I see the raging cheeto just posted mandatory drug testing for anyone receiving government benefits.
With 109,631,000 people (2012) receiving welfare assistance in this country, and the average cost of a drug screening (urine) at 30 dollars a pop, that equates to $3,288,930,000.00 to screen these individuals ONE time. . . Then there are the other social safety net programs which will also have the recipients tested;SSI, Disability,Food stamps, WIC, Unemployment,. . .
Seems to me that money would be put to far better use by using it to fund the programs!
Quote from: Palehorse on January 19, 2017, 07:21:40 PM
I see the raging cheeto just posted mandatory drug testing for anyone receiving government benefits.
With 109,631,000 people (2012) receiving welfare assistance in this country, and the average cost of a drug screening (urine) at 30 dollars a pop, that equates to $3,288,930,000.00 to screen these individuals ONE time. . . Then there are the other social safety net programs which will also have the recipients tested;SSI, Disability,Food stamps, WIC, Unemployment,. . .
Seems to me that money would be put to far better use by using it to fund the programs!
I hope they plan to test all of the executives at the companies receiving corporate welfare and
all elected officials as well!
Quote from: Exterminator on January 20, 2017, 07:48:19 AM
I hope they plan to test all of the executives at the companies receiving corporate welfare and all elected officials as well!
Agreed. But you know that isn't going to happen.
Quote from: Palehorse on January 19, 2017, 07:21:40 PM
I see the raging cheeto just posted mandatory drug testing for anyone receiving government benefits.
With 109,631,000 people (2012) receiving welfare assistance in this country, and the average cost of a drug screening (urine) at 30 dollars a pop, that equates to $3,288,930,000.00 to screen these individuals ONE time. . . Then there are the other social safety net programs which will also have the recipients tested;SSI, Disability,Food stamps, WIC, Unemployment,. . .
Seems to me that money would be put to far better use by using it to fund the programs!
Typical RW idiot stupidity.
Spend millions/billions/trillions to chase pennies/nickles/dimes.
Worthless ideological political theater for the sub-100 IQ RW crowd.
(http://i475.photobucket.com/albums/rr111/hlovett_2008/16174786_1216588201711637_2643576883273698319_n_zps5emyublu.jpg) (http://s475.photobucket.com/user/hlovett_2008/media/16174786_1216588201711637_2643576883273698319_n_zps5emyublu.jpg.html)
The "Tweet" above is from the 45th President of the United States,and it began proliferating social media the very same day it was posted. Yesterday was no different and despite my staunchest efforts to keep out of the wasteland of conjecture and outright lies, the fact it was reposted by a family member yesterday was the last straw for me personally.
What followed was an hours long session of back and forth between myself and those family members. Some of you that are connected to me on that social media platform witnessed it for yourselves and I apologize for the repetitiveness of the content of this post up front. The dialog continued until 3:00am this morning,but not on social media but via the telephone, and a conference call with all that contributed.
What follows from this point are my points surrounding the above tweet, and my attempt to educate my family members surrounding the ramifications of doing what this tweet insists is going to be done. I just thought it would be a subject of interest, so here goes:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
With 109,631,000 individuals receiving welfare in 2012, and the average cost of a drug screening being $30, just testing the welfare people ONE time would cost US Taxpayers $3.3 BILLION dollars. . . Then there are the other programs, WIC, Disability, etc. . . With 109,631,000 individuals receiving welfare in 2012, and the average cost of a drug screening being $30, just testing the welfare people ONE time would cost US Taxpayers $3.3 BILLION dollars. . . Then there are the other programs, WIC, Disability, etc..
Pushing the costs down to the state level will result in additional insolvencies of state government. I wonder who's doing his research and math? Is anyone? And I agree it is a problem, however saddling the taxpayers of this nation with several billions of dollars in costs associated with testing each and every recipient is not only unreasonable but irresponsible and lazy governance.
It isn't about drug addiction, or persecution of individuals with a disease, or over who they love. It's about being fiscally responsible with tax revenues and directing them toward those initiatives that do the most good for those that need it.
