Welfare Drug Testing Essay Sample free essay sample

In the current province of the American economic system. gratuitous disbursement is something the authorities needs to avoid at all costs. With some trillion dollars owed to assorted foreign states. the United States literally can non afford to pump money into plans that do non profit the state as a whole. Michael Tanner. who is the Director of Health and Welfare surveies at the Cato Institute. studies that this twelvemonth the Federal authorities will pass 952. 000. 000. 000 dollars on plans to assist the hapless ( 10 ) . While some of this money goes to people who truly need it. there are many people that take advantage of the kindness of others. Robert Rector. who is the Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation. discovered in a survey that one tierce of public assistance receivers use illegal drugs. What the consequences of this survey translate to is simple. that about 300 billion dollars is fueling the drug wonts of those who selfishly turn down aid. In order to to the full understand the nature of public assistance plans it is of import know the history behind them and the stairss that can be taken by the mean citizen to increase the effectivity of said plans. Drug proving public assistance campaigners will salvage capital. deter drug usage in kids. and excite the economic system by forestalling public assistance users from utilizing the authorities as a crutch alternatively enabling the receiver to go fiscal stable. In every state and civilisation that has of all time existed. there has and will ever be an unequal spread of capital among the people. Governments have tried to set up balance in society by agencies of communism and socialism. but it is apparent that these methods merely do non work. However. human moralss Tells us that assisting those in demand is a virtuousness that must be performed. In our society. this virtuousness has manifested itself in the assorted public assistance plans that the authorities financess with the money of more fortunate Americans. Robert Rector defines public assistance as any plan that â€Å"provides hard currency. nutrient. lodging. medical attention. and targeted societal services to hapless and low income Americans† . The birth of this new-age public assistance system that demands little from its components occurred non long ago. However. in order to discourse this immature public assistance system one must understand the original purpose of the pu blic assistance system. The precursor to our modern public assistance system was conceived during a clip where America faced its darkest hr and her people were in desperate demand of a assisting manus. During The Great Depression America took a dip into corruption. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was engaged in an all out war with mass unemployment due to the stock market crashing. To assist battle unemployment and deficiency of capital being circulated through the economic system. Roosevelt created the New Deal policies. Inside Roosevelt’s New Deal policies were four major public assistance basiss ; societal security. Aid to Dependent Children. workmen’s compensation. and unemployment insurance ( Hombs 2 ) . The aid of destitute people became more of a Federal duty with the constitution of the Department of Health. Education. and Welfare in 1953 The 1960’s ushered in an age where poorness took centre phase due in portion to the Civil Rights motion. President Lyndon B. Johnson marked a immense milepost in welfare’s history during this epoch with the constitution of Medicare and Medicaid plans ( Hombs 3 ) . The original purpose of public assistance plans was non to supply aid based on poorness. but to back up people who could non work due to age or frailty. President Nixon reaffirmed this doctrine by suggesting the Family Assistance Plan. This plan supplied households with financess that carried them over the poorness line. but merely if they possessed a occupation or were involved in a occupation developing plan ( Hombs 5 ) . With this apposition of welfare’s biggest mileposts. it is evident that the end of each plan was to supply assistance while maintaining the rule of single support in head. However. this one time promising mission statement has become mutated with the inclusion of modern public assistance plans. As societies evolve. so do the jobs they face. As America entered the 1990’s. more individual adult females than of all time were fighting to back up their kids. From 1970 to 1993. the figure of receivers of Aid to Families with Dependent Children increased 91 per centum ( Hombs 52 ) . Single female parents that had kids as a consequence of a colza or marriage could non partake public assistance plans that demanded occupation engagement because for fearing of go forthing their kids unattended. The Presidential Election in 1996 was mostly influenced by each candidate’s program to supply individual female parents with proper benefits. Upon election. President Bill Clinton radically changed public assistance by take downing the demands for eligibility for plans such as AFDC. increasing the sum of assistance a receiver could acquire. and leting the receivers to maintain more of the rewards they had earned ( Hombs 7 ) . Unfortunately. these changes made it easy for receivers to mistreat the system by promoting many to merely trust on public assistance cheques to prolong them financially. Looking back on Robert Rector’s upseting survey that one tierce of public assistance receivers are taking illegal drugs. something must be done to keep those having assistance accountable. Concentrating public assistance benefits to those who will boom in the plan will increase the effectivity of the plan as a whole. In her description on the history of public assistance plans. Mary Ellen Hombs. former Deputy Director of the U. S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. describes the purpose of public assistance to be used by. † those who don’t wish to have charity or a press release but must make so to maintain place and household together ( 4 ) . † Hombs besides adds that. † difficult times might be caused by economic and societal forces larger than the person. it was non the end to offer long-run aid or aid that produced a populating criterion higher than work would offer ( 4 ) . † Understanding that public assistance is designed to be a accelerator for dependence instead than a lasting solution for fiscal jobs is of import because it should supply the taxpayer with merely do sing their support for drug testing. While a common opposing point of view for welfare drug testing is the claim that the authorities has no right to drug trial. there are many logical grounds as to why we should. Republican Arizona Representative Kimberly Yee logically asserts that. † It is non uncommon for persons employed in the private sector to be tested for drug usage when using for a occupation. For concern proprietors. this pattern holds employees accountable for their actions. and if they do non go through the drug trial. there is a really simple effect: no occupation ( p. A. 8 ) . † In this instance. American taxpayers are the concern executives who are testing the soon-to-be employees. Just like concern executives