Soapbox

Withdrawn but Not Forgotten

    I knew it was just a matter of time.

    This week the Republicans in the Ohio government proposed a bill requiring welfare applicants to get drug tested before they can receive benefits. They of course called their proposal "protecting the taxpayer's dollar". I call it "Blind Ideologue syndrome."

   I was relieved to see the law applied only  to applicants "suspected of illicit drug use" however, I noted no explanation of what threshold would constitute "suspicion". In Florida, see, everyone who applies for welfare benefits is suspected of using that money for drugs. In Arizona and several other states, it's anyone with the misfortune to get laid off and apply for unemployment compensation (a program those unfortunate people paid into, by the way, when they were employed) And in other states the conservative majority has suggested that anyone needing food stamps to feed their kids is probably a crack head and needs to be tested.

   As in other proposals, the Ohio welfare applicant would have to pay for the drug test himself. Oh, but that's ok, see, because if they test negative, the state would reimburse them for the cost.
    How a person who is so poor that they need welfare is supposed to scrape up the $35- $40 to pay for the test is clearly irrelevant to people who are having 3 martini lunches with their lobbyist friends while getting paid by the taxpayers. But that's only one reason why this kind of bill, in every state and every iteration where it crops up, is wrong, mean and stupid.

    In the state of Florida, where Governor Rick Scott sold his state on testing all those lazy, shiftless welfare applicants, it turned out that the percentage of  applicants found to be using illegal drugs was actually slightly lower than in the general population. (Imagine that- poor people who aren't poor because they're spending all their money on drugs!!) And of course, with a 97% negative result, that left the state of Florida on the hook to pay for all those drug tests. Which means that all this violated privacy, unreasonable suspicion and guilty-until-proven-innocent stuff cost the taxpayers of the sunshine state more money, not less. And there's no reason to think that welfare recipients in Ohio are any more likely to be drug users than those in Florida.

     Ah, but if the taxpayers don't profit from these ridiculous Big Government shenanigans, someone does, whatever the results may be. That someone is the company that manufactures the drug testing kits. In the state of Florida, that meant the family of- wait for it- Governor Rick Scott. Wow. What an amazing coincidence!

    I haven't seen any suggestions that anyone in Ohio government would profit directly from enriching the drug-testing companies- though we might want to take a look at who has been having three-martini lunches with whom in the House of Representatives.  And, the Ohio bill at least went the extra step of stating that only applicants who are suspected of drug use must be tested. I doubt anyone has an issue with people being given drug tests when there is reasonable cause to think they might be using drugs, but again, the devil is in the details and in what constitutes "reasonable" suspicion.

   Ohio's drug testing bill was withdrawn a day after it was proposed, under howls of protest from a number of advocacy groups. Withdrawn, but not forgotten. Rest assured, it will be back.

   And you know how I know this? Because at the end of the day, this and other bills have nothing to do with saving the taxpayers money. If they did, they would not, time and again, be proposed by the same politicians who are so hell-bent on costing the taxpayers more money by giving huge corporate welfare to their lobbyist's bosses. If their sponsors cared about saving money, they would look at what has happened in other states and realize that the best way to save the state money on welfare and unemployment is to create new jobs!!
      No, these are bills of ideology, not fiscal responsibility.

    After all, these bills are proposed by legislators who fight every jobs bill, who want to bust unions and throw teachers and government employees out of work… and then scream because the president hasn't created enough new jobs. They are pushed through state houses despite their dubious constitutionality and proven track record of costing more money by the same people who want to defund Planned Parenthood and deny low income women access to prenatal care…. and then claim to be pro-life. The ones who want to deny kids truthful sex education and deny women access to birth control… and then lament that there are so many babies born out of wedlock.

   It's not about money. It's not about people. It's about political ideology, about making your bones in the "fiscal conservative" club as a "pro-life family values guy" and a "trim the fat" Republican. And if the actual effect of your legislation is the complete opposite of what you claim to be trying to accomplish with it… just shout really loudly about something else and hope nobody notices. Chances are, they'll be watching the season finale of "Survivor", and won't.