Children cannot help that their parent(s) are smoking weed, shooting heroin, or smoking/snorting crack, but they will be the ones directly impacted by such draconian and wide-sweeping legislation; and the impact would be immediate upon the children of this nation that are forced to rely on governmental assistance to live.
The drug companies manufacturing those drug tests moved their manufacturing processes outside of the US several years ago; so guess what happens to that 30 dollar drug test price if an across the board tariff is placed upon the chemistries made in Europe and sold for use in the US? They'll more than double, and the 3.3 billion figure will be more like 10 Billion. And that is just for welfare recipients. Those with disabilities, on SSI, WIC, Unemployment, also would be subject to this proposed policy exponentially increasing the cost to US Taxpayers.
How long do you think it will take before the average US worker is so overtaxed they cannot afford the housing they live in?
The saddest part of all of this is the misguided perception that the lion's share of those on public assistance consists of substance abusers and lazy people . The reality is thanks to the flight of manufacturing from this country there are millions of individuals out of work, that have exhausted their unemployment benefits with no federal extensions forthcoming, and unable to obtain employment due to ageism.
These individuals worked 20, 30, 40 years or more for one company; most of them right out of high school. Then the company relocated to Mexico, Canada, Europe, and other foreign locals leaving them with no work. The sad reality is these days there a a large percentage of those within the welfare roles that are working for at or near minimum wage, and still cannot afford to feed their families or obtain medical care for them. So the government social safety nets are there to pick up the slack.
You'd have to ask yourself if you could exist on the income from a job paying 10-12 bucks an hour; with 33% of your take home income going toward healthcare premiums and expenses. Tack on utilities, food, clothing, and that leaves little to nothing left. In fact in many areas of this country those wages fall far short of meeting the fiscal demand for a family of two, and is well below the Federal Poverty level surrounding income.
When manufacturing left this nation so did the living wage.
If you think about it, this is a key reason there is so much more violent crime across this country. People are struggling to live, to earn the money necessary to live each day in this country. So what they cannot earn they do without; until they become desperate. Then you see crime rates soar. I saw this coming over a decade ago as some of you already know.
The only thing it will do is increase the revenues of drug companies and force the government to raise taxation levels on the working-class in this country to pay for it.
Corporations and the wealthy won't bear the brunt of it. They never have, and they never will.
My issue with this is we are punishing everyone for the crimes of a statistically few, at a price that will astound everyone once it is implemented.
People have to speak their minds; but they also have to listen as well. I don't mind their perspectives because frankly it teaches me their views, and I can try to understand what they are saying.
Conversely, I also feel it is incumbent upon me to share my knowledge and views as well, in a constructive manner; especially if information I possess or have access to, can help correct misperceptions or calm emotions that serve only to cloud logical thought.
We cannot fix what we do not realize is broken. First we must accept factual information in order to achieve common ground.
I trust no media to provide accurate and unbiased information. I hear of a situation or read a statement made by someone, then conduct research independently in order to understand what is factual and what is spin.
Validated information from accredited sources is just a 10 to 30 minute worth of effort away if you know where to look for it, and how.
The wealthy own the media and so the media's information is biased toward ownerships personal world view and desires. Nothing has been more plainly on display as it has been over the last 10 years, and especially during this presidential election cycle.
I will never give up on the individuals I trust and respect. I may take a time out now and then, but I will never give up. Ever.
At the end of the day our political views and will may drastically differ, and if it becomes clear to me that continuing to dialog on the subject will be detrimental to the relationship I will defer in favor of the relationship. (While still reserving the right to have my say if the frustration reaches intolerable levels for me personally.)
The sad reality is, when it comes to politics is there isn't one of us that can do a damned thing to change what has transpired, nor what will transpire. The SCOTUS all but assured this by granting individual constitutional rights to soulless and faceless corporations, and removing the contribution caps to campaigns on them. And all without requiring them to conduct their operations in respect for those very same constitutional rights of their employees. This served to facilitate the purchase of our governance by these very same corporations, and what we have today is just the beginning of the end of "democracy" as it has historically been known within this nation. IN MY OPINION.
