Shadowseer_Kim wrote:*continues to play dumb* but why don't we just give all the poor people like $40,000 a year, then they would not be poor anymore, and we would finally win the war on poverty..

 d-usa wrote:
I like the whole "they are on welfare, of course they are a minority" class/race superiority thing going in one of these posts...

 Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
Auston - and yet with the minimum wage raises nearly every year for the past 30 years, poverty has not gone down, it has gone up.. weird.

 AustonT wrote:

 Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
Auston - and yet with the minimum wage raises nearly every year for the past 30 years, poverty has not gone down, it has gone up.. weird.

It probably has something to do with the fact only 5% of the workforce is paid minimum wage.

whembly wrote:The Rhode Island bit in that article was the only thing that jumped out at me. If true, it's an example that the States can do it better than the Feds.

Lt. Coldfire wrote:Following is just my personal observation of the welfare system. It's not based on an article or analysis by an "expert" or crackpot. Don't get too wrung out over it.

Maybe this is just a Fresno, CA thing, but often times when I go to a grocery store I see some people (usually with their pajamas on) with a basket full of groceries, and by full I mean soaring over the top of the basket. Half the time they don't speak any English, hand over their food stamps, WIC or whatever and sometimes pay little to nothing for their basket of goodies. It's not just necessities either--it's soda, candy, expensive cuts of meat, ect. I've been in lines before with eggs, milk and some fruit and paid more than some of these people with a full basket of groceries.

I have some stories.

>said stories snipped<

I think welfare can be good, but primarily I think there needs to be a limit on how long you can collect. I mean, does it ever end? These people showing up in their pajamas, buying whatever the hell they want, refusing to pay for their own health insurance and basically discouraged to move up in the work force because they'll lose their welfare benefits does not seem like the right answer. I could be wrong. I lived in South Carolina for 7 years and never saw any of this kind of stuff.

I know a lot of people here on Dakka are in full support of welfare, but have you guys ever actually experienced this kind of stuff? Sure, it's helping a lot of people, but it's also making and keeping a lot of people very lazy beings.

 Lt. Coldfire wrote:
I've lived in Fresno most of my life and I've only known one white person on welfare. I've known and know plenty of minorities on welfare, however.

 streamdragon wrote:

whembly wrote:The Rhode Island bit in that article was the only thing that jumped out at me. If true, it's an example that the States can do it better than the Feds.

Is Rhode Island the state that already has single payer health care, or is that Vermont? I forget. Honestly yes, there are definitely some states that can do things better, for their particular state, than the feds can. Frankly, it should always be that way. The federal government has to oversee 50 states and a handful of territories all with distinct needs and situations. It's why block grants are done the way they are. The bottom line has to be the lowest line, for the lowest state, so states that are far and away not the lowest (like a lot of New England) will always seem super shiny in comparison. Just the way it is I guess.

Maybe it's because I work as a federal contractor, but it truly amazes me how some people (no one here specifically, this is more a general statement) simply do not understand the way things work in the federal government. Money given to the states for social programs is rarely given out with specific instructions. Like welfare and SNAP (food stamps) it's usually just given as a giant payment. Many infrastructure projects follow a similar path. "Here you go, improve your roads or whatever." In simple terms: I think too many people blame the government for things their state is doing, simply because the money was collected by the federal government to begin with.
.

 Mannahnin wrote:
IIRC pretty much the only way to stay on state assistance indefinitely is to be a mom with young kids; and the assistance is there primarily because of the kids. They don't have a choice in the matter.

IIRC we got rid of indefinite welfare for other folks in the 90s, aside from the elderly and the permanently disabled.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I thought the 55 speed limit was because of gas efficiency during the oil crisis.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Or was it WW2 when it was needed for the war effort?

 Meade wrote:
There is nothing broken about welfare. It is one part of a much larger broken system. It is sad that people need to suckle from the government so much, yes. Corporate welfare is far worse, we give contracts, subsidies, you name it. Whatever welfare queens do, corporations do more.

