Friday, December 09, 2011

Flomax to armageddon

In yet another of their myriad plans to do everything possible to make life worse for the non-wealthy Republicans have another "clever scheme":
...House Republicans are considering making their vote to reauthorize unemployment insurance contingent on a mandatory drug testing requirement: The bill by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) would require unemployment claimants to pass a drug test if they are identified in an initial screening as having a high probability of drug use.
Because it has worked so well on a state level:
Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed a likely unconstitutional law requiring the state’s welfare recipients to take a drug test before they could receive benefits. An effort to save money in a tight budget situation, test runs of the law failed when only 2 percent of the state’s recipients failed the drug test. If those results hold true, the state would save between $40,000 and $60,000 on a program that cost $178 million to implement.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

5 comments:

jimmiraybob said...

It's not like they care whether it will work or not. It's about non-governing to the max and pissing off the secularists and democrats and progressives and pointy headed intellectuals and hippies in general while making their hard line religious right base and the finaciers happy that someone's sticking it to the enemy.

I watched a special on NatGeo last night - The Rise of He Who's Name Shall Not be Mentioned Within the Hallowed Tubes - and one thing that the Not be Mentioned Within the Hallowed Tubes Party did to gain power was to keep the legislature from functioning - effectively making it worthless until the people no longer saw the value of democratic action.

Somebody had to do something about the economy and all they needed was the right strong-man to rail against the internal enemies, like Jews and secularists and intellectuals and Communists.....

And voila, there was He Who's Name Shall Not be Mentioned ready and able.

Sounded so familiar I almost lost my natural optimism.

DrDick said...

More Republican fiscal responsibility we can believe in!

Sharon said...

...if they are identified in an initial screening as having a high probability of drug use.

And who would these be? One guess.

joel hanes said...

only 2 percent of the state’s recipients failed the drug test

I'll bet the false positive rate is nearly that high.
If you're a Florida resident receiving welfare benefits, remember to stay away from the poppyseed bagels or the orange/poppyseed muffins.

Mr. 618 said...

Maine's Teabaggin' governor FatAss Paul LePage is trying the same thing. FatAss's idea is 'people receiving public money should be tested,' so several folks have asked if that includes... say... the governor, who gets paid using... umm.. TAX DOLLARS. FatAss's daughter, FatAss Lauren LePage, who is uglier than home-made sin and has more chins than a Chinatown phone book, also gets tax dollars, as she is deputy fatass chief of staff or something.