JaneNelson.org
Of the 257 pre-filed bills thus far for the 83rd Texas Legislative Session, Senate Bill 11, filed by Republican Sen. Jane Nelson of Flower Mound, Texas has received the most attention from critics and supporters alike.
If passed, the bill would require potential welfare recipients to take a drug test in order to obtain government assistance. Passing would ensure the assistance while failing would disqualify applicants from welfare funds for a year.
Even so, applicants would be allowed to reapply and retest six months later but only after they have completed or joined a substance abuse treatment program. Three failed attempts would end welfare eligibility.
Contrary to popular belief by those who object its passing, the bill is not another way to embarrass the poor or make it more difficult for them to get assistance.
This is simply a way to ensure that recipients of government funds obtained from tax payers such as property-owners, businesses, working college students and others is being used for its intent.
Violation of the Fourth Amendment is cited as the legal reason for the unconstitutionality of SB 11 and those like it. The Fourth Amendment restricts ungrounded searches and seizures of people, houses and papers without probable cause and warrants to do so.
However, it is questionable whether having a person urinate in a cup is really a violation of the Fourth Amendment seeing as that is not their person, but simply a fluid originating from it. Honestly, there should be no objections to such a silly, albeit tedious task since it is in no way harming the person who is tested. Furthermore, a person who does not abuse illegal substances has nothing to worry about.
According to the Center for Public Policy Priorities, of the 115,000 Texans on welfare for 2011, roughly 84 percent were children.
However, it is doubtful that a parent with an illicit drug abuse problem actually used the money they receive from the government to take care of their children.
The bill’s purpose is not to leave defenseless children to fend for themselves. On the contrary, it intends to help them. SB 11 would also require that those parents who fail the test must be reported to Child Protective Services to further assess the situation and take the appropriate action that will best help the children.
Passing this bill will secure that government provided assistance will go to those people who merit it and that assistance will be used for its intended purpose. One additional step to receive the assistance should be nothing to those who truly need it. Furthermore, if it is found that low numbers of cases test positive for drug abuse, it may overturn stereotypical beliefs that welfare recipients are lazy drug abusers and in doing so will help both economically and socially.
Mónica Rojas is a journalism freshman and may be reached at [email protected].
Who pays for the drug testing? Who pays for the rehabilitation?
Are the children (the 84% of recipients) also tested? If not, what would be the age to begin testing? How often are recipients re-tested?
If a parent is denied benefits, is also the child(ren)?
Does this also apply to CHIP?
I hope that people do a little more research into understanding the cycle of poverty and the societal structures and policies in place that make it easy to move into poverty and difficult to move out of poverty.
If your object is to reduce spending and cut welfare, this will not achieve your goal.
The war on drugs (and thus the campaign against the poor) was never meant to end drug use. I encourage you to read a little history before passing judgement (like the powers that be want you to do) on your neighbors.
Be part of the solution, not the problem.
The war on drugs started as a campaign against the poor and minorities, especially blacks.
If we don’t want tax dollars being used to purchase drugs, we should start drug testing politicians and government employees.
trickle down theory was never designed to help the poor, either.
totalitarian reasoning from The Daily Cougar: “it is questionable whether having a person urinate in a cup is really a violation of the Fourth Amendment seeing as that is not their person, but simply a fluid originating from it.” thanks for clearing that up, Mónica Rojas. why don’t you give me a hundred dolla, seeing as that is not your money, but simply a piece of paper originating from your wallet?
The writer should have done the research about similar bills in other states, such as Florida. The drug tests costs more than the money it actually saved in welfare payments. So MORE taxpayer dollars were spent and none was actually saved. But I guess it makes people sleep better at night *insert eye roll here*
Govt employees definitly do get drug tested. politicians are elected officials so drug testing them is irrelevant.
Poverty cycles aren’t my issue. I worked hard, paid my way through school, earn alot of money as a CPA, and want recipients of my generous tax dollars to be drug tested. Badda Boom Badda Bing. Too many bleeding hearts around here. If you wanna help poor people go out, make a butt ton of money and help poor people.
politicians are elected. And, they’re paid. Who pays them?
Tax money.
Plus, this bill funds the drug testing by taking a chunk out of the block grant already allotted money that’s supposed to go to help the neediest of families (you almost have to have children to get TANF -that’s pretty much emergency money for surviving).
-Florida had a similar program. Guess what? -They wasted tax-payer money. And of the 2.6 percent of applicants who failed the test in Florida -most failed because of Marijuana use.
-Because we all know that a parent who smokes a couple joints every now and then that somebody else probably bought and shared with them -is a terrible parent and therefore shouldn’t get benefits to help feed their children. /sarcasm
This bill will hurt children and waste money. Plus, it’s illegal.
Here’s an article for ya:
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20121120-kurt-schwarz-drug-testing-plan-unfairly-targets-poor-and-unemployed.ece
How about this then food for thought. IF they can find the money to spend it on frivolous things (ie: ANY DRUGS) then they dang well don’t need to be getting their basics paid for. Have you thought about that for a moment? We have gone beyond giving a helping hand and to feeding, clothing and sheltering them to the point where they now expect someone else to fit their basic needs and any money they get else where they spend without a thought to the future just that they now get to buy all their wants cause they don’t have to pay or save or provide for their needs. THAT is why we the tax payers are getting fed up with. We are tired of the many stories we see all the time about parents and those on welfare buying drugs instead of putting it towards the basics. We are tired of seeing them come into stores swipe the card for groceries to only then have a cart full of stuff that they sure as heck don’t need and DO NOT provide for the basic needs. THAT is why we the taxpayers are fed up and to the point where the heart has been bleed dry. You can cry me a river cause I have had to deal with not getting what I want because I took the time and responsibility to pay for my NEEDS!
good idea, Mac. Let’s infringe upon the rights of thousands of folks just because you don’t want the few bad apples to get desperately needed money that they MIGHT spend on drugs.
