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Class warfare rages on in Michigan, as state Republicans continue to draw from the national GOP playbook on scapegoating the poor.
Per Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press:
The drug testing bills would require people applying for or submitting annual renewal applications for public assistance to get screened by Department of Human Services workers. If there is a suspicion of drug use, they must submit and pay for drug testing before they get the benefits.
If they refuse to take the drug test, they will not get benefits. If they test positive, they can either submit to 90 days of rehab and reapply, or simply not get the benefits. If they test negative, they can receive benefits.
“This is taxpayer money and is something that’s being provided to help support people in need,” said state Rep. Jeff Farrington, R-Utica, who is sponsoring the bill. “But when the money is going to buy illegal drugs instead of supporting their family, I think that’s a misuse of taxpayer funds.”
Rep. Jeff Farrington, R-Utica
Farrington's logic rests on a few crass, ignorant presumptions:
One stems from the long-standing GOP suspicion, most recently articulated in Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" remarks, that people of less means want only to hustle the system and need to be constantly policed.
A second is founded on the idea that drug use is exponentially higher among the poor.
Neither of these is true, of course.
Even a 2012 cost/savings review included in notes to the state Senate suggests that drug abuse among Michigan welfare recipients barely exceeds even 10 percent -- and is more likely closer to 5 percent, based on 1999 figures. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that eight percent of full-time workers and slightly more than 10 percent of part-time workers abuse drugs.
Dubious Impact
As for the potential "savings" to state taxpayers? Here's what the cost/benefit review concluded:
By implementing a drug testing requirement for FIP recipients and applicants, the State possibly would reduce the FIP caseload, thereby realizing Federal and GF/GP savings. If the DHS allows children to continue to receive FIP, however, the program will have a minimum impact on the caseload, and would result in little savings. Few states have successfully implemented such a program…
In short, because so many welfare recipients are children, the elderly and elderly people taking care of children, there's little to be gained from these narcotic litmus tests.
But then, this isn't an economic play. Slashing programs for the poor rarely is.
Rather, it's the worst kind of legislative hectoring, mean-spirited finger wagging borne of the crazy notion that, as a source in the Free Press story puts it, poverty amounts to "a character flaw."
Even some poor folks have bought into this logic. Gray's piece opens with a woman who receives public assistance defending the idea, comparing the policy with drug screening for jobs.
Sobriety Checks for Lawmakers
But in the workplace, all potential employees are drug screened, not just those earning low wages. If we're drug screening those who receive taxpayer funds, then why is it fair to begin and end with welfare recipients?
Why not drug test the executives at the companies that receive government funding, loans and tax breaks? Why not test those who run the foundations and nonprofits that receive government grants? Why not administer drug tests -- and blood-alcohol analyses while we're at it -- to the state lawmakers who propose these stupid laws while, in Michigan, taking home more than $70,000 a year in taxpayer funds?
Going after people who hit the number for more than $100,000 is one thing. If you've got that kind of cake, you don't need a crumb from the public dole.
But simply assuming that because you're poor, you need to be tested for drugs? Assuming that you need to prove your "moral" worth to, of all people, politicians?
It's degrading and insulting to poor folks. But I suspect that that too is part of why it appeals so much to the party of the rich.
