to educate the factory’s workers, and actually did pay for the local fire and police forces?
Are you high?
Again, she’s not just trying to “be clever.” She’s performing a public service for ordinary people, like Warren did. The rich escape inconveniences (like taxes) and indignities (like peeing in a cup) that they subject the rest of us to, and they subject the rest of us to it by buying politicians who enact policies that often benefit the rich instead of us.
I’m not interested in getting into a lengthy debate of the chicken or egg philosophy about government vs capatilism and private industry, particularly when people like yourself tend to fall into 8th grade insults like “are you high?”
All I did was answer the question someone asked with a simple direct response regarding the reality of what the accomplishment was of introducing a bill for the sake of irony. And people derail that into lengthy discussions that I don’t care to dive into. Or they just insult someone who happens to disagree with their political view and philosophy by asking them if they’re high.
Sorry, but I’m not interested in convincing you about why I think someone’s money is their own and not the governments, or why I think Elizabeth Warren is a misguided socialist.
But if you’re a factory owner, you’re using roads and educated people and local fire and police forces that are not your own. Do you really think the factory owner should not be taxed to help pay for those services?
I still think a person would have to be high (or maybe an eighth-grader) to think that it’s okay for a factory owner to not pay taxes “because their money is their own and not the government’s,” and then use public services that others paid for through taxes. Seriously, why do you think the factory owner should get handouts for free like that?
AAAARRRGGHH. I’m not arguing against taxation. But none of those roads or schools or anything would have been built without taxing someone else’s income or using tools and systems created by other industries. The government can’t function without those taxes or those industries. And I never claimed a company “owns” an employee. An employees education and experience can come from sources other than government. And if it did come from public schooling, then the money used to educate that individual still came from money collected by the government from someone else.
Again, I’m not here to go back and forth on this. I was pointing out whether or not the bill introduced served to accomplish anything other than “making a point”. In the political realm it truly doesn’t other than to provide lip service to constituents who already believe in the same political philosophy and to shore up that politicians quest for votes. Both sides of politicians do this all the time knowing that the bill isn’t likely to pass or succeed.
