Posted on 02/15/2010 12:27:25 PM PST by Red in Blue PA
ATLANTA -- If you want an unemployment check or other state benefits, be prepared to take a drug test if the General Assembly passes bi-partisan legislation Rep. Ben Harbin introduced Thursday. House Bill 1163 drew immediate opposition from labor and advocacy groups.
Harbin, an Evans Republican, chairs the House Appropriations Committee that writes the budget, but he said he's not trying to save money by keeping people off the dole.
Moments before the House passed an adjustment to the current year's budget that included more than $1 billion in cuts, his bill was assigned to the Industrial Relations Committee. Next year's budget will have deeper cuts.
In addition to the state's general budget troubles, the separate trust fund that pays unemployment benefits is essentially broke, having been propped up by a loan from the federal government.
Harbin said the bill aims to ensure those getting assistance remain focused on finding a job.
(Excerpt) Read more at fayettedailynews.com ...
But if you choose to get the benefits (nobody is putting a gun to your head to take them), then you choose to go by the rules set forth.
In this day and age, I don't think I'd consider cell phones and internet service to be luxury items, especially if you're trying to find a job.
So that would mean I would need to cancel my cell phone which I use to schedule interviews? Or my broadband which I use to look for job openings? Glad you are not the one making decisions as I am currently unemployed.
I’m currently unemployed too. I’m not getting rich on 143.00 a week.
I can’t afford to put gas in my car and eat much less buy drugs.
This whole idea is absurd and unamerican. Shame on this “conservative”.
It's an effective process to weed out (no pun intended) illegal drug use, and it's a condition of service. You've never been in the United States Armed Forces, have you?
If service to my country requires I provide a specimen at random intervals, I see nothing wrong with a recipient of government funds (i.e. "My Money") being required to do the same as a condition for receiving said funds.
Good now report to your local DMV and surrender a urine specimen or surrender your license. Or better yet lets just have them call you at random or have an LEO pull you over and take such via hair follicles. What you say? They can't do that as you are a law abiding taxpaying citizen? Well so are the unemployed. Since when should a run of bad luck such as a no fault of your own loss of job require drug testing? For that matter when should such require you to surrender your Constitutional Rights?
If you took away my internet access and cell phone, how do I find a job?
Did you people even read my post. I stated that the taxpayers should not pay for these things for welfare recipients. I specificially singled out UC recipients from that.
Many here have no clue as to how bad it is out there. 6.1 unemployed people for each and every job openings. I recently had an interview where I was number 2 out of 14 being interviewed. Do not even want to know how many people sent in resumes.
ok but lets see...for me to have a dl i take a test and pay for the privalage to drive a car....the deadbeats out there living off the taxpayers do not pay....notice i said deadbeats....the ones that have learned to play the system to their benefit...i think you know the ones i am talking about....but hey you want to keep drunks and drug addicts from behind the wheel, ok lets go for it....all take a drug and alcohol test....from the hair to make sure....
LOL!!! There are absolutely no drugs being used in the military. You should be proud you have an essential position within our armed forces. Perhaps you could head up this mission? Be a czar perhaps. /s
But since when is public assistance a “right.”
Its a “right” as long as employees and employers pay in.
Please allow me to set you straight on some matter. Those deadbeats as you call them drawing unemployment also had paid their taxes just like poor little you. Who determines who is a dead beat. You are more than willing to force a purity test upon others yet you exempt yourself? What does that make you? It's a bad idea and a bad precedent period. Yes there will be abuses in the system as no system is perfect. But having people to surrender rights is not the answer to the problem.
BTW both me and my wife are permanently disabled on Social Security Disability and Medicare. Let me show you how easy it would be to be busted. I have a chronic back issue and have taken meds off and on since my time in the Navy 30 years ago. My dad has a chronic back issue. My wife as well at times has such. Yes sometimes in a pinch we'll take a pill one or the other has. It's called saving several hundred dollars for an ER visit where we'll get that same pill. My back is not my disability. Mt wife is a quadriplegic of 25 years through no fault of her own. Do you want her tested?
I'm disabled due to sensory processing issues that limit they type of prescribed drugs I can even take for aches and pain. Want me tested also? Think!!!!! In reality about 95% or more of persons getting government help are not druggies. The rest know how to get around drug testing. IOW it's a waste of taxpayers money.
Gee whiz, that’s pretty rough, isn’t it! After all, coke-heads and heroin addicts make WONDERFUL workers, don’t they??!!
It's not. But for many of us it is a contracted obligation the government bound itself to us through compulsory wage deductions.
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