Everyone knows you have to be high to eat gubmint cheese.

Five Republican state senators want to crack down on welfare recipients addicted to drugs, by requiring them to submit to a drug test in order to get taxpayer assistance. Sounds reasonable, yes? I mean, we all know that anyone on welfare is just living the high life, watching Judge Joe Brown and Oprah, buying steak and shrimp with food stamps, and smoking copious amounts of high quality weed. Right? Well , not exactly.


Here's the skinny on the proposal. The proposals would only apply to recipients of cash assistance through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal program administered by the state. So, including food stamps, just how much does a single mother of 2 children get each month? 379 bucks a month, toss in food stamps for a whopping total of 750 bucks a month. Not for nothin, and not that I actually know anything about it, but good weed costs 300 to 400 an ounce. Shits not cheap, even Mexican shwag will run 100 plus an ounce. Toss in liquor and the occasional crack or meth binge, and there is no way in hell a person on welfare can afford to go on drug fueled binges or blaze the chronic 24/7. At least not on welfare money.

Oh snap, there goes this double M doofus on another unintelligible rant.

Hang in there imaginary italicized guy, I'm going somewhere with this.

One of the Republican sponsors of the bill, Stouffer, R-Napton, said taxpayers "are tired of being taken advantage of" by drug-addicted welfare recipients who they believe use their money to buy drugs.
Let's all say it together kids, Pandering to and playing off the fears of your constituency will get you reelected. The people who have proposed this, at first glance, seemingly reasonable measure, haven't produced any hard facts about the number of welfare recipients who abuse drugs, or the prevalence of substance abuse financed by tax dollars. Instead they offer up this bill based on as they call it " what folks believe".


Like most of you I'll admit that I've often assumed that welfare recipients are taking advantage of the system, and I believe, there's the B word again, I believe there is some abuse, that said, Tanf assistance is really about caring not for the adults, but the children of those adults. So lets say we run out and drop urine tests on every family who gets 8 or 9 grand a year in assistance through various programs. Lets assume, based on popular belief, that 1/3 come back dirty. Now lets snatch those bennies from them. So we now have a drug addicted, meth or crack smoking, blunt puffing, single parent with no source of income to feed, cloth, or shelter her 2 kids. If we continue on in our hypothesized belief game, we now have kids who were already living below poverty level, now completely off the grid. And if the parent is in fact a drug addict, where do you think any money is going to go?


My point is, even a shitty system is better than nothing when it comes to putting food in mouths and roofs over heads, especially where children are concerned. If the people trying to pass this unenforceable bill where really concerned, if they really wanted to save their constituency from doling out tax money for public assistance, one would think they would go the route of addressing the underlying causes of the problem. Teen pregnancy, fatherless homes, education.
Rather than address what people believe, which is based not so much on data or facts, but prejudice and hype, maybe we should look at ways to make these women rise above their lot in life. TANF assistance is limited to 60 months. How about limiting it to 24 or 36 months, require the mother to get a GED and some vocational training? How about requiring some form of birth control while on assistance? Maybe if we address the core problems, just maybe the young woman who made some seriously piss poor choices can turn it around. And just maybe she can instill her children with core beliefs and values that will equip them to avoid the pitfalls that lead to the revolving door of poverty and public assistance. Call me a fuckin loon, but we might see a drop in gang violence, street crime, drug abuse, high dropout rates, the list goes on.


We can go one of two routes here. We can try to placate the section of society who thinks folks are living high on the tax payer hog, or we can try to fix the underlying cause of the real problem. For once, this isn't an issue of race. The highest rate of welfare recipients is found in rural areas, more white folks than black. The actual current numbers are hard to find, but as best I can tell it's a 60/40 split white vs black.


You can argue that people on welfare don't want to get ahead, they are content sitting on their collective ass. I'm sure that is a partial truth, in some cases. But really, how comfortable of a life can you be leading at 750 a month? Would requiring single mothers to further their education solve the welfare problem? Not completely, but it's a pretty good start. while we are at it, maybe if we forced the clowns who don't have the sense to slip on a Jimmy cover, to pay for the kids they father and forget, that might also help the problem. Politicians like to pander to our fears, or mistaken beliefs, our ingrained prejudice. It's effective, and it's a whole lot easier than fixing the real problem. When you think about it, both sides of the political coin play a part in the issue. The liberals make it easy to stay poor, and the right point out what deadbeats poor folk are. It's a win win, at least for them.