Land, natural resources, rights to water and air, EVERYONE has a right to these, including future generations. To the extent that corporations liquidate natural resources, if we are even to say they have a right to do so, they should at least pay back into the public welfare.

 whembly wrote:

 Meade wrote:
There is nothing broken about welfare. It is one part of a much larger broken system. It is sad that people need to suckle from the government so much, yes. Corporate welfare is far worse, we give contracts, subsidies, you name it. Whatever welfare queens do, corporations do more.

Land, natural resources, rights to water and air, EVERYONE has a right to these, including future generations. To the extent that corporations liquidate natural resources, if we are even to say they have a right to do so, they should at least pay back into the public welfare.

I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?

 Cheesecat wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Meade wrote:
There is nothing broken about welfare. It is one part of a much larger broken system. It is sad that people need to suckle from the government so much, yes. Corporate welfare is far worse, we give contracts, subsidies, you name it. Whatever welfare queens do, corporations do more.

Land, natural resources, rights to water and air, EVERYONE has a right to these, including future generations. To the extent that corporations liquidate natural resources, if we are even to say they have a right to do so, they should at least pay back into the public welfare.

I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?

He means corporations are turning all the natural resources into unusable liquid forms in hopes of killing off all life on earth.

 whembly wrote:

I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?

 AustonT wrote:

 Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
Auston - and yet with the minimum wage raises nearly every year for the past 30 years, poverty has not gone down, it has gone up.. weird.

It probably has something to do with the fact only 5% of the workforce is paid minimum wage.

 Meade wrote:

 whembly wrote:

I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?

pretty much by 'liquidate' I mean turn into money. Because in our messed up economic system money grows more money.

 whembly wrote:
There will always be people who will game the system... it's just a fact of life.

Just like athletes will always push the envelop on performance enhancing drugs... that's just the way it is.

 Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
I remember a very similar thing happening with the tax structure when I was younger, I think I was making around $11 an hour, and whatever was withdrawn was withdrawn, I was dating a woman who was making $14 an hour, and she brought home more.

Then she got a raise to $15 an hour, and I got a raise to like $12. Her tax with-holding increased and suddenly she was bringing home less than I was.

 whembly wrote:
Ah...there you go.

Yep, I think that was passed during Clinton Presidency...

Gov. Voldemort Rick Scott (who, not coincidentally, has a financial interest in a drug testing facility; he just transferred legal ownership of it to his WIFE) decided to drug test welfare recipients. This cost taxpayers millions of dollars and lined his wallet, and they found that only 2% of all welfare recipients tested actually tested positive for drugs. Of that 2%, ALL of them had family members who were eligible for welfare, so NO welfare money was saved by attempting to deny it to people on drugs. (I’ll also note that I heard nothing about getting people who tested positive into a rehab, or any concern for innocent minor children who rely on welfare to, you know, not starve.)


Now considering that data exists that has found that 5% of Americans use illegal drugs (that’s the LOWEST percentage I have found; other data puts it at 22 million people, or 9% of the population), that means that, according to the findings in Florida where only 2% of the tested population tested positive, people on welfare are LESS LIKELY to use illegal drugs. In fact, people on welfare are anywhere from 3% to 7% LESS LIKELY to be using illegal drugs than the general population as a whole.

Also, let’s not pretend that there are not “false positives” when drug testing, because there are. Your legal doctor-prescribed medications can show up as opiates or other “illegal” drugs. You can eat a poppyseed bagel and have a false positive. If there is a possibility that a test could be wrong and deny a family some needed assistance so they can eat, there is something gravely wrong with the idea.

Also, just as an aside, if you think that people on food assistance are rolling in free Government Cheese Bucks, consider that the average allotment comes out to about a dollar and change per meal. What can you buy to eat for less than two bucks a meal? Think on that. Now imagine doing that forever. Until you are denied benefits, of course.

