Welfare Drug Testing

[peejman]

Let's see how smart you all are on here, because the people I've been debating at one of the news websites don't understand how you calculate things.

So which way are you supposed to calculate the rate....

16,000 applied for assistance and were asked if they had done drugs in the past 3 months, failed a job drug test in the past three months, or had been to court over a drug issue. If "yes" to then you had to take a drug test.

279 people were drug tested.
37 failed.

Do you divide 37 by 16,000 or 279?

Depends on what you want to know....

So 279 out of 16,000 were tested. 279/16000*100= 1.74% tested

Of the 279 tested, 37 failed the drug test.
37/279*100=13.3% of those tested failed.

Or 37 out of 16000 failed the test
37/16000*100=0.23% of the total people failed the drug test.

[Murgatroy]

Oldogy... I like this one... Recently, i've changed my approach on the hog ring and piercing thing... I used to smile and act like it wasn't there...Now, i take a close look at it like it's a problem and is hurtin the wearer; then i politely ask if they need it removed... I always tell 'em that i have my pliers in my fishing tackle box and that i'll be glad to get the hook out... Strangely, i've had no takers, but plenty of polite "no's"... Its great to watch the reaction...

 

leroy, "...hook removal jhadist..." and old time fisherman...

I am certain I am not alone here, but I am covered in tattoos, have had over thirty piercings and currently have holes in my ear large enough to hook thumbs through.

 

I also have a college degree, and work in a really comfy office at my white collar job telling lots of folks what to do all day long.

 

I know there are lots like me, on this very site.

 

Stereotypes are bad. Okay?

[Murgatroy]

While I can't help but wish for the day that weed is as legal as liquor is; today it is not.... As a condition of my job I must submit to a pee test on demand 24/7/365 to which even trace amount of liquor while on the job will cost me my job to which Uncle Sam will pull my sailing documents thus preventing me from gainful employment in my field of choice. I will be offered no rehab no 2nd chances nada... So I've got no compassion for someone who willfully rides my coattails and doing drugs......

See that is the problem and what most folks are missing.

 

 

 

 

 

I wholeheartedly agree that using drugs, buying drugs with government money, while on the dole, in government housing, etc, is wrong and should be grounds to lose the benefits. There is a great big piece of the puzzle that was hit on a time or two here.

 

A lot of money will be spent on drug testing. An amount rivaling welfare alone. New government employees, Washington would shut down while it was debated, and they would make sure they were exempted. The list goes on. So now, our taxes, we being the middle class, just doubled, to throw folks off of welfare.

 

Now, let's assume that ten percent of the over half of the US population that recieves some sort of benefits just lost all benefits, I am making numbers up for the sake of discussion, though I do believe that the over half of the population thing is true.

 

So that now gives us over five percent of the population, or one in twenty with no way to make a living. No marketable skills, chances are this person is illiterate and a drug user/addict.

 

That means that not only did we just double the taxes on the middle class, we just turned one in twenty into a desperate criminal. If that desperate criminal commits multiple acts of violence to feed themselves, a family, or god forbid a drug addition, that means that at three crimes, with all different victims, your odds of being a victim of a violent crime just went to one in six. As well as increased taxes.

 

So now this person is arrested. They now go to prison, after a lengthy trial, and retrial. They get three hots and a cot. That you pay for. So let's increase those taxes again. Say another thirty percent over original?

 

So now, instead of an overhaul, we just used a blanket to throw everyone off that uses drugs, and in the process made our nation considerably more dangerous, and taxed ourselves well out of middle class. I guess I would need benefits too now? I suppose it is awesome that I don't use drugs or even alcohol for that matter, but I do have pride, and being on the dole hurts it. A lot.

 

 

 

 

I suggest that if you are on the dole, in order to receive benefits you must either be actively searching for a job or be attending a program for job training and/or high school equivalency. If after a year you still haven't found a job, you should be required to perform ten to twenty hours of community service.

 

Now here is where it gets tricky. What about the parents who do work, say a single parent, working forty a week for a major company that doesn't really pay enough to support the parent and the two children? Do we raise the benefits? Or do we cap the benefits at a certain percentage? Do we hold the employer accountable? Do we require the minimum wage to support a parent and a child, or two parents, at two incomes, and two children? This is where things get tricky. Ten folks will see it ten different ways.

 

As for me? My wife and I decided to have one child. With our one child we could afford to support her for as long as she needs it. Emotional support, parental attendance, college, clothes, a car, fancy toys, etc... Does that mean we expect to? No. But it also means that we never have to worry, and that with our concentrated effort we have a good chance of raising a well balanced and successful member of society. Which in my opinion is the best any of us can hope to do on this earth. It is leaps and bounds above what the drug addict career welfare collecting prostitute that whelped me and five clones of herself and morals did in this life.