At will and right to work state status is just the beginning of the erosion of the relationship between the employer and employee.
Ageism is rampant in this country right now, and thankfully the majority of social media participators aren't yet in a position to be impacted by it. But the millions of individuals that lost their jobs through no fault of their own, are being subjected to it; daily. And by the time they reach the 50 year old mark it will be exponentially worse if left unchecked.
All of these years of political rancor flooding all media genres has served to impose a form of post traumatic stress disorder upon the masses. Its so prevalent that the average individual now overreacts to just about everything.
The Federal Government budget for FY 2017 for welfare in total is $1.1trillion - 646 billion of that is for medicaid and the rest, 481 billion goes to other welfare. If we assume each recipient receives an average of 10,900 in assistance each year, not including medicaid which is a separate budget, that equates to 44,537,038 drug tests at 1 per year. At 30 bucks a test that equals 1.34 billion dollars for drug testing.
This is a low number because it assumes the average is a family of four receiving maximum benefits, which serves to skew that number to the very low side.
And that number also is skewed on the low side by the lowering of the number of recipients, which the 2012 actual numbers clearly validate.
It also assumes those on welfare, (While the 2012 numbers are actual).
Hypothetically it doesn't sound like all that much when you compare it to the budget, but the reality is the actual costs will be far higher; especially when you include all governmental social safety nets into the equation. AND it is NOT in the budget for FY2017 as a line item, so that means additional funding will have to be secured either by supplemental funding or subtraction from the total benefit pool.
Heres a visual surrounding the annual welfare spending, including projected, from the source posted.
(http://i475.photobucket.com/albums/rr111/hlovett_2008/16142527_1216693908367733_8473427836321936595_n_zpsw6s4rbmu.jpg) (http://s475.photobucket.com/user/hlovett_2008/media/16142527_1216693908367733_8473427836321936595_n_zpsw6s4rbmu.jpg.html)
And here is another view of it.
(http://i475.photobucket.com/albums/rr111/hlovett_2008/usgs_line.php_zpsraue0hfz.png) (http://s475.photobucket.com/user/hlovett_2008/media/usgs_line.php_zpsraue0hfz.png.html)
Note the uptick in spending that correlates to the flight of manufacturing from this nation in the early 90's, and again at around 2006. This supports my position that the large increase to welfare recipients is directly connected to job losses incurred,and it's continual rise since is also connected due to the fact that displaced workers are unable to find jobs paying what they used to make due to the obvious hourly wage declines.
While people with good jobs that they had held for decades were living within their means, once the jobs left they were unable to find suitable replacement employment. This left them insolvent and unable to support their families with the jobs paying 1/3 of what they were accustomed to making, and the social safety nets are doing what they are supposed to in assisting them through this.
The problem is, there are no longer very many jobs paying a living wage these days due to the flight of manufacturing from this nation, and the ongoing declinesin average hourly wages.
Some would have you believe that this increase is due to substance abuse and laziness; and while that may be true for a small percentage (statistically) of participants, it does not hold true for the majority.
My point being, why spend billions on drug testing, when the nation would be far better served in increasing funding to some of these key social safety net programs? (Even at the cost of decreasing our global fiscal support of other nations ).
There are better and more reliable way to weed the garden of these malcontents and abusers, than raking them all. Some of those methods could create new government.state level jobs to fill the purpose.
Adding legislation to increase the draconian intrusions to privacy is irresponsible governance and lazy governance. The average citizen of this nation today cannot afford additional taxation upon a personal revenue stream that is only 33% of what it was 15 years ago. There are better ways to deal with the abusers than to take heavy handed approach toward all. I sincerely hope this president understands this and directs his administration to find those ways.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html)
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ (https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/)
https://www.usaspending.gov/Pages/Default.aspx (https://www.usaspending.gov/Pages/Default.aspx)
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/budgetinfographic.pdf (https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/budgetinfographic.pdf)
https://www.cbo.gov (https://www.cbo.gov)