Orrin Hatch: Drug Test The Unemployed
 

Utah voters have reacted enthusiastically to Sen. Orrin Hatch's legislation to drug test the unemployed and those receiving other forms of government cash assistance, the Utah Republican told the Huffington Post after introducing his measure last week.

"A lot of people are saying, 'Hey, it's about time. Why do we keep giving money to people who are going to go use it on drugs instead of their families?'" Hatch said.

Story here...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_620908.html

Do we get to drug test senators and congressmen too?

How about bankers and CEOs that have received government aid and bailouts?

Talk about adding insult to injury

From an economic standpoint, who cares if people use it to buy drugs. The point of unemployment benefits is to keep that money flowing into the economy. Drug money is eventually used to purchase legitimate goods and services which are taxed.

You are entitled to those unemployment benefits, who cares what you spend it on.

Not to mention, is that really a huge issue anyway. Why the fuck does he even care about a small percentage of people who buy drugs with their unemployment benefits. Most of that money is spent on food and rent I'm sure. The number of people blowing it all on drugs must be less than 1%.

If you give someone a handout, don't expect anything in return.

I would rather do something about baby factories creating more baby factories. Not to mention, who gives a shit about recreational drug use... there are more important things.

Once again the party that claims they want govt out of peoples lives wants to pass laws for more govt intrusion. Fucking hypocrites.

congrats to all the winners.

:thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...on.html?cat=62

It Seems that Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch Might Have Big Money Reasons to Sponsor a Drug Testing Amendment to the 2010 Unemployment Extension Bill

His ties to big pharma are long established.

That's one thing that I would fully support.

I get sick and tired of seeing some bitch in a Lexus paying for her shrimps and steaks with her Welfare debit card...when you know she's been puffing on a blunt in the past 24 hours.

Yeah...in NYS they don't even have to bother getting the check and cashing it in an actual bank.

Hatch must not have gotten the memo that the drugs and booze are exactly what keep the serfs happy to sell their labor so cheaply to his corporatist cronies.

Nice find. Hatch is a douche.

Yeah, I agree about the recreational use, but if these welfare moms are hittin' the pipe or the needle they shouldn't be getting these benefits and their kids should be taken from them.

Funny I thought unemployment benifits were to get you by untill you found another job? They were never intended to be extended so many times.

Maybe a person should get back what they pay in, thats it?

Another "Entitlement" Me, Me, Me!

Someone has to pay!!!

thats pretty standard now I believe, shit dude, Ive seen welfare moms ordering gas station chicken with the food stamp cards down here LOL

just swipe it and go.

yes gas stations sell fried chicken here and they take the food stamp cards... :1orglaugh

I live in the hood. I asked the girl at the grocery store the percentage of people that pay each day with cash vs welfare benefits. She said that would put it at around 80% paying with gov't assistance.

Stand in line for a few minutes and you can see more than one person abusing the system.

I am against drug testing in general. How many people are unemployed because their employers drug test people who are quality workers but because they smoke weed or do some coke, they are unemployable..

The problem is these crackheads don't feed their kids with that money or use it to pay bills. They use what little income they get on drugs, then use WIC, food stamps and any other gov't funding to get what's actually needed to live.

I say test them.

My favorite are the ones with "Child Care Assistance" but have iPhone and Coach Purse - yes, our government pays peoples child care bills to. Can't afford that babysitter? No prob, big gov will pay it!

meanwhile, mom has a $400 coach purse and a $120/mo phone plan. (have seen it in person)

Did you guys actually read the article? They wrote it cleverly, and did a nice job of twisting it, but they are not actually talking about unemployment insurance, they are talking about food stamps and welfare.

Big difference IMHO


.

Do you think the government should interfere further in peoples lives by drug testing anyone on welfare or receiving food stamps?

fuck yea! i say test them. if you want free money, and are unemployed, stay the fuck off the drugs and focus on getting a job!

as for drug testing bankers, CEOs and senators... im all for that too! i dont want a bunch of coked up fuck monkeys running this country! oh wait, that was the last president!

Well, at least you''re even-handed about it all. :thumbsup

ive read time and time again of senators and politicians literally being buzzed from alcohol going in to vote on bills etc, how many of these politicians go have drinks during every break they take? many do, they are all on drugs, alcohol is one of the worst drugs affecting our society. Shit Cheney was buzzed and needed to slam vodka after shooting his hunting buddy! he slammed shots waiting for ambulance

as a non drinker it takes someone quitting to see it. the fact that alcoholics run our country scares the hell out of me, and they charge the bill to us. we buy these fucks drinks every day.

I have often thought about this when I see the drug cartel busts where the mansion is packed full of millions and millions of US currency. It makes me wonder how much of the funds from drug sales stays in circulation.

Nice AC link. I wonder how much $$$ the author makes from those articles at AC. Definitely digg-worthy viral pieces.

I'm all for it... as long as they also drug test Senators. ;)

I think the solution is to spread anti-smoking and anti-drug messages.

No win situation in my opinion......

If you test, some casual users will suffer and junkies will resort to more criminal acts to support their habits.

If you don't test, those unemployment benefit funds used to support drug habits will continue to be diverted by drug users to drug lords in Columbia, Mexico, Afghanistan, etc.

You can only buy so many solid gold guns! :thumbsup

If you get welfare, food stamps, WIC, etc.. you should have to pass a piss test.

A lot of jobs require one. There's no reason the gov't shouldn't for a handout.