Edited February 11, 2015 by Murgatroy

[No_0ne]

It's interesting how times, values, and opinions change.  As stated above... many years ago, being on the "dole" was considered disgraceful.  A man worked for a living.  Any job, no matter how menial, was better than no job and being a debtor.  People were proud of the work they did.  I think a lot of that was because at that time, most of the work was done with one's hands.  At the end of the day, there was some physical thing that was accomplished that one could be proud of. 

 

Now, lots of people spend the majority of their work day pecking away at a keyboard.  The physical manifestation of their labor has been lost.  Their reward for good work is typically more work.  People deal with stupid rules, stupid bosses, stupid meetings, and feel no more valuable than a number in that spreadsheet they've been working on all day.  The lack of anything tangible makes it much more difficult to take pride in your work.  Pride (to the point of narcissism) is one of the "7 Deadly Sins", but a lack of pride seems to be more of a problem in modern society.

 

Depends on what you mean by "many", after all the term "public dole" dates from ancient Rome, where a large majority of it's citizens received handouts daily ...

[leroy]

I am certain I am not alone here, but I am covered in tattoos, have had over thirty piercings and currently have holes in my ear large enough to hook thumbs through.

 

I also have a college degree, and work in a really comfy office at my white collar job telling lots of folks what to do all day long.

 

I know there are lots like me, on this very site.

 

Stereotypes are bad. Okay?

 

Don't take this personal bro; but if ya don't want folks to look at ya funny or to laugh don't look funny... I ain't stereotypin ya; i don't know ya other than by your posts in this community...

 

You can look any way ya want... I can laugh or be polite at first meeting... You have the same option...  

 

You may be the best manager ever, and have success in your profession; but i can assure you that in some professions, how you look is important... I retired from a very responsible job in engineering and project management in 2006... None of the people i worked with or interacted with; be they engineering, construction management, operations, legal, or accounting folks; who had to interact with other folks looked like you have described yourself... Some of the men and women had tattoos im sure; but none of them looked like they had fallen into a barrel of fish hooks or had been hung from their ear lobes... 

 

Ya can think and believe what ya want; but folks doin the hiring have eyes and they can see very well... Don't believe for a moment that lookin like Quequeg in "Moby Dick" is the mainstream... It ain't... Further than that, there is no "inalienable right" for people you don't know to refrain from making decisions concerning you based on how you look... They may be polite and not laugh, but they aint blind...

 

You may find this reply a bit offensive... It ain't meant to be... Ya can also be assured first impressions matter... Physical appearances are part of that "first impression"...  

 

You have the right to look any way ya want, just as i do... I (...and others...) have the right to make judgments based on those looks; and many do... You put yourself at a disadvantage when you make certain appearance choices... If you are willing to accept that disadvantage; im ok with that... 

 

I would suggest that ya think a bit about this little epistle... There, in fact, are those who you might term "appearance bigots" that may hold your personal appearance against you... I won't hold against ya on a personal basis because i've got a bit of a history with ya reading (...and agreeing with...) some of your posts here in this community... Others don't know you; and may not want to know you based on your appearance... It's sad, but true...

 

leroy 

[JPR1959]

Why not insist that people that are on government assistance do civil duty? There are many "jobs" they could do, but it is considered beneath them or insulting their dignity. Maybe they could help out in school and discipline their unruly children.

[Murgatroy]

Don't take this personal bro; but if ya don't want folks to look at ya funny or to laugh don't look funny... I ain't stereotypin ya; i don't know ya other than by your posts in this community...

 

You can look any way ya want... I can laugh or be polite at first meeting... You have the same option...  

 

You may be the best manager ever, and have success in your profession; but i can assure you that in some professions, how you look is important... I retired from a very responsible job in engineering and project management in 2006... None of the people i worked with or interacted with; be they engineering, construction management, operations, legal, or accounting folks; who had to interact with other folks looked like you have described yourself... Some of the men and women had tattoos im sure; but none of them looked like they had fallen into a barrel of fish hooks or had been hung from their ear lobes... 

 

Ya can think and believe what ya want; but folks doin the hiring have eyes and they can see very well... Don't believe for a moment that lookin like Quequeg in "Moby Dick" is the mainstream... It ain't... Further than that, there is no "inalienable right" for people you don't know to refrain from making decisions concerning you based on how you look... They may be polite and not laugh, but they aint blind...

 

You may find this reply a bit offensive... It ain't meant to be... Ya can also be assured first impressions matter... Physical appearances are part of that "first impression"...  

