Tennessee Poors Refuse To Be Drug-Addicted Welfare Queens, Unfair!

The drugs are hidden SOMEWHERE, Tennessee Republicans just KNOW it.

If you are a Republican lawmaker in these US-es of America, you are absolutely certain that somewhere, a bunch of people are lazying around on their fat asses using their free Obamaphones to order 'spensive lobster from Amazon Prime, and then sexting their friendly neighborhood drug representatives to say, "Give me double order of the bad drugs this week, because I plan to stick it to the man with my free welfare riches even more than usual." Yeah, it's sad that Republicans believe this, but they do.

That's why it's been all the rage for the past few years to make welfare recipients take drug tests because Republicans just KNOW, DAMMIT, THEY KNOW, that they won't have to give out free government cheese no more, once they prove that all the poors are lazy weed potting ne'er-do-wells. How's that workin' in Tennessee?

Out of 39,121 people who have applied for Families First in Tennessee benefits since the state instituted drug tests in mid-2014, just 65 have tested positive for narcotics. Only 609 of those applicants have even been asked to pee in a cup, because so few applicants give responses to a drug questionnaire that trigger urine tests. The positive test results amount to a 10.7 percent drug use rate among those tested, and the number of tests ordered amounts to just 1.6 percent of the total applicant pool. If the state’s drug screening questionnaire is as effective at gauging risk as the state thinks it is, then its two-layered testing system has revealed that just 0.2 percent of welfare applicants can’t pass a drug test.

[contextly_sidebar id="VzoNXixXIVG5KLVQWvbsfUz75EbNJWRS"]Man oh man, look at all the ca$h Tennessee is saving by doing this! Because 65 people x however much a welfare check is (probably a million eleventy dollars per week or so) = SO MUCH PROFIT for Tennessee. This is a huge improvement over one year ago when Tennessee's program found that ... approximately 0.2 percent of welfare applicants fail piss tests.

Except for nope, sorry, it's still not saving the state any Mexican Amero Dollars:

The state has paid $23,592 to analyze the urine of that sliver of its poorest citizenship. The total costs of the testing program are likely even higher than that figure, which does not account for the cost of staff time spent administering the quixotic policy. Families First benefits average about $165 per month, according to the Nashville Tennessean.

But but but! Here is a Tennessee wingnut Republican representative named Glen Casada, and he says these numbers are real good-like!

"When you add up the 116 (who refused to go through drug screening) to the 65 people (who failed a drug test), that's 175 or 180 people no longer receiving taxpayer-funded support for illegal activities," the Republican lawmaker said. "It's a good investment that those who receive support at the largesse of taxpayers should not be using it to fund illegal activities."

Something tells us Rep. Casada shouldn't be allowed to help his kids with their math homework, if he's that dumb at math.

It's so very surprising that these programs, which tend to be pushed by (cough!) "fiscally conservative" Republicans, are such a giant fucking waste of time and taxpayer money. Or maybe it's NOT surprising at all, and just more indicative of a Republican mindset that tends to stereotype ( psssst, they're talking about The Blacks ) people on public assistance as greedy welfare queens ( like The Blacks ) who lie around in their La-Z-Boys while REAL AMERICANS ( for instance, not The Blacks ) do all the hard work.

[contextly_sidebar id="uZdNTcCwMqrZO325fhZ7sR5qWvBFKgOI"]Because if Tennessee pulled its bootstrapping thumbs out of its Volunteer ass for five seconds and did some Googling, it'd learn that this drug testing for welfare thing has failed in Florida and Arizona and Missouri and Utah and all the places it's ever been tried. Also, there's the small matter of it being unconstitutional.

But hey, Tennessee. You keep tryin'. One of these days your sad pathetic racist Rush Limbaugh-concocted dumbshit myths about people on welfare will come true and your liberal college-aged kids will stop muttering under their breaths about what fucking bigots you are. Just kidding, no they won't.

[ Think Progress / The Tennessean ]