Posted on 01/31/2015 2:18:27 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Scott Walker has had a good week. The press is googly-eyed over him, waxing on about how he could just win this thing, and he's still rolling on his high from last weekend's Freedom Summit. Of course, that's not really something to write home about when you're besting the likes of Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee.
He's got that populist message down pat just like his other friends on the campaign trail. Income inequality! Deteriorating middle class! And he's so concerned about those things he's going to govern on that basis, right?
Walker has a real problem on his hands, because while he's basking in the afterglow, he still has to govern. It turns out he's not doing that awfully well.
Wisconsin’s low-income workers and some members of Congress are speaking out against Governor Scott Walker’s call for making people on public assistance undergo a drug test. Governor Walker confirmed in a Q and A at the conservative American Action Forum in DC on Friday that the 2015 budget he will unveil Tuesday will include measures that cover those who need food stamps, Medicaid and unemployment benefits, among other programs for those in poverty.
Walker claimed his motivation for the controversial move was feedback he’d received from Wisconsin companies. “As I traveled my state, I hear employers, small business owners say, overwhelming: ‘We have jobs. We just need workers. And we need two things: people who know how to show up every day for work, five days a week, and gimme someone who can pass a drug test,’” he said.
Now here's how that plays out with real people who need assistance.
For Wisconsin workers who currently depend on public assistance, like 21-year-old Milwaukee waitress Peyton Smith, the burden of the law would be much more personal.
“For [Governor Walker] to put another barrier in front of us is like saying we’re guilty, but we’re not guilty,” Smith told ThinkProgress. “It’s already hard to go down there and file for government assistance. We have to report in every day, fill out papers. Now I have to take the time out of my busy schedule to take a drug test? Come on!”
Epps-Addison, who depended on food stamps when she began law school at the start of the Great Recession in 2008, echoed Smith’s difficult experience in signing up for public benefits.
“There were times even I couldn’t navigate the process, as a law student with a college degree,” she said. “The system is set up to disempower people and make them frustrated enough to give up before receiving the help they need.”
Smith, who has a three-year-old daughter and another baby due soon, works about 20 hours a week at Denny’s — though she has repeatedly requested full-time employment. Because it’s a tipped job, she makes just $2.33 an hour, and currently relies on food stamps to feed her family.
“I’m willing to work. I’m not lazy at all,” she said. “But the jobs we can get are horrible, low pay, and we can’t get the hours we need. As a parent, it just sucks. I want things that are healthy for her, but the fruits and vegetables she needs to grow as young child are expensive.”
Scott Walker, like the party he represents, is awesome at tossing around the simple solution sound bite. Need workers? Drug test the ones on welfare! Never mind that they're likely not skilled at building furniture or whatever jobs he's talking about. When employers say they need people to show up who can pass a drug test, what they're really saying is that they have some nice minimum wage jobs over here with long hours, shifts, and little in the way of pay and benefits.
And please, never mind about that pesky unconstitutional thing. Scotty will make that go away...somehow.
“But did anyone ever notice those with real power, control, those in charge of safety and control over the lives of others are never randomly drug tested?
We’re talking almost everyone in government at all levels. Including unionized cops, firemen, Congress, teachers, the POTUS, judges, prosecutors, IRS, senators, and the drug testers themselves are not randomly tested...and on and on..”
Police are drug tested randomly in WI quite often. Aren’t althletes drug tested? Drug testing isn’t anything new. Some people WITH jobs have to go through it why shouldn’t you if you are applying for free stuff that the taxpayer pays for?
I’ve long thought this. Joe Biden’s daughter was caught in a huge drug bust in 2008, his son was recently fired after ‘failing up’ many times. He always seems on something to me. And if Ct. Rep. Rosa de Lauro is not ever high, why does she dress like that everyday?
the left has already started jumping Walker for being for a taxpayer supported sports arena.
anyone care to defend that?
just asking before the LSM does.
“Smith, who has a three-year-old daughter and another baby due soon-——”
—
Not one ounce of sympathy from me——not one.
.
It keeps getting slapped down becuase no matter how good the idea sounds...it’s a violation of the 4th.
How come I had to be drug tested before starting my job at a Fortune 500 company, yet these lazy leeches are not drug tested? I’m the one who continues to support these leeches, so that they can drive their fancy SUVs to the store to use their food stamps.
A lot of welfare “reform” is little more than harassment, such as making recipients take a two hour bus ride to the other side of a metro area, for “counseling” that consists of nothing but a sign in sheet, three times a week. That is, it is a patronage job for the “counselor” who doesn’t show up.
This being said, *real* reform is oriented to supporting those who have no capacity to earn a living or otherwise fend for themselves; workfare for those who can work, where they get a much better deal by working than not; and finally, one thing that gets neglected, welfare *avoidance* programs, that try to divert people from ever getting in the system in the first place. These are mostly the recently unemployed, who still have some resources they can use to get work.
All but the first part is oriented to getting people out of the system, instead of paying a bunch of counselors a fortune to accomplish little or nothing.
The left does not “howl”
They “HEE HAWW” like jackasses..
This is an EASY fix.
Make it illegal to hire a DRUGIE,
except, the employer can give an exemption,
if he/she wants to.
OK?
They work with no rights to hold their job!
Yeah, it can’t be *that* hard to figure out the paperwork, or there wouldn’t be 50 million on food stamps, plus whatever other welfare. I’m sure some get help and someone to fill out the forms, but...
Most are not. I'd like to see a link to that BTW.
Drug testing isn’t anything new.
The fact is, the overall majority of those at all levels of government are not randomly tested, like those on the lower food chains are.
I like walker a lot but if a welfare recipient fails a drug test, then what? The courts have already ruled that welfare is an “entitlement”
In order to do this, they are going to have to come up with a way to text or phone in a bottle of piss. The social workers don’t even see the people applying for food stamps anymore.
Planning to run for office, no doubt, and getting in a little practice ahead of time..
She works twenty hours a week and wants more hours but doesn’t have 1 hour to take a drug test for her welfare....
Umm, nope. Moonbat logic can take a hike.
It's true, cops, congress, mayors, city councils, the POTUS IRS, and on and on are not randomly tested...
Try to imagine people with this kind of *power* are not.
I don’t think it is a violation of the 4th when welfare from the state is involved.
Don’t want the welfare? Your 4th is completely intact.
We in the electric power industry have to be randomly tested - and we work for our paycheck. Why shouldn’t welfare recipients be tested as well?
scott walker is already showing promise. these are exactly the sort of common sense issues that the electorate overwhelmingly supports, and makes the left reveal themselves to be raving lunatics.
On another thread it was mentioned that the arena would be financed two-thirds by private party and other third would be a twenty year bond that would be paid for out the funds[taxes] received when pro athletes visit Wisconsin.
That’s it in a nutshell.
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