 

You have the right to look any way ya want, just as i do... I (...and others...) have the right to make judgments based on those looks; and many do... You put yourself at a disadvantage when you make certain appearance choices... If you are willing to accept that disadvantage; im ok with that... 

 

I would suggest that ya think a bit about this little epistle... There, in fact, are those who you might term "appearance bigots" that may hold your personal appearance against you... I won't hold against ya on a personal basis because i've got a bit of a history with ya reading (...and agreeing with...) some of your posts here in this community... Others don't know you; and may not want to know you based on your appearance... It's sad, but true...

 

leroy 

No offense taken, I knew when I made these decisions the consequences. The big difference is the education and two decades of experience I bring to my field. I am not exactly a snot nosed punk like most think of when they think of a tattooed and pierced person.

 

However, things are much less drastic than you might think. The big thing is that your generation is retiring and is no longer the generation making all of those decisions. My generation is now the generation is or will soon be completely running things. I don't know what these so called 'Millennials' will come up with to be drastic, but I am sure they will, and myself and my heavily tattooed peers will glare down at them because it was not how we did it when we were that age. That is not to say that everything was wine and roses on my first day of work, or my second. It might even have taken a year or more, and several promotions before I got the biggest dog in the kennel to realize that I wasn't a moron. Guess who tells him what to do now?

 

 

Now at the end of the day the big question probably comes down to whether or not it bothers me. I know a lot of folks like to go out and do stupid things, then stand around and play the victim when they don't get what they want. Me? Not really. I have thick skin, because I don't really care. I have a great job, a great family, a great dog, a great things going for me. If someone wants to judge me based on my appearance, that is most likely someone that I would choose not to associate with anyways. I go to work, I go home. My hobbies keep my solitary. After all, lets be honest, I am an abrasive SOB and I ain't exactly friendly looking. Which is kind of the way I want it.

 

I think it also might have something to do with my raising. I have mentioned it, I didn't grow up on the right side of the tracks. I am a self made man, by the skin of my knuckles and sweat of my brow. When you grow up that poor and dejected tattoos and piercings are rank, and uniform, for all of the oxymoron there, you know, being different and all. I think I might have been ten when I got my first one. But hey, you live in the trailer park behind the projects outside of Fort Riley in the early `80s and you would make bad decisions too.

 

I guess the reason I get riled up about it, and I do, is that I don't like to stereotype, or be stereotyped. Not that we don't all do it, but that it is wrong. That and for the majority, I don't regret any decision I ever made, right or wrong. Because of those decisions, I am the man behind this keyboard right now, that you can't see. Cause I am really a dog. And I know how I got here, and who I am.

 

But that is enough off topic.

 

The point though, I ain't butt-hurt, I don't typically get butt-hurt. But I do like a good discussion.

[Murgatroy]

Why not insist that people that are on government assistance do civil duty? There are many "jobs" they could do, but it is considered beneath them or insulting their dignity. Maybe they could help out in school and discipline their unruly children.

I whole hardheartedly agree, if you draw benefits (other than disability, SS, SSI, etc...) for being unemployed/underemployed then you should have to work a minimum of ten hours a week of community service. I do think that everyone should be given a year though, total, across life. Because no one knows what tomorrow brings.

 

The only exception to that would be if you were currently attending a program for job training, or high school equivalency. 

[Oh Shoot]

The thing about the welfare state is that it has driven a huge amount of the economy underground, likely the largest  % in history. These "rich poor" folks that everyone cites aren't living that way on the various doles alone. The ones that aren't stealing are indeed working at something or other, for untaxed income. So you've got a double whammy with the various gummits paying more out with less coming in.

 

Half or more of the handymen, yard workers, mechanics,  flea marketers, eBayers, etc in this country are working off the books to supplement their "real" income from the dole. Hell, even the drug dealers are working, just off the books.

 

And of course the "gimmies" keep voting for the ones who promise the most to give them -- the worst things get from the absurd arithmetic of government largesse, the bigger the voter base for it, the vicious cycle of Big Brother Liberalism that strives to make everyone so frigging "equal" that you can't even see self-determinism and individual responsibility in the rear view mirror anymore.

 

- OS

Edited February 12, 2015 by Oh Shoot

[Glenn]

I know a teacher that asked her first grade class what they wanted to be when they grow up. One little girl said "I want to be a drawer" The teacher said "O, you want to be an artist? To which the little girl replied "Hell no. I want to draw a check like my mom and grandma.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Glenn

[Ron_TN]

Read my banner ......HELLO!!!

Edited February 12, 2015 by Ron_TN