Posted on 04/27/2015 12:25:47 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
But when you take a look at the organizations these religious leaders represent, you’ll see that these religious types are political progressives who’re using the cover of religion for their political activism. The websites of these organizations who oppose Walker’s drug-testing legislation all, in some form or another, uses words or phrases immediately identifiable with progressive- rather than religious- causes. Such terms and phrases found were “social” and “economic” justice, “peacemaking,” “solidarity,” and “human community”; “restorative justice,” “united for justice.” One website even had a “living wage campaign” and “resources for justice seekers.”
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker recently proposed a policy that would impose mandatory drug testing for people who received certain types of government aid. The policy makes sense- if someone is going to receive welfare benefits and other forms of government aid, government gets to set the parameters and prerequisites that qualify or disqualify people from receiving such benefits.
But so-called religious leaders in Wisconsin released a letter saying that they’re against Gov. Walker’s proposal because they claim that subjecting beneficiaries of government-provided welfare unfairly stigmatizes the poor.
From Opposing Views:
In our respective religious traditions poverty and joblessness are not indicators of bad character,” the letter read, addressing Walker’s proposal to drug test recipients of FoodShare, BadgerCare Plus health care and Unemployment Insurance programs. “We do not believe it is just to craft policies that punish those who face these trials while also suffering from the illness of addiction. Nor is it fair to treat those who seek employment, health and nutritional assistance differently than those who need financial help with educational costs, starting a business or obtaining child care.
Actually, drug testing these recipients isn’t punishment because testing them might be the difference between welfare recipients ending their “illness of addiction” and that illness killing them.
Drug abuse occurs at all income levels,” the letter stated. “Tying drug testing only to certain forms of public assistance unjustly holds those applicants to a higher standard of accountability than the rest of us.
All of our faith traditions teach that human beings are made in the image of God and need to be treated with dignity,” Rabbi Bonnie Margulis, the head of Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice, said. “When you subject people to these shaming procedures that have no efficacy … its only purpose is to shame the poor. That robs people of their dignity and inner godliness. We’re putting up barriers that are keeping people hungry and in poverty, and not addressing their needs.
Signatories of this letter include Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice, and the Wisconsin Council of Churches.
Requiring welfare recipients to prove they’re not on drugs isn’t discriminating against or stigmatizing the poor. It’s a trade off that beneficiaries are subjected to as a result of receiving welfare. If they don’t want to be drug tested, then they have to find another form of sustenance. If they need government assistance, they won’t use drugs. It really is that simple.
That said, this letter signed by these “religious leaders” is ridiculous. Saying that “religious leaders” are against Gov. Walker’s proposition is intentionally misleading. “Religious leaders” or as the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel puts it, “A broad coalition of religious organizations representing thousands of Wisconsin congregations” is made to sound as if most, if not all, religious leaders in the state of Wisconsin are against Gov. Walker’s proposed legislation, and that he is on the wrong side of morality.
But when you take a look at the organizations these religious leaders represent, you’ll see that these religious types are political progressives who’re using the cover of religion for their political activism. The websites of these organizations who oppose Walker’s drug-testing legislation all, in some form or another, uses words or phrases immediately identifiable with progressive- rather than religious- causes. Such terms and phrases found were “social” and “economic” justice, “peacemaking,” “solidarity,” and “human community”; “restorative justice,” “united for justice.” One website even had a “living wage campaign” and “resources for justice seekers.”
So there’s no “broad coalition” of religious leaders. It’s a coalition of groups represented by people who’ve attempted to synthesize leftism with a watered-down version of religion that opposes Walker’s proposal.
Further, the notion that in their, “… respective religious traditions poverty and joblessness are not indicators of bad character” is a lie and is a very clear case that the Bible isn’t their guide book. The Old Testament, which both Jews and Christians revere is peppered with verses that indicate some forms of poverty are a result of bad character and bad habits like sloth, lack of wisdom, daydreaming and scheming. Proverbs 6:10-11 says that poverty comes from too much relaxation and sleep; Proverbs 10:4 says poverty is a result of being lazy; Proverbs 13:18 says that poverty results from a lack of discipline; Proverbs 21:5 says poverty results from hasty rather than diligent decision making. If that’s not enough look at Proverbs 21:17, 24:33-34, and 28:19- among many others- to see that though all poverty isn’t the result of bad character traits, some of it most definitely is.
