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Orrin Hatch Calls For Drug Testing Welfare Recipients



Oh yeah, we're seeing that with the Leftists, everyday.
 
MO is a lot of welfare recipients sell drugs, but don't use.


For what it's worth, I would say this is a highly unlikely scenario.
 
It MAY save enough money in the long run to cover the costs. Not sure.
.

True but drug testing is an expensive endeavor, if this ever gets onto the welfare reform table, there has to be a plan to pay for it. (granted we just nuke welfare at the federal level anyway)
 
There are a number of large holes in your idea, but to address just the monetary ones:

1) Taking kids away from their parents would be FAR more expensive that the measly $400 bucks a month welfare recipients get now.
2) Random drug testing would be FAR more expensive than the measly $400 bucks welfare recipients get now.

And that's not even addressing the obvious "humanitarian" issues.
 
Oh yeah, we're seeing that with the Leftists, everyday.

Thank you. Another post that demonstrates nothing but your partisan hackery.
 
For what it's worth, I would say this is a highly unlikely scenario.

This is what I have read, but I don't have a source. Why do you believe this to be highly unlikely. I also read they have a high death rate at a young age. If we're talking the ghetto I believe it's possible. They may use for recreation, but it's not a hardcore addiction. Many of the dealers have kids with women who are on welfare, and the women aren't hardcore users.
 

Well, you said, "MO is a lot of welfare recipients sell drugs, but don't use."
And I said I found that scenario unlikely.
I've been around a lot of poor people- have been on assistance myself, have lived in low income housing projects.
I've also been around a lot of drug users and dealers and have been a habitual user myself in the past (although not a dealer, not in any sort of systematic way).

I've never known anybody who was deep enough into the scene to be considered a "dealer" who did not use drugs recreationally, at the very least.
I've seen movies where dealers don't use drugs.
Perhaps at the very top of the drug-dealing chain, the millionaires who control the drug trade don't use drugs. They probably never even really have to see or be around drugs, if they don't want to. They can just make business deals over the phone.

But on a street level- the kind of dealers you'd find living in poverty- it's been my experience that they're all fiends and junkies, dealing to support their own habits. Sometimes what they deal is not the same as what they do- for instance, one well-known coke dealer in my city, back in the '90s, was a heroin addict. He didn't use coke, except for the occasional speedball (heroin and coke mixed together).

Now, I've known couriers who weren't drug users.
All they'd do was transport drugs to different states.
If they had been obvious drug users, they wouldn't have been entrusted with this lucrative job.

It is my opinion, however, that most street-level dealers, who actually personally handle drugs and personally deal with buyers, are in fact also drug users.
Are most of them addicts?
It depends on the drug, but- especially in the case of stimulant drugs like cocaine and meth- probably not.
Once a dealer becomes an addict, he's on a downward trajectory, and probably won't be in business too much longer.
 
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So I have to support people who have made the decision to be worthless drug users for the sake of not allowing them to be homeless?
I don't understand. Why can't we let people take responsibility for their own actions. If their actions allow them to fall into homelessness, so ****ing be it.

Explain to me again why a welfare recipient gets to sit on their ass doing drugs while I have to work hard to provide this for them?
 
I realize people don't like their tax dollars aiding drug users, but if it's recreational and occasional it's not our business.

Yes, it is our business.
Drugs are.... expensive.
Expensive things are not things welfare recipients can/should be capable of affording.

If you can afford expensive luxuries like recreational drugs, you can afford to support yourself.

The rest of us hard working Americans should not be working hard to support a bunch of loafing ass welfare recipients.

Next these welfare junkies will complain they can't get a job to get off welfare because they can't pass the drug testing to get said job.,
 

They are welfare recipients. Why should they be "recreating" anyways. Especially "recreating" with illegal and expensive drugs.

Take your recreation and go get a 2nd or 3rd job.
 
They are welfare recipients. Why should they be "recreating" anyways. Especially "recreating" with illegal and expensive drugs.

Take your recreation and go get a 2nd or 3rd job.

Welfare isn't enough to pay all the bills. If you have kids and want them to have heat and shelter, you'll work a job that pays cash to supplement the welfare you receive.