Furthermore, you can’t buy non-food items, which is fair, because it is food assistance, not Food and Toiletries Assistance…but that means that someone who can’t afford to eat without enduring the shame and hassle and difficulty involved to request food assistance (meager as it is) probably can’t afford other things like: pet food, diapers, toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste, soap, tampons or sanitary pads, shaving razors, aspirin, vitamins, and so on.

In some places, you can’t use food stamps to buy hot food (like a roast chicken from a grocery store’s deli section), prepared food (like pre-made sandwiches, which are, oddly, sometimes cheaper than buying all the bread, condiments and fillings separately), frozen food, and so on. Guess what? People who have never been on food stamps get very angry if folks buy, say, a birthday cake (allowed) or soda pop or chips (allowed, but people have the nerve to bitch about it, because you’re not allowed to eat junk food ever if you’re on food stamps). No, you deserve your suffering because you’re asking for help that your tax dollars help pay for. Now that you have fallen on hard times, you better make sure your cart contents meet with everyone’s approval because they all think it is 100% their tax dollars paying for that pint of store-brand ice cream that you should be ashamed of yourself for purchasing with food stamps.

But I digress.

So. Why would we ask taxpayers to take on this additional burden of paying for drug testing (which lines the pockets of drug testing companies but otherwise does not contribute to the general welfare of society in any way) when people on welfare are less likely to be using drugs, when all those who did test positive were able to get family members to apply for benefits in their stead (so no reduction in amount of welfare paid, at all), and when this actually is arguably, in many cases, actually unconstitutional?

“The U.S. Constitution does not prohibit drug testing of employees. However, in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989), the high court ruled that requiring employees to produce urine samples constituted a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, all such testing must meet the “reasonableness” requirement of the Fourth Amendment (which protects citizens against “unreasonable” searches and seizures). The Court also ruled that positive test results could not be used in subsequent criminal prosecutions without the employee’s consent.

The other major constitutional issue in employee drug testing involves the Fifth Amendment (made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment), which prohibits denial of life, liberty, or property without “due process of law.” Since the majority of private-sector employees in the United States (excepting mostly union employees) are considered “at-will employees,” an employer need not articulate a reason for termination of employment. However, under certain circumstances, the denial of employment or the denial of continued employment based on drug test results may invoke “due process” considerations, such as the validity of the test results, the employee’s right to respond, or any required notice to an employee.

Finally, under the same constitutional provisions, persons have a fundamental right to privacy of their person and property. Drug testing, although in itself deemed legal, may be subject to constitutional challenge if testing results are indiscriminately divulged, if procedures for obtaining personal specimens do not respect the privacy rights of the person, or if testing is unnecessarily or excessively imposed.”

Which is why Governor Scott was, indeed, ordered to cut it out and to stop giving state government workers a whiz quiz: “U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro ruled on Wednesday that suspicionless drug testing testing for state workers violated the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable search and seizure”.

“The Governor can’t order the state to search people’s bodily fluids for no reason — the Constitution prohibits that sort of government intrusion,” Howard Simon, director of the Florida ACLU, said in a statement. “And the Governor can’t demand that people surrender their constitutional rights for the privilege of working for the state or receiving some other government benefit.” [...]

Derek Newton, a spokesman for the Florida chapter of the ACLU, suggested in February that his group would be happy to sue again: ”We have gone to court twice in the last year to challenge suspicionless drug testing,” Newton said, “and if the state continues to enact policies to require people to be subject to government search and seizure without suspicion, I would not be surprised at all if that’s something we continue to oppose.” (source)

It is “unfashionable” to point out that a lot of these drug testing schemes, in addition to being very profitable for certain corporations and individuals with a financial stake in those businesses, operate on the old and well-debunked Reagan-era myth of the “Welfare Queen” who is always presumed to be both a person of color and someone taking advantage of a broken welfare system to avoid working for a living. In truth, the average welfare recipient is a white mother in the suburbs who remains on welfare about two years and is actively searching for employment (and this is partially true because there are more white people in general). Why is it unfashionable: Because when you say something sounds problematic and racist, conservatives clutch the pearls and act offended. Well, boo hoo. Stop being racist, then. Problem solved!