Most people agree that there should be some form of an economic social safety net for those who’re in need. But there should also be standards set and enforced for those seeking benefits. Proving one isn’t on drugs is an obvious one. That so-called religious leaders are trying to thwart the implementation of Gov. Walker’s legislation is in my opinion a clear case of what low regard progressives (political or religious) have for the very people they claim to help. What these religious fakes are actually saying is that by simply being in an economic underclass- for however long- trumps one’s ability to resist the temptation of using drugs. In other words- they’re poor and can’t help it.
For progressives it’s always about class and never about the intrinsic value of the people in the varying economic classes they hold in contempt. So much for ‘justice.’
The bigotry of low expectations coupled with "they're useful" to Democrats in this state of dependency.
But the real turning point for Millennials, like this author, will be (is) the realization that their generation cannot pursue and enjoy the American Dream, while paying the tab - the social benefits bill being handed to them.
Article link:
FWIW, a very respected Salvation Army colonel told an audience I was part of, that lack of diligence on the part of the poverty sufferer was “usually” not the reason for his or her suffering. If we look at what the Obama regime has done to business, I think we can understand why. Proverbs outline situations that are common enough to merit consideration, i.e. if you have a problem, was it because you forgot about thus and such a factor? They are not foolproof or guarantee even to be dispositive the majority of the time.
By taking a rigid position on the issue (all or nothing), no discussion can happen involving either left or right here.
Most policies like this require that the identified addict go for treatment to qualify for benefits, not flatly deny them.
States that have done this and later abandoned it have done so not for moral but fiscal reasons. They found that the cost of the program was much higher than what it fiscally saved.
Typically, it takes a whole country with the “diligence” to care about God (that means you and me too) to come back into prosperity and sanity. And this means dealing with the Lord at the level of a person, not some hypothetical foil for right- or left- or anything else-wing moralists.
It’s hard to believe that drug abuse testing is not already part of obamacare.
"Generation Vexed: The downwardly mobile Millennials may be waking up at last"
"...............Conservatives will never out-snark, out-mock, or out-tweet the popular culture that embraced Barack Obama as a semi-religious icon. But Millennials are right at the beginning of what promises to be an unpleasant, extended encounter with the facts of life, and it may be that they will soon figure out that there is more to understanding those facts than snark and emojis. Mocking them would be easy, while persuading them will prove difficult and frustrating, because conservatism, unromantic disposition that it is, is in the end an exercise in calculating a balance of human imperfections. The Millennials do not understand that — not quite yet."
Certainly it will be. Every human "condition" will be analyzed and directed by Big Government "healthcare" - ALL that we do or think will be covered under "healthcare."
January 2015: Walker budget to bar drug users from food stamps, Medicaid "Madison — With federal approval in doubt, Gov. Scott Walker is moving ahead with his campaign pledge to ensure that drug users aren't getting public health care, food stamp or jobless benefits.
As Walker explores a 2016 presidential bid, the proposal being included in the governor's Feb. 3 budget bill will help him sell himself to GOP primary voters as a leader committed to overhauling the core programs of government.
For the first time Thursday, Walker committed to drug testing recipients of BadgerCare Plus health coverage and also pledged free treatment and job training for those testing positive for drugs.
But the governor offered no details on how the state would cover the costs of that or the testing or whether he expected it to cost the state money overall, as a similar program did in Florida, or save tax dollars. The budget, he said in a statement, would also drop to four years from five the limit on how long a recipient could be in the Wisconsin Works, or W-2, program, the replacement in this state for traditional welfare.
"We know employers in Wisconsin have jobs available, but they don't have enough qualified employees to fill those positions," Walker said. "With this budget, we are addressing some of the barriers keeping people from achieving true freedom and prosperity and the independence that comes with having a good job and doing it well."
The governor said the drug-testing proposal would apply only to able-bodied adults, not the elderly or children, and would include transitional jobs initiatives. Walker wants to test all FoodShare and BadgerCare applicants but limit the drug testing for unemployment benefits to certain applicants.
The idea expands on another requirement passed by Walker and Republicans in 2013 to make able-bodied FoodShare recipients receive job training.".....
