Should welfare recipients be subjected to drug tests?

[xlaiyn]

Personally, I think they should do what they want, but the fact that some of them complain about being on welfare when they use taxes that we provide to spend it on things that aren't necessary, I genuinely get angry. If you're going to use your welfare payments on weed, go for it. Don't complain after when you're starving, partly because of the marijuana and partly because you can't afford food. /rant

[Mao]

Broken into two parts due to length (and make quoting somewhat easier).

Part 1/2, response to Polonius.

Anyways, let's consider what welfare actually is. If we define it as some sort of direct monetary payment by the government to a citizen, which of course is funded via taxation. Well then... How many Australian families receive the FTB? You'd be drug testing millions of people.

So wait a moment, you'd say. I'm only talking about those poor people, you know, the dirty stinky ones who're good-for-nothing lazy drug addicts! Uhm. Okay then.

Oh, and what about pensioners? Are we to drug test them as well? Ha.

We could broaden this even further. Welfare often refers to the deliverance of goods and/or services as well, such as food stamps or public housing to those who cannot afford them. Or education, yeah. I think we should drug test all parents with kids in the school system. Those lazy parents could be using their drug money to pay for their kids own education!

You seem to have fixated on a very minor point which I have already addressed:

Distinguishing between different groups is a matter of implementation. For example, I don't think there is any point applying this to disability-related support or pensions. On the other hand, youth allowance should definitely be subjected to drug testing above all other welfare (it is perhaps the most abused welfare of them all). The crux of the issue is what do we do with welfare abuse.

But for the sake of this argument, I shall define what I mean by welfare: a hand-out from the government to able-bodied people who are able to participate in full-time employment, which forms their main form of income.

Ooh, what about that student aid? Or that ridiculous HECS interest-free loan, on which the government basically loses money? Drug-test all university students! Surely you wouldn't want the government using your money to fund some drug addict's education. And I'm sure none of those university students have been smoking joints lately, right?

HECS is different from youth allowance and the like, in the sense that it is an indexed loan and not cash in hand. Otherwise, I very much want to target student aid. It is perhaps the most highly abused welfare we have. Just because many students have taken drugs doesn't mean they ought to continue to do so.

Also, a possible straw-man or misinterpretation (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), I have not said anything about a one-strike-and-out system. I haven't even talked about what actions should be taken afterwards (but I do touch on this briefly below).

So, a moment of seriousness. The vast majority of people you'd want to drug test, those lazy bummers on the dole, are actually simply the product of cyclical employment patterns. 90% of them will be working in a job sometime soon. Now some of those, y'know, might have had something to drink recently, or smoked cannabis, or maybe are even struggling with an addiction to a hard drug (tobacco?). That's not a reason to pull the plug on them, and restrict them from finding a job again.

You seem to have missed the point. I have no problems with supporting people to get back into employment. Most of the people using the system are not abusing it.

I do have a problem with:
- people abusing unemployment on a long term (rare)
- people, during a short unemployment period, abusing substances using the dole

Being 'humanitarian' in our policies does not excuse their actions. Perhaps the correct action is not pulling the plug completely, but there must be punishment. Perhaps such abuse may attract a fine payable in future employment, or perhaps welfare for this person moves to a HECS-like indexed, interest-free debt payable in future employment. The point is, it should not be excused.

Speaking of financial assistance, how about all those corporate tax breaks? I say we drug test them CEO's as well! They're probably all on coke, anyway.

Yes! Because the money they spend on the drugs does not go to the people living in Australia it's going somewhere else, the state is as well not getting the tax that it should get from the trade.
The consequence should be as abes proposed that they'd get a job allotted that most other citizens would not do, from that earned money they could get their drugs if they want to, because at least the earned money is getting taxed.

Right. What about all the (virtually) tax-free transactions corporations make? Fuck, if a company is registered outside of Australia it basically is not paying any tax at all.

1. Corporate tax breaks are applied to the company's balance sheets, not the CEO's personal income. CEOs can do whatever they want with their money, it is after-all their money.
2. Corporate tax breaks exist because it has been deemed better for the economy. It is not a matter of whether or not we are deriving tax from these trade, it's a matter of whether or not trade would even exist if these taxes are there. It is quite simply a different problem to the one at hand.

Though, your rebuttal does in large refute FlorianK's point.

[Mao]

Part 2/2, response to nina:

There is, though. Require all establishments offering gambling services to check ID. Register welfare recipients' ID on a universal system and require such establishments to turn away all patrons whose ID matches with that of the government welfare recipient register.

I would agree to that.

But a cost-benefit analysis of that would surely come up seriously on the cost side. Where do you draw the line on placing (even more) conditions on welfare?

That is a matter of implementation. It may turn out that it is too costly to implement, and so we don't. But, what we learn from the exercise is that these tests ought to happen, and if one day testing methods become affordable, then we can and should implement it.

Where do you draw the line between luxury and utility? Should welfare recipients be required to purchase home brand goods only? Surely the branded bread that is $2 more expensive than the Coles brand bread is a luxury. Should we be withdrawing welfare from those who dare to purchase a newspaper with their welfare money, because it's technically a luxury i.e. not essential to everyday life? Where does this policing of how people spend their money stop?

This is reducto ad absurdum, no one has claimed this at all. It wouldn't be as ridiculous as a white-list system.

Taxpayers who are liable to tax. The government decides how much and on what things each taxpayer should pay tax on. There is and never has been a direct relationship between the amount of the payment and the benefit to the taxpayer.

If there is no direct relationship, then why do taxpayers vote on the way a treasury manages its budget? There is very much a direct relationship. Taxpayers expect the money to be used wisely. When it is not used wisely (cf ALP VIC, ALP NSW, ALP QLD), the government is kicked out.

The nature of taxation is that you cannot expect that it would necessarily directly benefit you. If you want to live in a every-man-for-himself society, then you should find a country that follows that principle and move there. I can't think of any country that has successfully employed that model, though, and I can't imagine it would be a very nice place to live.

1. I did not claim it should benefit me.
2. Consider welfare, I can put that money into small businesses, which will then hire the unemployed. Is welfare then an absolute necessity?
3. Re: vote with my feet, the same can be said for you. If people do vote in a party that implements this law, you would be the one forced to yield or leave.

A drug-taking person is not necessarily barred from being a productive member of society. I do not see any payments in this list that do not have associated conditions, whether it be seeking/continuing employment, education or otherwise. I do not believe that someone who takes drugs recreationally but is also spending their time actively searching for work should be barred from receiving such assistance. We may have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world, but it's not at 0%.

A productive member of society can take drugs all they want, with their own money. The government should never fund recreational drug consumption, or allow existing funds to be used in this way. The rules may not have these conditions now, but it ought to.

No, but I would hope that most people would prefer to live in a more egalitarian society where some of the wealth from the more fortunate can be redistributed to the less fortunate.

Of course, we ought to create an egalitarian society with equal opportunities. The less fortunate with skills/abilities should have a chance to move up the socioeconomic ladder.

But this has nothing to do with wealth distribution, and it never entitles a poor person to the wealth-pool simply because they are poor. Welfare given based on absolute wealth has to be a humanitarian aid, which is a gift in nature.

Equality of opportunity may be a right/entitlement (I am not sure where I stand on this yet), welfare is definitely not a right nor entitlement.

[ninwa]

It seems like we will have to agree to disagree. And yes, if any government tried to implement such heartless policy, I would most definitely "vote with my feet" as soon as I could afford it.

[Professor Polonsky]

I saw this today

[xlaiyn]

I saw this today

(Image removed from quote.)

I laughed