dippin

This is a red herring, and welfare recipients are scape goats.

First of all, most official recipients of welfare are children.

Second of all, this whole outrage over welfare recipients and "our money" is misguided. Spending on food stamp programs at all levels of government is less than half a percent of gdp. TANF is about one tenth of one percent of GDP.

Now, you may say "who cares if its very little money, people on drugs shouldnt be getting my money."

So why don't we extend this, then, to anyone receiving public money? Not only people on welfare. So let's start: first, let's have anyone who receives farm subsidies also be tested. Then let's move on to anyone who receives a check from the military, active or inactive. Then let's move on to anyone who works in any subsidized sector of the economy. Anyone who works on health care, research, a university, etc. Then let's go on to anyone who has received govt. aid or scholarships to go to college. Heck, make anyone who has ever taken a student loan. Student loans are subsidized by the federal government, and I certainly wouldn't want "my money" subsidizing the education of someone who does drugs. Heck, let's really all out on this: anyone who ever studied at a public school, or even a private school if that private school was subsidized in any way with "my money." After all, if "Im" paying for someone's education, I want to make sure that my investment is going to pay off, so no drugs for you.


And then if we are all off drugs, maybe we will become smart enough to realize that the biggest waste of "our money" is the drug war itself, and that if the government, at all levels, simply gave trying to fight this stupid war on drugs there would be enough money left over to pay whatever we spend on welfare many times over, not to mention how many people would actually be contributing to society, as opposed to being in jail for some stupid drug bust.

mixedmedia

you want to know my point of view?

read the posts of tisonlyi, manic, levite and dippin.

Besides, anyone who knows me already knows what I'm going to say.
I'm tired of arguing topics like this here. Why torture myself?

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Psycho Dad

That's why I post in General Discussion instead of Politics. I think discussion is far more interesting than the polarized arguments that tend to occur with political topics. I believe ordinary people listening to opinions and facts and then pondering what to do about them would benefit society far more than leaving issues to political parties to argue about.

There have been some interesting opinions here.

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Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

cajun_elf

You know I'm really not against this if help is provided to anyone that tests positive on the tests. I think that we also need test for any politician in office, but that's just me