He is a stupid ass hat.

I can see this for people getting welfare, but not unemployment. That's something they have already paid into.

Think of the family with a parent that smokes marijuana recreationally. Why should the children be punished, or the spouse by having their emergency benefits taken from them? The economy is suffering and we're experiencing high unemployment rates. This is just kicking people even more while they're already down. It's about keeping them down, and giving money to Big Pharm. That doesn't give people jobs or help the economy. Most of these politicans are wealthy and don't understand, have forgotten what it's like, or just don't give a damn about the average person.

who cares if they use the money for drugs? umm, the tax payers should. ( should be their drug money )

legalize marijuana, and then yes, punish other unemployed for their other habits. unemployment benefits and welfare are a privilege, we should have guidelines for these things that promote people getting back on the work horse.

hell, reform immigration same time and we lots of fun jobs for these drug addicts to do. 8 hours a day weed whacking and now you can go home to your meth habit.

let them work 1 unpaid day a month, where proceeds goto their own health insurance package from the government and we've fixed this too.

and welfare cases need to get limits to their welfare, or we need to setup work camps for these people. want the gubment cheese? get in the gubment cheese mill.

just another republican morality play.

drug testing itself would cost equal or more than the savings of booting addicts off the dole. The test could likely get beat unless the govt wants to spend big money on the most accurate test.

its hard enough for the govt just to cut checks. how many times have they passed extensions this year? Good luck running an efficient drug screen.

some people may not like the dole going to the pusher. But some people dont like their money spent on needless wars, bonuses to AIG fat cats, etc.

Probably the best solution is for unemployed people to grow pot & sell it. That would save the govt billions. :2 cents:

I know, the horrors of putting some conditions on free money!

The good ole days of government handouts to buy drugs will be fading. That's an important piece of Americana that ogres like Hatch will be squashing.

Those meanie Republicans!!

:thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

It's popular to assume that it's people who won't work, but that's not the case. Many people who have worked their entire life are unemployed. Not because they fell off the work horse, but a poor economy. Almost 3 million people lost their jobs in 2008. In May, the number of unemployed stands around 15 million. It's not because they don't want to work. There aren't enough jobs for 15 million people to have.

So the people that are getting all these handouts should be able to spend them on drugs and not use them for what they are intended for which is to feed and cloth their children?

Fuck i figure i have paid in about 6 mill in taxes over the last decade alone and i wonder how much of that went into the crack pipes of a bunch of lazy good for nothing n1gger, spics and white trash leeches.

whatever tubbo.

That's not really what he said at all, but spin on!

You paid $6 million in taxes over the past ten years huh?

Yeah, I believe that too!

yep, piss tests are easily passed, as they are every single day by truck drivers, teachers, doctors etc... LOL

hair and blood tests cost from $150 to $300 a person not counting all the other fees gov woiuld tack on, this would cost a hell of alot of money to test everyone who collects some form of handout. Also, once they fail, there would be mandatory re-testing and monitoring, this would make the cost of each person well over $1k or more and Im sure theyd find more things to charge for and it would be even more. The facilities, the mployees, the tests, we are talking about an entire new gov arm LOL

Oh I get that aspect of it, unfortunate affect of a horrid economy sure.

Like I said though, legalize Marijuana ( probably the least damaging drug overall, and one that really should be legal, by comparison to what is legal and has same effects, tobacco and alcohol )

Now, that should eliminate this idea that the people on unemployment would be punished for a benign drug use, and through the right kind of legalization process, add taxable income to every state, and even federal.

However, if people think we should be pitying people who are unemployed but somehow have the disposable income for higher priced drugs, or ones that would severely incapacitate someone, thats semi flawed.

Is it wrong to have systems in place that try to encourage people to work? I'm not saying they will have work if they are drug free, but since most jobs do drug testing, would make sense that you stay clean to make sure if you did get in the door, you don't get disqualified for drug use.

Obviously there are no easy fixes, but at some point people need to start having real discussions, our country was built on the debates of statesmen to draft a constitution.

Out of maybe 100k bad ideas, 1 good one might emerge.

I hope that was a joke.

Absolutely.

You're in favor of bigger government, not smaller?

You pay $600k a year in taxes?

You're right. Smaller is the way to go. Eliminate welfare.

That would mean his income averages somewhere between $1.5 million and $2 million p/year, before taxes.

Maybe he's a Wall Street banker?

Maybe i have paysites that have averaged 20-30k members?

That's less than 100 joins/day for $1.5-2 million/year.

If this is about welfare, it's even worse.

I won't go into the ethical and logical details as they will fall on deaf ears for the most part. But basically the welfare system is meant to help people who have an obvious history of making poor choices, that's why they are broke. Expecting people with that history to live up to a higher standard (your standard in this case) makes no logical sense.

It's like running a drug rehab clinic and never letting people come back as soon as they relapse. How on Earth did a drug addict use drugs again...it's shocking!!!

How did someone who is broke and destitute make a bad decision?? I figured all homeless people where perfect. Do you see how silly the logic is?

So if a mother goes out one weekend and smokes a joint, her kids are the ones who end up getting punished when the checks are cut off. Think what you want of that woman or her kids, but that's the reality. Welfare and food stamps do pay for a lot of kids to eat despite the abuse of the system. Any social program will have it's fair share of waste but that's the cost of living in a society. This "every man for himself" mentality is how they live in third world hell holes and you can see how they do.