2016 Presidential Potential - Governor Scott Walker: Drug Test Welfare Recipients

By Elizabeth Nelson

Drug Testing Welfare Recipients is a huge sticking point for me, as a contract employee in Florida. My Governor, Rick Scott, had actually tried to get our Welfare policy changed, to where drug testing recipients was a requirement to qualify for benefits and to keep them.  However, our bass-ackward court system declared that it was unconstitutional to do so.  He fought it for a while, then instead of wasting taxpayer funds, he eventually dropped his appeals.

As Walker stumps around the country for his still undeclared presidential bid, the GOP governor's plan to require drug screening and treatment for certain recipients of government help has been one of his surest applause lines at Republican events.

At home, there are questions about whether the plan would save or cost taxpayers money and whether testing in some programs will be allowed by the courts or President Barack Obama's administration.

This month, for instance, Florida Gov. Rick Scott dropped his legal defense of a plan to drug test welfare recipients in his state after two federal courts ruled it was unconstitutional.

The reason this is a sticking point for me is, if it's "unconstitutional" to drug test people who are on their "State's payroll," in order to not only qualify for welfare benefits but to continue to get a tax-payer funded check, why isn't it equally "unconstitutional" for me, as a contract employee, to continue to get drug tested in order to qualify to get a job?


But as a Republican working toward his party's 2016 nomination, Walker has little downside to pushing an idea that typically polls well even among general election voters, including those in Wisconsin. Politically, Walker wins whether the plan succeeds or is blocked by the courts and a Democratic president who's deeply unpopular with GOP primary voters.

Of course it's blocked by the DNC, they'd rather keep their people enslaved and voting Democrat.  The people will continue to vote for the party that continues to feed and clothe them, while they sit on the couch, right?

Robert Rector, a longtime advocate for welfare overhaul at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Walker deserves credit for his proposal even if it doesn't lead to immediate action.

"We had a lot of debate about reforming welfare and promoting work 20 years ago," Rector said. "A lot of that has really fallen by the wayside. I think it's important to go back and renew that."

Walker presents his proposal as part of a broader overhaul of safety net programs for the needy. As governor and as a potential presidential candidate, he's argued that the federal government needs to remove restrictions on states about how they use federal tax dollars and give the states more flexibility to reshape programs like food stamps or welfare.

There's little doubt that testing requirements are politically popular — 12 other states have passed some form of drug testing for public benefits.

"Politically unpopular," because why would the abusers want to stay clean? They may actually start to feel better about themselves and begin to feel motivated enough to get an education and go out to get that job that will pay more than welfare does.

In Wisconsin, an October survey of likely voters by the Marquette University Law School found that 56% of them favored Walker's proposal and 40% opposed it. The governor successfully campaigned on his plans during his re-election last year.

"Governor Walker's drug testing proposal was a hit on the stump in Wisconsin when he was running for re-election this past fall. At events around the state, including many in factories, some of the loudest applause was in response to this proposal to help people become workforce-ready," Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said.

But there are still few details known about the plan to drug test applicants for the food stamps program known as FoodShare, the Medicaid program known as BadgerCare Plus health care, unemployment insurance and the welfare program.

Under Walker's 2015-'17 budget bill, able-bodied adults who fail the drug tests could receive benefits if they enrolled in treatment and stuck with it. If they didn't, they would be barred from receiving benefits paid for by federal and state taxpayers. But almost no projected cost and savings estimates have been released by the Walker administration.

Liz Schott, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget & Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., said Walker's proposal is more about making a political point about government programs than making immediate changes to them.

"Drug testing has never been about policy to address drug abuse. It's always been political sound bites and stigmatizing (welfare recipients)," she said. Read more Milwaukee Journal

What is it about these enabling, liberal idiots that continue to make excuses for these weak-minded people?  "It's racist and stigmatizing to make them pee in a cup," or "it's racist and oppressing to get an ID" when getting welfare requires an ID by law.  This is further proof that people will rise or fall to the level of the bar you set for them, treat people like children and that's the emotional mentality that they will rise to.

What, you think this is a ploy to turn Welfare back into a safety net and not a high price hammock? "Look, he's just trying to take away my welfare benefits and send me back to work. He's just like Romney."

Oh, then you're really not going to like your other upcoming choice, Dr. Carson's, anti-Welfare comments. Dr. Carson said, “What’s happening is we’re going from a can-do society to a 'what can you do for me' society.  That never leads to the elevation of a society. That always leads to the decline of a society.”

He also said, “When you rob someone of their incentive to go out there and improve themselves, you are not doing them any favors."  Read more Fox Inside 

However, the best Carson quote would have to be, when he told the crowd at CPAC, “I’m not interested in getting rid of the safety net; I’m interested in getting rid of dependency.”  In case you can't read between the lines, that means, no more hand outs, just hand ups; to pull you out of the ditch you find yourself in, but once you're out of the ditch you're on your own.