The idea is that lazy people of color are using “your” taxpayer dollars (it is always assumed that “those people” do not also pay taxes) to avoid work while getting high on illegal drugs, but the truth is that this is bunk and it is not-so-thinly-veiled racism. I, for one, do not want my tax dollars to go towards programs that intend to punish people on welfare for using drugs (when they are less likely to be doing so, and when I have to contribute towards the cost of drug testing) when it is simpler to just help pay for welfare for the needy and not add yet another hurdle to the process that is designed to shame, scapegoat, reinforce racial stereotypes that aren’t even remotely accurate, and make it more difficult to get assistance when it is needed.

Also, full disclosure, here: I have never had an employer that required me to pee in a cup. (I would have passed, incidentally…unless I had the misfortune to be the victim of a false positive.)

I would be very wary of working for an employer that required an unnecessary piss test, frankly. You’d have to justify it very clearly, such as if I were applying to be a drug addiction counselor or if I were to be working with heavy machinery or driving a bus or train or flying a plane, in which case, it is not entirely unreasonable to insist on testing to ensure sober employees.

I am not sure a guy working at Taco Bell needs to pee in a cup to prove he is capable of making me a Chalupa.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I thought the 55 speed limit was because of gas efficiency during the oil crisis.

Or was it WW2 when it was needed for the war effort?

 whembly wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

whembly wrote:The Rhode Island bit in that article was the only thing that jumped out at me. If true, it's an example that the States can do it better than the Feds.

Is Rhode Island the state that already has single payer health care, or is that Vermont? I forget. Honestly yes, there are definitely some states that can do things better, for their particular state, than the feds can. Frankly, it should always be that way. The federal government has to oversee 50 states and a handful of territories all with distinct needs and situations. It's why block grants are done the way they are. The bottom line has to be the lowest line, for the lowest state, so states that are far and away not the lowest (like a lot of New England) will always seem super shiny in comparison. Just the way it is I guess.

Maybe it's because I work as a federal contractor, but it truly amazes me how some people (no one here specifically, this is more a general statement) simply do not understand the way things work in the federal government. Money given to the states for social programs is rarely given out with specific instructions. Like welfare and SNAP (food stamps) it's usually just given as a giant payment. Many infrastructure projects follow a similar path. "Here you go, improve your roads or whatever." In simple terms: I think too many people blame the government for things their state is doing, simply because the money was collected by the federal government to begin with.
.

What does a federal contractor do?

But, absolutely the Feds do put "strings" on those block grants. That's the gist of that RI bit... the state did it better than the Feds in that regards. Now, there are things that the Fed does much better or is needed.

Do you remember what was the speed limit nation wide was? It used to be 55mph because someone in Federal Agency (don't remember who/where) said, "here's some block grant for your bridges and roads, oh and by the way, the speed limit needs to be 55mph when accepting this grant". That's just a snippet of what happens.

 reds8n wrote:
What can you buy to eat for less than two bucks a meal?

In some places, you can’t use food stamps to buy hot food (like a roast chicken from a grocery store’s deli section), prepared food (like pre-made sandwiches, which are, oddly, sometimes cheaper than buying all the bread, condiments and fillings separately), frozen food, and so on. Guess what? People who have never been on food stamps get very angry if folks buy, say, a birthday cake (allowed) or soda pop or chips (allowed, but people have the nerve to bitch about it, because you’re not allowed to eat junk food ever if you’re on food stamps). No, you deserve your suffering because you’re asking for help that your tax dollars help pay for. Now that you have fallen on hard times, you better make sure your cart contents meet with everyone’s approval because they all think it is 100% their tax dollars paying for that pint of store-brand ice cream that you should be ashamed of yourself for purchasing with food stamps.

 Testify wrote:

Also doesn't surprise me about drug use. Most people on welfare can't afford drugs, the poor bastards

 Testify wrote:
They seriously test for weed? I assumed it'd only be heroin/cocaine et al.