Yes. Smaller government, unless you’re poor. And then let the government get deep in your business -with or without probable cause.
” IF they can find the money to spend it on frivolous things”
Hey, let’s test for alcohol, too! Because if they can afford to get a beer, they sure as don’t deserve to get desperately needed money to help feed their kids.
(I mean, people don’t ever SHARE their beers -so it’s a sure-fire way to know they’ve been blowing what little money they have -on frivolous beer).
This program’s going to waste money. It wasted it in Florida, and it will waste tax money here. And kids will be hurt the most. Anyone who still thinks the bill should be implemented just doesn’t care about the constitutional rights and privacy of people in need.
You do know that everyone, EVERYONE, is a tax payer right? The people on welfare pay sales taxes, pay gasoline taxes, etc.
Everyone pays taxes.
Couple of things to kick the hornet’s nest around…
(1) most of the bums I know are schizophrenics that were kicked out of federal mental hospitals that closed due to lack of funding (psst…they are off their medications.)
(2) Harris county had a 10% rate for probationers (That’s right 10% fail rate for people on PROBATION for another crime) compared to the 2.6% in Florida (for TANF recipients), but many were flawed positive. Need vids –> http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news%2Fin_focus&id=8784497.
(3) Why are we taking advice on how to combat poverty from a rich, suburban, white, republican.
FLOWER MOUND STATS
As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 64,669 people and 14,269 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,562.5 people per square mile. There were 21,570 housing units. The racial makeup of the town was *****83.9% White*****, 3.2% African American, 0.1% Native American, 8.6% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 2.2% from two or more races, and Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.4% of the population.
—RICH WHITE SUBURB OF DALLAS—NO POVERTY THERE—
(4) The majority of the people that fail testing, fail because of marijuana, which is steadily becoming more legal (i.e. the DEA didn’t raid Washington or Colorado) This is bad for this bill on two ends. The harder of the Five tested-for drug leave to body in less than a week, where as marijuana stays for a month. If you test only every 6 months you probably won’t get the hard-core drug-abuser as much, plus if things get legal for marijuana then you will have less people failing the test. Extra work with even less benefit. Senator still gets paid.
(5) Monica Rojas should tread lightly or she might have to show her green card & be drug tested to have her next article printed. Lets hope she’s not on minority scholarship. Double test. Just saying.
Spoken like a true Senators son/daughter.
“””Govt employees definitly (sp) do get drug tested. politicians are elected officials so drug testing them is irrelevant.
Poverty cycles aren’t my issue. I worked hard, paid my way through school, earn alot (sp) of money as a CPA, and want recipients of my generous tax dollars to be drug tested. Badda Boom Badda Bing. Too many bleeding hearts around here. If you wanna help poor people go out, make a butt ton of money and help poor people.”””
Someone test this guy for cocaine. The Florida test cost more than it saved so, hypothetically, you will be paying out more taxes to cover the cost.
The idea is to eliminate poverty, d-bag, not to perpetuate it.
See if you lower overall poverty, then you will lower the overall cost associated with dealing with poverty.
What you want to do is, spend more money on testing (two things here – (1.) the people who fail are still poor, just no benefits (2.) the 97% that do pass are subject to violations of their 4th amendment rights), up front, to maybe save some money down the road (which would actually be just opportunity cost because the test would be the only barometer for savings – spend 50 to save 1800).
insert scumbag steve meme here
@bauercoog loves peoples—-thinks the poor aren’t people
Badda Boom Badda Bing
“””How about this then food for thought. IF they can find the money to spend it on frivolous things (ie: ANY DRUGS) then they dang well don’t need to be getting their basics paid for. Have you thought about that for a moment? We have gone beyond giving a helping hand and to feeding, clothing and sheltering them to the point where they now expect someone else to fit their basic needs and any money they get else where they spend without a thought to the future just that they now get to buy all their wants cause they don’t have to pay or save or provide for their needs. THAT is why we the tax payers are getting fed up with. We are tired of the many stories we see all the time about parents and those on welfare buying drugs instead of putting it towards the basics. We are tired of seeing them come into stores swipe the card for groceries to only then have a cart full of stuff that they sure as heck don’t need and DO NOT provide for the basic needs. THAT is why we the taxpayers are fed up and to the point where the heart has been bleed dry. You can cry me a river cause I have had to deal with not getting what I want because I took the time and responsibility to pay for my NEEDS!”””
@Mac –You don’t understand the article. TANF is not the same as food stamps. TANF is where they want to do the drug testing. Testing of food stamp recipients gets even worse financially, because the recipients go up ten fold from TANF to food stamps. cost every six month goes from 2.7 mil to 27 mil.
PS – @Mac — you got all that crap from the TV.
Well, many TANF recipients, 84% in Texas, seem to be children, from the article you just read, and it seems that only 2.7% failed during the Florida test, which in turn cost them 40-50k more than they saved, (we posted the data), but you are for this policy? Now that I have shown you that this “”….tired of the many stories we see all the time about parents and those on welfare buying drugs instead of putting it towards the basics. We are tired of seeing them come into stores swipe the card for groceries to only then have a cart full of stuff that they sure as heck don’t need and DO NOT provide for the basic needs…”” is not fact but media bias, why exactly are you for this policy?