re: Trump may allow drug testing for food stamps

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Florida passed a SNAP drug-testing law in 2011, but a federal appeals court struck it down in 2014, arguing that the requirement was a form of unreasonable search.

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What about the unreasonable transference of monies from tax payer bank accounts to the accounts of the SNAP recipients, with the IRS as the vehicle for this transaction.

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Hair follicle testing used to be cost prohibitive but my understanding is that the costs have gone way down in the last couple of years.

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Urinalysis is what they're using. Say it's $10/ person to run a urinalysis (not including salary for the pee-watchers) and a state has 1.5 million on the rolls (such as my state of Georgia), your cost is roughly $15M/month or $180M per year.

The average food stamp recipient in Georgia gets $128/ month.

The program would have to "catch" roughly 120,000 offenders to break even, or just under 10% of those being tested and subsequently eliminated from the rolls.

Again, what we've seen in states trying this, the rate is more like 1% which means the states are losing tens of millions of dollars every year to enact this policy.

If the tests were free, sure, great idea. But they're not.

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Say it's $10/ person to run a urinalysis (not including salary for the pee-watchers) and a state has 1.5 million on the rolls (such as my state of Georgia), your cost is roughly $15M/month or $180M per year.

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You've never had a job have you?

Terrible idea

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You've never had a job have you?


What?

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You're throwing out numbers for testing every single recipient. That's not how it's done, anywhere. Test 5-10% , hopefully with an unbeatable hair follicle test, and watch the numbers of applicants fall.

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You're throwing out numbers for testing every single recipient.

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Outside of my 4 years in the military, I've never been drug tested for a job and I'm 41yo. Are they really that common?

Do you know if that's how the state(s) that have enacted this policy are conducting their tests or are you just basing this on whichever job you hold that drug tests you and your coworkers?

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Or do you think food stamp recipients use drugs at a fraction the rate of the general population?

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No, certainly not. But on the other hand, is it worth millions of taxpayer dollars to you to keep a mom receiving food stamps from smoking a joint? Given the results (<1% failure rate), that's essentially the question.

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No, certainly not. But on the other hand, is it worth millions of taxpayer dollars to you to keep a mom receiving food stamps from smoking a joint? Given the results (<1% failure rate), that's essentially the question.

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The 1% failure rate clearly shows that the agencies charged with implenting the tests have been sabotaging the tests either through warnings or more nefarious means. Hair follicle tests would eliminate this.

But at the end of the day, there will never be any serious reform to SNAP because Wal Mart and Coca-Cola won't allow it.

And FWIW, I occasionally smoke weed. My wife smokes virtually every day. But we're not begging for handouts.

Good. I get haircuts for working

It's not about cost to the tax payer. It's about getting leaches off the government teat and helping them better themselves with a job.