Here's a snippet from an article I found. It's from the 1990's;


To read the whole article:

The Real Welfare Problem | The American Prospect
 
2) Random drug testing would be FAR more expensive than the measly $400 bucks welfare recipients get now.

That ain't entirely true.


Intro to Employment Drug Testing for Employers and Human Resources Professionals
 
Why limit it to welfare recipients? Why not everyone who gets government money?

Why not corporate CEOs who get bailouts? Students who get student loans and grants? People who actually work for the government, from those in the military on down to the clerk at the DMV?

And how about people who get money from the government indirectly, such as through government services? Why not test everyone who wants to borrow a library book? Can't get your mail until you piss in a cup. If you use the highway, roadside test could become a common thing.

Or maybe this is just another way for politicians to attack the most helpless among us without any real concern for consistency or logic? After all, these people never vote anyway.
 

Given this statement, you are essentially saying that the state should not only drug test the parents, but children of welfare recipients as well? :shock:

What sort of 1930's nazi fantasy are you exactly proposing; one where the entire nation is required to take weekly chemical and psychological examinations?

Good luck getting that idea to fly. Besides, drug use in the US is a minor issue if we consider taxpayer liabilities regarding the war on drugs (federal state and local).
 

I think it more has to do with the logical consistency of making sure liquid assests are spent in a proper fashion. Welfare recipients are given a unique form of government assistance that relies on them to have it utilized correctly while facing significant temptations not to. There are, as your examples suggest, discrete forms of government aid that are given to different parts of society. However, only true "welfare" gives liquidity. Other forms of government help, by definition, can't be used to purchase drugs.
 

Sorry, but I don't applaud this move. Has Hatch ever heard of the Fourth Amendment?

But, if we are actually going to do this, then we should also include all the banksters, who took all the corporate welfare money the government doled out to them, on the taxpayer's dime. After all, they must have been on drugs to run their banks, not to mention our country, into the ground the way they did, so we at least have probable cause here. :mrgreen:
 
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Sorry, but I don't applaud this move. Has Hatch ever heard of the Fourth Amendment?

I don't see how to 4th amendment guards against something like this. Welfare is to be thought of as more of a benefit than a right. One which you can lose through your own actions. It should also be expanded to people who continue to have children after they've gone on welfare.
 
People who actually work for the government, from those in the military on down to the clerk at the DMV?
Uhhh.... Random drug testing is a part of the Military. I don't know how many times I was drug testing in the Army in my 4 years... probably at least 6-8.



Or maybe this is just another way for politicians to attack the most helpless among us without any real concern for consistency or logic? After all, these people never vote anyway.
Maybe the "helpless among us" should stop contributing to their own helpelessness.
 
I can agree with this. I say test them, however the drug addicts will either be sucking our money through welfare or through being in prison.
 
I can agree with this. I say test them, however the drug addicts will either be sucking our money through welfare or through being in prison.

Oh well......I have no sympathy for people who ruin their lives with drugs. They made that choice.
 
So I have to support people who have made the decision to be worthless drug users for the sake of not allowing them to be homeless?

Yes. And it's not you supporting them, it's everyone. It's not your money. It's not your bank account. Your taxes account for a minuscule percentage, so stop acting like it's draining your coffers. You pay taxes so I suggest you get over it. Not everything my taxes go towards I support, but paying taxes is not an option.

I don't understand. Why can't we let people take responsibility for their own actions. If their actions allow them to fall into homelessness, so ****ing be it.

Because the welfare of society matters more than your selfishness. You may not care about an influx of homeless people and people dying in your rich country on the streets, but I do.

Explain to me again why a welfare recipient gets to sit on their ass doing drugs while I have to work hard to provide this for them?

Do you know what addiction is and why it often is not a choice?

Punishing people for a mistake they made in starting drug use is not focusing on the now. Maybe a lot of them want to quit but it's hard. Maybe rehab hasn't worked.

I believe in helping people and not giving up on them. Sorry that your philosophy differs.
 

Oh I see, so they were forced to take drugs.
Gotcha.
:roll:
 
Oh I see, so they were forced to take drugs.
Gotcha.
:roll:

Oh I see, you are avoiding everything else in my post and honing in on the one thing you can try to be "right" with?

Please address the other points in my post so I can actually give you a weighted reply, otherwise stop wasting my time.
 
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