Should Welfare Recipients Be Tested for Drugs?
On Tuesday night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Middle Class Tax Relief & Job Creation Act of 2011, a Republican-sponsored plan that addresses important topics like payroll tax cuts, the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and unemployment benefits. The federal extension of unemployment benefits is set to expire at the beginning of 2012, and both Republicans and Democrats have said that the temporary extension of unemployment benefits is in the national interest. Their specifics for legislation authorizing that extension differ, and one notable caveat in the Republican plan empowers states with the right to mandate drug tests for welfare recipients. Lawmakers have experimented with similar legislation in states like Florida, New Jersey, and Indiana, but the constitutionality of those laws has been questioned each time.
Political sparring over this specific part of the Republican bill is one of the reasons Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that the bill “was dead before it got to the Senate.” Still, proponents of drug-testing welfare patients worry that jobless Americans will use taxpayer dollars to purchase illicit drugs. Opponents challenge that drug testing is a costly and ineffective way to deter drug use, and they cite concerns about a strictly punitive law that would bar those in need from receiving jobless benefits without offering help in the form of counseling.
As Congress races to find common ground on the extension of unemployment benefits before the end of the year, drug testing the recipients of those benefits promises to be a topic ripe for compromise. Should welfare recipients be tested for drugs? Here’s the Debate Club’s take:
The Arguments
Yes — We ought to provide aid on the basis of reciprocal obligation
ROBERT RECTOR, Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation Comment (19)
Yes — Why pay someone not to work when he has voluntarily taken himself out of the hiring pool?
JACK KINGSTON, U.S. Representative, Georgia's 1st District Comment (7)
Yes — We are overdue to renew welfare reform efforts and make additional gains
DAVID VITTER, U.S. Senator, Louisiana Comment (98)
Yes — Require drug testing only of welfare applicants with a history of substance abuse
LAWRENCE M. MEAD, Professor of Politics and Public Policy at New York University and Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute Comment (6)
No — Drug testing welfare recipients is an intrusion into private lives not consistent with U.S. values
PETER CAPPELLI, George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School and Director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources Comment (9)
No — Welfare recipients are no more likely to have drug problems than anyone else
MATTHEW BODIE, Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at Saint Louis University School of Law Comment (11)
No — The assumption that people on public assistance use drugs at a higher rate than the general population is erroneous
VANITA GUPTA, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Comment (17)
No — Suggesting welfare recipients are worthy of suspicion unfairly singles the group out for disdain
JOY MOSES, Senior Policy Analyst with the Poverty and Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress Comment (9)
No — Drug testing perpetuates myths and scapegoats the unemployed
CHRISTINE L. OWENS, Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project Comment (22)