>>>The next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal-immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, protecting American workers and American wages. . . . What is [current legal-immigration policy] doing for American workers? What is this doing to wages? We need to have that be at the forefront of our discussion going forward.<<<
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The real reason Wisconsin growth lags? It's not Gov. Scott Walker Marc V. Levine may have his statistics on jobs right, but his conclusion that the administration of Gov. Scott Walker is responsible for lower-than-average job growth in Wisconsin is wrong.
The reason Levine, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, reached the wrong conclusions is his failure to understand the dynamics that create job growth in a private economy ("Walker to blame for poor job growth," Crossroads, June 29). I have been chief executive and chairman of HUSCO International for 25 years. During this period, HUSCO has added 1,200 jobs. Since the end of 2009, we have added 320 jobs in Wisconsin.
Most medium to large businesses have the flexibility to add jobs anywhere. Under the administration of former Gov. Jim Doyle, with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke as secretary of commerce, HUSCO significantly reduced jobs in Wisconsin and moved them to Iowa. The reason we made such a large investment in a new out-of-state factory when capacity existed in Wisconsin was driven by the difference in business support and labor availability, capability and cost. We made the decision to shrink our factory in Waukesha for internal reasons, but the decision to move more than 100 jobs to Iowa was based on the more attractive environment for business in that state.
There were both national and state issues that concerned us during the 2006-2009 time period. Like the majority of private businesses, HUSCO is organized as an S Corp, which means we pay taxes at the individual rates for Wisconsin and federal taxes. As he promised, President Barack Obama raised HUSCO's marginal tax rate to 39%, which resulted in a state and federal tax rate of 45%, compared with our international competitors that pay 20% to 35%.
Additionally, the Obama administration enacted other regulations and laws that harmed most businesses. When combined with minimal economic incentives to retain the jobs in Wisconsin under Doyle vs. large incentives from Iowa, it did not make economic sense for HUSCO to keep the jobs in Wisconsin.
More recently, the recall election of 2012 created uncertainty for those running businesses in the state. Uncertainty and job growth run counter to one another. However, even with the uncertainty created by the vitriolic recall politics during Walker's first couple of years, HUSCO was confident enough to add 320 high-paying jobs in the state.
Virtually 100% of business executives I know would say that there have been consequential improvements for business under the Walker administration. I believe there are two fundamental reasons for lower-than-expected job growth during Walker's first term.".......
Not me. I work in hospitals and have to be tested when hired. And although they have not requested it, they can ask me at any time to do one...
One other thing I’ve noticed is that ‘organizations’ that benefit from having drug rehab programs and programs to assist with food and housing of the people with drug addictions are also against proposals like this. Why I think is fairly obvious, their entire reason for existing and feeling good as well as superior about themselves is dealing with the addicted and they need the government teat to suck on to fund most of it.
Take away the government money and there goes their incomes as well as their reason for existing.
And it all starts with denying people with addictions to drugs and alcohol access to the welfare teat.
In the Army they drop a cup on you anytime, anywhere. Fine with me, did it for many years.
Liberals think that welfare recipients are already victimized by an unjust society, so of course they are outraged that the `deserving poor’ might have to pass a drug test.
> It’s hard to believe that drug abuse testing is not already part of obamacare.
Jusy think of the money Walker’s proposal would save the government. It would also provide black entrepreneurs a unique oopportunity to start a false urine sample company or drug testing company that would produce counterfeit “no foreign substances found” findings.../s
The liberal narrative on welfare does not include an explanation of where the “free government money” comes from, nor does that narrative pay appropriate respect to those who fund welfare.
The Democrats like to tell us that “we’re all in this together”. If so, fraudulent use of government assistance programs should be punished severely as it diminishes the ability of our (socialist) government to help the truly needy. Why spread the wealth if you are just going to waste the wealth?
As a taxpayer I’d prefer that all of the various forms of welfare assistance be provided with strings attached.
I don’t find it unreasonable to require that welfare recipients be drug free before receiving what was once my money.
Neither do I find it unreasonable to restrict welfare recipients from using my tax money to buy foods I can’t afford.
Quite a far cry from the current administration waiving work seeking requirements for welfare.
That would mean Millenials growing up. I don’t see it. They want their pot and gay marriage.
Thanks Cincinatus' Wife.
Thanks Civ
Headline misleading. This is a proposal — not a fact.
FReep mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
Lost their WHAT? hahahahaha .. that was lost when they assumed the “liberal.”
ALL that we do or think will be covered under “healthcare.”
Along with that Government BOOT stomping on our face. Forever. ;)
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