Unless you’re the one using your food stamps to buy booze, how on earth could any decent honest person oppose this?
The last few posts highlighting some of the bills that have been pre-filed for the 83rd Texas Legislative session were to mock some seriously bad legislation from the Democrat Senator Rodney Ellis.
But there is at least one new bill for which I’m firmly in the Hell yeah, pass this ‘mutha NOW! camp: SB 11 “relating to the administration and operation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program,” which was filed by Senator Jane Nelson (R, SD-12).
Also known as the Drug Tests for Welfare Recipients/Applicants bill.
Which means that this bill is getting the most media play right now and is likely the only one of the 257 bills filed on day 1 of pre-filing that you have heard a word about from local media outlets.
- Texas Tribune
- KVUE News and more from KVUE News.
- Dallas News
Key provisions of this common sense law:
Replaces the broad list of exemptions from TANF work requirements with a streamlined exemption process that more closely follows federal law and is tailored to each individual family;
- Requires retailers who accept TANF payments to ensure that TANF benefits are not used to purchase non-allowable goods or services such as alcoholic beverages, tobacco products,lottery tickets, or adult entertainment;
- Requires HHSC to study the feasibility of providing TANF benefits through an electronic voucher and report its findings by Sept. 1, 2014;
- Institutes a drug screening and testing process for TANF applicants; and
- Disqualifies applicants testing positive for drug use, and their families, from TANF for 12 months, but allows applicants to reapply after 6 months if they have completed, or are enrolled in, a substance abuse treatment program. Applicants who fail the drug test three times, and their families, are permanently ineligible for TANF.
And I say “common sense” law, because we shouldn’t need a law specifically prohibiting folks from using their food stamps to buy cigarettes, booze, and lottery tickets. Decent, honest folk wouldn’t need to be told that.
Sen. Nelson:
We need to ensure that individuals receiving these public benefits are on a true path to self- sufficiency and drug free in keeping with the mission of this program. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to subsidize a person’s drug habit — a destructive barrier to achieving independence.
Sounds reasonable to me. Which is why Democrats will fight this bill with every last breath in their immoral bodies.
And what’s the argument against this? WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?!?!
But critics of the bill say the bill is needlessly punitive and will mainly harm innocent children, whose parents are found to have even a minor amount of drugs. “The purpose of TANF was really to help children,” said Terri Burke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Texas. “If you don’t give the moms the money, then the children lose out.”
Except that parents who are using their welfare money to buy drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and lottery tickets are already harming their own children, and these kids aren’t getting the money intended for them anyway. I know…that’s tough logic for a Liberal to follow.
If applicants fail the test, they would not be eligible to apply again for a full year, unless they attended a substance abuse treatment program. Which Obamacare would pay for, right?
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hi dickhead
im am from UK i would easy spend 90% of my employment support allowance & disability allowance on liquor & smokes & sunkweed i get far more twice as much money in fact as some stupid cunt working for minimum wage
why should i give a fuck.
i dont out of bed until the afternoon and watch my 200 channels of sky tv before going out to get drunk & stoned & get some whore to bring home the home i also get my rent paid for
benefits here are for ever not just a period of time so why the fuck would i want to work
just got new honda cbr 900 GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
You’re full of shit, douchstick.
Or you were full of shit in this comment you made last week:
You admit here that you don’t work, yet in the previous comment you claim you pay a shit load in taxes. So, assclown, which is it?
Not sure how a “yankee” would be eligible for UK benefits, either.
Well that’s one thing that really pisses me off in my country. You don’t even need to be able to speak Dutch to get benefits. And you get child support when your kids don’t live in Holland.
And people who really need benefits cause they lost their jobs need to fill in 2000 question forms and then pray if they get it.
This from the morning’s paper left me in no doubt that the left/liberal/progressives are utterly divorced from reality:
First off that guy saying he likes getting welfare is a troll.
Second, “Contrary to common characteriza-tions of the welfare population as having alcohol and drug problems, the results of this study indicate that small percentages of AFDC, WIC, food stamp, SSI,and Medicaid recipients [...] abuse or are dependent on alcohol (4.3%) or other drugs (1.3%).”
-Alcohol and Drug Use, Abuse, and Dependence among Welfar Recipients Public health briefs
(and there are plenty more studies that show this. Btw 8.9% of the us population use illicit drugs)
It would actually cost our state more of our tax dollars than do good. Florida did this and it cost them more that it did good only 4% of the recipients either tested positive or did not complete the application for reasons unspecified.
If there was more evidence to suggest that this would help Texas I would definitely be on your side but this just doesn’t seem like the way to go.