pay their employee’s wages. taxpayers are paying public assistance receivers to finally go self-sufficing. However. a concern executive avoids doing a bad investing by drug testing the employee aspirant to weed out those whose purposes will negatively impact the company. The taxpa yer should hold this right merely as a concern executive does in order to avoid a negative impact on our state. One can theorize all they want about whether or non drug proving will in fact salvage money. but the cogent evidence is in the world. Robert Rector states that. † grounds shows that drug testing has the possible to significantly cut down unneeded public assistance disbursement and abuse of financess. † This grounds Rector speaks of correlatives straight with the impression that drug testing will extinguish the receivers that merely utilize public assistance hard currency as a agency to back up a drug wont. As of the present twenty-four hours some provinces have already taken action in order to halt wasteful public assistance disbursement. Florida has passed a jurisprudence that requires a drug showing of every public assistance applier. and is already harvesting the benefits of less local and province disbursement due to fewer appliers. The sheer proclamation that drug proving for public assistance benefits is now required in the province of Florida has reduced new public assistance registrations by 48 per centum ( Rector ) . Harmonizing to Joe Durso. † the non-partisan Foundation for Government Accountability released a study gauging that. based on state-generated informations. public assistance hard currency drug proving saved Florida taxpayers $ 1. 8 million during the three months it was in consequence. † The 1. 8 million dollars that taxpayers saved merely supports the fact that drug testing can potentially queer those who use the public assistance system for selfish grounds. Harmonizing to figures published by Michael Tanner of USA Today. Federal disbursement on antipoverty plans has risen from 1. 78 billion to 6. 68 billion dollars in a span of 46 old ages ( 11 ) . One of the largest antipoverty plans is the hard currency benefit plan Temporary Assistance to Needy Families or TANF. TANF stems from the older plan titled â€Å"Aid to Families of Dependent Children. † In the old paragraph. AFDC’s line of descent was traced from its beginnings as a plan that supplied households with hard currency based assistance. However. it was besides noted that research has shown that one tierce of public assistance receivers having hard currency based assistance are presently utilizing that money for drug related intents ( Rector ) . Dependent kids are neglected mundane by parents who are utilizing public assistance support to fuel a drug wont instead than back up their kids. These kids witness first manus the corruption of a household divided by drugs. J ohn Durso. a subscriber to the Orlando Sentinel. provinces that. † kids are non helped if taxpayer enable drug addicted parents with no strings attached public assistance hard currency. † The barbarous reoccurring rhythm is that kids who grow up in an environment where drug maltreatment is rampant see drug usage as the norm and become drug maltreaters themselves. To back up this averment Durso says. â€Å"The National Institute on Drug Abuse indicates kids of nuts are more likely to go drug maltreaters themselves. † Without answerability nowadays. TANF is supplying a way of devastation for households misapplying public assistance hard currency. The Department of Health and Human Services clearly provinces on it’s web site that the ends of TANF are â€Å"assisting destitute households so that kids can be cared for in their ain places. cut downing the dependence of destitute parents by advancing occupation readying. work and matrimony. forestalling out-of-wedlock gestations. and promote the formation and care of two-parent households ( Department of Health and Human Services ) . † Is it non the end of TANF to guarantee that these kids are being taken attention of. so that someday they may go working members of society? With nil being done to guarantee that this end is met. these same kids will turn into maltreaters of the p lan that aimed to protect them. Those who use the public assistance system for the incorrect grounds can be snuffed out by the presence of drug trials. Giving kids the chance to witness a self-sufficient household instead than one crippled by drug usage would promote the kid to go self-sufficient as good. Salvaging our state much need capital is ever a good end. However. it should in no manner be our first precedence. Protecting the lives of guiltless and dependent kids should doubtless be the frontrunner in our campaign to keep the state accountable. In fact as stated in an interview with National Public Radio. Kentucky Representative Lonnie Napier hopes to go through a measure. which protects the kids of drug maltreaters. Napier’s measure aims to supply a failed applier with a 2nd opportunity to gain fiscal aid by giving him 60 yearss to come clean through rehab or drug plans. during which they receive some public assistance benefits. If the applier still fails he has 14 more yearss to clean up or else another positive trial means no more public aid. Fortunately. public aid is still granted to the kid and besides a new defender will be issued for the kid ( Napier ) . To personally assist out. one can take the first measure to assisting a dependent kid by fall ining the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls. Harmonizing to the Mercy Home web site. â€Å"72 % of our kids overcame or lessened the jobs that impacted their lives before coming to Mercy Home. 98 % of our immature people advanced a grade degree in school. 94 % of our kids who were neglecting their categories upon geting at Mercy Home improved their classs to a â€Å"C† norm or better† ( Mercy Home for Boys and Girls ) . Through this organisation one can positively impact a troubled child’s life through an array of different methods. For those who connect good with kids. mentoring places offer a great manner to link with a troubled kid through merriment activities and communicating. Academically disposed people can offer their scholarly influence through the Mercy Home’s tutoring plan. Coachs can transfuse the importance of instruction while besides demoing how learning can be gratifying. Mercy Home besides offers a voluntary plan that connects you with a community of voluntaries. Through their MercyWorks plan. college graduates devote a twelvemonth to the kids of Mercy Home and play an built-in portion in the children’s development ( Mercy Home for Boys an Girls ) . If I were to personally fall in Mercy Home my accomplishments at authorship and my forbearance with childs would be an plus in learning immature kids how to compose good. Welfare’s built-in portion in America’s growing as a state is apparent in the impact it has on 1000000s of people’s lives everyday. Overall. public assistance is a plan that. with some minor alterations. can make hope and chance for those sing difficult times. Drug proving can and will decently separate those who genuinely want to break themselves for the interest of a household or a kid from those who do non wish to lend to society.